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James Reston

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: James Barrett Reston
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(born Nov. 3, 1909, Clydebank, Dumbartonshire, Scot. — died Dec. 6, 1995, Washington, D.C., U.S.) Scottish-born U.S. columnist and editor. His family moved to the U.S. when he was 10 years old. He was a sportswriter before joining The New York Times in 1939, where he worked as a reporter, a nationally syndicated columnist, Washington bureau chief (1953 – 64), executive editor (1968 – 69), and vice president (1969 – 74) before retiring in 1989. One of the most influential U.S. journalists, he had unrivaled personal access to U.S. presidents and world leaders and was often the first to break major stories. He won two Pulitzer Prizes (1945, 1957), helped create the first Op-Ed page (1970; a forum for columnists' opinion pieces), and recruited and trained many talented young journalists.

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Biography: James Barrett Reston
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The American journalist James Barrett Scotty Reston (1909-1995) was one of the most important political commentators in the United States from the 1950s to the 1980s. His column in the New York Times was widely read by leading politicians and diplomats.

Born November 3, 1909, in Clydebank, Scotland, James Barrett ("Scotty") Reston was the second child of James and Johanna Reston. His family emigrated to the United States in 1920 and settled in Dayton, Ohio. Raised in a strict Presbyterian home, Reston thought seriously of becoming a preacher. He also considered a career as a professional golfer but ultimately went into journalism and became recognized as one of the nation's foremost political writers.

After graduating from the University of Illinois in 1932, Reston took a job as a sportswriter for the Springfield (Ohio) Daily News. He then worked for the Ohio State University sports publicity office and as a press secretary for the Cincinnati Reds baseball team. In 1934 he accepted a position with Associated Press in New York writing sports features and a column, "A New Yorker at Large." He was sent to London in 1937 to cover international sporting events and the British foreign office.

In 1939 Scotty Reston was hired by the New York Times to work in its London bureau. In 1941 he was covering the State Department in Washington, D.C. After publishing the book Prelude to Victory (1942), in which he stressed that the war effort must be a national crusade, he went to London to help organize the U.S. Office of War Information.

He returned to Washington, D.C., as the Times' diplomatic correspondent in 1944. While covering the Dumbarton Oaks conference which organized the United Nations, he obtained a full set of top-secret Allied position papers from an unhappy Chinese delegation. This major scoop earned him the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.

A successful and valued reporter, Reston was named Washington bureau chief in 1953. He recruited a team of interns and young writers who formed an enterprising and powerful staff and developed into leading national journalists. While supervising the office he still managed to write about 5,000 words a week. In 1957 he received a second Pulitzer Prize for a series on America's lack of national purpose. Featured in a Time magazine cover story in early 1960, he was called "a crack reporter, a good writer, a thoughtful columnist and an able administrator of the biggest bureau in Washington."

In March 1960 Reston began the thrice-weekly political column which solidified his stature as one of Washington's most influential journalists. In the introduction to a collection of his essays, Sketches in the Sand (1967), he observed that columns are motivated by a wide range of objectives, from ideological interpretation to investigation. He saw his own purpose as if he were writing an informative letter to a thoughtful friend. Life magazine described it as "a highly intelligent summary of what policy makers are thinking and worrying about; Reston does not so much argue for or against their policies as clarify them with a readable prose style and stamp them with his own healthy point of view."

Distinguishing his style from another pre-eminent columnist, Walter Lippmann, who was known as a systematic thinker, Reston acknowledged that he did not profess a particular philosophy. "I'm a reporter of other men's ideas," he said. Critics and admirers both agree that Reston had the ability to cultivate powerful political figures such as Henry Kissinger.

Coming from a poor immigrant background, Reston saw America as a land of opportunity. Expecting its leaders to act in an exemplary manner, he was deeply disappointed after the bombings of Cambodia and the Watergate affair. Yet, a conservative man with traditional values, he was optimistic about the country's future.

Based on a moral outlook reflecting his Calvinist roots, Reston's message of hope appealed to the Sulzberger family which owned the Times. There was always mutual affection between the Times and Reston. According to one journalist, Reston "is not so much a man of the left or right as he is a man of the Times."

