James Reston
James Barrett Reston (November 3, 1909 – December 6, 1995), nicknamed "Scotty", was an American journalist whose career spanned the mid-1930s to the early 1990s. He was associated for many years with "The New York Times." Early life. Reston was born in Clydebank, Scotland, into a poor, devout Scottish Presbyterian family that emigrated to the United States in 1920. He sailed with his mother and sister to New York as steerage passengers on board SS "Mobile", and they were inspected at Ellis Island on September 28, 1920. The family settled in the Dayton, Ohio area, and Reston graduated from  Oakwood High School. In 1927, he was a medalist in the first Ohio High School Golf Championship. He was Ohio Public Links champion in 1931 and in 1932 was a member of the University of Illinois' Big Ten championship team. Career. After working briefly for the Springfield, Ohio "Daily News", he joined the Associated Press in 1934. He moved to the London bureau of "The New York Times" in 1939, but returned to New York in 1940. In 1942, he took leave of absence to establish a U.S. Office of War Information in London. Rejoining the "Times" in 1945, Reston  was assigned to Washington, D.C., as national correspondent. In 1948, he was appointed diplomatic correspondent. (During the August 27, 1948, radio broadcast over which he presided, his title is Pulitzer Prize–winning bureau chief.) In 1953, he became bureau chief and columnist. In subsequent years, Reston served as associate editor of the "Times" from 1964 to 1968, executive editor from 1968 to 1969, and vice president from 1969 to 1974. He wrote a nationally syndicated column from 1974 until 1987, when he became a senior columnist. During the Nixon administration, he was on the master list of Nixon political opponents . Reston retired from the "Times" in 1989. Reston interviewed many of the world's leaders and wrote extensively about the leading events and issues of his time. He interviewed President John F. Kennedy immediately after the 1961 Vienna summit with Nikita Khrushchev on the heels of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Stephen Kinzer's 2013 book "The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War" portrayed Reston as a key contact of former CIA chief Allen Dulles who had collaborated with the CIA in Operation Mockingbird, in which the agency sought to influence global reporting and journalism . Death. He died at 86 in Washington, DC. Personal life. Reston married his wife, Sally (born Sarah Jane Fulton), on December 24, 1935, after meeting her at the University of Illinois. He also was a member of Sigma Pi fraternity's Phi Chapter at Illinois. They had three sons; James, a journalist, non-fiction writer and playwright; Thomas, formerly Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for public affairs and the deputy spokesman for the State Department; and Richard, the retired publisher of the "Vineyard Gazette", a newspaper on Martha's Vineyard purchased by the elder Reston in 1968. While at Illinois , he was roommates with John C. Evans, who was also a Sigma Pi brother. Works. Reston's books include: Awards. Reston won the Pulitzer Prize twice. The first was in 1945, for his coverage of the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, particularly an exclusive series that detailed how the delegates planned to set up the United Nations. Decades later, he revealed that his source was a former "New York Times" copy boy who was a member of the Chinese delegation. He received the second award in 1957 for his national correspondence, especially "his five-part analysis of the effect of President Eisenhower 's illness on the functioning of the executive branch of the federal government". In 1986, he was one of twelve recipients of the Medal of Liberty. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1986 and the Four Freedoms Award in 1991. He was also awarded the chevalier of the Légion d'honneur from France, the Order of St. Olav from Norway, Order of Merit from Chile, the Order of Leopold from Belgium, and honorary degrees from 28 universities. Legacy. Writing in "The Washington Post" shortly after Reston's death, Bart Barnes observed that "Mr. Reston's work was required reading  for top government officials, with whom he sometimes cultivated a professional symbiosis; he would be their sounding board and they would be his news sources." But former "Times" editor R. W. Apple Jr. noted in Reston's obituary that he "was forgiving of the frailties of soldiers, statesmen and party hacks—too forgiving, some of his critics said, because he was too close to them". Reston had a particularly close relationship with Henry Kissinger and became one of his stalwart supporters in the media. At least eighteen conversations between the two are captured in transcripts released by the Department of  State in response to FOIA requests. They document Reston volunteering to approach fellow "Times" columnist Anthony Lewis to ask him to moderate his anti-Kissinger texts and offering to plant a question in a press conference for the secretary. A. G. Noornai, reviewing the 2002 biography of Reston, described how his closeness to Kissinger later damaged him further: In his review of Reston's memoir, Eric Alterman wrote in "The Columbia Journalism Review": Reston also displayed his affinity for the powerful when Edward Kennedy drove his car off the bridge at Chappaquiddick Island, resulting in the death of Mary Jo  Kopechne. Summering at nearby Martha's Vineyard, Reston filed the first account of the incident for "The New York Times"; his opening paragraph began "Tragedy has again struck the Kennedy family." Managing editor A. M. Rosenthal edited the text to make Kopechne the subject. Acupuncture. Reston wrote for the "Times" that in July 1971, he suffered appendicitis while visiting China with his wife. After his appendix was removed through conventional surgery at the Anti-Imperialist Hospital in Beijing, his post-operative pain was treated by Li Chang-yuan with acupuncture that "sent ripples of pain racing through my limbs and , at least, had the effect of diverting my attention from the distress in my stomach." , an academic translator of traditional Chinese medical texts, credits Reston's article with the rise of traditional Chinese medicine in the body of alternative medicine of the West. Cultural references. In the 1962 novel "Fail-Safe", by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, the unnamed President of the United States refers to Reston during an impending nuclear crisis when he says that "someone will crack and start to call Scotty or one of the wire services or some damn thing."