Caen also took a positive, if sometimes bemused, view of the convulsive cultural (and counter-cultural) changes to the city from the 1950s to the 1970s.
In late 1996, after protracted absences raised reader concerns, Caen disclosed that he was being treated for lung cancer; after several public ceremonies and fetes (and after a section of the city's waterfront Embarcadero was renamed for him) he retired, passing away on February 1, 1997.