Bert Andrews (journalist)

Bert Andrews (1901-1953) was a Washington-based reporter for the New York Herald Tribune who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 for his article "A State Department Security Case."

Career

Andrews began his career in journalism in 1924 as a copy boy. He covered the United Nations Conference on International Organization; scooped the Yalta vote compact and the resignation of former Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson.^[1]

By 1947, "Bert Andrews was the Trib bureau chief, which made him Washington's number-two newsman, according to David Halberstam .^[2]

At the height of his influence, Andrews helped African-American journalist Louis Lautier obtain credentials for the Senate Press Gallery.^[3]

Hiss Case

Initially, Andrews along with James Reston of the New York Times, had recommended Alger Hiss as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.^[4]

When Nixon became convinced that Whittaker Chambers was telling the truth to HUAC, Andrews was among those whom he consulted for verification and encouragement.^[5]

Chambers wrote about Andrews in his 1952 memoir:

Meanwhile, in the course of the whole Hiss Case, not more than five journalists were sent to find out at first hand what I might really be like. Only two of them, Bert Andrews, the chief of the New York Herald-Tribune Washington bureau, and Nicholas Blatchford, of the Washington Daily News, proved equal to the assignment.^[6]

Relationship with Nixon

Halberstam wrote that at times Andrews "seemed to be more of a Nixon staff man than a working journalist."

In 1962, Nixon referred to Andrews in Life magazine as "my friend."^[7]

Works

• Washington Witch Hunt (1948)
• A Tragedy of History: A Journalist's Confidential Role in the Hiss-Chambers case, with son Peter Andrews (1962)

The Kirkus Review for A Tragedy of History reads:

Bert Andrews was the chief of the New York Herald Tribune Washington Bureau (he died in 1953 and his son has called this) and his book is for the most part a transcript of the long hearings involved in the Hiss case. Andrews has very little to contribute on his own to the famous trial which wavered Between perjury and treason and led to discreditization. The publisher's claim that Andrews was ""In effect, a trusted confidant and participant"" is as unsubstantiated as a great many of the things that went on in this "tragedy of history", a hazy if attention-getting caption. His not so private intelligence of the case seems to be limited to a three hour interview with Chambers he shared with Nixon. Well, once again, from Hiss as seen by Chambers, and Chambers as seen by Hiss (i.e. the deadbeat Crosley) is the long testimony from the time when Chambers first appeared before the House Committee on American Activities, through the hearings, the libel suit, the intment. and the two trials. These annals have been previously and more fully recorded; Andrews concentrates on the Ford car and the pumpkin papers, skimps on the Woodstock typewriter and the prothory warbler. He has no opinions nor conclusions to offer- leaves it in its continuum of contradiction and supposition (to Andrews the mystery is not why illss went to jail, but how he managed to stay out for so long). This hardly seems to warrant its revival now particularly in view of the stimulating interpretaions which have appeared from Alnstair Cooke's version shortly after the proceedings to Fred Cook's more recent reexammian (1958).^[8]

References

Sources

• Black, Conrad (2007). Richard Nixon: A Life in Full. Perseus Books. p. 109. 
• Chambers, Whittaker (1952). Witness. New York: Random House. pp. 626–627. ISBN 978-0-394-45233-3. 
• Mattews, Chris (1996). Kennedy & Nixon: The Rivalry that Shaped Postwar America. Simon & Schuster. p. 62. Retrieved 13 March 2013. 
• Nixon, Richard (16 March 1962). Bitter Ordeal for a Man to Bare His Soul. Life. p. 127. Retrieved 13 March 2013.