Salisbury, Harrison Evans

▪ 1994

      U.S. journalist and author (b. Nov. 14, 1908, Minneapolis, Minn.—d. July 5, 1993, near Providence, R.I.), was a crack reporter for United Press (1930-48) and the New York Times (1949-73) and, after he returned from a five-year posting (1949-54) as the Times's bureau chief in Moscow, won the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for a series of articles he wrote chronicling events during the height of the Cold War and the death of Joseph Stalin. He also recounted historical events in such critically acclaimed epics as The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad (1969) and The Long March: The Untold Story (1985). During Salisbury's extraordinary career, he became the first reporter allowed into Communist Albania, North Korea, and Mongolia, and he was the first Western journalist permitted to visit Hanoi during the Vietnam war. His 1966 eyewitness accounts of the civilian and not just "surgical" bombing of sites in that country created a stir in Washington, where the Lyndon B. Johnson administration tried to discredit Salisbury's virtually irrefutable dispatches. His articles also contributed to a skepticism in the U.S. about the objective and purpose of the war. Salisbury, variously described as intrepid, indefatigable, passionately enthusiastic about his work, shrewd, reflective, and sometimes even aloof, possessed all the qualities of a "journalistic one-man band." At the Times he was in charge of the paper's national coverage (1962-64), and he served as assistant managing editor (1964-72) and associate editor (1972-73). His 1970 creation of the paper's op-ed page was a sensation, and the following year he was one of a group of top editors who sanctioned the publishing of the sensitive Pentagon Papers, which contained a history of U.S. involvement in Indochina from World War II until May 1968. A specialist on the Soviet Union and China, he wrote 29 books, 10 of them on Russia and some 6 on China. Among his offerings were Russia on the Way (1946), Moscow Journal: The End of Stalin (1961), Orbit of China (1967), War Between Russia and China (1969), Tiananmen Diary: Thirteen Days in June (1989), and The New Emperors (1992). His memoirs include A Journey for Our Times (1983) and A Time of Change (1988).

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