People Remembered: William Brannigan

William A. Brannigan, 73, who turned to acting after a long career as a foreign correspondent, died May 20 of acute idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis at a Washington, D.C. hospital. Brannigan, who lived in Arlington, Virginia, was an OPC member since 1967.

He started his journalism career as a reporter for the New York World-Telegram & Sun and later worked for NBC News, UPI Newsfilm and ABC News. His overseas assignments included Nairobi, Cairo, Tel Aviv, the Vietnam War including the 1968 Tet offensive, the 1973 Arab-Israeli conflict and Angola’s Civil War.

After leaving ABC News, Brannigan was news manager at the Bank of America in San Francisco, and in 1982 he joined the World Bank’s press office in Washington, where he served for 15 years. After retiring, he performed in 22 area stage productions, both dramas and musicals.

For more than 20 years, he was a lector at St. Rita’s Catholic Church in Alexandria, Virginia, and he served as a Travelers Aid volunteer at Ronald Reagan National Airport.