NEW YORK — Randolph A. Hearst, the last surviving son of the man who shook American journalism and politics in the early part of the 20th century, died Monday at New York Presbyterian Hospital.
In the 1970s, he ran his father's flagship, The San Francisco Examiner, as it covered the kidnapping and brief criminal career of his own daughter.
Hearst, who was 85, died of a stroke, according to a statement issued by The Hearst Corp. He lived in New York with his wife, Veronica de Uribe.
Hearst — he and his twin, David, were the youngest of five sons of William Randolph Hearst — avoided his father's firebrand ways. An older brother, William R. Hearst Jr., was the journalist of his generation; Randolph Hearst preferred to serve as a steward of the family's business interests. He was chairman of the executive committee of the corporation from 1965 to 1973, and from 1973 to 1996 he was chairman of the board of the corporation founded by his father 113 years ago.
His nephew, William R. Hearst III, said Monday: "Randy was always an advocate not only for the family but for the health of the business. My own father was more interested in the editorial dimension and Randy a little more interested in the business dimension." Neither Hearst's wealth nor his business experiences, however, could have done much to prepare him for the violent events that began with the Feb. 4, 1974, kidnapping of his 19-year-old daughter from her apartment in Berkeley. The bizarre events put his family at the epicenter of one of the last spasms of domestic political violence that marked the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Larry Kramer, chief executive of CBS Marketwatch.com, came to The Examiner in 1974 as a reporter. He said Monday of the kidnapping and trial that Hearst "was never the same afterward."
Hearst was divorced from his first wife, Catherine Campbell Hearst, in 1982, after 44 years of marriage. His second marriage, to Maria Cynthia Scruggs, also ended in divorce.
Besides his wife, he is survived by five daughters, Catherine M. Hill, of California, Virginia Anne Hearst Randt of Idaho, Patricia Campbell Hearst Shaw of Westport, Conn., Anne Randolph Hearst of New York City and Victoria Veronica Hearst of Colorado; and four grandchildren.
But he was not survived by the newspaper that gave his family its start. On Nov. 22, ownership of The San Francisco Examiner was transferred to a local businessman as the Hearst Corp. assumed control of its longtime rival, The San Francisco Chronicle.