Daniel Henkin; Pentagon Spokesman

Daniel Z. Henkin, chief spokesman for the Defense Department during the harried years of the Vietnam War and a former journalist respected for his humor and candor during dozens of contentious press briefings, has died in a Washington hospital. He was 63 and had undergone surgery for a kidney transplant.

A widely traveled and respected war correspondent during World War II, Henkin once appeared on the cover of Life magazine after he was photographed scribbling notes during an amphibious landing. He participated in the invasion of Saipan in the Marianas, the recapture of the Philippine Islands and four other Pacific landings.

He joined the staff of the Journal of the Armed Forces in 1948 and in 1965 became a deputy secretary for public affairs at the Pentagon. During the Vietnam era he was on the firing line when Defense Secretary Melvin R. Laird refused to release the Pentagon papers which later were published by the media while also steering the Defense Department through the criticism that accompanied the controversial CBS documentary “The Selling of the Pentagon.”

He was credited with managing a sense of balance and humor through those rancorous days, telling media representatives that developments “often may require that we be adversaries, but neither the Constitution nor professionalism demands that we be antagonists.”

After leaving the Pentagon in 1973 Henkin became a vice president of the Air Transport Assn., a trade group for the major U.S. airlines.