Jack Anderson

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Jackson Northman Anderson (October 19, 1922 – December 17, 2005) was an American newspaper columnist and is considered one of the fathers of modern investigative journalism. Anderson won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his investigation on secret American policy decision-making between the United States and Pakistan during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War of 1971.

Jack Anderson was a key and often controversial figure in reporting on J. Edgar Hoover's apparent ties to the Mafia, Watergate, the John F. Kennedy assassination, the search for fugitive ex-Nazi Germany officials in South America and the Savings and Loan scandal. He discovered a CIA plot to assassinate Fidel Castro, and has also been credited for breaking the Iran-Contra affair, though he has said the scoop was "spiked" because he had become too close to President Ronald Reagan. Anderson was a crusader against corruption. Henry Kissinger once described him as "the most dangerous man in America."

Anderson was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1986. In July 2004, at the age of 81, Anderson retired from his syndicated column, "Washington Merry-Go-Round." He died of complications from Parkinson's disease, survived by his wife, Olivia, and nine children.

A few months after his death, the FBI attempted to gain access to his files as part of the AIPAC case on the grounds that the information could hurt U.S. government interests.

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[edit] Early life and career

Anderson was born in Long Beach, California, to a Mormon family of Swedish-Danish descent. He grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah. He served two years as a missionary. His writing career began at his local newspaper, The Murray Eagle. He joined The Salt Lake Tribune in 1940, where his muckraking exploits included infiltrating polygamous Mormon fundamentalist sects. He served in the U.S. armed forces during World War II in China, where he reportedly fought the Japanese alongside Chinese guerrillas and worked on the Shanghai edition of Stars and Stripes.

After a stint as a war correspondent during 1945, he was hired by Drew Pearson for the staff of his column, the "Merry-Go-Round," which Anderson took over after Pearson's death in 1969. In its heyday, Anderson's column was the most influential and widely read in the U.S.; published in nearly a thousand newspapers, he reached an audience of 40 million.

[edit] Muckraker

Anderson feuded with former FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover in the 1950s, when he exposed the scope of the Mafia, a threat that Hoover had long downplayed. Hoover's retaliation, and continual harassment, lasted into the 1970s. Hoover once described Anderson as "lower than the regurgitated filth of vultures."[1]

Anderson grew close to Joseph McCarthy, and the two exchanged information from sources, but when Pearson went after McCarthy, Anderson reluctantly followed at first, then actively assisted with the eventual downfall of his one-time friend.

In the mid-1960s, Anderson exposed the corruption of Senator Thomas J. Dodd, which could well have earned him a Pulitzer, as could his finding of a memo by an ITT executive admitting the company paid off Richard Nixon's campaign to stymie anti-trust prosecution. His reporting on Nixon earned him a place on the master list of Nixon political opponents.

Anderson collaborated with Pearson on "The Case Against Congress," published in 1969.

In 1972, in an overlooked nadir of American political history, Anderson was the target of a Mafia-style hit ordered in the White House. Two Nixon administration conspirators admitted under oath they plotted to poison Anderson on orders from a top aide to the President. White House "plumbers" G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt met with a CIA operative to discuss the possibilities, including drugging Anderson with LSD, poisoning his aspirin bottle, or staging a fatal mugging. The conspirators were never ordered to proceed, and the plot aborted, when the plotters were arrested as a result of the Watergate break-in. Nixon had long been angry with Anderson, blaming the columnist for his loss of the 1960 presidential election, because of an election-eve story about a secret loan from Howard Hughes to Nixon's brother.

Anderson's unorthodox methods of obtaining news stories were influenced by his Mormon faith, viewing investigative reporting as a noble calling from God.

Among Anderson's "legmen" — reporters who actually went out into the field and gathered the information, forwarding it on to writers such as Anderson — was Brit Hume, later a reporter for ABC News and Washington managing editor for Fox News Channel.

Anderson remained a target of FBI investigation even after his death. In February 2006, the FBI contacted Anderson's family to obtain his files and search for classified documents.[1] The FBI agents claimed to be looking for documents pertaining to American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as part of an espionage investigation. As of May 2006, the family had refused access to Anderson's files, and the FBI had not yet pursued legal measures.[1]

[edit] Notable Quotes

  • "The incestuous relationship between government and big business thrives in the dark."[1] Jack Anderson
  • "I don't like to hurt people, I really don't like it at all. But in order to get a red light at the intersection, you sometimes have to have an accident." [2] Jack Anderson, 1972

[edit] Books

  • The Anderson Papers, (about the activities of Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover), 1973
  • The Case against Congress (with Drew Pearson), 1969
  • Confessions of a Muckraker (memoir), 1979
  • Peace, War and Politics: An Eyewitness Account (autobiography), 1999

[edit] Other Books

  • Poisoning The Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington's Scandal Culture Mark Feldstein, TBA

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c Bennett, Brian and Thompson, Mark (May 2006). "A Reporter's Last Battle". Time (May 1, 2006): 29.

[edit] External links

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