Relman Morin
Relman George Morin | |
---|---|
Born | Dorothy Wright Liebes | September 11, 1907
Relman George Morin (September 11, 1907 – July 16, 1973) was an American journalist who spent most of his career writing for the Associated Press, serving as bureau chief of its offices in Tokyo, Paris, Washington, D.C., and New York.
Arrested by the Japanese in
He won the Pulitzer Prize twice, once for his Korean War reportage and once for his reportage on the Little Rock school integration crisis in 1957.[1]
Early life, education, and early career
Morin was born in
He then went to study in China, first at
Returning to the U.S., Morin wrote movie columns for the Los Angeles Record from 1932 to 1934.[2]
Career with Associated Press
He joined the Associated Press in 1934, working in its Los Angeles bureau. He would remain with the AP for almost 40 years, serving as Los Angeles editor (1934–37), Tokyo bureau chief (1937–40), Far East correspondent (1940–41), war correspondent (1942–45); and bureau chief in Paris (1945–47) and Washington, D.C. (1947–49). In New York he served as general executive at AP headquarters from 1949 to 1950; thereafter he ran AP's New York bureau until 1972.
Morin was in
He considered the
His essay "In a Schoolhouse at Rheims, Four Copies Were Signed" is an eyewitness account of
In the essay, Morin wrote: "'There are four copies to be signed.' Gen. Smith’s voice was cold, colorless, matter-of-fact. He spoke without haste. Neither tone nor cadence hinted at his feelings....There was a moment of silence, and in that moment, the scene seemed to freeze. It had the character of a picture, somehow, a queer unreality. Here was the end of nearly five years of war, of blood and death, of high excitement and fear and great discomfort, of explosions and bullets whining and the wailing of air raid sirens. Here, brought into this room, was the end of all that. Your mind refused to take it in. Hence, this was a dream, this room with the Nile green walls and the charts, the black table, and the uniformed men seated around it. The words, 'There are four copies to be signed,' meant nothing unless you forced the meaning to come, ramming it into your brain with a hard, conscious effort....And then the documents were being passed across to the Germans, and they were signing them. They were signing away the Germany Army and the Luftwaffe and the submarines. Their pens scratched and the State that was to have lasted a thousand years died."[6]
In July 1950 he went to Tokyo on assignment, and when the Korean War began he went to Korea to report from the front.[2]
He witnessed the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg on June 19, 1953.[4]
He had a
In 1957, he reported on the school integration crisis at Little Rock High School. From a phone booth near the school, he "calmly dictated" his story of "how Negro students slipped in a side entrance past an unruly mob." This won him his second Pulitzer Prize.[4]
He died in New York City.
Books
Morin wrote Circuit of Conquest (1943) about his travels in Asia and his detention by the Japanese. Reviewing the book in the New York Times, Orville Prescott called it "one of the best books on the decline and fall of Western power in the Far East" and stated that while several of the other journalists who had been detained by the Japanese had already published accounts of their experiences, Morin's book "makes up for its lack of spot news value with intelligent, considered judgment and an unusually high quality of narrative skill....About the places where he sojourned only briefly Mr Morin writes with the verve, color and sharp eye for dramatic detail of the best kind of personal travel literature. About the countries where he had opportunities for more extensive study and investigation he is penetrating, objective and highly informative."[5][4]
He also wrote East Wind Rising: A Long View of the Pacific Crisis (1960), A Reporter Reports (1960); Churchill: Portrait of Greatness (1965), Assassination: The Death of President John F. Kennedy (1968), Dwight D. Eisenhower: A Gauge of Greatness (1969), and The Associated Press Story of Election 1968 (1969).[4]
Honors and awards
In 1951, Morin won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for his coverage of the Korean War. He shared it with several other journalists for the AP, Chicago Daily News, and New York Herald Tribune who had also reported from Korea.
In 1958, he won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his coverage of the Little Rock school crisis. The citation praised "his dramatic and incisive eyewitness report of mob violence on September 23, 1957, during the integration crisis at the Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas." He shared the prize with
He twice won the
Personal life
Morin was married twice. He had a daughter, Mary Frances Morin Sasanoff (Robert), from his first marriage to Florence Pine. His second wife,
References
- ^ a b "1951". Pomona College Timeline. November 7, 2014. Retrieved July 31, 2020.
- ^ ISBN 9783110972320. Retrieved March 25, 2016.
- ^ Library of America. "Relman Morin". Archived from the original on March 7, 2012. Retrieved March 20, 2016.
- ^ a b c d e f g h The New York Times (August 24, 1945). "AP European Shifts; Gallagher Will Head Bureau in Germany, Morin in France". Retrieved March 23, 2016.
- ^ a b c d e Prescott, Orville (May 19, 1943). "Books of the Times". The New York Times. p. 23. Retrieved March 23, 2016.
- ^ Time (May 7, 2015). "Read an Eyewitness Account of the German Surrender in World War II". Archived from the original on September 7, 2015. Retrieved March 23, 2016.
- ^ Silk. "Relman Morin". Retrieved March 25, 2016.
- ^ Long Island University. "Previous Winners". Archived from the original on April 6, 2016. Retrieved March 23, 2016.
- ^ a b Fowle, Farnsworth (July 17, 1973). "Relman Morin of A.P. Is Dead; Winner of Two Pulitzer Prizes; Back in Far East". The New York Times. p. 42. Retrieved March 23, 2016.
- ^ The New York Times (September 21, 1972). "Dorothy Wright Liebes Is Dead; Noted Textile Designer Was 72; Won Acclaim for plying Hand Techniques to Mass Production of Fabrics".
- ^ The New York Times (April 22, 1948). "Relman Morin Marries". Retrieved March 23, 2016.