Lloyd Norman, 73, a retired defense correspondent for Newsweek who was admired by government officials and fellow journalists alike for his penetrating and comprehensive reporting, died Nov. 12 in Tampa, Fla., after a heart attack.
A resident of Chevy Chase, he was visiting one of his sons when he was stricken. He had Parkinson's disease.
Mr. Norman was born in Aurora, Canada, and grew up in Chicago. He first came to Washington in 1943 as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. He joined Newsweek in 1958 and retired in 1978. He began his career here covering the proliferating World War II agencies, and the military and related matters were the focus of his work for the next 35 years and more.
During the war he served two years in the Navy and saw duty in the Atlantic and the Pacific. He returned to Washington in time to cover the establishment of the Defense Department and the reorganization of the nation's armed forces in 1947. He covered defense aspects of all the major developments of the postwar era: the beginning of the Cold War and the establishment of NATO, the Korean War, the various confrontations with the Soviet Union over Berlin, tensions with China, the Cuban missile crisis and, finally, the war in Vietnam and the establishment of the all-volunteer Army.
While his base always was in the Pentagon, Mr. Norman traveled far and wide to keep up with his subject. In 1949 he accompanied the U.S. Mediterranean fleet on maneuvers, and in 1952 he covered Operation Mainbrace, a NATO exercise in which a U.S. Marine battalion was landed on the coast of Denmark. In 1954 he toured air bases in North Africa. In 1955 he witnessed an atomic bomb test in Nevada. In the late 1950s he flew through the sound barrier in an F100 jet fighter and on another occasion he piloted the nuclear-powered submarine Nautilus.
From 1964 to 1967, he covered the transformation of a relatively small intervention into a major war that shook the country to its foundations. In those years he was the Newsweek bureau manager in Saigon.
Diligence was a hallmark of his work and he was comfortable with such venerable devices as the stakeout. In 1967, when Robert S. McNamara was in the process of resigning as secretary of defense and declining interviews, Mr. Norman braved an unseasonable November snowstorm to camp on McNamara's doorstep. McNamara took pity on the reporter and invited him in. In this way Mr. Norman learned that the secretary was prepared to say virtually nothing about his departure.
Mr. Norman's honors and accolades were numerous. In 1955 he received the Edward Scott Beck Award for his reporting on the nuclear test he covered in Nevada. In 1957, he won the Associated Press Editors Citation for breaking the story of how three B52 bombers made a nonstop journey around the world.
In 1957, on the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the Defense Department, Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson sent him a letter of congratulations for his reporting during that decade. On his retirement from Newsweek, Mr. Norman was honored by Defense Secretary Harold Brown at a dinner in the Pentagon dining room.
During the Kennedy administration, Mr. Norman received special attention of a different kind that also had to do with how well he did his work: The FBI tapped his telephone after he broke a story about a U.S. troop buildup in connection with the Berlin crisis.
Mr. Norman went into journalism after graduating from Northwestern University and doing graduate work at the University of Chicago. He began with the City News Bureau in Chicago. In 1938, he joined the Chicago Tribune as a financial reporter. He continued in that work until the Tribune sent him to Washington.
Survivors include his wife, Dorothy Norman of Chevy Chase; two sons, Neil Norman of Tampa and Albert Norman of Greenfield, Mass.; one sister, Edith Goldman of Chicago, and six granddaughters.
PRESSON S. SHANE,
67, a professor of engineering administration at George Washington University, died of cancer Nov. 10 at his home in Easton, Md.
Mr. Shane was born in Junction City, Kan., and graduated from the University of Kansas. During World War II, he was a fighter pilot in the Army Air Forces in Europe. He later received a master's degree in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He worked for E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. before moving to the Washington area in 1958 and joining the Atlantic Research Co., of which he became vice president. From 1964 to 1968, he was president of Washington Technological Associates, an aerospace firm in Rockville. He then joined the faculty at George Washington.
A former resident of Washington and Chevy Chase, he had lived in Easton since 1981.
Mr. Shane was a member of the University Club, the Chevy Chase Club, Tau Beta Pi and Sigma Xi, both of which are honorary scientific associations, and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. He also was a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Easton.
Survivors include his wife of 37 years, Emily Baker Shane of Easton; four children, Susan H. Shane of Santa Cruz, Calif., Barbara C. Shane of Ann Arbor, Mich., P. Scott Shane Jr. of Baltimore, and Jeffrey B. Shane of Chicago, and two grandchildren.
LEONARD W. SHEA,
77, a retired lawyer at the Veterans Administration, where he served on the Board of Veterans Appeals, died Nov. 12 at the Shady Grove Adventist Nursing Center in Rockville. He had a stroke.
