Henry Grunwald, a Time magazine editor who led the publication's shift from conservatism to a more centrist view, then later became a United States ambassador to Vienna, has died. He was 82.

Grunwald died of heart failure Saturday at his Manhattan home, according to his daughter, Mandy.

During his tenure as managing editor at Time, Grunwald began to award bylines and introduced new departments including Behavior, Energy, the Sexes, Economy and Dance. Before being named to the position in 1968, Grunwald had been a writer, senior editor and foreign editor at the magazine.

His role in shaping Time was perhaps second only to that of founding editor Henry Luce.

He "moved the magazine away from partisanship and strengthened the independence of its voice in national and world affairs,'' Time editor in chief Norman Pearlstine said in a letter to readers that appears in the issue of the magazine out Monday.

One of the most noted items of Grunwald's tenure was when he personally wrote Time's editorial during the Watergate scandal asking President Richard Nixon to resign.

"The nightmare of uncertainty must be ended," he wrote in a Nov. 12, 1973 editorial. "A fresh start must be made. Some at home and abroad might see in the president's resignation a sign of American weakness and failure. It would be a sign of the very opposite."

Nixon resigned in 1974.

After serving 11 years as managing editor, Grunwald served as editor-in-chief of all Time Inc. publications until retirement in 1987.

He was appointed U.S. ambassador to Austria, the country of his birth, by President Reagan and served in that post from 1988 to 1990.

Source: Agencies