James Reston Jr

James Reston Jr., an eclectic historian and novelist who helped the British television host David Frost prod former President Richard M. Nixon into admitting his complicity in the Watergate scandal and apologizing in a wrenching broadcast interview, died on Wednesday July 19 2023 at his home in Chevy Chase, Md. He was 82. Reston, whose father was a renowned figure at The New York Times as a columnist, Washington bureau chief and executive editor, largely bypassed daily journalism to focus on timely and historical nonfiction and novels and adapting four of his books into plays. James Barrett Reston Jr. was born on March 8, 1941, in Manhattan, where his father had been reassigned from the London and Washington bureaus of The Times. The family moved to Washington when James Jr. was 2. His mother, Sarah Jane (Fulton) Reston, who was known as Sally, was a journalist, photographer and, later with her husband, publisher of The Vineyard Gazette in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. James Jr. was a part owner of the newspaper until the family sold it in 2010. After attending the St. Albans School in Washington, Mr. Reston attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy in 1963. Mr. Reston was briefly a reporter for The Chicago Daily News, from 1964-65, and served in the Army from 1965-68. He was a lecturer in creative writing at North Carolina, his alma mater, from 1971 to 1981. He married Denise Brender Leary, whom he met while working in an antipoverty program in New York City. In addition to her, he is survived by their daughters, Maeve and Hillary Reston; their son, Devin; two brothers, Tom and Richard; and two grandchildren.