NEW YORK, Oct 4: New York Times journalist R.W. Apple, a lead writer on war and politics for decades before he returned to the noodle shops of Saigon and restaurants of Paris to write about the food and wine he loved, died on Wednesday. He was 71.

He died in Washington of complications from thoracic cancer, a Times spokeswoman said.

Nicknamed “Johnny,” Apple made his name covering foreign wars and American politics, and his front-page news analyses were must reading for the Washington elite.

Late in his career, he took to writing about travel, architecture and especially food.

“With his Dickensian byline, and Falstaffian appetites, Mr. Apple, who was known as Johnny, was a singular presence at The Times almost from the moment he joined the metropolitan staff in 1963,” the Times’ obituary read.—Reuters