B6 JAMES E. AKINS, 83 Energy expert’s Mideast oil predictions were right by T. Rees Shapiro James E. Akins, 83, who as the


State Department’s chief energy expert in the early 1970s contro- versially predicted that growing U.S. dependence on Middle East oil gravely threatened the nation- al economy and was vindicated when nearly all of his predictions came true, starting with the 1973 Arab oil embargo, died July 15 at his home in Mitchellville after a heart attack. Mr. Akins, an austere Foreign


Service officer whose Middle East experience included postings in the oil-rich countries of Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait and Iraq, served as the director of the State De- partment’s Office of Fuels and En- ergy from 1967 to 1973. He then served two years as


U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia before Secretary of State Henry Kissinger fired him because of disagreements over policy and Mr. Akins’s admittedly outspoken style. “Mr. Akins,” an oil executive once said, “was Mr. Oil in the State Department for a long time. When any thinking needed to be done about oil, it was Akins who did the thinking.” In 1970, Mr. Akins wrote a clas-


sified report in which he conclud- ed that by 1980 half of U.S. oil would be imported, and two- thirds of those imports would originate in the Eastern Hemi- sphere. He also forecast that the price of imported oil would rise to $5 a barrel by 1980 — more than double the price at that time. To counter the impending en-


ergy crisis, Mr. Akins suggested that the United States act to re- duce the growth rate of oil con- sumption and increase domestic production. In 1972, he was appointed


President Richard M. Nixon’s oil adviser, and Mr. Akins proposed a gasoline tax, expanding the use of coal and increasing research and development funding to explore the feasibility of synthetic fuel sources.


Above all, Mr. Akins implored in his reports, the United States should quickly take whatever measures necessary to curb oil usage and begin staunch conser-


LEAH SIEGEL, 43 TV producer covered Cowboys, was Redskins fan


Leah Siegel, 43, an award-win- ning sports television producer in Dallas for ESPN, died of breast cancer July 26 at a hospital in Dallas. She was the daughter of former Washington Post reporter Myra MacPherson and the late Washington-based sports colum- nist Morris Siegel. At ESPN, Ms. Siegel covered the Dallas Cowboys and thor- oughbred racing’s Triple Crown and won three Emmy Awards as a member of the production teams for the network’s “Sports- Center” and “NFL Sunday Count- down” programs.


She began her journalism ca- reer in 1989 at the Washington NBC affiliate WRC (Channel 4),


ESPN in Dallas in 1996. Leah Siegel was born in Wash-


ington. As a teenager, she worked in the press box at Washington’s Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Sta- dium during Redskins games, passing out game statistics to re- porters, including her godfather, Post sports columnist Shirley Povich.


She was a 1984 graduate of the COURTESY OF MYRA MACPHERSON


Leah Siegel won three Emmy Awards for her ESPN work.


where she covered local news. That same year, she moved to the NBC affiliate in Charlotte as a sports reporter. Ms. Siegel joined


PETER FERNANDEZ, 83


‘Speed Racer’ adapter helped bring Japanese animation to U.S. by Valerie J. Nelson


Peter Fernandez, 83, who helped introduce the United States to Japanese animation in the 1960s by adapting the series “Speed Racer” for American audi- ences, died July 15 of cancer at his home in Pomona, N.Y. Mr. Fernandez, a voice actor who was also a writer and pro- ducer, gave voice to fast-talking action hero Speed Racer and wrote the English lyrics to the catchy theme song that can still cause many now-grown fans to bust out a line from the chorus: “Go, Speed Racer, go!” A former child actor who had


worked in radio, Mr. Fernandez was specializing in English dub- bing of foreign films and anima- tion when he was asked to adapt “Speed Racer,” which first ap- peared in Japan as “Mach Go Go Go.” “The only instructions I had was to ‘Americanize it,’ which meant I could name all the char- acters and write the dialogue the way I wanted,” he told the Hous- ton Chronicle in 2008. The 52-episode series debuted in 1967 and featured voice-overs by Mr. Fernandez and three other actors who took Speed Racer and friends on adventures in the Mach 5 super-car. Naming the characters was the


private Maret School in the Dis- trict and received a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Maryland in 1989. Her marriage to Joe Drape, a


