Edward T. Folliard | |
|---|---|
 Folliard receiving thePresidential Medal of Freedom in 1970. | |
| Born | Edward Thomas Folliard (1899-05-14)May 14, 1899 Washington, D.C. |
| Died | October 25, 1976(1976-10-25) (aged 77) |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Nationality | American |
| Subject | The White House, national news |
| Notable awards | Pulitzer Prize for Telegraphic Reporting 1947 Presidential Medal of Freedom 1970 |
| Spouse | Helen Liston Folliard |
| Children | Michael Folliard, Nancy O'Mahony |
Edward Thomas Folliard (May 14, 1899 – November 25, 1976) was an American journalist. He spent most of his career atThe Washington Post, for which hecovered the White House from the presidency ofCalvin Coolidge to that ofLyndon B. Johnson.[1] He had friendly relations with bothHarry S. Truman andDwight D. Eisenhower that continued beyond those men's presidencies.
In addition to covering the presidency, Folliard also reported on many major news events such asCharles Lindbergh'stransatlantic flight. During World War II, he reported fromEuropean battlefronts andPOW camps.
He won several awards, including the1947 Pulitzer Prize forTelegraphic Reporting (National) and thePresidential Medal of Freedom, which was presented to him by PresidentRichard M. Nixon.
He was born inWashington, D.C. His parents had immigrated to the U.S. from Ireland. He grew up in theFoggy Bottom neighborhood and attendedpublic andparochial schools in the District.[1]
He was interested in journalism from an early age. He later said, "The newspaper bug got me and it got me bad. It devoured me!" At the age of 17 he went to work as acopyboy for the Washington bureau of theInternational News Service.
In 1917, he joined theNavy, "made 20 crossings of the Atlantic and survived the wreck of theU.S.S. Piave which sank in theStrait of Dover. He also served as a correspondent forStars and Stripes before leaving the Navy in 1919."
He began working in 1922 as a reporter for theWashington Herald. He covered police news, including "murders, fires, robberies and accidents." His first "scoop" was a story aboutWarren G. Harding's dog, Laddie Boy, who, Folliard learned, was being sneaked out of the White House by a servant to provide stud services.
He left theHerald forThe Washington Post in 1923, doing general assignments as well as reporting on the police, local politics, and national politics.[1] His earliestbylines were on articles about the cinema.[2]
He was fired from thePost in 1932. He returned to theHerald, then went back to thePost in 1934 after the paper's purchase byEugene Meyer. He remained at thePost until his retirement in 1967, and continuing to contribute occasional articles to the paper thereafter.[1] The Post's online archives contain over 5000 articles under Folliard's byline.[2]
He began covering the presidency during theCoolidge administration, later explaining that he had reported on the Coolidge White House "not as a steady thing, but at least I covered Mr. Coolidge's press conferences." He went on to coverPresident Hoover "for most of his administration." He was the Post's White House correspondent underFranklin D. Roosevelt from 1941 to the autumn of 1944, at which time he was sent to Europe to coverthe war. AfterV-E Day he resumed his duties asWhite House reporter.
Folliard was especially close toPresident Truman, saying in a 1970 interview that "knowing Mr. Truman and having the relationship I did with him enriched my life. I never felt any awe around him. He didn't want me to." Folliard pointed out that despite widespread belief "that thecivil rights movement began with Roosevelt," FDR in fact "never lost a Southern state in an election." Civil rights, he maintained, actually began with Truman, who "startedintegrating the troops in the armed services," thus alienating many southern whites.
Knowing Folliard was a Catholic, President Truman arranged for him to receive a rosary blessed bythe Pope. "Well, here's a man, lord, with all of his concerns, in fact, with the fate of the world at stake, remembering something like that," Folliard later said. "I never got over it. Of course, I've cherished that rosary. I wrote the President a note thanking him. I guess you gather from all this that Mr. Truman was a sort of a hero to me."
