Adrian I. Lee, 90, columnist for the Bulletin

Adrian I. Lee, 90, a longtime reporter and columnist for the Bulletin, died of a respiratory infection Wednesday, June 15, at Cathedral Village, a retirement community in Roxborough.

Mr. Lee joined the Evening Bulletin in 1948 as a general assignment and police reporter. He later was a rewrite man, a national reporter, and an editorial writer, and was a conservative columnist when the paper closed in 1982.

In 1998, Mr. Lee contributed an essay for a collection of reminiscences about the Bulletin, titled "I Loved Every Minute."

Describing his first day in the newsroom, he wrote: "What fascinated me . . . was the rising tide of noise, the increasing tempo of the typewriters, the sense of urgency that permeated the room. . . . It all reached out and enfolded me in its embrace. I couldn't have escaped it if I had wanted to."

While at the Bulletin, Mr. Lee became a confidant of Mayor Frank L. Rizzo.

"He was fascinated by the controversial, larger-than-life figure of Rizzo, and remained one of the few loyal supporters of Richard Nixon," said Mr. Lee's son-in-law Michael Ruane, a former reporter for the Bulletin and The Inquirer, and now a reporter with the Washington Post.

Years after Nixon's resignation in 1974, the former president invited Mr. Lee to dine with him in New York City. Nixon gave Mr. Lee a bottle of brandy that he had received from Mao Tse-tung. At family gatherings, Mr. Lee would produce "Mao's brandy" and pass it among relatives, who unanimously found the taste unpleasant, Ruane said.

Mr. Lee won several awards for his work at the Bulletin, including a best-writing award from the Philadelphia Press Association for his coverage of the John F. Kennedy assassination.

"You might say that my career as a police reporter . . . started with nickel-and-dime holdups in Philadelphia and ended with the murder of a president in Dallas," he wrote in his essay about the Bulletin.

After the Bulletin closed, he was a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News for six years.

For several months in 1988, he was a speechwriter for Attorney General Edwin G. Meese.

Mr. Lee, a distant relative of Gen. Robert E. Lee, grew up in Miami. In 1943, he earned a bachelor's degree, majoring in Greek, from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ala.

During World War II, he served in the Navy in the Pacific aboard large landing craft, providing fire support for amphibious landings.

Mr. Lee played tennis in his younger years and taught his children to sail on vacations in Avalon, N.J. He listened to classical music and Dean Martin records, and enjoyed traveling abroad with his wife, Marie.

The couple met at a party in Germantown, married in 1950, and raised a family in Chestnut Hill. They later lived in Flourtown and moved to Cathedral Village four years ago.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Lee is survived by sons Andy, Tom, and Owen; daughters Ann Hughes, Louisa Viele, and Katie; and seven grandchildren.

A Funeral Mass will be said at 10 a.m. Monday, June 20, at Immaculate Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Church, 819 E. Cathedral Rd., Roxborough. Friends may call from 9. Burial will be in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, Cheltenham.

Donations may be made to Autism Research Institute, 4182 Adams Ave., San Diego, Calif. 92116.