His health began to decline late last year after he had a stroke, prompting his move to Miami, Mr. Higgins said. Mr. Wakefield achieved early and stunning success as a writer and was still writing well into his last years. He had more than 20 books to his credit; most of them were nonfiction, but he also wrote novels. Critics and other authors praised his work as showing a reporter’s instincts combined with graceful prose. Not long after his graduation, The Nation sent him to Mississippi to cover the Emmet Till murder trial, one of the catalysts of the civil rights movement.

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Persons: Dan Wakefield, Will Higgins, Wakefield, Dan’s, Higgins, Emmet Till Organizations: Columbia University, Playboy, Nation Locations: New York City, Miami, Indianpolis, Mississippi