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Charles Keely; Restaurant Journalist

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Charles C. Keely Jr., a fourth-generation Angeleno and most recently a free-lance restaurant writer for local and national publications, including The Times, died of an apparent heart attack Monday at his Los Angeles home.

He was 51 and friends said he had just returned from a daily run. He had undergone heart surgery several years ago.

Keely was an award-winning journalist for the Copley News Service in Washington and South America who was credited with helping break the story of Soviet missile emplacements in Cuba in 1962.

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He left Copley in 1968 to become press secretary to former U.S. Sen. George Murphy and then became communications director for the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and the U.S. Park Service before returning to Los Angeles and resuming his writing career.

His survivors include his wife, Jean, and two daughters, Kathleen and Patricia, all of Los Angeles, who ask contributions in his name to the American Heart Assn.

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