New York Times sports reporter, ended in divorce. Besides her mother, of Washington, survi- vors include her husband of six


years, Eric Loehr, and their three children, Teagan Loehr, Wyatt Loehr and Oliver Loehr, all of Dallas; and a brother, Michael Siegel of Washington. Ms. Siegel’s colleagues de- scribed her as a wisecracking journalist with some of the best sources within the Dallas Cow- boys organization. Nonetheless, Ms. Siegel’s alle- giance to the Burgundy and Gold always remained clear. She set her cellphone ring tone to “Hail to the Redskins” and made sure the volume was at its highest set- ting while conducting interviews in the Cowboys locker room. —T. Rees Shapiro


NASH/ASSOCIATED PRESS


Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, left, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia and U.S. Ambassador James E. Akins met in 1975 at the king’s palace at Riyadh. Akins was fired by Kissinger the same year.


vation efforts, even though such efforts would “be as unpopular as they will be costly.”


According to Daniel Yergin’s


definitive 1991 book about the en- ergy industry, “The Prize: The Ep- ic Quest for Oil, Money and Pow- er,” Nixon’s top domestic adviser, John Ehrlichman, told Mr. Akins, “Conservation is not the Repub- lican ethic.” Undeterred, Mr. Akins decided


to take his argument public. He wrote an article, based on his re- ports to the State Department and Nixon, titled “The Oil Crisis: This Time the Wolf is Here,” that appeared in the April 1973 issue of Foreign Affairs.


Critics called the piece “alarm- ist” and said Mr. Akins was un- derestimating the world’s surplus of oil and overestimating the Or- ganization of the Petroleum Ex- porting Countries’ control of the international oil economy. “My feeling was that the price would go up and the U.S. should recognize it and plan according- ly,” Mr. Akins told Forbes maga- zine in 1976. Instead, the United States was caught by surprise when, in late 1973, the Arab members of OPEC drastically raised the price of oil, cut production to enforce the new


price and restricted shipments to the United States. The embargo had a crippling effect on the U.S. economy, including gasoline ra- tioning and long waits at service stations. James Elmer Akins was born in Akron, Ohio, on Oct. 15, 1926. Af- ter Navy service during World War II, he graduated from the University of Akron in 1947 with a degree in physics and joined the Foreign Service in 1954. Among his State Department colleagues, he was known as a boldly confident intellectual whose outbursts more than irri- tated some of his bosses, most im- portantly Kissinger. Nonetheless, Mr. Akins climbed up the promotional lad- der and was named ambassador to Saudi Arabia in 1973. While in Jiddah, Mr. Akins spoke in fluent Arabic, grew a goatee, and came to be known among his detrac- tors as “Saudi Arabia’s Ambassa- dor to the United States.” Mr. Akins openly touted his disgust with aspects of U.S. for- eign policy — “Don’t trust Kissin- ger,” he told his Saudi counter- parts, according to a 1976 Wash- ington Post account — and went on the record saying he believed Kissinger was behind the idea


that the United States sought a hostile takeover of Middle East oil fields. “Anyone who would propose


[U.S. occupation of oil fields] is ei- ther a madman, a criminal, or an agent of the Soviet Union,” he said. Months later, Mr. Akins learned he had been fired by Kis- singer after reading the news in a Joseph Kraft column in August 1975 and told the New York Times, “I presume that I have stepped on a few toes.” Survivors include his wife of 56 years, Marjorie Abbott Akins of Mitchellville; two children, Thomas Akins of Falls Church and Mary Elizabeth Akins Colvill of Pittsburgh; two brothers; and three granddaughters. After his State Department dis- missal, Mr. Akins became a pri- vate-energy and Middle East con- sultant for multinational corpo- rations. “James Akins saw what was coming in terms of oil, and saw how it would change the balance of power much more clearly than many others,” Yergin said in an interview Monday. “He was prob- ably more right than he knew.” The current price of crude is nearly $80 per barrel. shapirot@washpost.com