Folliard played a key role in the famous incident when hisPost colleaguePaul Hume criticizedMargaret Truman's singing in an article and President Truman replied with an angry letter. Hume "didn't believe it was from President Truman," but when he showed it to Folliard, Folliard identified the handwriting as Truman's. Although thePost "had no intention of ever making the letter public,"The Washington Daily News got wind of it and reported on it, whereuponPost publisherPhil Graham asked Folliard to explain what had happened toSteve Early, who was actingpresidential press secretary at the time. Folliard did go to the White House, but spoke not with Early but with presidential aide Matt Connelly.[3]
In 1955, Folliard stayed with Eisenhower for seven weeks during his recovery from a heart attack in Denver.[1]
When Truman was invited to the 1956Gridiron Club dinner, the former president declined the invitation because he did not want to encounter another invited guest, then Vice President Richard M. Nixon, who had publicly called Truman a traitor. It was Folliard to whom Truman wrote explaining his refusal to come, and it was Folliard who somehow persuaded Truman to change his mind and attend the dinner.[4]
"I was never on intimate terms withJohn F. Kennedy," Folliard said in a 1967 interview, "but knew him reasonably well." After Kennedy was elected president, Folliard "wrote a story saying that the talk about Kennedy buying his victory was nonsense." Folliard himself said, "My admiration of Kennedy is just without limit. I just think he was probably the most brilliant President of our time." Folliard acceptedPierre Salinger's claim that Kennedy had written "the whole ofhis Inaugural Address," which Folliard called "the best Inaugural speech I ever heard."[5]
Folliard reported on the 1963 White House ceremony in which Sir Winston Churchill was awardedhonorary American citizenship. "Heavy clouds floated overhead," wrote Folliard, "but the scene was brightened by some of the most luminous prose ever heard in Washington."[6]
In March 1962, Folliard wrote forAmerica magazine about the presidential prospects ofGeorge Romney, which, he noted, had been advanced by words of support from Nixon and Eisenhower. Folliard noted that Romney would be testing his electability by running forgovernor of Michigan in November 1962. In answer to the question of why the GOP would "choose a novice" when Nixon,Rockefeller andGoldwater were all available, Folliard explained that as in 1940, "the Republicans now see a popular Democrat in the White House and doubt whether any of their pros can dislodge him."[7]
Folliard was in the motorcade in Dallas whenKennedy was assassinated.[5] He wrote the page one article that ran the next day, headlined "President Kennedy Shot Dead; Lyndon B. Johnson Is Sworn In."
Folliard's friendships with Truman and Eisenhower lasted after their presidencies. In 1969, Nixon invited Folliard to come with him onAir Force One to visit Truman in Missouri for his 85th birthday.[1]
Folliard opened the August 27, 1948, episode ofNBC Radio showMeet the Press with the question toWhittaker Chambers that kept the month-oldHiss Case open through to January 1950:
FOLLIARD: Mr. Chambers, in the hearings on Capitol Hill, you said over and over again that you served in the Communist Party with Alger Hiss. Your remarks down there were privileged. That is to say, you were protected from lawsuits. Hiss has now challenged you to make the same charge publicly. He says that if you do, he will test your veracity by filing a suit for slander or libel. Are you willing to say now that Alger Hiss is or ever was a Communist?
CHAMBERS: Alger Hiss was a Communist and may be now.
FOLLIARD: Mr. Chambers, does that mean that you’re now prepared to go into court and answer to a suit for slander or libel?
CHAMBERS: I do not think that Mr. Hiss will sue me for slander or libel.[8][9]
He pursued the issue doggedly throughout the episode:
FOLLIARD: Mr. Chambers, to go back to that opening question, you accepted Alger Hiss' challenge and publicly said that he had been at least a member of the Communist Party. Does that mean that you are now prepared to go into Court and answer a suit for slander or libel?
CHAMBERS: I do not think Mr. Hiss will sue me for slander or libel.[8]
Hiss did sue Chambers, a month later. However, by year-end 1948, the U.S. Department of Justice had indicted Hiss on two counts of perjury. In January 1950, after a second trial, Hiss received a guilty verdict on both counts and went to prison.
