He was a reporter on several newspapers in Connecticut and New Jersey before joining The New York Times as an editor, working primarily on the National News Desk. Subsequently, he was Man-aging Editor of American Heritage magazine and Editor-in-Chief of Publishers Weekly. He is a past president of the nation's oldest journalists' organization, the Society of the Silurians. A native of New York City, Brandt majored in history at the University of Rochester and was a member of the school's history honor society, the Morey Club. He has written many articles dealing with American history--among them, stories about Ander-sonville prison, Sergeant York, the Blizzard of '88 and the Pledge of Allegiance. He has been a freelance author since 1980, and has taught as an adjunct professor of journalism at the Graduate Schoo