Jack Anderson (columnist)
Jack Anderson | |
---|---|
Born | Jack Northman Anderson October 19, 1922 Long Beach, California, U.S. |
Died | December 17, 2005 Bethesda, Maryland, U.S. | (aged 83)
Occupation | Investigative journalist |
Awards | Pulitzer Prize |
Jack Northman Anderson (October 19, 1922 – December 17, 2005) was an American
Among the exposés Anderson reported were the Nixon administration's investigation and harassment of
Early life and career
Anderson was born in
Anderson's aptitude for journalism appeared at the early age of 12 when he began writing the Boy Scouts Column for
Muckraker
Anderson feuded with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover in the 1950s, when he exposed the scope of the Mafia, a threat that Hoover had long downplayed. Hoover's retaliation and continual harassment lasted into the 1970s.[10] Hoover once described Anderson as "lower than the regurgitated filth of vultures."[11]
Anderson told his staff, "Let's do to Hoover what he does to others,"[12] and he instructed them to go through Hoover's garbage, a tactic the FBI used in its surveillance of political dissidents.[13][14][15]
Anderson grew close to Senator Joseph McCarthy, and the two exchanged information from sources.[16] When Pearson went after McCarthy, Anderson reluctantly followed.[17][18]
In the mid-1960s Anderson exposed the corruption of Senator
According to the
Other topics that Anderson covered included organized crime, the
Retractions
Anderson's column occasionally published erroneous information for which he issued retractions. During the 1972 presidential race, Anderson retracted a story accusing Democratic vice-presidential nominee Thomas Eagleton of multiple drunk driving arrests. But Eagleton's campaign was already severely damaged, and he was dropped from the ticket.[23]
Targeted for assassination
In 1972 Anderson was the target of an assassination plot conceived by senior White House staff. Two Nixon administration conspirators admitted under oath that they plotted to poison Anderson on orders from senior White House aide Charles Colson.[24]
White House "plumbers" G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt met with a CIA operative to discuss the possibilities, including drugging Anderson with LSD, poisoning his aspirin bottle, or staging a fatal mugging.[25] The plot was aborted when the plotters were arrested for the Watergate break-in. Nixon had long been angry with Anderson. He blamed the fallout from Anderson's election-eve story about a secret loan from Howard Hughes to Nixon's brother[16] for Nixon's loss of the 1960 presidential election.
Project Mudhen
Beginning in February 1972, Anderson was the subject of a CIA project called Project Mudhen (also referred to as Operation Mudhen) aiming to find the sources of his articles.[26][27][28] Over the course of three months, ending April 12, 1972, the CIA spied on Anderson, whose code name in the project was "Brandy". The CIA ended Mudhen after being unsuccessful at finding his sources and believing that Anderson was beginning to suspect he was being spied on by the CIA, which was able to collect a large file on his personal movements, his family, and the fact that he drove too fast occasionally. He later used documents he had been given about the project as part of a lawsuit against Richard Nixon and other government officials in 1977 claiming "that the agencies and officials committed various illegal acts and violated his constitutional rights to free speech and privacy".[26]
Glomar Explorer
Anderson has been credited as breaking the story of the
JFK conspiracy allegations
In November 1988 Anderson hosted a two-hour prime-time television special entitled American Expose: Who Murdered JFK?
