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Dr. Alex Edelstein, longtime University of Washington communications professor who combined humor and wit with a passion for probing the dynamics of mass communication and propaganda, died this morning after a long struggle with cancer.
His career spanned 33 years with the university, eight as director of the School of Communications. Dr. Edelstein taught in more than a half-dozen countries, had seven books published and finished two more in his home computer.
"He was a true Renaissance man, interested in just about everything," said his companion of more than 10 years, Seattle Times columnist Jean Godden.
In addition to his academic work, Godden said, Dr. Edelstein was an avid art collector, patron of the performing arts, political activist and a sports fan faithful to Husky football through good times and bad.
As near as can be told, Dr. Edelstein, born as Alex Gurvich, was 82, but records of his birth disappeared in the confusion and terror of the Russian revolution. His father died from cholera and pneumonia after being dragged through the streets behind horses by those who mistook him for a member of the privileged class.
Still a young boy at the time, Dr. Edelstein fled to Turkey with his mother and sister, then finally to the United States where he and his sister lived in a San Francisco orphanage until their mother, remarried, could care for them.
During the summer after high school, he worked at the San Francisco Call Bulletin, which piqued his interest in journalism.
After starting college, he took a five-year detour into the Navy before and during World War II, becoming a lieutenant junior grade and serving in the South Pacific on the USS Enterprise. Putting out the shipboard newspaper and seeing its ability to help hold a group of people together led to an observation that would shape his career.
"He could see that there's nothing more powerful than information. Every event and every culture is shaped by the flow of information," said his son David, co-creator and president of Foundation, an architecture, advertising and design firm.
Family members also remember Dr. Edelstein as a card player and storyteller who enjoyed a good joke, a glass of fine wine and a serious intellectual discussion.
After the war, Dr. Edelstein completed his bachelor's degree in English at San Francisco State University in 1946, added a master's in communication from Stanford University in 1948 and earned his doctorate in communications from the University of Minnesota in 1955.
He was recruited by the University of Washington in 1955 and his influence remains strong there today, said current School of Communications director Anthony "Tony" Giffard.
"He was a constant source of ideas, projects, activities and was very helpful in mentoring younger faculty members," said Giffard.
Giffard said Dr. Edelstein launched the school's International Communications program in the 1980s and - far ahead of his time - explored the coming of the "global information society," in which the primary economic engine is neither agriculture nor industry, but the storage, delivery, marketing and manipulation of information.
Edelstein ran and analyzed public-opinion polls, an interest that sprang from a dissatisfaction with what he felt were misleading news-media polls that sought quick responses to haphazardly shaped questions, rather than a real understanding of an issue.
"Poll respondents answer the question that is put before them, just as most of us eat the dinner that is put before us," he wrote in a commentary. "Public opinion in many cases is simply answers to the pollsters' questions."
The secret of his longevity at the UW may have been his ability to win short-term teaching and research positions away, such as a Fulbright research professorship in Denmark in 1963 and other positions in Yugoslavia, Japan, China, Norway, Germany.
"Every time something got to be a little overwhelming, we had the opportunity to take off for a while," said his wife, Florence Edelstein.
The most significant results of Dr. Edelstein's career at the UW may not be at the school itself, but in the accomplishments of the many students who benefitted from his energy and enthusiasm.
"He was a very warm person and it was obvious he cared deeply about you; he cared about the quality of The Daily and he cared about the school," said Peter Rinearson, a former Pulitzer Prize-winning Seattle Times reporter and now president of Alki Software.
Rinearson noticed that caring when he was finishing up a term as a top editor of the UW Daily with David Horsey, who has since won a Pulitzer as a Seattle Post Intelligencer cartoonist.
Unenthused by the prospect of returning to regular classes after running the campus paper, Rinearson and Horsey proposed a budget trip around the country, visiting major newspapers.
"As soon as we mentioned it to him, he embraced the idea," Rinearson said. "He gave us $200 to get us started and arranged for us to get college credits." The 11,500-mile trip inspired the two students and was instrumental in keeping them on track towards journalism careers, Rinearson said.
Seattle City Councilman Jim Compton, a former KING-TV reporter and producer, became a friend of Dr. Edelstein's over the last six years. "I've probably had more good conversations about journalism with him than anyone I've ever known," Compton said. "He taught a whole generation how to recognize the truth and understand propaganda."
During Compton's 1999 race for the council seat, Dr. Edelstein "would do yard signs or whatever was needed," Compton said. "And in some of darkest hours is the campaign, he would show up with doughnuts and a joke and get things going again."
Dr. Edelstein had a longtime fascination with propaganda - not just the wartime messages beamed into enemy countries, but the kind of persuasion built into advertising, literature, the arts and other aspect of culture. He explored the those in his last published book, "Total Propaganda: From Mass Culture to Popular Culture" in 1997.
When Dr. Edelstein got involved in a cause, it captured his attention and energy, whether it was a political race - he did polling for both late Senators Henry M. Jackson and Warren G. Magnuson - or conservation efforts or saving the University District's Blue Moon tavern.
"I'll remember his enthusiasm and zest for living. He was totally into the moment," Godden said.
Despite his many activities and projects, Dr. Edelstein and Godden preciously guarded every other weekend to spend at their Lummi Island getaway. "The minute he got on the ferry he lost all his cares and woes," said Godden. "This was his time to walk on the beach, to enjoy the eagles and the heron. To feed the deer at the back door and then fuss when they nibbled on his roses."
Other survivors include another son, Douglas Edelstein of Seattle; daughters Jane Goetz of Seattle and Susan Palmer of Bothell and five grandchildren. He was also close to Godden's two sons, Jeff Godden of Seattle and Glenn Godden of Edmonds; and her two grandchildren.
Dr. Edelstein was also especially fond of his first grandson, Alex Edelstein, who died in a car accident at 17 in 1993. Services for Dr. Edelstein are pending.
