JAMES A. MICHENER, one of the world's most popular writers, was the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Tales of the South Pacific, the bestselling novels The Source, Texas, Chesapeake, The Covenant, and Hawaii, and the memoir The World Is My Home. Michener served on the advisory council to NASA and the International Broadcast Board, which oversees the Voice of America. Among dozens of awards and honors, he received America's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1977, and an award from the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities in 1983 for his commitment to art in America. Michener died in 1997 at the age of ninety.