Author and historian Joseph Persico, who also served as a speechwriter for then-New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller, died last Saturday, the Associated Press reported. He was 84. Persico published 12 books, including biographies of Rockefeller, Colin Powell, Edward R. Murrow, CIA director William Casey and President Franklin Roosevelt. The Albany Times-Union noted that Persico "was selected to write the words etched into an 18-foot-long granite slab at the entrance to the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. He chose a simple declarative sentence: 'Here we mark the price of freedom.' He called it one of the highest honors and toughest assignments of his career."
---
Charles Bowden, an author and journalist who was "acclaimed for his vivid, unsparing and often lyrical portrayals of life in the Southwest, particularly the brutality on the border between the United States and Mexico," died last Saturday, the New York Times reported. He was 69. His books included Down by the River: Drugs, Money, Murder and Family; Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields; and Dreamland: The Way Out of Juarez.
