COLUMBIA, Md. - Thomas H. Joyce, a retired journalist and federal government official, died March 17th at his home in Columbia, Md., of a heart attack. He was 84. Mr. Joyce worked in Washington, D.C. for nearly 30 years, first as Washington correspondent for the Detroit News, and then in the Washington Bureau of Newsweek Magazine. In 1977 he joined the administration of President Carter as assistant director of the president's council on Wage and Price Stability. When President Carter left office Mr. Joyce became public affairs director for the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service in the House of Representatives. He retired in 1989. As a journalist he covered a number of major news stories, including the war in Vietnam, the trials of James R. Hoffa, the Civil Rights Movement, the White House, and the Watergate scandal. Mr. Joyce was a 1951 graduate of Michigan State University. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, 1960-61, where he studied economics. Born in Detroit, Mich., Nov. 15, 1926, Mr. Joyce divided his youth between that city and the small town of Emporium, Pa., where he maintained a small mountain hideaway until his death. He served in the U.S. Army near the end of World War II. He joined the 82nd Airborne Division when it returned to the U.S. from Europe. Mr. Joyce is survived by his wife, Leonora Heys; two daughters from a previous marriage to Carol Chadwick (Sarah Joyce-McCarron of Washington, D.C., and Martha Joyce Dail of Cambridge, Md.); and four grandchildren. He was predeceased in death by another daughter, Elizabeth Joyce.