In 1927, he covered Lindbergh's return from Paris. During theProhibition Era, he reported on abootlegger who was hiding whiskey in bushes near the White House. He witnessed the execution ofBruno Hauptmann, thekidnapper and killer of the Lindbergh baby. He traveled in the U.S. and Canada withKing George andQueen Elizabeth in the late 1930s.[1]
In 1937, Folliard reported on the existence of a secret Soviet camp in upstate New York where members of the U.S. Navy were being trained to spread Communist doctrine among their fellow seamen.[10]
Folliard covered the famous 1939 concert held byMarian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial and arranged by First LadyEleanor Roosevelt after theDaughters of the American Revolution had refused to permit the black opera singer to perform at its auditorium,Constitution Hall. "Marian Anderson stood on the steps of theLincoln Memorial yesterday, sent her matchlesscontralto voice out over the air and held a crowd of 75,000 enthralled," wrote Folliard. "It was one of the largest assemblages Washington had seen since Lindbergh came back from Paris in '27."[11]
In 1940, he went on a 7,000 mile tour of U.S. bases in the Caribbean. He felt embarrassed onDecember 7, 1941, because a piece by him appeared in thePost declaring that while the Japan situation was "threatening," diplomacy was still underway. He went to Europe in late 1944, reported on the war. He was afront-line correspondent at theBattle of the Bulge, crossed the Rhine with theNinth Army, and was in Paris onV-E Day. After V-E Day, he traveled around Germany and visited prisoner-of-war camps.[1]
In 1949 he was sent to New York to interview various gangsters for a series headlined "American Tygoons." After it appeared in about 80 newspapers, his interviewees were called to testify before aSenate committee, and two of them went to jail. In 1954, he wrote a major article about rich Texans who were making large donations to out-of-state politicians. In 1959 he accompanied Eisenhower to Rome to meet withPope John XXIII, and was selected as the "pool reporter" to witness the actual meeting.[1]
In addition to reporting for thePost, Folliard also wrote on occasion for theCongressional Digest,The American Mercury,National Geographic, andNation's Business.[1]
In 1943, he had his own radio program on stationWTOP, discussing world events.[12]
He retired officially from thePost in 1966 but continued writing for the newspaper "well into the 1970s." Among his post-retirement articles were "reminiscences of major events that he had helped to record for history – the attack on Pearl Harbor and White House reaction to it, theIron Curtain speech of Winston Churchill and summit conferences of world leaders."[1]
He wroteHistory of theFriendly Sons of St. Patrick of Washington D.C., 1928-1968.[13]
He belonged to theOverseas Writers Club, theNational Press Club, theAlfalfa Club, and theJohn Carroll Society.[1]
At various times he served as president of theWhite House Correspondents' Association and of theGridiron Club.[1]
During a 1962 conversation with FrenchMinister of Cultural AffairsAndré Malraux, Folliard suggested the idea of sending theMona Lisa to the U.S. to be exhibited temporarily at theNational Gallery. Malraux liked the idea, First LadyJacqueline Kennedy made the arrangements, and Folliard accompanied the painting across the Atlantic aboard theSS France.[1]
Secretary of WarRobert P. Patterson honored war correspondents, including Folliard, at an event in Washington, on November 23, 1946.[14]
Folliard was awarded the1947 Pulitzer Prize for Telegraphic Reporting (National) for a series of articles published during the previous year about the Columbians, Inc., aneo-Nazi group inAtlanta.
He had been asked by Philip Graham, who by then had become thePost's publisher, to investigate the group. For the articles, Folliard spent a week in Atlanta interviewing the group's leaders, attending their mass meetings, and listening to their "tirades against Negroes, Jews, the Communists, the rich, and newspaper editors who don't share their views on 'Anglo-Saxon culture.'" The members of the group, he wrote, "dress and swagger in the manner ofstorm troopers," and their arm patches bore insignias reminiscent of those onSS uniforms.[12] When he won the prize, the editors of thePost wrote in an editorial: "Broadly speaking, good newspaper reporters tend to fall into one of three categories – those whose primary value lies in their ability to uncover important news; those whose value lies primarily in their skill in writing the news, and finally those who have a special aptitude for interpreting the news, that is, for discerning and clarifying the meaning that underlies the superficial facts. Mr. Folliard is one of those rare and invaluable journalists who combines in themselves all three gifts."[1]
In 1959, he won the 15th annualRaymond Clapper Memorial Award for distinguished Washington reporting during the year 1958. The award was for a story about gas bill lobby funds.[15]
He also won the WashingtonNewspaper Guild Award for human interest and interpretive reporting.
In 1970 he was awarded thePresidential Medal of Freedom by President Nixon as one of seven persons whom Nixon called "giants of journalism".
In 1971 he was one of 12 correspondents named charter members of the Hall of Fame established by the Washington Professional chapter ofSigma Delta Chi, the journalism society.[1]
He was married to Helen Liston Folliard. They had a son, Michael, and a daughter, Nancy O'Mahony.[1] He was aRoman Catholic.
Jack Shafer wrote in 2014 that in 1962,Tom Wicker, then an aspiring journalist, asked Folliard "for advice on a political assignment he was working on." Folliard told him that "if you're going to be a political writer, there's one thing you'd better remember. Never let the facts get in your way."[16]
He kept using his oldUnderwood typewriter after thePost newsroom had replaced them.[17] According to hisPost obituary, Folliard "refused to observe margins or to triple space his copy," turning in "some of the 'dirtiest' copy," typed "on an ancient typewriter, long in disrepair, that he insisted on using." He also "refused to part with his antique,upright telephone" on which he had dictated his Pearl Harbor andVJ stories."[1]
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