Drew Pearson (journalist)
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Drew Pearson (December 13, 1897–September 1, 1969), born in Evanston, Illinois was one of the most prominent American newspaper and radio journalists of his day. He was best known for his muckraking syndicated newspaper column "Washington Merry-Go-Round".
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[edit] Biography
Pearson's father, Paul Pearson, who was a Quaker, became professor of public speaking at Swarthmore College, and the family moved to Pennsylvania in 1902. After being educated at Phillips Exeter Academy, Pearson attended Swarthmore where he edited its student newspaper, The Phoenix.
In 1929, he became a writer for The Baltimore Sun. As a strong supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Pearson's articles were frequently censored by the conservative Sun, so in 1941, he left to work for The Washington Post.
With Robert S. Allen, he co-wrote anonymously "Washington Merry-Go-Round" in 1931 and went on to write the column of the same name.
During World War II he worked as a radio broadcaster. In 1943 he hired David Karr as his chief aide, and in 1945 Jack Anderson for the staff of his column, the "Merry-Go-Round", which Anderson took over after Pearson's death in 1969.
During WWII, Drew Pearson made a practice of reporting classified information provided on background, but did it in the form of "predictions". It is not possible to isolate how many soldiers and sailors died from enemy exploitation of the information he thus leaked.
Drew Pearson reported the General George S. Patton Jr "Slapping" incident as a distraction to his support of Sumner Welles, a friend who served as Undersecretary of State. Cordell Hull, the Secretary of State had been appointed to placate southern Democrats, and FDR had worked around Hull through Sumner Welles to implement his "Good Neighbor Policy" with South America. Cordell Hull was offended, and had friends leak rumors about Sumner Welles' sexual preferences, suggesting that Welles was a security risk. Drew Pearson, who was pro-Russia, attempted to apply pressure against Hull, reporting that it was US policy to "bleed Russia white." FDR in an address referred to Drew Pearson as a "chronic liar", and Sumner Welles resigned.
Drew Pearson seized on the several month old story of Patton slapping a soldier who was AWOL, in the presence of medical officers who had not followed Patton's orders to check cowardice by returning soldiers with "battle fatigue" to their units. Drew Pearson left out the part about the soldier being AWOL, and the part about the medical officers not following orders. Patton was given a personal reprimand, and ordered to apologize, despite the fact that the Articles of War (a predecessor to the Uniform Code of Military Justice) at that time authorized officers to summarily execute soldiers for cowardice.
He had a role in the downfall of U.S. Congressman John Parnell Thomas and Chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1948. An opponent of McCarthyism, and his charges against the fiercely anti-Communist, James V. Forrestal, may have contributed to Forrestal's "mental breakdown" and resignation as US Secretary of Defense.
The later release of the Venona Project intercepts revealed that the McCarthy and Thomas probes did identify many communist spies in the government.
Drew Pearson had one daughter, Elen, in a short marriage to Felicia Giczcky, daughter of the newspaper scion Cissy Patterson and Count Joseph Giczcky of Poland.
[edit] Washington Merry-Go-Round
The Washington Merry-Go-Round column started as a result of the anonymous publication in 1931 of the book, Washington Merry-Go-Round (New York: Horace Liveright and Co.), co-written with Robert S. Allen. The book comprised a collection of muckraking news items concerning key figures in public life that challenged the journalistic code of the day. In 1932, it was followed by a second book, More Merry-Go-Round. The success of the books led to the introduction of the syndicated column, the Washington Merry-Go-Round, that same year.
At the time of his retirement in 1969, the column was syndicated to more than 600 newspapers, with an estimated 60 million readers, and was famous for its investigative style of journalism.
American University Library originally received the typescript copies of the columns distributed to newspapers around the country in 1992. Since then, the library embarked upon a project to digitize the collection, making it available to researchers and journalism students around the world. Digitization of content from 1953 – 1969 is slated to be complete in 2006[1].
