William J. McGuire

WILLIAM J. McGUIRE, 1940 -2019

          It is with great sadness that I inform you of the death of a longtime friend and neighbor of many of us, William J. McGuire, a resident of Watergate since 1977.  Bill passed away unexpectedly and peacefully Wednesday evening, October 2.  He was 79 years old.

          Born on May 1, 1940 in the small coal town of Ashland in northeast Pennsylvania, Bill attended parochial schools in Ashland and Philadelphia, went on to graduate summa cum laude from Georgetown University in 1966 with a  major in German and Russian.  Following graduation, he attended Munich University in Munich, Germany where he earned the equivalent of a Master’s Degree in German Literature in 1967.  His dissertation focused on post-World War II German literature and poetry. Upon his return to the U.S. in 1968, Bill worked briefly at the Library of Congress before being conscripted into the U.S. Army.

          After military service, Bill participated in some of the early U.S.-U.S.S.R Cultural Exchange Programs visiting a number of Soviet cities including Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Yerevan and Rostov.  Upon his return, he was hired by the Voice of America and became one of the first American-born employees to broadcast live to the Soviet Union and to host a weekly program.  During his more than 20 years on air with VOA, Bill wrote and broadcast hundreds of programs, hosted live newscasts (in Russian, of course), and escorted prominent American and Russian political personalities around the U.S. and Soviet Union, including Richard Nixon, Al and Tipper Gore, Ronald Reagan and their Soviet counterparts. 

          In later positions with USIA’s Satellite Speakers Bureau and as a contract employee of Meridian International, Bill interviewed a stunning number of American cultural icons, including Julia Roberts, Gregory Peck, Angie Dickinson, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Omar Sharif and Jon Voight, becoming friends with several of them  Bill had a deep interest in the arts, particularly ballet, and knew several of the prominent Russian and American ballet luminaries of the era, such as Mikhail Baryshnikov, Natalia Makarov and George Balanchine and escorted the Joffrey Ballet to Leningrad in 1994 in an unprecedented rebuke to Soviet cultural norms which resisted every manifestation of artistic innovation.

          Just after September 11, 2001, Bill found himself in San Francisco with a group of television journalists from Ukraine.  Through his remarkable ability to see possibilities where others could not and to persist until he achieved his goal, Bill managed to get his journalists on one of the first post 9-11 commercial flights to New York City where the journalists conducted the first internationally broadcast interview with Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

          At an earlier stage in his career, Bill was prodded by friends and colleagues to author a book capturing some of the highlights of his career.  In 1994, Tales of an American Culture Vulture was published.  The book was classic Bill, funny, mischievous, irreverent, intensely and unapologetically pro-American, and generous in his observations as to the true source of his success and character – a small town in rural Pennsylvania where a young child was surrounded and nurtured by loving grandparents, aunts and uncles.

For those who knew Bill, we know we’ve lost a one of a kind, a brilliant, creative and intensely loyal friend, the likes of whom we are not likely to see for some time to come.  May God’s grace shine upon him and may the memory of his good deeds resonate with us forever.

With eternal and loving memories,

Relatives and friends are invited to attend a memorial graveside service, Oct. 31, 1:30 pm, at St Charles Borromeo Grotto, St. Mauritus Cemetery, Ashland

To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of William J. McGuire, please visit our floral store.