Reader's Digest Senior Editor, McLean Resident Dies

Eugene Hilburn Methvin, a former senior editor with the Reader's Digest who wrote on subjects ranging from U.S.-Soviet relations to organized crime, died last week at his McLean home, according to the AP.  He was 77.

Funeral services will be held 2 pm Saturday at  Immanuel Presbyterian Church, 1125 Savile Lane. He will be buried in his hometown of Vienna, Ga. where his parents published a newspaper.

"Gene was one of the most unpretentious, wise, gentle, kind-hearted people I have ever known," said friend and fellow church member Gail Nields. "He was a devoted alum of the Univ of Georgia, flew down to football games.. . I heard a story about his opposition to segregation but only remember feeling deep admiration and respect for him upon hearing it," she said.

He served on the board of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund. The Fund wrote of him: He was a "son and grandson of a Georgia newspaper family. He was born in Vienna, Ga., where his parents published a country weekly, The Vienna News.

"As a small child, Methvin began his journalism education by sleeping on a bale of newsprint every Thursday night while his parents met the weekly deadline. Later he studied at the University of Georgia School of Journalism.

"On campus he lettered in football and debate, and graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism. He did postgraduate study at the University of Georgia School of Law.

"After graduation he spent three years in the U.S. Air Force as a jet fighter pilot flying F-86 (Sabrejet) and F-102.  In 1958 he joined the former Washington Daily News and in 1960 he joined the Reader’s Digest Washington bureau.

"Methvin was the prime author of a series of hard-hitting Reader’s Digest articles in 1970-72 that played a key role in shaping the federal government’s war on organized crime which in part led to enactment of The Organized Crime Control Act of 1970. Attorney General John Mitchell sent him a pen used by President Nixon to sign the bill, expressing the Administration’s gratitude “for the part you played in bringing this important crime legislation into being.”

Methvin authored two books, The Riot Makers-The Technology of Social Demolition (1970) and The Rise of Radicalism-The Social Psychology of Messianic Extremism (1973). He has lectured frequently and widely on journalism, law enforcement, constitutional law, mass manipulation, terrorism and the technology of social demolition, the Defense Fund said.

In 1995 the Washington, D.C. Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists named Methvin to its “Hall of Fame” the Defense Fund said.

He is survived by his daughters Helen Methvin Payne and Claudia Methvin, and two granddaughters, Caroline and Julia Payne.  He was married to the late Barbara Lester Methvin.