Barry Schweid, globe-trotting AP diplomatic writer, dies at 83

Harry Dunphy

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Barry Schweid in 2008. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

Barry Schweid, an Associated Press diplomatic correspondent who reported from dozens of countries over a career spanning 56 years, died Dec. 10 at his home in Washington. He was 83.

The cause was complications from a degenerative neurological condition, the wire service reported.

Among his career highlights, he covered the negotiations at Camp David that President Jimmy Carter brokered to reach a historic peace treaty in 1977 between Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin.

He had many scoops. One that he was proud of was reporting on a Sunday in April 1980 that Cyrus Vance was resigning as secretary state because he disagreed with the Carter administration’s decision to send a military mission to try to rescue the American hostages in Iran. The mission failed.

As a reporter, he was known for taking complex situations, especially in the Middle East, and explaining them in simple, direct sentences, weaving in context and color.

There was also a lighter side to Mr. Schweid. While covering Henry Kissinger as national security adviser and then secretary of state on Kissinger’s countless “shuttle diplomacy” trips to the Middle East in the 1970s, he relieved his colleagues of their money playing liars’ poker.

On overseas flights, Kissinger had the habit of repeatedly going back to the press section of his plane to chat with reporters on background, at least on the long trips. No sooner did the press digest what Kissinger had to say on his first trip back than he was back for another round. Then another.

After one such flight with repeated briefings, Kissinger returned to his suite at the front of the plane. Mr. Schweid shouted: “Close the door! Don’t let him back here!”

Mr. Schweid chronicled the Cold War and then its end with the implosion of the Soviet Union, filing news alerts from officials traveling with Secretary of State James Baker. His retired in 2012.

Barry Schweid was born in New York City on July 30, 1932. He graduated from Columbia University in 1953 and from its journalism school in 1954. After service in the Army as a public relations specialist, he joined the AP’s New York City bureau and transferred to Washington in 1959.

Six years later, he was assigned to cover major U.S. Supreme Court decisions. In the early 1970s, he was tapped to chronicle the globe-trotting Kissinger.

Mr. Schweid was inducted into the Washington Society of Professional Journalists’ Hall of Fame in 2002.