As a volunteer in the Spanish Civil War, James Benét fought Franco's fascist forces and befriended Ernest Hemingway. He later directed his passion for justice into a long career as a respected newspaper and TV reporter in the Bay Area, most notably covering the tumultuous higher education scene during the 1960s.
Benét, '35, died December 16 in Santa Rosa of the infirmities of old age. He was 98.
James Walker Benét was born in 1914 into a family known for both its literary and its military prowess. His father, William Rose Benét, and his uncle, Stephen Vincent Benét, won Pulitzer Prizes; his grandfather and great-grandfather were officers in the U.S. Army. His mother having died when he was a child, Benét spent much of his early life in Marin County, raised by his aunt, writer Kathleen Norris.
After completing his Stanford degree in social science and social thought, Benét moved to New York and wrote for the New Republic. He joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in 1937 and served as an ambulance driver in Spain, later volunteering for combat. Upon his return to the United States, he worked for Soviet news agency TASS before moving to San Francisco in 1947 to become a copy editor at the Chronicle.
Benét later became the paper's education reporter, a position he held into the late '60s. He also covered higher education, including the Free Speech movement on the UC-Berkeley campus, for the Peabody Award-winning KQED television program, Newsroom. According to the Press Democrat, Dick Hafner, who served as UC-Berkeley's public affairs officer for 25 years, said Benét's stories were pressing but balanced "no matter how tense the situation was."
His son, Peter Benét, added, "He saw his role as seeing through the rhetoric of politicians and trying to get the real story out."
Benét taught journalism part time at San Francisco State College and UC-Berkeley and wrote three books, including two mystery novels (he was friends with Dashiell Hammett) and a guide to the Bay Area. He retired to Sonoma County in 1979.
Benét's second wife, Chronicle food editor Jane Gugel, his third wife, Ruth Gugel, who was Jane's sister-in-law, and daughter, Markie Hale, predeceased him. He is survived by his son, Peter, daughter Judith Richardson, eight grandchildren and a great-grandson.
Rachel Kolb, '12, is a graduate student in English and a Stanford intern.
