Theodore White
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Theodore Harold White (May 6, 1915 – May 9, 1986) was an American political journalist, historian, and novelist, best known for his accounts of the 1960, 1964, 1968, and 1972 presidential elections.
Born May 6, 1915, in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of a Jewish lawyer, White received a scholarship to Harvard in 1934, based upon his academic achievements at the famous Boston Latin high school, which he graduated from in 1932.
White graduated from Harvard in 1938 summa cum laude (Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. was a classmate), with a degree in Chinese history, and the following year, became one of Time's first foreign correspondents, being stationed in East Asia from 1939 to 1945. He then served as European correspondent for the Overseas News Agency (1948–50) and for The Reporter (1950–53).
With experience in analyzing foreign cultures from his time abroad, White took up the challenge of analyzing American culture with the books The Making of the President, 1960 (1961), The Making of the President, 1964 (1965), The Making of the President, 1968 (1969), and The Making of the President, 1972 (1973), all looking at American elections. The first of these was both a runaway bestseller and a huge critical success, winning the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. It remains the most influential work on the election that brought President John F. Kennedy to power. The later presidential books sold well but failed to have such an impact, partly because other writers were by now covering the same ground, and White's larger-than-life style of storytelling became less fashionable in the 1960s and '70s.
Shortly after JFK's death, White obtained an exclusive interview with Jacqueline Kennedy. During this interview Mrs. Kennedy spoke at length on a personal level about her husband and what she hoped would be his legacy. Her comments inspired White to compare the short-lived presidency of John F. Kennedy with the legend of Camelot, for which Life was also acclaimed. White covered the assassination and funeral extensively, also for Life. White was the best known reporter at Andrews Air Force Base on November 22, 1963, when the body of the assassinated president arrived there.
White was the coauthor (with Annalee Jacoby) of Thunder Out of China (1946) and also wrote Fire in the Ashes (1953), Breach of Faith: The Fall of Richard Nixon (1975), the autobiographical In Search of History: A Personal Adventure (1978), and America in Search of Itself: The Making of the President, 1956–1980 (1982). His novel of World War II China, The Mountain Road (1958), became a movie starring James Stewart. White died on May 15, 1986, in New York City, New York. He was survived by two children, Heyden White Rostow and David Fairbank White.