The Reporter Who Knew Too Much : Harrison Salisbury and the New York Times

During his career at The New York Times, Harrison Salisbury served as the bureau chief in post-World War II Moscow and reported from Hanoi during the Vietnam War, and in retirement witnessed the Tiananmen Square massacre firsthand. Davis and Trani's engaging biography of the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist makes use of Salisbury's personal archive of interviews, articles, and correspondence to shed light on the personal triumphs and shortcomings of this preeminent reporter and illuminates the twentieth-century world in which he lived. Minnesotan Harrison Salisbury became one of the preeminent newspapermen of the last half of the twentieth century, covering world events for the United Press and the New York Times and editing the Times' influential op-ed page. In rigorous academic style, Davis and Trani examine Salisbury's remarkable and productive life. Salisbury had a journalist's great good fortune to land in the right place at the right time, have the full support of a news organization, know the right people, and possess superior reportorial skills. He served in Moscow at the close of the Stalin era. He covered civil rights battles in the American South. He reported America's growing involvement in Vietnam and became an early and vocal opponent of the war. By the end of the 1980s, he arrived in China in time for the Cultural Revolution and the growing student democratic movement. He also wrote an outstanding history of the Nazi siege of Leningrad. --Mark Knoblauch During his career at the New York Times, Harrison Salisbury served as the bureau chief in post-World War II Moscow and reported from Hanoi during the VIetnam War, and in retirement he witnessed the Tienanmen Square massacre firsthand. Donald E. Davis and Eugene P. Trani's engaging biography of the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist makes use of Salisbury's personal archive of interviews, articles and correspondence to shed light on the personal triumphs and shortcomings of this preeminent reporter and illuiminates the twentieth-century world in which he lived During his career at the New York Times, Harrison Salisbury served as the bureau chief in post-World War II Moscow, reported from Hanoi during the Vietnam War, and in retirement he witnessed the Tiananmen Square massacre firsthand. Davis and Trani's engaging biography of the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist makes use of Salisbury's personal archive of interviews, articles, and correspondence to shed light on the personal triumphs and shortcomings of this preeminent reporter and illuminates the twentieth-century world in which he lived. Journeyman journalist Foreign correspondent Moscow bureau chief A death in Moscow Life in a satellite "Without fear or favor" Hanoi Harry The middle kingdom Historian and novelist The great gadfly Conclusions.