S


KLMNO OBITUARIES


Doris E. Gola CURATORIAL ASSISTANT


Doris E. Gola, 75, a former cura- torial assistant at the Phillips Col- lection in Washington, died July 21 of liver failure at Shady Grove Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Rockville. Mrs. Gola worked at the gallery during the 1960s before moving to Germany in 1968. She also lived for several years in Sao Paulo, Bra- zil, and moved to Gaithersburg in 2001.


Doris Mae Eshenbaugh was born in the District and was a 1953 graduate of McKinley Tech- nical High School. Her marriage to William Wood- ward ended in divorce. Her hus- band of 33 years, Norbert Gola, died in 2001. Survivors include a sister, Carol


Fogarty of Hickory, N.C., and a brother, Paul Eshenbaugh of Darnestown.


—Timothy R. Smith


Michael G. Gauldin CLINTON PRESS SECRETARY


Michael G. Gauldin, 55, a press


secretary for then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton who came to Wash- ington to work in public affairs af- ter Clinton was inaugurated as president in 1993, died July 22 of brain cancer at his home in Burke. Mr. Gauldin was the director of public and consumer affairs for the Department of Energy from 1993 to 1995, followed by six years as communications director at the Department of the Interior. He then joined the Office of


Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement as the director of public affairs. In 2007, he became a public affairs officer for the U.S. Geological Survey, a position he held until his death. Michael Glen Gauldin was born


in Mena, Ark., and raised in near- by Foreman, Ark. He served in the Army as a public affairs specialist in Colorado and Europe before graduating in 1981 with a degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Before going to work for Clin- ton in 1987, Mr. Gauldin worked as a journalism instructor and as- sistant director of information at the University of Arkansas and as a reporter and cartoonist for sev- eral Arkansas newspapers. In ear- ly 1992, Mr. Gauldin briefly served as press secretary for Clinton’s presidential campaign. Mr. Gauldin was a freelance commercial artist and cartoonist. His clients included newspapers, corporations and the last three secretaries of the Department of Interior. He also made American history action figures, including Native Americans and African American Buffalo Soldiers, and sold them online. He was separated from his wife,


Jane Catherine Harrison Gauldin of Springfield. Survivors include his compan- ion of 15 years, Jana Prewitt of Burke; four children from his marriage, Amanda Willett of Oak Hill, Va., and Patrick, John and Elizabeth Gauldin of Springfield; his parents, Harold and Fairy Gauldin of Foreman; three broth- ers; and two grandchildren. —Emma Brown


William L. Siskos CIVIL AND STRUCTURAL


ENGINEER


movie “City Across the River” with Tony Curtis. In


the


Mr. Fernandez in 2008 photo.


1960s, Mr. Fernandez se- gued into dubbing and wrote scripts for two ani- mated Japa-


nese imports, “Astro Boy” and “Gigantor,” which led to “Speed Racer.” The series experienced re-


newed popularity when it aired on MTV in the 1990s. In the 2008 live-action film “Speed Racer,” Mr. Fernandez had a cameo as a radio announcer. He continued to work as a voice actor and director until about a year ago. Prone to exclaiming “jeepers”


DAVID LARKS/ASSOCIATED PRESS Peter Fernandez adapted “Speed Racer” from Japanese animation.


most fun, Mr. Fernandez often said. He called villains Cruncher Block and Guts Buster, and he de- lighted in writing such lines as “The secret film was filmed se- cretly.” Mr. Fernandez was born Jan. 29, 1927, in New York City. When his father’s import-export busi- ness failed during the Depres- sion, he started modeling at 7 to bring in money. As a teenager he appeared in


several Broadway shows, includ- ing Lillian Hellman’s “Watch on the Rhine” (1941). During World War II, he served in the Army and was assigned to the Pentagon, where he worked in communica- tions, his wife, Noel, said. After the war, he sold stories to pulp magazines and acted in ra- dio, television and film. The Los Angeles Times called Mr. Fernan- dez a “new-found film star” in 1949 after he appeared in the


in interviews, the kindly Mr. Fer- nandez would try to explain the enduring popularity of “Speed Racer” by pointing to children’s fascination with cars and the show’s emphasis on Speed’s fami- ly relationships. He also admitted that he “al-


ways tried to get across a subtle message of some kind about de- cency or fair play.” In addition to Noel, whom he married in 1978, he is survived by three children; a brother; a sister; and nine grandchildren.


