BOSTON -- Roderick MacLeish mischievously told people he was a wild animal trainer from Kenya. He said he was once a prisoner in Siberia, rescued by a pair of huskies.

But the truth of MacLeish's life was far more interesting.

He was a filmmaker, an author of both true stories and wild science-fiction, and a journalist who covered the world, from the Sinai War between Egypt and Israel to the conflict in the Belgian Congo, the Vietnam War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

MacLeish died Saturday [July 1, 2006] of natural causes at a retirement home in Washington, D.C., his family said. He was 80 years old.

"Everywhere I go, I meet all these people that interned for my father and they all say how wonderful he was," his son, Roderick MacLeish Jr., said. "He loved to teach."

MacLeish worked as a news director for WBZ radio in Boston in the early 1950s and later moved to London, where he was assigned the job of establishing a foreign news department for Westinghouse Broadcasting Co. He also worked for CBS News in Washington in the early 1970s, doing political commentary, and was a commentator and news analyst for National Public Radio.

When he wasn't covering foreign conflicts, he traveled the country writing social and political commentaries, including producing a program focused on race relations, "A Month in the Country," with Bernard Shaw.

MacLeish was also a student of the arts with a remarkable memory. He was the broadcast voice of the Philadelphia Orchestra, narrated art gallery exhibits and wrote several works of fiction. His documentary on the Hermitage in St. Petersburg was nominated for an Emmy.

As a writer and storyteller, MacLeish had a sense of humor and loved telling tall tales, his family said.

One day, his former wife and lifelong friend, Diana MacLeish, was sitting on her front steps with her two dogs. A stranger approached and asked, "Are these the two huskies that saved Rod MacLeish from the prison in Siberia?"

Without missing a beat, she answered that they were. She knew her friend liked to tell fantastic, if not true, stories about himself.

"When I think back over my career, I know that my father was a tremendous inspiration," said his son, an attorney who represented abuse victims in a settlement with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston.

"He was a real renaissance man," his son said. "He was a very distinguished man."

MacLeish was born in Bryn Mawr, Pa. Among his novels was Prince Ombra, a good-vs.-evil science fiction thriller published in 1982 about a boy with magic powers in modern New England. He also wrote "The Sun Stood Still," about the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

He is survived by his children, Sumner MacLeish and Roderick MacLeish Jr., and three grandchildren.

© 2006 The Associated Press

Political Commentator Rod MacLeish, 80

By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 4, 2006; B07

Rod MacLeish, 80, a political commentator on radio and television for four decades who also wrote nonfiction books and several novels, died July 1 at his home in Washington.

A spokeswoman for the D.C. medical examiner said the cause of death is pending further tests.

Mr. MacLeish spent many years as chief commentator for the Westinghouse Broadcasting Co. Starting in 1976, he went on to do commentary for CBS News, National Public Radio, the Christian Science Monitor and other media organizations.

At Westinghouse, he was posted in Washington, Europe and the Middle East, and foreign affairs became a specialty. He received some of his finest book reviews for "The Sun Stood Still" (1967), a firsthand account of the Arab-Israeli conflict that showed the fears and humiliations driving both sides to battle.

He wrote in one passage: "In the abstract, war retains the objectives of politics -- security, acquisition, deterrence and the imposition of the national will. Specifically, it raises the problem of murder to a level of such magnitude that murder ceases to be a problem and becomes an achievement."

Mr. MacLeish wrote about a dozen books on a variety of themes, including Cold War suspense ("Crossing at Ivalo"), a darkly humorous juvenile adventure ("The First Book of Eppe"), fantasy ("Prince Ombra") and suburban drama ("A Time of Fear").

His novel "The Man Who Wasn't There" (1976) focused on a man being driven insane.

"I got a call from a guy in Idaho who said he'd read my book and that I'd stolen his life story," he once told The Washington Post. " 'They've been driving me insane for years. I want a check for $9 million right now or I'm taking you to court.'

"If you write a novel about fruitcakes," he said, "you will hear from fruitcakes."

Roderick MacLeish was born Jan. 15, 1926, in Bryn Mawr, Pa., and raised in suburban Chicago. His father, Norman, was a painter, and his uncle, Archibald, was a celebrated poet.

After attending the University of Chicago, he worked in television and radio in New York and Boston. In 1957, he helped organize the Washington bureau for Westinghouse and went on to open the London bureau and work throughout European capitals.

Besides political events, Mr. MacLeish also commented on news and culture. He wrote and narrated a three-part television series that aired on public television in 1994, "The Hermitage: A Russian Odyssey," about the St. Petersburg palace-museum.

He also provided narration for the National Gallery of Art's exhibition of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

His marriages to Diana Chapin MacLeish, Doris Inch MacLeish and Jane Krumbhaar MacLeish ended in divorce.

Survivors include two children from his first marriage, Roderick "Eric" MacLeish Jr. of Newton, Mass., and Sumner MacLeish of Washington; a sister; and three grandchildren.