According to Anderson's report, private photographic analysts concluded that the shot that killed Kennedy came from the front, and that E. Howard Hunt and James Earl Ray were depicted in photographs of the "three tramps".[30] Hunt denied the charge on the program[30] and said he had witnesses who could prove he was not in Dallas.[33] An Associated Press (AP) writer described it as a "bizarre allegation," to which Anderson provided "no explanation of their alleged connection".[30]
Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Daily called the program "limp" and said Anderson's conclusion that organized crime was responsible for the assassination was based "on circumstantial evidence and the word of dead gangster Johnny Roselli."[34] Howard Rosenberg of the Los Angeles Times wrote that it was "tawdry and strident" and said Anderson's "so-called evidence was unclear, unconvincing and untrustworthy."[33] The Deseret News said Anderson was trying to "rewrite history".[31]
Capitol security stunt
To demonstrate the weak security within the U.S. Capitol, in 1989, Anderson brought a gun to an interview in the office of Bob Dole, Senate minority leader. He was reprimanded and Congress passed a change of rules for reporters' access to the Capitol and politicians.[35]
Legmen and alumni
Investigative reporter
Death and aftermath
Anderson was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1986. In July 2004, at the age of 81, Anderson retired from his syndicated column, Washington Merry-Go-Round. He died of complications from Parkinson's disease on December 17, 2005.[7]
In April 2006, Anderson's son Kevin said that some FBI agents had approached his mother (Jack's widow), Olivia, earlier that year to gain access to his father's files. This was purportedly in connection with the
Books
Nonfiction
- McCarthyism: The Man, the Senator, the “ism” (1952)
- Washington exposé by Jack Anderson (Washington: Public Affairs Press, 1967)
- The Case Against Congress, with Drew Pearson (1969)
- American Government ...Like It Is, with Carl Kalvelage (1971)
- The Anderson Papers (1973)
- Confessions of a Muckraker, with James Boyd (1979)
- Alice in Blunderland, with John Kidner (1983)
- Fiasco, with James Boyd (1983)
- Inside the NRA: Armed and Dangerous (1996)
- Washington Money-Go-Round (1997)
- Peace, War and Politics: An Eyewitness Account, with Daryl Gibson (1999)
Fiction
- The Cambodia File, with Bill Pronzini (1983)
- Control (1989)
- Zero Time (1990)
- The Japan Conspiracy (1993)
- Millennium (1995)
- The Saudi Connection, with Robert Westbrook (2005)
References
- ^ a b Anderson. (1930) Jack Northman Anderson (1922-2005) was an investigative journalist, author, television personality, and for over 50 years the columnist behind the syndicated political column "Washington Merry-Go-Round." Cultivating sources who provided him with exclusive access to classified information, Anderson became the longest-running political columnist in America, appearing at one point in more than 1,000 American newspapers and claiming 40 million readers. He received the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 1972. In addition to his daily column, Anderson maintained a high-profile presence in television, radio, and magazines, and he wrote or co-wrote 17 books.
- ^ Cass, Connie. (December 18, 2005). Pulitzer-Winning Columnist Anderson Dies Kitsap Sun, AP. Archived at Wayback Machine, Archived on June 8, 2022.
- ^ Simon, Diane (November 17, 2010). "The Merry-Go-Round: On Jack Anderson". The Nation. Archived from the original on August 19, 2015. Retrieved June 8, 2022.
- ^ The Aggressive Inheritor. (September 12, 1969). Time (94)11, 86. Academic Search Premier, February 14, 2013.
- ^ a b c d Sheehan, Susan. (August 13, 1972). The Anderson strategy: We hit you‐pow! Then you issue a denial, and‐bami‐we really let you have it. The New York Times, Archived by CIA Retrieved June 8, 2022.
- ^ Smith, Stephen (December 17, 2005). "Columnist Jack Anderson Dies At 83". CBS Broadcasting. Associated Press. Archived from the original on October 27, 2014. Retrieved June 8, 2022.
- ^ a b Martin, Douglas (December 18, 2005). "Jack Anderson, Investigative Journalist Who Angered the Powerful, Dies at 83". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 17, 2018. Retrieved June 8, 2022.
- ^ Naylor, Brian. (July 31, 2004). Writing the Book on Jack Anderson. Weekend All Things Considered (NPR), Retrieved June 8, 2022, Interview with Mark Feldstein.
- ^ "Remarks on Receiving the Final Report of the President's Private Sector Survey on Cost Control in the Federal Government". Reagan Archives. October 28, 1985. Retrieved April 29, 2008.
- ^ "Jack Anderson: The Fall of J. Edgar Hoover DVD". History Channel Store. Retrieved September 25, 2014.
- ^ Bennett, Brian; Thompson, Mark (April 23, 2006). "A Reporter's Last Battle". Time. p. 29. Archived from the original on February 4, 2013.
