Columnist and longtime foreign correspondent Edward Neilan died Tuesday at St. Luke's Hospital in Tokyo a few hours after apparently suffering a heart attack. He was 68.

Neilan's column on Asian affairs appeared in more than 30 newspapers in the U.S., Asia, Australia and New Zealand. The publications include The Japan Times, The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, El Mercurio in Chile, The Straits Times of Singapore and the Korea Herald.

He was also the North Asia representative of the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based research group, and spent part of his summers each year as a media fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, Calif.

Neilan was a former vice president of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan and presided over a press conference there on Nov. 17. Friends said he appeared in good health and regularly worked out at a health club near his apartment in Shibaura, Minato Ward.

Neilan was born in Los Angeles where his father was a screen writer. He attended the University of Southern California where he was editor of The Daily Trojan. He also undertook graduate work at the University of London.

Neilan's career included stints as editor and publisher of the Alexandria (Virginia) Gazette, Hong Kong bureau chief for the Copley News Service and foreign editor of the Washington Times.

He came to Tokyo in 1986 to serve as bureau chief of the Washington Times.

During his time in Asia, Neilan's coverage ranged from the Tet offensive in the Vietnam War and the Tiananmen crackdown in Beijing to the latest political moves in Tokyo, Seoul and Pyongyang. He began writing a syndicated column in 1993 and was visiting professor at universities in Shanghai and Taiwan.

Neilan is survived by his wife, Masae Sato, and two daughters, Carolyn and Andrea. Memorial services are pending.