Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Sylvia B. ByrnePersonnel Manager
Sylvia B. Byrne, 69, a federal personnel manager who also played piano in nightclubs, died May 11 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at Inova Fairfax Hospital. She lived in Arlington.
Ms. Byrne came to the Washington area in 1962 and worked in personnel and human resources at the old Civil Service Commission and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission before her retirement in 1988.
She played piano in a trio at the Lamplighter restaurant in Arlington and other venues.
Ms. Byrne was born in Florida and grew up in West Virginia. She attended Boston University and graduated from Ohio State University.
She enjoyed writing and helped edit the works of local authors. She was known for her humor and love of gardening and animals.
She was a member of a support group at Virginia Hospital Center for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which she called the "Short of Breath Club."
There are no immediate survivors.
-- Matt Schudel
James G. McCargarAuthor, Spy
James G. McCargar, 86, an author, diplomat and spy whose 1963 book on the craft of covert operations continues to be recommended by the U.S. intelligence community, died of cancer May 30 at the Washington Home hospice.
Mr. McCargar, who lived in the District, wrote the well-received "A Short Course in the Secret War" under the pseudonym Christopher Felix and under his own name in later editions. It was one of the first books to authoritatively discuss U.S. covert operations, and it remains in print more than 40 years later.
He also co-wrote a spy thriller, "The Three-Cornered Cover" (1972), and former CIA director William E. Colby's memoir of Vietnam, "Lost Victory" (1989). He was also ghostwriter for "Men of Responsibility," the 1965 memoirs of Dirk U. Stikker, former secretary-general of NATO.
Mr. McCargar was born in San Francisco and graduated from Stanford University with a degree in Russian language and civilization. He worked briefly for the Oakland Tribune and the now-defunct San Francisco Call-Observer newspaper before joining the Foreign Service in 1942.
Posted to Moscow and then Vladivostok, Mr. McCargar was assigned to the Navy, where he served as a foreign liaison officer in Alaska during much of World War II. In 1946, he became chief of the political section of the embassy in Budapest, with the covert assignment to take over a secret intelligence network. As the communists tightened their grip on Hungary, he set up an escape route that saved more than 60 political and scientific figures and their families, according to his book.
He also drove himself across the border with a hidden escapee -- the Romanian woman who became his second wife.
Mr. McCargar worked in Genoa, Italy, Washington, New York and Paris. He moved to the Free Europe Committee in 1955 and co-founded Americans Abroad for Kennedy. He became a freelance writer in 1961.
By 1978, he returned to government work as special assistant for international relations to the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. After 1983, he became a consultant.
He was a member of the board of Americans for UNESCO from 1985 until 2005, when the United States rejoined the U.N. agency. He was a member of the Cosmos Club, Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired (DACOR), the OSS Society and the Author's Guild.
His marriage to Geraldine Cooper-Kay ended in divorce.
Survivors include his wife, Emanuela Butculescu of Washington, and a sister.
-- Patricia Sullivan