by  Seamus McGraw

(Continued)

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Merrill was a former NATO official and member of the Defense Policy Board

A lifelong and, by all accounts, a skilled sailor, Merrill was a trustee of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and was one of the leading contributors to the fund to build the organization's new headquarters, named the Philip Merrill Environmental Center in his honor. But his interests were hardly limited by the confines of the bay. He also served on the board of the University of Maryland College Park Foundation, he had donated $10 million to the university and the school's journalism program was named for him. He served on the boards of the Johns Hopkins School of International Advanced Studies and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Merrill also served on the board of directors for the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan group that includes among its roster former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, publisher Mort Zuckerman and David Gergen, advisor to both Republican and Democratic presidents.

He also served as chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States and in the mid-1990s, he was a member of the Defense Policy Board, an advisory committee which has included in recent years Richard Pearle, I. Lewis Libby and Henry Kissinger among its members, and was appointed by the first President Bush to serve as assistant secretary general of NATO, a post he held from 1990 to 1992.

But his roots were in the publishing business. His Annapolis-based Capital-Gazette Communications, which owns six newspapers, including the Capital and Washingtonian magazine, is believed to be among the oldest continuing media company in the United States, and once counted John Peter Zenger, famed editor and Revolutionary Era press freedom advocate among its employees.

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