James Tyson; Critic of Cold War Media

James L. Tyson, 90, a market researcher who became a strident critic of American journalism during the Cold War, died of kidney failure July 10 at his home in Darien, Conn.

Mr. Tyson had a wide-ranging career that began with Time Inc. before World War II. During the war, he worked in Europe for the Office of Strategic Services -- the wartime spy agency -- and played a key role in identifying industrial and military targets behind German lines. His intelligence work helped Allied forces find factories producing Germany's V-2 missiles.

After the war, Mr. Tyson returned to Time Life, where he worked in market research for the company's international division. He moved to IBM in 1964 as market research manager for its operations in Asia.

In 1972, he traveled to South Vietnam and wrote about the country's progress in agriculture and social welfare. He was dismayed that U.S. news coverage of Southeast Asia often overlooked these advances. Three years later, communist forces drove the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government from power and assumed control of the country.

While working at IBM's headquarters in Armonk, N.Y., Mr. Tyson grew outspoken with his concern that U.S. newsrooms had become hotbeds of communist infiltration. He published a book, "Target America" (1981), charging that the Soviet Union had staged "a massive secret propaganda campaign" through the media that influenced U.S. policy on defense, intelligence and foreign affairs.

Mr. Tyson believed that at least 4,000 U.S. journalists were furthering Soviet propaganda goals, particularly in television network news. He recommended that each network be required to have an ombudsman to ensure balanced reporting.

"In a word," Mr. Tyson wrote, "TV news has become much too important a matter to be left to TV newsmen."

After he retired from IBM, Mr. Tyson moved to Washington in 1982 to work for Accuracy in Media and the Council for the Defense of Freedom, two conservative organizations. In the early 1980s, the chairman of Accuracy in Media, Reed Irvine -- who wrote the preface to "Target America" -- proposed at a CBS stockholders meeting that Mr. Tyson replace Walter Cronkite on the CBS board of directors.

James Levering Tyson was born in New York City. His father, Levering Tyson, was a former Columbia University official who later became president of Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa. His father was an early advocate for the use of radio and other media in education and produced a series of radio lectures on the poetry of Robert Browning.

The younger Mr. Tyson graduated cum laude from Harvard University in 1939. He interviewed financier Bernard Baruch for his senior thesis, which was published in Fortune magazine in 1940.

While living in Washington, Mr. Tyson published two other books on Soviet propaganda in the West: "U.S. International Broadcasting and National Security" (1983) and "Prophets or Useful Idiots?" (1986), about the influence of church groups on U.S. policy in Central America.

In 1992, he served on a presidential commission that recommended the formation of Radio Free Asia, which can now be heard throughout China, North Korea and Southeast Asia.

Mr. Tyson lived in Darien for most of his adult life and was a member of the National Press Club and other organizations.

Survivors include his wife of 54 years, Elizabeth Bronk Hawn Tyson of Darien; three children, Katherine Bronk Tyson of Chicago, Elizabeth Tyson Sexton of Reno, Nev., and James L. Tyson Jr. of Bethesda; a brother; and six grandchildren.