Don Cook; European Correspondent

Don Cook, a foreign correspondent who chronicled the momentous events of Europe at war and peace in the last half-century, has died at his home in Philadelphia at age 74.

His family reported that Cook, a widower who lived alone in a Philadelphia townhouse, apparently died in his sleep of a heart attack. His body was discovered Tuesday night.

Cook arrived in Europe as a young reporter for the New York Herald Tribune during World War II and remained there until he retired as European diplomatic correspondent of The Times in 1988. His byline appeared on stories describing the entry of the allies into Paris, the end of the war in Europe, the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the crises in Berlin, the summits between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, and hundreds of other stories.

He served in London, Bonn and Paris and covered such statesmen of the post-war world as Charles de Gaulle, Konrad Adenauer, Harold Macmillan and Willy Brandt. Many statesmen and diplomats regarded themselves as his personal friends.

Cook was the author of five books, including “The Long Fuse,” an account of how the British reacted to the Revolution in their distant American colonies. He approved the page proofs shortly before his death, and Atlantic Monthly Press will publish the book July 4.

Cook was known for incisive, analytical pieces that tried to unravel the complexities of European diplomacy during the Cold War. The sources for his stories were often anonymous but his fellow correspondents knew that, when a Cook news analysis set down the knotty issues of a disarmament or peace conference, his sources usually were the key players.

Born in Bridgeport, Conn., on Aug. 8, 1920, Cook, who did not have a college education, began his newspaper career as an 18-year-old copy boy on the St. Petersburg Times in Florida. He soon joined the Trans-radio Press Service in Philadelphia and worked his way to the service’s national bureau in wartime Washington. He was hired by the New York Herald Tribune in Washington in 1943.

The Herald Tribune transferred him to Europe in 1945, the last year of the war. He worked two decades for the newspaper in Europe, based in London, Bonn and Paris. When he left the Herald Tribune in 1965, he was the chief European correspondent, headquartered in Paris.

Cook joined The Times then and remained with the newspaper in Paris for the next 23 years, first as Paris bureau chief, then as European diplomatic correspondent.

He published his first book, “Floodtide in Europe,” in 1965. It was followed in 1975 by “Ten Men in Europe,” a sweeping account of the statesmen and events that marked post-war Europe; a biography of Charles de Gaulle in 1981, and “Forging the Alliance,” a history of the creation of NATO, in 1989.

Cook’s wife, Cherry, died in 1983. Survivors include seven grandchildren and seven children: Christopher Cook of Ann Arbor, Mich.; Jennifer Thompson of Glenside, Pa.; Adrienne Garreau of Broad Run, Va.; Deborah Prosser of Riverside, Calif.; Caron Merrill of North Grafton, Mass.; Danielle Navidi-Kaismia of Warrenton, Va., and Dominique Cook of Paris.