- ^ Eigen's Political & Historical Quotations Archived March 5, 2009, at the Wayback Machine, politicalquotes.org; accessed October 29, 2016.
- ^ Feldstein, Mark (November 14, 2011). "The love J. Edgar Hoover does not deserve". Salon.com. Retrieved January 8, 2018.
- OCLC 2269358. Archived from the original(PDF) on January 9, 2018. Retrieved January 8, 2018.
- ISBN 978-0393321289.
- ^ a b Feldstein 2000.
- )
- JSTOR 4635147.
- ^ "Nixon's Plot to Assassinate Jack Anderson", Crime Magazine, crimemagazine.com; accessed October 29, 2016.
- ^ "Corruption Within", Time 92.8 (1968): p. 80
Academic Search Premier, February 14, 2013. - ^ Memo of conversation, January 3, 1975, between President Gerald Ford, William Colby, etc., made available by the National Security Archive.
- ^ "When Elvis Met Nixon", smithsonianmag.com; accessed April 29, 2017.
- ^ OCLC 2269358.
- OCLC 2269358. Archived from the originalon October 14, 2008. Retrieved June 8, 2022.
- ISBN 0-312-92412-7.
- ^ a b Tomothy S. Robinson (May 4, 1977). "CIA Elaborately Tracked Columnist". Washington Post. Retrieved December 22, 2022.
- ^ Daryl Gibson (May 24, 2022). "How this Latter-day Saint Sunday school teacher got to the top of Richard Nixon's enemy list". Deseret News. Retrieved December 22, 2022.
- ^ Jack Anderson (November 19, 1975). "Project Mudhen, or Tracking Jack" (PDF). The Washington Post via jfk.hood.edu. Retrieved December 22, 2022.
- ^ a b Robarge, David (March 2012). "The Glomar Explorer in Film and Print" (PDF). Studies in Intelligence. 56 (1): 28–29. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 26, 2012. Retrieved August 4, 2014.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Callahan, Christopher (November 2, 1988). "Jack Anderson TV Special Concludes JFK Victim Of Mob Conspiracy". AP News. Associated Press. Retrieved February 4, 2013.
- ^ a b Walker, Joseph (November 2, 1988). "Rewriting History on JFK's murder". Desert News. Salt Lake City. Retrieved April 29, 2017.
- ^ Maksian, George (November 1, 1988). "Kennedy Assassination Hot Topic This Month". Sun-Sentinel. Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Retrieved April 29, 2017.
- ^ a b c d Rosenberg, Howard (November 4, 1988). "TV's J.F.K. Remembrance Begins on a Tawdry Note". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 29, 2017.
- ^ Daley, Steve (November 17, 1988). "TV merely tarnishes JFK anniversary". Chicago Tribune. p. C1. Retrieved April 29, 2017.
- ^ "Reporter Reprimanded In Capitol Gun Incident". The New York Times. June 27, 1989. Retrieved May 5, 2010.
- ^ Shane, Scott (April 19, 2006). "F.B.I. Is Seeking to Search Papers of Dead Reporter". The New York Times. Retrieved December 14, 2014.
- ISSN 0734-7456. Archived from the originalon December 15, 2014. Retrieved December 14, 2014.
- ^ Carlson, Scott (March 2007). "In Jack Anderson's Papers, a Hidden History of Washington". Chronicle of Higher Education (March 16, 2007). Archived from the original on March 20, 2007.
Further reading
- "Jack Anderson papers, 1930–2004". Special Collections Research Center, Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library, The George Washington University. Retrieved February 19, 2011.
- Feldstein, Mark (2000). "Getting the Scoop: Memories from Journalism's Golden Age". January/ February 2000. The Washington Monthly. Archived from the original on December 4, 2010. Retrieved February 19, 2011.
{{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - Feldstein, Mark (2010). Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington's Scandal Culture. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0374235307.
- "Jack Anderson speech". Utah State University Communication Department. September 22, 1999. Archived from the original on May 4, 2006. Retrieved February 19, 2011.