Clark R. Mollenhoff (April 16, 1921 – March 2, 1991) was aPulitzer Prize winning American journalist, an attorney who served as Presidential Special Counsel, and a columnist forThe Des Moines Register.
Born inBurnside, Iowa on April 16, 1921, to Margaret and Raymond E. Mollenhoff, Clark R. Mollenhoff graduated fromhigh school inWebster City, Iowa. He began working forThe Des Moines Register in 1942 while attendingDrake University law school, from which he graduated in 1944. Mollenhoff then served two years in the U.S. Navy before returning to theRegister.[1]
In 1955 he was given theRaymond Clapper Memorial Award for his Washington reporting.[2][3] In 1958 Mollenhoff won thePulitzer Prize for National Reporting, for a series exposing racketeering and fraud in theTeamsters Union. His work led to a successful crack-down on corruption within the Teamsters.[1]
In 1959 he received theElijah Parish Lovejoy Award as well as an honoraryDoctor of Laws degree fromColby College.
Eisenhower Fellowships selected Mollenhoff as a USA Eisenhower Fellow in 1960.
In 1965, Mollenhoff publishedDespoilers of Democracy, which provided details of corruption associated with Senate Majority LeaderLyndon B. Johnson (before he became president), in particular theBillie Sol Estes swindles and theTFX scandal of 1963, investigation into which was suspended after the assassination ofJohn F. Kennedy.
In 1969 he served for a year as Special Counsel to PresidentRichard Nixon, after which he became theRegister's Washington bureau chief.[1]
In 1976 Mollenhoff became a professor atWashington and Lee University inLexington, Virginia while continuing to write a column for theRegister.[1]
In 1988 he wrote a biography ofJohn Vincent Atanasoff, theIowa State College professor who invented the first electronic digitalcomputer in 1939. Mollenhoff's book gives the Atanasoff perspective of the 1973 federal court decision ofHoneywell v. Sperry Rand that ruled theENIAC computer patent invalid, and drew attention to Atanasoff's work.[4]
Mollenhoff wrote twelve books and won many additional awards.
While living inLexington, Virginia, Clark R. Mollenhoff died of cancer on March 2, 1991 at the age of 69.
The Clark Mollenhoff Award for Excellence in Investigative Reporting is awarded annually by theInstitute on Political Journalism for the best investigative journalism article in a newspaper or magazine.[5]
