Don Whitehead

Don Whitehead (April 8, 1908 in Inman, Virginia - January 12, 1981) was an American journalist. He was awarded the Medal of Freedom. He won the 1950 George Polk Award for wire service reporting.

He was awarded the 1951 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, and 1952 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.^[1]

Life

He studied at University of Kentucky from 1926 to 1928.^[2] He worked for newspapers in Lafollette Press and Harlan, Kentucky, Daily Enterprise beginning in 1928. He covered the Harlan County War. His worked for the Associated Press, beginning in 1935.

He covered World War II. He covered the Eighth Army in Egypt, for the AP in September 1942. He was transferred to the American Army in Algeria. He covered the Allied invasion of Sicily at Gela, with the First Infantry Division. He covered the Allied invasion of Italy at Salerno, and the Italian campaign. He landed at Anzio in January 1944. He went to London to prepare for the Allied invasion of France. He landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944, with the 16th Regiment, of the First Infantry Division. He covered the push from the beachhead, Operation Cobra at Saint-Lô, and the pursuit across France. He got the first story on the Liberation of Paris. He covered the U.S. First Army into Belgium and into Germany, the crossing of the Rhine River. He covered the meeting of American and Russian troops on the Elbe River.^[3]

He covered the Korean War, in 1950.^[4] He was Washington bureau chief for the New York Herald Tribune, in 1956. He was a columnist for the Knoxville News-Sentinel.^[5] His book, The FBI Story was adapted into a 1959 film.

His papers are held at the University of Tennessee.^[6]

Family

Don Whitehead married Marie Patterson on December 20, 1928. They had a daughter, Ruth, and two grandchildren.

Works

• The FBI story: a report to the people, Random House, 1956; Ishi Press International, 2011, ISBN 978-4-87187-335-2
• Journey into crime, Random House, 1960
• Border guard: the story of the United States Customs Service, McGraw-Hill, 1963
• The Dow story: the history of the Dow Chemical Company, McGraw-Hill, 1968
• Attack on terror: the FBI against the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi, Funk & Wagnalls, 1970
• "A Correspondent's View of D-Day", D-day: the Normandy invasion in retrospect, Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation, University Press of Kansas, 1971

Posthumous

• John Beals Romeiser, ed. (2004). "Beachhead Don": reporting the war from the European Theater, 1942-1945. Fordham University Press. ISBN 978-0-8232-2412-8. 
• John Beals Romeiser, ed. (September 2006). Combat Reporter: Don Whitehead's World War II Diary And Memoirs. Fordham University Press. ISBN 978-0-8232-2675-7. 

References

External links

• http://www.ap.org/pages/about/pulitzer/white.html
• http://www.swvamuseum.org/donwhitehead.html