In 1977, after President Carter pardoned Vietnam war draft resisters, Mr. Shea played an important role in setting up a clemency board to carry out the White House directive. He later returned to the Board of Veterans Appeals, which hear disputes between veterans and the VA about benefits and similar matters.
A native of Oil City, Pa., Mr. Shea graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and earned a law degree at the University of Florida. He served in the Army in World War II.
In 1945, he moved to this area and went to work at VA. He retired in 1986.
He was a member of the D.C., Pennsylvania and Florida bar associations.
He also was a member of the Knights of Columbus and the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church. A resident of Washington for many years, he recently moved to Gaithersburg.
Survivors include his wife, Elizabeth D. Shea of Gaithersburg; four children, Daniel L. Shea and Juliann Shea Mantua, both of Gaithersburg, Noreen E. Shea of Kensington and Helene L. Shea of Washington, and three grandchildren.
ERNEST JOSEPH GORDON,
62, a retired receiving clerk with the Department of the Air Force, died of a stroke Nov. 10 at Washington Hospital Center. He lived in Washington.
Mr. Gordon was born in Washington and graduated from the old Armstrong Technical High School. During World War II, he served in the Army. He became a civilian employe of the Air Force in the late 1940s, and retired in 1979.
He was a member of Liberty Baptist Church in Washington.
Survivors include his wife, Mary Gordon, four daughters, Pamela and Joylette Gordon, Valeria Conn and Patricia Johnson, and two sons, Eric and Ernest Gordon Jr., all of Washington; five grandchildren, and a great-grandson.
MARY LOUISE HITCHCOCK,
65, the manager of the Potter's House coffee shop in Washington and the pastor of the Potter's House Church, died of cancer Nov. 8 at George Washington University Hospital.
Mrs. Hitchcock, a resident of Fairfax, was born in Cleveland and graduated from the nursing school at Huron Road Hospital there.
She came to the Washington area after World War II. She was a nurse with the Prince George's County Health Department. In 1969, she became manager of the Potter's House and pastor of the Potter's House Church, a faith community of the Church of the Savior.
Mrs. Hitchcock also was chairman of the board of Columbia Road Health Services health clinic.
Her marriage to Lowell B. Hitchcock ended in divorce.
Survivors include one son, Robert L. Hitchcock of Laramie, Wyo.; a sister, Marjory Williams of Houston, and a brother, William E. Stute of Cleveland.
EMMA T. LENZ,
80, a Washington area resident since 1973 and a retired librarian with the Houston Public Library, died of an embolism Nov. 10 at the Warren Memorial Hospital in Front Royal, Va.
Mrs. Lenz was born in New York City. She graduated from New York University and earned a master's degree in library science at the Pratt Institute in New York.
From 1958 to 1968, she was a librarian with the New York City pubic library. For the next five years, she worked for the public library in Houston.
Mrs. Lenz was the secretary of the Warren County Chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons and had been active with the Front Royal Anti-Litter Council.
Survivors include her husband, Dr. Harold Lenz of Front Royal; a son, Donald W. Lenz of Cincinnati; a daughter, Dr. Helene Scher of Washington; a sister, Elizabeth Dogaer of Toms River, N.J., and six grandchildren.
GLADYS LACK,
90, a former diagnostician and lay psychotherapist with the Kingsbury Center for learning disabilities in Washington, died Nov. 10 at her home in Washington. She had cancer.
Miss Lack was on the staff at the Kingsbury Center from 1959 until she retired in 1971. Since then she had done private consulting with teachers and schools in the Washington area, although in recent years she had been semiretired.
She was born in Southampton, England, and moved to New York as a child. She graduated from Wellesley College and also attended Oxford University.
Before moving to the Washington area in 1959, Miss Lack was a teacher and assistant principal at the Hewitt School in New York City, a researcher at the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kan., and a staff member at the Child Study Center at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.
Survivors include two brothers, Frederick Lack of Southport, Conn., and Charles Lack of Clearwater, Fla., and a sister, Eleanor Lack White of Washington.
ELSA GIMBEL MYERS,
92, a retired registered nurse and a member of Washington Hebrew Congregation, died of pneumonia and heart ailments Nov. 2 at her home in Washington.
Mrs. Myers was born in Grunstadt, Germany. She moved to Trinidad, Colo., when she was 17. She studied nursing at what is now the University of Denver Hospital and later moved to Philadelphia, where she was a nursing supervisor at several hospitals.
In 1920 she married Joseph Martin Myers. He died in 1948.
During the 1950s, Mrs. Myers was nursing supervisor at the infirmary at Stephen Girard College in Philadelphia. She moved to Washington in 1972.
Survivors include one daughter, Cerlene M. Rose of Washington.