In 1960 Reston cautioned the Times not to print advance information it held about the imminent Bay of Pigs invasion. In 1965 Reston toured South Vietnam to take a personal look at the war. In 1967 he delivered a series of lectures which were published as The Artillery of the Press: Its Influence on American Foreign Policy in which he advocated a more skeptical and less nationalistic role for the press. In 1971 he recommended that the Times publish the secret study of the Vietnam War, The Pentagon Papers. Later that year, at the height of his influence, he visited the People's Republic of China and conducted the first indepth interview of Premier Chou En-lai.

In 1964 Reston gave up his position as Washington bureau chief in order to become associate editor and devote more time to his column. In 1968 he served briefly as executive editor in New York before returning to Washington as vice president in charge of news production. After 1974 Reston was a director of the New York Times Company while continuing to write his column. In 1987 he gave up his regular column and retired except for writing a piece only now and then. In 1991, he wrote Deadline, a memoir of his life.

He was a stocky man with a square, reddish face. He married Sarah Jane Fulton in 1935 and they had three sons. They lived in Washington, D.C., but spent time in Fiery Run, Virginia, and in Martha's Vineyard, where Reston bought the weekly paper in 1968.

In addition to his Pulitzer Prizes Reston received many journalism awards and honorary degrees, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Roosevelt Four Freedom medal, and the Commander, Order of the British Empire. James Reston died on December 8, 1995.

Further Reading

For Reston's own writings, see his collection of essays Sketches in the Sand (1967) and The Artillery of the Press (1967). He is frequently cited in two books about The New York Times, The Kingdom and the Power by Gay Talese (1966) and Without Fear or Favor by Harrison E. Salisbury (1980). He wrote his memoirs in a book titled Deadline (1991).

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: James Barrett Reston
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Reston, James Barrett (Scotty Reston), 1909-95, American journalist, b. Clydebank, Scotland. His family emigrated to the United States in 1920. After working briefly for the Springfield (Ohio) Daily News, he joined the Associated Press in 1934. He moved to the London bureau of the New York Times in 1939, settling in New York in 1940, but taking a leave to establish a U.S. Office of War Information in London in 1942. Rejoining the Times, Reston was assigned to Washington, D.C., as national correspondent (1945), then diplomatic correspondent (1948) and bureau chief and columnist (1953).

Reston subsequently was associate editor of the New York Times (1964-68), executive editor (1968-69), and vice president (1969-74). He wrote a nationally syndicated column from 1974 until 1987, when he became a senior columnist, and retired two years later. Long the most powerful and influential journalist at the nation's most powerful and influential newspaper, Reston interviewed most of the world's leaders and wrote cogently about the leading events and issues of his time. He earned a journalistic reputation for insight, fair-mindedness, balance, humaneness, and wit, twice winning the Pulitzer Prize (1945, 1957) for national reporting. His books include Prelude to Victory (1942), The Artillery of the Press (1967), and Sketches in the Sand (1967).

Bibliography

See his memoirs, Deadline (1991); biography by J. F. Stacks (2002).

Quotes By: James Reston
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Quotes:

"The rising power of the United States in world affairs requires, not a more compliant press, but a relentless barrage of facts and criticism. Our job in this age, as I see it, is not to serve as cheerleaders for our side in the present world struggle but to help the largest possible number of people to see the realities of the changing and convulsive world in which American policy must operate."

"A government is the only vessel that leaks from the top."

"The ship of state is the only known vessel that leaks from the top."

"Europe has a press that stresses opinions; America a press, radio, and television that emphasize news."

"The conflict between the men who make and the men who report the news is as old as time. News may be true, but it is not truth, and reporters and officials seldom see it the same way. In the old days, the reporters or couriers of bad news were often put to the gallows; now they are given the Pulitzer Prize, but the conflict goes on."

"Wealth is conspicuous, but poverty hides."

See more famous quotes by James Reston

Wikipedia: James Reston
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This article is about James Barrett Reston. For James Reston Jr., see James Reston Jr.

