Journalist and Author, William Stevenson, Dies at 89

Journalist and author, William Stevenson, died on Nov. 26 in Toronto. He was 89 years old.

His 1976 book A Man Called Intrepid was about William Stephenson (no relation) and was a best-seller (see the Stephenson article for more). It was made into a 1979 mini-series starring David Niven and Stevenson followed it up with a 1983 book titled Intrepid's Last Case. He published his autobiography in 2012.

Stevenson set a record with another 1976 book, 90 Minutes at Entebbe. The book was about a raid where Israeli commandos secretly landed at night at an Ugandan airport and succeeded in rescuing the passengers of an airliner hi-jacked by Palestinianmilitants, while incurring very few casualties. The remarkable record in that pre-internet age is that Stevenson's "instant book" was written, edited, printed and available for sale within weeks of the event it described.