Elie Abel, 83, was noted foreign correspondent

WASHINGTON — Longtime newsman Elie Abel, 83, who covered the 1956 Hungarian uprising for The New York Times and the 1968 uprising in Prague for NBC, died July 23 at the Casey House hospice in Rockville, Md.

Mr. Abel had suffered a severe stroke in 1998, his son said. He also had Alzheimer's disease.

His career ranged from working for the Windsor Star of Ontario to The New York Times. He was a foreign correspondent for wire services and for NBC News. He wrote books, directed journalism schools at two major universities, and collected major awards for his radio, television and print work, including sharing in The Times' 1958 Pulitzer Prize for international coverage.

He was dean of the graduate school of journalism at Columbia University from 1970 to 1979, then taught at Stanford University, where he also served as the communications department chairman for three years. He returned to the East Coast as director of the Stanford in Washington program in 1993 and retired a year later. He had lived in Washington since then.

Born in Montreal, Mr. Abel received a bachelor's degree from McGill University and a master's degree in journalism from Columbia in 1942. He served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II.

In 1949, he joined The New York Times, where he was a national and foreign correspondent for 11 years. As bureau chief in Belgrade, he covered the Hungarian revolt, for which he shared the Pulitzer Prize.

Mr. Abel's first book, "The Missile Crisis" (1966), was considered the definitive text on the Cuban crisis for decades after its publication. "How close we came to Armageddon I did not fully realize until I started researching this book," he said.

He wrote many books, articles and reviews, including "Roots of Involvement: The U.S. in Asia 1784-1971" (1971) with Marvin Kalb, and Averell Harriman's memoir, "Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin, 1941-1946" (1975), with Harriman.

His wife of 45 years, Corinne Abel, died in 1991. Survivors include his wife of nine years, Charlotte Hammond Page Dunn of Washington; two children, Mark Abel of Richmond, Calif., and Suzanne Abel of Palo Alto, Calif.; and one grandchild.