Jack Anderson
Encyclopedia
Jack Northman Anderson was an American newspaper columnist
Media of the United States
Media of the United States consist of several different types of communications media: television, radio, cinema, newspapers, magazines, and Internet-based Web sites. The U.S...

, syndicated by United Features Syndicate
United Media
United Media is a large editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States, owned by The E.W. Scripps Company. It syndicates 150 comics and editorial columns worldwide. Its core business is the United Feature Syndicate and the Newspaper Enterprise Association...

, considered one of the fathers of modern investigative journalism
Investigative journalism
Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, often involving crime, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Investigative journalism...

. Anderson won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting
Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting
The Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting has been awarded since 1948 for a distinguished example of reporting on national affairs. The Pulitzer Committee issues an official citation explaining the reasons for the award....

 for his investigation on secret American policy decision-making between the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

 during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 was a military conflict between India and Pakistan. Indian, Bangladeshi and international sources consider the beginning of the war to be Operation Chengiz Khan, Pakistan's December 3, 1971 pre-emptive strike on 11 Indian airbases...

. In addition to his newspaper career, Anderson also had a syndicated radio show with the Mutual Broadcasting Network
Mutual Broadcasting System
The Mutual Broadcasting System was an American radio network, in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the golden age of U.S. radio drama, MBS was best known as the original network home of The Lone Ranger and The Adventures of Superman and as the long-time radio residence of The Shadow...

, acted as Washington bureau chief of Parade Magazine
Parade (magazine)
Parade is an American nationwide Sunday newspaper magazine, distributed in more than 500 newspapers in the United States. It was founded in 1941 and is owned by Advance Publications. The most widely read magazine in the U.S., Parade has a circulation of 32.2 million and a readership of nearly 70...

, and was a commentator on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

-TV's Good Morning America
Good Morning America
Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...

for nine years.

Jack Anderson was a key and often controversial figure in reporting on J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...

's apparent ties to the Mafia
American Mafia
The American Mafia , is an Italian-American criminal society. Much like the Sicilian Mafia, the American Mafia has no formal name and is a secret criminal society. Its members usually refer to it as Cosa Nostra or by its English translation "our thing"...

, the Watergate scandal
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...

, and the John F. Kennedy assassination
John F. Kennedy assassination
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...

.
He also broke open the investigation and harassment by the Nixon administration of John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...

 during the fight to deport Lennon, the search for fugitive ex-Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 officials in South America and the savings and loan crisis
Savings and Loan crisis
The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s was the failure of about 747 out of the 3,234 savings and loan associations in the United States...

. He discovered a CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

 plot to assassinate
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...

 Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...

, and was credited for breaking the Iran–Contra affair, though he has said the scoop was "spiked" because he had become too close to President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

.

Anderson was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system...

 in 1986. In July 2004, at the age of 81, Anderson retired from his syndicated column, "Washington Merry-Go-Round." He died of complications from Parkinson's disease, survived by his wife, Olivia, and nine children.

A few months after his death, the FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...

 attempted to gain access to his files as part of the AIPAC
American Israel Public Affairs Committee
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is a lobbying group that advocates pro-Israel policies to the Congress and Executive Branch of the United States...

 case on the grounds that the information could hurt U.S. government interests.

Early life and career

Anderson was born in Long Beach, California
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...

, to Orlando and Agnes Mortensen Anderson, devout Mormons of Swedish-Danish descent. He grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

, and served two years as a Mormon missionary
Missionary (LDS Church)
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is one of the most active modern practitioners of missionary work, with over 52,000 full-time missionaries worldwide, as of the end of 2010...

 in the church's Southern States Mission
Mission (LDS Church)
A mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a geographical administrative area to which church missionaries are assigned. Almost all areas of the world are within the boundaries of an LDS Church mission, whether or not Mormon missionaries live or proselytize in the area...

. Anderson's aptitude for journalism appeared at the early age of 12 when he began writing the Boy Scouts Column for The Deseret News. His writing career began at his local newspaper, The Murray Eagle
The Green Sheet
The American Eagle, later known also as Murray Eagle and The Green Sheet, was a newspaper that covered central Salt Lake Valley, especially the city of Murray, Utah. The beginnings of The American Eagle of Murray, Utah, are shrouded in mystery. The newspaper may have been published as early as 1891...

