The Reporter Who Knew Too Much

November 15, 2012
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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)