Ben A. Franklin

Ben A. Franklin' (deceased 2005), a former national correspondent for The New York Times. Mr. Franklin retired from The Times in 1989.

"A longtime reporter in the Washington bureau of The Times, Mr. Franklin, who joined the paper in 1959, reported for many years on the Middle Atlantic States. Among the subjects he covered were coal mining in Appalachia, the resignation of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew in 1973 and the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979 in Middletown, Pa."

"For his work on the Agnew story, Mr. Franklin received the Sigma Delta Chi Award for distinguished journalism from the Society of Professional Journalists.

"After covering several other high-profile stories, including the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear-reactor accident in Pennsylvania, Mr. Franklin left the New York Times in 1991. It was slightly earlier than planned and followed a tangle with A.M. Rosenthal, the executive editor, over an internal disagreement.

"He spent two years writing for Nucleonics Week, a McGraw-Hill publication. Since 1993, he had been editor of the Washington Spectator, a liberal-leaning newsletter focused on politics."