. Anderson also edited his high school newspaper, The Granitian. He joined The Salt Lake Tribune
The Salt Lake Tribune
The Salt Lake Tribune is the largest-circulated daily newspaper in the U.S. city of Salt Lake City. It is distributed by Newspaper Agency Corporation, which also distributes the Deseret News. The Tribune — or "Trib," as it is locally known — is currently owned by the Denver-based MediaNews Group....

in 1940, where his muckraking
Muckraker
The term muckraker is closely associated with reform-oriented journalists who wrote largely for popular magazines, continued a tradition of investigative journalism reporting, and emerged in the United States after 1900 and continued to be influential until World War I, when through a combination...

 exploits included infiltrating polygamous Mormon fundamentalist sects. He served in the U.S. Armed Forces
United States armed forces
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.The United States has a strong tradition of civilian control of the military...

 during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 in China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

, where he reportedly fought the Japanese
Imperial Japanese Army
-Foundation:During the Meiji Restoration, the military forces loyal to the Emperor were samurai drawn primarily from the loyalist feudal domains of Satsuma and Chōshū...

 alongside Chinese guerrillas
Guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...

 and worked on the Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

 edition of Stars and Stripes
Stars and Stripes (newspaper)
Stars and Stripes is a news source that operates from inside the United States Department of Defense but is editorially separate from it. The First Amendment protection which Stars and Stripes enjoys is safeguarded by Congress to whom an independent ombudsman, who serves the readers' interests,...

.

After a stint as a war correspondent
War correspondent
A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.-Methods:...

 during 1945, he was hired by Drew Pearson
Drew Pearson (journalist)
Andrew Russell Pearson , known professionally as Drew Pearson, was one of the best-known American columnists of his day, noted for his muckraking syndicated newspaper column "Washington Merry-Go-Round," in which he attacked various public persons, sometimes with little or no objective proof for his...

 for the staff of his column, the "Merry-Go-Round," which Anderson took over after Pearson's death in 1969. In its heyday, Anderson's column was the most influential and widely read in the U.S.; published in nearly a thousand newspapers, he reached an audience of 40 million.

He co-founded Citizens Against Government Waste
Citizens Against Government Waste
Citizens Against Government Waste is a 501 non-profit organization in the United States. It functions as a think-tank, 'government watchdog', and advocacy group for fiscally conservative causes...

 with J. Peter Grace
J. Peter Grace
Joseph Peter Grace was a multimillionaire American industrialist and conglomerateur of Irish Catholic heritage. He was president of the diversified chemical company, ' for 48 years, making him the longest reigning CEO of a public company.Born in Manhasset, New York, he succeeded his father, Joseph...

 in 1984.

Muckraker

Anderson feuded with FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...

 chief J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...

 in the 1950s, when he exposed the scope of the Mafia, a threat that Hoover had long downplayed. Hoover's retaliation and continual harassment lasted into the 1970s. Hoover once described Anderson as "lower than the regurgitated filth of vultures."

Anderson told his staff, "Let's do to Hoover what he does to others." Anderson had his people go through Hoover's garbage, which is the kind of thing FBI people used to do. Anderson's investigations were a tipping point in the attitude of the public and the press towards Hoover. Prior to Anderson's exposés few people of stature had dared to publicly criticize Hoover. After Anderson, many followed suit, and the man who had been the public persona of exemplary law enforcement became exposed for his failures and dubious activities in the areas of organized crime and civil rights, many of which were of questionable legality.

Anderson grew close to Joseph McCarthy
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...

, and the two exchanged information from sources, but when Pearson went after McCarthy, Anderson reluctantly followed at first, then actively assisted with the eventual downfall of his one-time friend.

In the mid-1960s, Anderson exposed the corruption of Senator Thomas J. Dodd
Thomas J. Dodd
Thomas Joseph Dodd was a United States Senator and Representative from Connecticut, He was the first Senator censured by the US Senate since Joseph McCarthy in 1954, and was one of only six people censured by the Senate in the 20th century. He is the father of former U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd...

 and unearthed a memo by an ITT
ITT Corporation
ITT Corporation is a global diversified manufacturing company based in the United States. ITT participates in global markets including water and fluids management, defense and security, and motion and flow control...

 executive admitting the company paid off Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

's campaign to stymie anti-trust
Competition law
Competition law, known in the United States as antitrust law, is law that promotes or maintains market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies....

 prosecution. His reporting on Nixon-ITT corruption earned him a place on the Master list of Nixon's political opponents.

Anderson collaborated with Pearson on "The Case Against Congress," published in 1969.

According to the family jewels
Family Jewels (Central Intelligence Agency)
The Family Jewels is the informal name used to refer to a set of reports that detail activities conducted by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Considered illegal or inappropriate, these actions were conducted over the span of decades, from the 1950s to the mid-1970s...

 documents, in 1971, during the Indo-Pakistani War
Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 was a military conflict between India and Pakistan. Indian, Bangladeshi and international sources consider the beginning of the war to be Operation Chengiz Khan, Pakistan's December 3, 1971 pre-emptive strike on 11 Indian airbases...

, the director of the CIA, Richard Helms
Richard Helms
Richard McGarrah Helms was the Director of Central Intelligence from 1966 to 1973. He was the only director to have been convicted of lying to the United States Congress over Central Intelligence Agency undercover activities. In 1977, he was sentenced to the maximum fine and received a suspended...

, put Anderson under tap. Jack Anderson had written two articles on assassination attempts on Castro through John Roselli
John Roselli
John "Handsome Johnny" Roselli , sometimes spelled John Rosselli, was an influential mobster for the Chicago Outfit who helped them control Hollywood and the Las Vegas Strip. Roselli was also involved with the Central Intelligence Agency plot to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro in the early 1960s...

