Kati Marton
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Kati Marton (b. 3 February 1949) is an American author and journalist. Her career has included reporting for ABC News as a foreign correspondent and National Public Radio as well as print journalism and writing a number of books.
She is the former chairwoman of the International Women's Health Coalition, and a director (former chairwoman) of the Committee to Protect Journalists and other bodies including the International Rescue Committee, Human Rights Watch and the New America Foundation.
She has received several honors for her reporting, including the 2001 Rbekah Kohut Humanitarian Award by the National Council of Jewish Women, the 2002 Matrix Award for Women Who Change the World, the George Foster Peabody Award, and the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary--the country's highest civilian honor. Ms. Marton is also a recipient of The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence.
Kati Marton was born in Hungary, the daughter of UPI reporter Ilona Marton and award-winning AP reporter Endre Marton. Her parents survived the Holocaust of World War II but never spoke about it. Her parents served nearly two years in prison on false charges of espionage for the U.S. and Kati and her older sister were placed in the care of strangers. Raised a Roman Catholic, she only learned late in life and by accident from a third party that her grandparents were exterminated at Auschwitz concentration camp. Among the many honors Mr. and Mrs. Marton received for their reporting on the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was the George Polk Award. The family ultimately fled Hungary following the revolution and settled in Bethesda, Maryland, where Ms. Marton attended Bethesda Chevy Chase High School, graduating in 1965.
She studied at the Sorbonne, and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris. She has a master's degree in international relations from George Washington University. Peter Jennings was her second husband. They had two children together.
On August 13, 1993, Jennings and]] Kati Marton publicly announced their separation in Newsday. The couple had previously split in 1987 for four months after Jennings found out that Marton was having an affair with Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen. She is now married to Richard Holbrooke.
Her latest book, The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World, released in October of 2006 to coincide with 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, has received wide critical acclaim.
[edit] Selected writing
- Hidden Power: Presidential Marriages That Shaped Our History, Anchor (2001, reprint 2002) ISBN 0-385-72188-9
- The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World, (2006) Simon & Schuster ISBN 0-7432-6115-1