[edit] The Parnell Thomas affair
Pearson was critical of some of the actions and statements of powerful U.S. Congressman John Parnell Thomas and his methods as Chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities that saw the ultimate imprisonment of the "Hollywood Ten". Rumors about corrupt practices on the part of Thomas were confirmed when Thomas's secretary, Helen Campbell, sent documents to Pearson which he used to expose the corruption in an August 4, 1948 newspaper article. As a result, Thomas had to resign and was charged, tried, convicted and sent to prison.
[edit] McCarthyite Witch-hunt
In the early 1950s Pearson was one of the few journalists to stand up against McCarthyism. McCarthy (who once reportedly kneed Pearson in the groin) referred to Karr as Pearson's "KGB handler". Karr (born David Katz) had been exposed by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1943 as having worked for two years on the staff of the Communist newspaper Daily Worker. In response it was asserted that Karr only joined the Daily Worker because he wanted to get into baseball games for free. The highest Karr got in the newspaper was covering home Yankee games. Another member of Pearson's staff, Andrew Older, along with his wife, was identified in 1951 as a Communist Party member in testimony before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. Older's sister, Julia Older, was also suspected of having spied for the Soviet Union.
Those accusing Pearson of having been either pro-Communist or "soft on Communism" called attention not only to the affiliations of his subordinates but also to his support for policy positions and personal actions that worked to the advantage of international Communism. He was an early and vociferous critic of the anti-Communist government of Chiang Kai-shek in China. He was responsible for publicizing the infamous slapping incidents by America's most outspokenly anti-Soviet General, George S. Patton, Jr., which led to Patton's being relieved of command of the Seventh Army, and he made charges against the fiercely anti-Communist Secretary of Defense, James V. Forrestal, prior to Forrestal's removal by President Harry S. Truman.
After Forrestal's death from a fall from a 16th floor window of the Bethesda Naval Hospital, Pearson wrote that Forrestal had attempted suicide on four previous occasions, lending credence to the conclusion that Forrestal's death had been a suicide. Pearson's claim of previous suicide attempts by Forrestal is corroborated by no known evidence, and was contradicted by the testimony of Forrestal's attending physicians at Bethesda[2].
[edit] Published works
- Washington Merry-Go-Round (New York: Horace Liveright, 1931).
- More Merry-Go-Round (1932)
- American Diplomatic Game (New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1935),
- U.S.A.: Second Class Power? (1958),
- The Case Against Congress: a Compelling Indictment of Corruption on Capitol Hill (1958)
- The Senator Double Day (1968)
- The President Double Day (1970)
- Diaries, 1949-1959 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974),
- Nine Old Men (American Constitutional and Legal History) with Robert Allen, (1974) ISBN 0-306-70609-1
[edit] Awards & recognition
He holds two honorary degrees, Norway's Medal of St. Olav, the French Legion of Honour, and the Star of Italian Solidarity
[edit] Quotes
"I just operate with a sense of smell: if something smells wrong, I go to work.[3]"
"His ill-considered falsehoods have come to the point where he is doing much harm to his own Government and to other nations. It is a pity that anyone anywhere believes anything he writes." --President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Pearson, in letter to General Patrick J. Hurley, August 30, 1943, cited in Patrick J. Hurley, a biography by Don Lohbeck, 1956.
[edit] Trivia
Pearson appeared as himself in the 1951 science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still. His character is the only journalist who urges calm and restraint while Washington is panicked by the escape of the alien visitor Klaatu.
[edit] References
- ^ Gregor, Clark. American University Library Offers Digitized Columns From Ground-Breaking Journalist, Drew Pearson. American University News. Retrieved on 2006-09-12.
- ^ Willcutts (Admiral), M.D. (October, 2004). Willcutts Report on the Death of James V. Forrestal (1949). Princeton University. Retrieved on 2006-09-12.
- ^ Querulous Quaker. Time Magazine (Dec. 13, 1948). Retrieved on 2006-09-12.