— Los Angeles Times


William L. Siskos, 80, who was an engineer for Bechtel, an engi- neering firm in Washington, died July 18 at Montgomery Hospice’s Casey House in Rockville of con- gestive heart failure. He had been a Bethesda resident. Mr. Siskos worked for Bechtel from 1974 until his retirement in 1995. In retirement, he served as a civil and structural engineering expert in legal proceedings. William Lazaros Siskos was a


native of Kastoria, Greece, and came to the United States on scholarship to Columbia Univer- sity, where he received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engi- neering in 1952 and 1957, respec- tively. After working in Europe and Africa, he moved to the Wash- ington region in the mid-1970s. Survivors include his wife of 55 years, Sandy Mavricos Siskos of Bethesda; three daughters, Olivia Moncrief of Alston, England, Elizabeth Siskos of Aspers, Pa., and Catherine Siskos of Silver Spring; and two grandsons. —Lauren Wiseman


Ora Belle Tamm KENSINGTON RESIDENT


Ora Belle Tamm, 88, an FBI fin-


gerprint examiner and secretary in the 1940s who later was active in local civic organizations, died July 23 at Asbury Methodist Vil-


CORRECTION


The July 24 obituary for Dorothy B. Parker incorrectly reported that her marriage to Alexander Appel ended in divorce. Mr. Ap- pel died in 1948 while the couple were married.


ANGELA D. BURT "Bootsie"


On Monday July 19, 2010, Angela D. "Bootsie" Burt, departed this life. She was preceded in death by her husband Robert L. Burt, Jr. and her son, Robert L. Burt, III. She leaves behind her daughter Angelica Burt. Also two brothers Muta and Henry; seven sisters Lucille,Almetta, Patricia, Vivian, Renee, Pat and Trina; and a host of nieces, nephews, other relatives and friends. Visitation will be Thursday, July 29, 2010, 9 a.m. followed by service at 11 a.m. at Cedar Hill Funeral Home, 4111 Pennsylvania Avenue, Suitland,MD20746. Interment Lincoln Memorial Cemetery.


TUESDAY, JULY 27, 2010


lage retirement community in Gaithersburg. She had congestive heart failure. A longtime Kensington resi- dent, she had been a member of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Kensington and the Woman’s Community Club of Kensington, where she had been a past president. She also did volun- teer work for Meals on Wheels. She was born Ora Belle Phillips in Brooklet, Ga., and received an associate’s degree from Pearl Riv- er Junior College in Poplarville, Miss., in 1940. Her husband of 38 years, Quinn


Tamm, died in 1986. Their son, Terrence Tamm, died in 1957. Survivors include two sons,


John Tamm of Virginia Beach and Thomas Tamm of Potomac; and four grandchildren. —Lauren Wiseman


July 27, 1950 - October 14, 1998 HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Your Loving Family


INMEMORIAM DONNA M. HAYWOOD


HAYWOOD TURNER


July 27, 1930 - March 9, 2003 HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Love The Family


NAOMI TURNER "Tina"


DEATHNOTICE JOHN W. ADOLPHSEN


ADOLPHSEN


On July 26, 2010, John W. Adolphsen, beloved husband of Margaret "Peggy" Anthony Adolph- sen; devoted father of John W. Adolphsen, Jr. and his wife Carol Adolphsen; Douglas Adolphsen and his wife Arleen Talley; and Jeffrey Adolphsen and his wife Juliana Hoek- stra; cherished grandfather of Julie Cranmore and her husband Steven; and Christopher Adolphsen; dear great-grandfather of Alyssa Cranmore; loving sister of Grace Brame.


