J. Randolph Ryan, 61; Boston Globe Writer on Latin America

J. Randolph Ryan, 61, a former Boston Globe journalist whose work won him a share of a Pulitzer Prize, died Thursday in Boston of a heart attack.

Ryan was the lead writer on a Globe team that produced a special magazine titled “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age” that won the Pulitzer for national reporting in 1983. Born in New York City, Ryan grew up in Connecticut where his father was once president of the state Senate. Ryan graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and from Yale University. Following graduation, he was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador.

Ryan joined the Globe in 1978 as a copy editor, but soon joined the editorial page.

As an editorial writer, Ryan focused his attention on Central and South America. In an obituary, the Globe quoted Noam Chomsky, the MIT professor and social critic, as saying that Ryan’s columns constituted “some of the most important work on Latin America.”

Ryan left the Globe in 1996 to work in Bosnia as a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. He later served as a political analyst for the private International Crisis Group. He also helped train Yugoslav journalists for the International Research and Exchange Board.