Well known as a political conservative, Pulliam was a delegate to the Republican national convention in 1952 that named General Dwight D. Eisenhower as the Republican Party's presidential nominee. Pulliam was also an outspoken advocate of freedom of the press. Pulliam wrote and published "Window on the Right," a syndicated domestic-affairs column during the 1960s; wrote "The Unchanging Responsibility of the American Newspaper in a Changing Society" (1970); "The People and the Press: Partners for Freedom" (1965), coauthored with Frederic S. Marquardt; and "South America, Land of the Future, Jewel of the Past" (1951), coauthored with his wife, Nina Mason Pulliam. Pulliam was the father of newspaper publisher Eugene Smith Pulliam; Martha Corinne (Pulliam) Quayle, the mother of Dan Quayle, the 44th Vice President of the United States; and Helen Suzanne (Pulliam) Murphy. He was a trustee of DePauw University, a three-term member the Associated Press's board of directors, and a member of New York Central Railroad's board of directors, as well as a founder of the Phoenix Zoo.