Services private. Please omit flowers. Con- tributions in his memory may be made to St. Paul’s Lutheran Church of Fulton or the Maryland Food Bank.


AMATUCCI


CHRISTINE E.AMATUCCI On Thursday, July 22, 2010. Loving mother of Robert J. Amatucci; beloved daughter of Michael V. and Erica-Jean Amatucci; sister of Andrew M. Amatucci; fiancée of Ralph Groff. Also survived by many


loving family members and friends. Relatives and friends may call at the BORGWARDT FUNERAL HOME, 4400 Powder Mill Rd, Beltsville,MD on Tuesday 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. Funeral Mass will be celebrated at St. Hugh of Grenoble Catholic Church, 135 Crescent Rd., Greenbelt, MD, Wednesday, July 28 at 10 a.m. Entombment Gate of Heaven Cemetery. Family request donations be made to the Robbie Amatucci Fund. www.borgwardtfuneralhome.com


BAECHLER RUTH S.BAECHLER


On July 24, 2010 of Alexandria, VA. She is survived by a son, Kurt Baechler (Virginia); two daughters, Christine Payne (Robert) and Stephany Thodos (Steven). Also sur- vived by grandchildren, Steven Gary, Jr., Amy Marie and Jason Aaron Thodos, Bran- don Jay, Jessica Diane and Kurt Rand, Jr. Baechler, Christopher Thomas, Bryan Anthony Criscuolo; three great-grandchil- dren, Alex Tristan, Kaleb Steven and Jacob Dylan; three sisters, Wilma Whittaker, Dorothy Johnson and Mary McKeown. She was preceded in death by her husband, William H. Baechler, IV and brother, William Schwinn. Friends may call Friday, July 30 form 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 p.m. at EVERLY- WHEATLEY FUNERAL HOME, 1500 W. Brad- dock Rd., Alexandria, VA. Funeral services will be held Saturday, July 31 at 11 a.m. at Beverly Hills United Methodist Church, 3512 Old Dominion Blvd., Alexandria, VA. Memorial contributions may be made to the American Lung Association, 530 7th St. S.E., Washington, DC 20003 or the Ameri- can Heart Association, P.O. Box 5216 Glen Allen, VA 23058 or Carpenters Shelter, 930 North Henry St., Alexandria,VA 22314.


www.everlyfuneralhomes.com BINGHAM


Sister of Joyce Brady, Gary Coleman, Nelwyn Coleman, Gloria Ferrell, Bayward Coleman, and Larry Coleman. Grandmother of Ashley, Allison, Hannah, Molly, and Cole Bingham. Family will receive friends at Witzke Funeral Homes, Inc., 5555 Twin Knolls Rd., Columbia, MD 21045 on Thursday, July 29 from 5 to 8 p.m. Services will be held at Mt. Hebron Presbyterian Church, 2330 Mount Hebron Dr., Ellicott City, MD 21042 on Friday at 11 a.m. A reception at church will follow. Interment Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, September 20, 2010 at 1 p.m. In lieu of flowers memorial contributions may be made to American Gynecological & Obstet- rical Society or American Cancer Society. www.witzkefuneralhomes.com


BOWERS


MD 20735 at 3 p.m. Interment will be private. Our condolences are extended to his family and friends.


M.R. Shoemaker, F.S. BURT


RICHARDW.BOWERS Officers and members of Local 26 IBEW are hereby notified of the death of Bro. RICHARDW. BOWERS on July 23, 2010. Service will be held today at Lee Funeral Home, Branch and CoventryWay, Clinton,


BAMA GAIL BINGHAM On July 22, 2010, Bama Gail Bing- ham. Loving wife of Billy J. Bing- ham. Mother of Lt. Col. Gregory A. Bingham and wife Dee Dee, and Kevin Bingham and wife Lynn.


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