Nathan Solon Finney (October 10, 1903 – December 18, 1982),^[1] who wrote under the nameNat S. Finney, was an American journalist. He spent long periods as a Washington correspondent for theMinneapolis Tribune and, later, theBuffalo Evening News. A specialist oneconomics andnuclear energy, he coveredatomic tests in the Pacific, was the first journalist to visitLos Alamos National Laboratory, and was the first to report onSoviet missiles in Cuba.^[2][3]

In 1948, he won aPulitzer Prize for National Reporting.^[2]

Born and raised inStewartville, Minnesota, Finney received a B.A. degree from theUniversity of Minnesota in 1927.

He started his career in journalism in 1925 as a cub reporter for theMinneapolis Star. From 1929 to 1930, he worked for the publishing houseHarcourt, Brace & Co. He then returned to theStar, becoming city editor of that paper. Later, he worked as feature and picture editor of theMinneapolis Star Journal.^[1]

Finney went toWashington, D.C., in 1941 to work as acorrespondent for theMinneapolis Tribune andLook magazine. His articles for theTribune were often reprinted inThe Des Moines Register, among other places.

In 1950, he relocated toMinneapolis, where he became an editorial-page writer forThe Minneapolis Star.

In 1953, he returned to Washington as a correspondent forThe Buffalo Evening News. He remained there until his retirement in 1968.^[2]

In 1944, Finney was the only member of the Washingtonpress corps to correctly predict the number of electoral votes thatFranklin D. Roosevelt would receive in that year's election. In 1947, he filed "Assignment: Britain," a series of stories from Britain aboutthat country's postwar problems.^[1]

He was the first newspaper reporter admitted to the formerly top secretatomic bomb laboratory atLos Alamos, New Mexico, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, in 1945. Later he coveredatomic tests at Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific Ocean. He reported from theAtoms for Peace Conference inGeneva in 1955.^[3]

Finney was also the first newsman to report, on August 16, 1962, that the Soviet Union was placing missiles in Cuba. The report led to the historic confrontation between the Kennedy andKhrushchev governments that ended with the removal of the missiles. Later, while PresidentRichard Nixon was visitingMoscow, Finney was one of two American reporters to be arrested bySoviet secret police. After Nixon intervened, Finney was released.^[3]

During the postwar years, Finney contributed several long-form articles to theBulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

The April 1954 issue of theBulletin of the Atomic Scientists included Finney's article "Atomic Dilemma." After more than a year in the White House, complained Finney,President Eisenhower had yet to make clear to the American public the extent ofU.S. "atomic capabilities".^[4]

In September 1954, theBulletin of the Atomic Scientists ran an article, "The Threat to Atomic Science," consisting of excerpts from several of Finney's recent pieces for theBuffalo News. Writing against the background of theRobert Oppenheimer case, which had resulted in the withdrawal of official security clearances from the scientist who had run the Los Alamos lab, Finney wrote about the often intense disagreements between atomic scientists and their military and government superiors about such matters as unclear or uncertain government objectives, the alleged "pampering" of certain prominent professors, poor coordination and communication, wasteful duplication of scientific efforts, and officials' desire for closer supervision of projects versus scientists' desire for greater independence.^[5]

Finney contributed an article, "A Reporter's Views on Atomic Secrecy," to the September 1955 issue of theBulletin of the Atomic Scientists. "The time has come," he argued, "for the federal government generally and theAtomic Energy Commission specifically to shift from a negative to an affirmative information policy." Current policies, he suggested, had "stifled popular interest in and speculation about nuclear physics," thus stifling, in turn, "public understanding" of nuclear science. To be sure, the AEC had "done an excellent job helping the country's schools get up-to-datenuclear physics into their curricula." But too many scientists were still counterproductively critical of efforts to communicate the essence of their work in prose that would make it understandable and engaging to the lay readers. Finney proposed that the AEC employ three or four individuals capable of explaining new discoveries to general reporters in such a way that the latter could pass on important information to newspaper readers in cogent and comprehensible form.^[6]

On a 1959 episode ofFace the Nation, Finney questioned CongressmanChet Holifield of theJoint Committee on Atomic Energy about the potential perils of nuclear testing.^[7]

In a 1965 issue ofThe Saturday Evening Post, Finney reviewed SenatorCharles E. Potter's memoirDays of Shame, in whichMcCarthyism was a central topic. He called it "must reading" that added new details and provided insight into President Eisenhower's "perplexity".^[8]

In 1947, Finney won theRaymond Clapper Memorial Award for outstanding Washington reporting.^[9][1]

In 1948, during his tenure as a Washington reporter forThe Minneapolis Tribune, Finney was one of two journalists to share the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. Finney's award was in recognition of "Move Seeks to Restore Wartime Gag," an account, published on October 19, 1947, of efforts by theTruman Administration to impose censorship on U.S. agencies during peacetime.^[2]

He was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the journalistic fraternity,Sigma Delta Chi, in 1975.^[3] Finney was president of theGridiron Club in 1968. He also belonged to theNational Press Club.^[3]

He was married for 41 years to Flora (Edwards) Finney, who died in 1971.^[3]

• 1903 births
• 1982 deaths
• Journalists from Minnesota
• Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting winners
• 20th-century American journalists
• 20th-century American male journalists

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata