Edward Michael Law-Yone

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Edward Michael Law-Yone (February 5, 1911 – June 27, 1980) was a Burmese journalist, government official, and writer. He was born in Kamaing, British Burma, and went to Saint Peters’ School in Mandalay. At 16 he worked as a clerk in the Burma-China border service, and in 1930 he joined Burma Railways. By 1938 he led the rates and commercial section and helped survey the Burma Road for a possible rail link with Yunnan-Indochina.

In 1948 he founded The Nation, Burma’s leading English-language newspaper, and served as its chief editor until he was detained for five years after General Ne Win’s 1962 coup. The Nation was shut down in 1963. He was an early recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism in 1959. In a 1957 interview he warned that Burma’s parliamentary system was not fully established and that power tends to corrupt.

Law-Yone left Burma in 1970 with his family and lived briefly near Lumpini Park in Bangkok before moving to Silver Spring, Maryland, where he died in 1980 at age 69.

Spouse Eleanor Law-Yone, and they had three sons and three daughters, including Wendy Law-Yone, a journalist and writer; his granddaughter Jocelyn Seagrave is an actress. He was also active in Scouting, serving on the Executive Committee of the Union of Burma Boy Scouts and promoting international Scouting meetings.