Paul Seabury, 67; UC Professor, Expert on U.S. Foreign Policy

Paul Seabury, an authority on U.S. foreign policy and a member of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, has died. He was 67.

A specialist on national security research, Seabury was a professor of political science at UC Berkeley and had written a dozen books and numerous articles in such publications as The New Leader.

He died Wednesday of renal failure at Doctors Hospital in Pinole, Calif.

During his term as presidential adviser, Seabury volunteered to relay an anti-nuclear plea to Reagan from a group called Fast for Life. But he aborted the plan, claiming the fasters tried to turn his meeting with them into a “contrived public relations” event.

Seabury attracted attention in 1972 by protesting a federal government move to add more women and minorities to the Berkeley faculty.

Born in Hempstead, Long Island, N.Y., Seabury earned his bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College and then taught at Columbia University until he received his doctorate in government from Columbia’s School of International Affairs in 1953. He moved to Berkeley, where he taught for 37 years, and served brief terms as assistant dean and faculty chairman of the College of Letters and Science and provost of UC Santa Cruz.

He is survived by his wife, Marie-Anne Phelps; two sons, David, of Richmond, and John, of Berkeley; a sister, Cora Andrews, of Pasadena, and one granddaughter.