James Barrett Reston (November 3, 1909–December 6, 1995), nicknamed "Scotty," was an American journalist whose career spanned the mid 1930s to the early 1990s. He was associated for many years with the New York Times.

Life

Reston was born in Clydebank, Scotland into a poor, devout Scottish-Presbyterian family, which emigrated to the United States in 1920. He sailed with his mother and sister to New York as steerage passengers on board the SS Mobile and they were inspected at Ellis Island on September 28, 1920. After working briefly for the Springfield, Ohio Daily News, he joined the Associated Press in 1934. He moved to the London bureau of the New York Times in 1939, but returned to New York in 1940. In 1942, he took leave of absence to establish a US Office of War Information in London. Rejoining the Times in 1945, Reston was assigned to Washington, D.C., as national correspondent. In 1948, he was appointed diplomatic correspondent, followed by bureau chief and columnist in 1953.

Reston married his wife Sally (born Sarah Jane Fulton) on December 24, 1935, after meeting her at the University of Illinois.[1] They had three sons; James, a journalist, non-fiction writer and playwright; Thomas, formerly Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for public affairs and the deputy spokesman for the State Department;[2] and Richard, the publisher of the Vineyard Gazette, a newspaper on Martha's Vineyard.[3]

In subsequent years, Reston served as associate editor of the Times from 1964 to 1968, executive editor from 1968 to 1969, and vice president from 1969 to 1974. He wrote a nationally syndicated column from 1974 until 1987, when he became a senior columnist. During the Nixon administration, he was on the master list of Nixon political opponents.

Reston retired from the Times in 1989.

Reston interviewed many of the world's leaders and wrote extensively about the leading events and issues of his time. He interviewed President John F. Kennedy immediately after the 1961 Vienna Summit with Nikita Khrushchev on the heels of the Bay of Pigs Invasion fiasco.

His books include Prelude to Victory (1942), The Artillery of the Press (1967), Sketches in the Sand (1967), and a memoir, Deadline (1991).

Awards

Reston won the Pulitzer Prize twice. The first was in 1945, for his coverage of the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, particularly an exclusive series that detailed how the delegates planned to set up the United Nations. Decades later, he revealed that his source was a former New York Times copy boy who was a member of the Chinese delegation.[4][5] He received the second award in 1957 for his national correspondence, especially "his five-part analysis of the effect of President Eisenhower's illness on the functioning of the executive branch of the federal government."[6] He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1986 and the Four Freedoms Award in 1991.[3] He was also awarded the chevalier of the Légion d'honneur from France, the Order of St. Olav from Norway, Order of Merit from Chile, the Order of Leopold (Belgium) and honorary degrees from 28 universities.[7]

Legacy

During his lifetime, Reston was admired for his insight, fair-mindedness, balance, and wit, as well as his extensive contacts in the very highest echelons of power. Burt Barnes, writing in The Washington Post shortly after his death, observed that "Mr. Reston's work was required reading for top government officials, with whom he sometimes cultivated a professional symbiosis; he would be their sounding board and they would be his news sources." But former Times editor R.W. Apple also noted in The New York Times, "Mr. Reston was forgiving of the frailties of soldiers, statesmen and party hacks -- too forgiving, some of his critics said, because he was too close to them."[3] Reston's intimacy with those in power was seen to cloud his judgement and make him overly beholden to his sources.

Reston had a particularly close relationship with Henry Kissinger and became one of his stalwart supporters in the media. At least eighteen conversations between the two are captured in transcripts released by the Department of State in response to FOIA requests. They document Reston volunteering to approach fellow Times columnist Anthony Lewis to ask him to moderate his anti-Kissinger texts and offering to plant a question in a press conference for the secretary. [8][9].

