A Few Editors Who Made It in the 'Big Time'

THE Crimson has produced a number of men and women who have made a significant impact on the world. The most renowned Crimson editors probably are Franklin D. Roosevelt '04 and John F. Kennedy '40, who went on to become the President of the United States. Other Crimson editors have become writers, editors, publishers, presidential advisors, senators, congressmen and leaders in other fields. But to aspiring journalists who continue to work from day to day on The Crimson, perhaps the greatest source of inspiration is former Crimson editors who have won journalism's highest award, the Pulitzer Prize. It is an the Pulitzer Prizes that journalists see recognition of the skills they so painstakingly strive to master: accurate reporting, attention to detail, and a healthy advocacy of right against wrong.

When pioneering publisher Joseph Pulitzer established the prizes, he hoped that they would have the effect of inspiring young journalists and generally raising the level of American journalism. But when he was drawing up his will, it occurred to him almost as an afterthought that some of his fortune might be used to establish awards for excellence in journalism. "Incidentally," he wrote. "I strongly wish the College [Columbia] to pay from the large income I am providing, a sum of | | in annual prizes to particular journalists or writers for various accomplishments, achievements and forms of excellence."

Since the announcement of the first Pulitzer Prizes in 1917, Crimson editors have claimed almost a dozen of the awards, and as The Crimson enters its second hundred years there are five living Crimson editors who hold Pulitzer Prizes. Crimson editors have won Pulitzers in a variety of fields ranging from General Reporting [a discontinued category] to Biography, from Local Reporting to International Correspondence.

George A. Weller '29 is the oldest Crimson editor with a Pulitzer. While an undergraduate, Weller divided his time between being Editorial Chairman and his life as thespian. After graduation the stage called and Weller enrolled in the Max Reinhardt School in Vienna, and later became an actor in the Max Reinhardt Theater.

In Vienna though, Weller once again began to feel the pull of the press and he fell into the circle of foreign correspondents who spent their nights in the city's cafes. It wasn't long before Weller gave up the stage and began to roam the Balkans as a freelance writer.

When World War II broke out. Weller signed on with the Chicago Daily News and was assigned to cover the Pacific campaign. Weller wrote his dispatches with a real flair for drama; his reports were filled with vivid detail and infused with a sense of immediacy. A tile he titled "I'm still in there Pitching" and datelined "Somewhere in Australia" in which be reconstructed a life-saving operation by pharmacist's mate in a submarine under enemy waters, won him the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Reporting. It's a tribute to Weller's dramatic flair that his story was later used as the basis for a television screenplay.

IN 1954 HARVARD and the country were reeling from the attacks by Senator Joseph McCarthy and his House Un-American Activities Committee. There were two cases, one involving J. Robert Oppenheimer and another with John Paton Davies of the State Department, that drew nationwide publicity. But in Washington there was another case involving a minor Navy employee named Abraham Chasanow which attracted the attention of Anthony Lewis '48, a former Managing Editor of The Crimson who was working as a reporter for The Washington Daily News. Lewis was concerned about the case because Chasanow had little money to use for his defense and had been dismissed without due process. When Lewis called the Navy Department to find out why Chasanow was dismissed, he was refused an answer.

Lewis decided to bring the case to the public's attention and with a series of nine news stories and three editorials. Lewis won dismissal of the case, the reinstatement of Chasanow, and the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. In 1963 Lewis won another Pulitzer for his Supreme Court reporting for The New York Times.

While Lewis was in Washington fighting the effects of the McCarthy Era. J. Anthony Lukas '55 was busy covering the McCarthy hearings in Boston for The Crimson. Lukas was one of the few Associate Managing Editors ever to divide successfully his time between Widener Library and 14 Plympton--a member of Phi Beta Kappa, he graduated magna cum laude. Lukas found his true calling was in journalism and not in academics, though, and in 1968 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting for an article he did for The New York Times on the background of a girl who had been murdered in the East Village.

Working on The Crimson with Lukas was David L. Halberstam '55, the paper's Managing Editor. Halberstam is profuse in his praise of The Crimson during that period. "Working for The Crimson was marvelous, exciting," he said recently. "The development of my critical faculty as a reporter. I believe, is a product of my Crimson years. We learned adversary reporting in the best sense of the word." Indeed, The Crimson of the Halberstam-Lukas years is remembered by most as being particularly watchful and wary of the Administration. Years later, when Halberstam was reporting from Vietnam he sent back some stories that vexed President Kennedy another former Crimson editor who won a Pulitzer [Biography, 1957] Kennedy went to McGeorge Bundy, his advisor and former dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and asked him who this fellow was who was sending back all these terrible reports about Vietnam, Bundy replied. "Oh, that's that Halberstam. I had trouble with him when I was at Harvard.

The Crimson did in fact inspire the advocate in Halberstam, and after graduation he left the sheltered environment of Cambridge to take a job with the West Point, Mississippi Daily Times Leader, the smallest daily in the state. Halberstam thought the 1954 Supreme Court ruling against segregation would bring profound changes in the South, and he wanted to be part of the action. He worked in Mississippi for four years and then travelled to Tennessee, where he covered race relations for The Nashville Tennesean. Looking for a change, Halberstam left-the country to report in Vietnam for The New York Times. Shocked and disturbed by the war, Halberstam tried to tell America the truth about the conflict, often fighting official censorship to get his dispatches through. In 1964 he was rewarded for his efforts with the Pulitzer Prize for International Correspondence.

THE YOUNGEST CRIMSON editor with a Pulitzer is Peter R. Kann '64, who served-as the paper's City Editor. Kann joined The Wall Street Journal upon graduation, doing a number of stateside assignments before achieving the rank of foreign correspondent and being sent to The Journal's Hong Kong Bureau. It was in Hong Kong that Kann first received wind of an impending struggle between India and Pakistan, Stationing himself in the troubled area. Kann's tile forecast the India-Pakistan War and the founding of Bangladesh. In recognition of his reporting he received the 1972 Pulitzer for International Correspondence.

There are a number of Harvard and Radcliffe graduates who failed to join the staff of Cambridge's Only Breakfast Table Daily, but, despite the poverty of their background, went on to win Pulitzers. Walter Lippman '10, the dean of American journalism who won a special Pulitzer Prize Citation in 1958 "for the wisdom, perception, and high sense of responsibility with which he has commented for many years on national and international affairs," was cut from The Crimson when he couldn't keep up with the rigors of the competition. James Agee '32, who took the Pulitzer for Fiction in 1958 (A Death in the Family) and Norman Mailer '43, who won the General Nonfiction Pulitzer in 1969 (The Armies of the Night) found The Advocate more to their liking, Theodore H. White '38, who received the first General Nonfiction Pulitzer back in 1962 (The Making of the President 1960] and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. '38, who received the Pulitzer for History in 1946 (The Age of Jackson] are two more famous holdouts.

Two time Pulitzer Prize winner Barbara Wertheim Tuchman '33 (General Nonfiction 1963--The Guns of August and 1972--Stillwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-1945 came through Radcliffe at a time when women weren't allowed on The Crimson A alter J. Bate'39. Abbott Lawrence Lowell professor of the Humanities, who won the Pulitzer for Biography in 1964 (John Keats) was too busy studying undergraduate to comp for The Crimson. And obviously with a certain amount of snobbery, Joseph Pulitzer Jr. '36, didn't bother to comp.