.

Other notable topics that Anderson covered included organized crime, the Kennedy assassination, Chappaquiddick, Watergate, fugitive Nazis, the white supremacist group the Liberty Lobby and other far-right organizations, the death of Howard Hughes, the ABSCAM public corruption investigation, the investigation into fugitive financier Robert Vesco, the Iran-Contra scandal, and the activities of numerous Washington agencies, elected officials, and bureaucrats.

Retractions

In addition to his notable discoveries and breaking coverage, Anderson's reporting has included several mistakes and compelled retractions. Notably, during the 1972 presidential race, he accused Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee Thomas Eagleton
Thomas Eagleton
Thomas Francis Eagleton was a United States Senator from Missouri, serving from 1968–1987. He is best remembered for briefly being the Democratic vice presidential nominee under George McGovern in 1972...

 of multiple drunk driving arrests. Anderson subsequently retracted the accusations.

Targeted

In 1972, Anderson was the target of an assassination plot in the White House. Two Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

 administration conspirators admitted under oath
Oath
An oath is either a statement of fact or a promise calling upon something or someone that the oath maker considers sacred, usually God, as a witness to the binding nature of the promise or the truth of the statement of fact. To swear is to take an oath, to make a solemn vow...

 they plotted to poison
Poison
In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....

 Anderson on orders from a senior White House aide. White House "plumbers" G. Gordon Liddy
G. Gordon Liddy
George Gordon Liddy was the chief operative for the White House Plumbers unit that existed from July–September 1971, during Richard Nixon's presidency. Separately, along with E. Howard Hunt, Liddy organized and directed the Watergate burglaries of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in...

 and E. Howard Hunt
E. Howard Hunt
Everette Howard Hunt, Jr. was an American intelligence officer and writer. Hunt served for many years as a CIA officer. Hunt, with G...

 met with a CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

 operative to discuss the possibilities, including drugging Anderson with LSD
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...

, poisoning his aspirin bottle, or staging a fatal mugging
Robbery
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....

. The plot was aborted when the plotters were arrested for the Watergate break-in
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...

. Nixon had long been angry with Anderson, blaming Anderson's election eve story about a secret loan from Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...

 to Nixon's brother for Nixon's loss of the 1960 presidential election
United States presidential election, 1960
The United States presidential election of 1960 was the 44th American presidential election, held on November 8, 1960, for the term beginning January 20, 1961, and ending January 20, 1965. The incumbent president, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, was not eligible to run again. The Republican Party...

. Anderson remained a target of FBI investigation after his death; in February 2006, the FBI contacted Anderson's family to obtain his files and search for classified documents. The FBI agents claimed to be looking for documents pertaining to American Israel Public Affairs Committee
American Israel Public Affairs Committee
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is a lobbying group that advocates pro-Israel policies to the Congress and Executive Branch of the United States...

 (AIPAC) as part of an espionage investigation. In November 2006, the FBI quietly gave up its pursuit of the archive. The archive, as revealed in The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty, staff members and administrators....

, contains Anderson's CIA file, along with information about prominent public figures such as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Thomas Dodd, and J. Edgar Hoover.

Stunt to demonstrate lack of Capitol security

To demonstrate the threat of terrorism within the U.S. Capitol, in 1989, Anderson brought a gun to an interview in the office of then Senate minority leader
Party leaders of the United States Senate
The Senate Majority and Minority Leaders are two United States Senators who are elected by the party conferences that hold the majority and the minority respectively. These leaders serve as the chief Senate spokespeople for their parties and manage and schedule the legislative and executive...

 Bob Dole
Bob Dole
Robert Joseph "Bob" Dole is an American attorney and politician. Dole represented Kansas in the United States Senate from 1969 to 1996, was Gerald Ford's Vice Presidential running mate in the 1976 presidential election, and was Senate Majority Leader from 1985 to 1987 and in 1995 and 1996...

. This led to a reprimand and a change of rules for reporters.

Legmen and Alumni

Anderson had a staff of legmen on his payroll, who earned little but gained valuable experience. Among Anderson's legmen—reporters who actually went out into the field and gathered the information, forwarding it on to writers such as Anderson—was Brit Hume
Brit Hume
Brit Hume is an American television journalist and political commentator.For twenty years he was a correspondent for the American Broadcasting Company, including Chief White House Correspondent. He then spent ten years as the Washington, D.C. managing editor of the Fox News Channel and the anchor...

, later a reporter for ABC News
ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...

 and Washington managing editor for Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...

.

Books

  • The Anderson Papers, 1973
  • The Case against Congress (with Drew Pearson), 1969
  • Confessions of a Muckraker, 1979
  • Alice in Blunderland (with John Kidner), 1983
  • Peace, War and Politics: An Eyewitness Account, 1999
  • Control, 1989
  • The Japan Conspiracy, 1993
  • Millennium, 1995
  • The Saudi Connection (with Robert Westbrook), 2005
  • Inside The NRA, Armed and Dangerous, 1996

External links

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