A.G. Noornai, reviewing the 2002 biography of Reston, described how his closeness to Kissinger later damaged him further:

Nixon had been re-elected. Kissinger returned from Paris with a peace deal. Reston praised him highly. Nixon, however, decided to bomb North Vietnam to demonstrate his support for the South. Reston did a story on December 13, 1972, based on his talks with Kissinger citing obstruction by Saigon, which was true. But he did not, could not, report what Kissinger had suppressed from him -- he was privy to the decision to bomb Hanoi. That happened five days after the story was published. Kissinger now tried to distance himself from it and Reston was taken in by his claims. Kissinger "undoubtedly opposes" the bombing, he wrote and tried to explain Kissinger's compulsions. Reston's line had not gone unnoticed. The December 13 column was the last straw. It harmed his reputation. Reston had spiked the Pentagon reporter's story because it conflicted with his perceptions. The reporter was proved right. [10]

In his review of Reston's memoir, media pundit Eric Alterman wrote in The Columbia Journalism Review:

To read Reston on Henry Kissinger today is, as it was during the Nixon administration, a little embarrassing. (Reston once titled one of his columns "By Henry Kissinger with James Reston.") Nothing in his experience in Washington, Reston says over and over in these memoirs, "was ever quite as good or as bad as the fashionable opinion of the day," and he thinks of Kissinger as a prime example of this. [...] But in praising Kissinger, Reston is praising a man who regularly misled him, who wiretapped NSC staff members to determine who was leaking to reporters when they revealed his unconstitutional maneuverings, and who urged Nixon to prosecute Reston's newspaper for its constitutionally protected publication of the Pentagon Papers. During the infamous 1972 Christmas bombing of North Vietnam, Reston wrote of Kissinger that "he has said nothing in public about the bombing in North Vietnam, which he undoubtedly opposes... If the bombing goes on... Mr. Kissinger will be free to resign." The only problem with the interpretation, however, was that the bombings were Kissinger's idea. He misled Reston about his own position and then misled the White House staff about these conversations, finally admitting the truth when confronted with his phone records. [11]

For these and other reasons, critics such as radical economist Edward S. Herman have come to regard Reston as an "apologist for US foreign policy." [12]. Likewise, Noam Chomsky condemned his unwavering support for the 1965 US-backed coup in Indonesia which eventually led to the deaths of some half a million people, and the bombing of the South Vietnamese countryside in 1967. [13].

Reston also displayed his affinity for the powerful when Sen. Edward Kennedy drove his car off the bridge at Chappaquiddick Island, resulting in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. Summering at nearby Martha's Vineyard, Reston filed the first account of the incident for the New York Times; his opening paragraph began, "Tragedy has again struck the Kennedy family." When managing editor A.M. Rosenthal saw Reston's copy, he reportedly replied in disgust, "This story isn't about the Kennedy family; it's about this girl."

Acupuncture

In July 1971, Reston suffered appendicitis while visiting China with his wife. After his appendix was removed through conventional surgery at the Anti-Imperialist Hospital in Beijing, his post-operative pain was treated by Li Chang-yuan with acupuncture.[14] The article he wrote for the Times describing his experience was the first time many Americans had heard of the traditional Chinese medical practice.[15]

References

  1. ^ Dunlap, David W., "Sally F. Reston, Journalist and Photographer, Dies at 89", The New York Times, September 24, 2001
  2. ^ "Victoria Kiechel, Architect, Is Married To Thomas Busey Reston, a Lawyer", The New York Times, May 6, 1990
  3. ^ a b c Apple, R.W., "James Reston, a Giant of Journalism, Dies at 86", The New York Times, December 7, 1995
  4. ^ Freedland, Jonathan and Alistair Cooke, "The pope of Washington: Obituary of James Reston", The Guardian, December 8, 1995, pg 20
  5. ^ "James Reston; Obituary" The Times, Dec 8, 1995, pg 21
  6. ^ Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting
  7. ^ Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2008. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2008. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
  8. ^ Slate 1
  9. ^ Slate 2
  10. ^ FrontlineOnNet
  11. ^ Columbia Journalism Review
  12. ^ Herman, Edward S
  13. ^ Chomsky, Noam
  14. ^ Reston, James, "Now, About My Operation in Peking", New York Times, July 26, 1971
  15. ^ Prensky, William L., "Reston Helped Open a Door to Acupuncture", New York Times, December 14, 1995

Stacks, John F. Scotty: James B. Reston and the Rise and Fall of American Journalism. (2002) ISBN 0-316-80985-3

External links


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Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "James Reston".  Read more