Author of WP’s Havel obit died in 2006

Today’s Washington Post obituary for Vaclav Havel has been in the can for some time. It was written by J.Y. Smith, who died of lung cancer in January of 2006 at age 74. The onetime foreign correspondent “transformed the backwater reputation of The Washington Post obituaries desk as its first official editor,” the Post’s Adam Bernstein wrote in his Smith obit. (h/t @jfdulac)