James Wechsler
Encyclopedia
James A. Wechsler was an American journalist.

He was a columnist and Washington bureau editor of The New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...

, and a prominent voice of American liberalism for 40 years. He was considered one of the most highly-informed and responsible political writers in Washington.

Entering Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 just shy of age 16, Wechsler graduated in 1935 after rising to editor-in-chief of the Columbia Daily Spectator
Columbia Daily Spectator
Columbia Daily Spectator is the daily student newspaper of Columbia University. It is published at 112th and Broadway in New York, New York. Founded in 1877, it is the oldest continuously operating college news daily in the nation after The Harvard Crimson, and has been legally independent of the...

. His first year he attended a speech by Columbia president Nicholas Murray Butler, who said that democracies are incapable of choosing strong leaders like totalitarian nations could, which shocked him. He was shocked again when his friend Reed Harris
Reed Harris
Reed Harris was an American writer, publisher, and U.S. government official.Harris was born on November 5, 1909, in New York City. He attended Staunton Military Academy and in 1932 graduated from Columbia College, where he edited the school newspaper, the Columbia Spectator...

 was fired as editor of the Spectator for criticizing the professionalization of college football.

Between 1934 and 1937 Wechsler belonged to the Young Communist League
Young Communist League
The Young Communist League was or is the name used by the youth wing of various Communist parties around the world. The name YCL of XXX was generally taken by all sections of the Communist Youth International.Examples of YCLs:...

 and was a leader of the pro-Communist American Student Union
American Student Union
The American Student Union was a national left-wing organization of college students of the 1930s, best remembered for its protest activities against militarism. Founded by a 1935 merger of Communist and Socialist student organizations, the ASU was affiliated with the American Youth Congress...

. He left the League after "an eye-opening trip to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

." He publicly condemned the 1939 Hitler-Stalin pact and was repeatedly attacked by official Communist organs. His conversion to anti-communism
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...

 was questioned by Senator 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 he testified before his committee in 1953 on his past adherence to Communism, naming other party members. According to journalist Michael C. Moynihan
Michael C. Moynihan
Michael C. Moynihan is an American journalist and managing editor of Vice magazine. Before that he was a senior editor of the libertarian magazine Reason. Moynihan founded the English language magazine based in Stockholm, Sweden, the Stockholm Spectator. He was a resident fellow of the free-market...

:


When Wechsler testified before McCarthy’s Senate committee, the senator’s deep paranoia was on prominent display. He suggested that Wechsler’s well-documented hostility to Stalin was an elaborate ruse. As his quarry shifted in his chair, McCarthy speculated that Post editorials critical of his committee were planted by the Manchurian editor
The Manchurian Candidate (1962 film)
The Manchurian Candidate is a 1962 American Cold War political thriller film starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh and Angela Lansbury, and featuring Henry Silva, James Gregory, Leslie Parrish and John McGiver...

: 'Perhaps the most effective way of [propagandizing for communism] would be to claim that we deserted the party and, if we got in control of the paper, use that paper to attack and smear anybody who actually was fighting Communism.'


His work earned him a place on the master list of Nixon political opponents
Master list of Nixon political opponents
A master list of Nixon political opponents was compiled to supplement the original Nixon's Enemies List of 20 key people considered opponents of President Richard Nixon. The master list was compiled by Charles Colson's office and sent in memorandum form to John Dean. Dean later provided this...

.

From 1942 to 1946 (except for one year in the US Army) Wechsler was national editor of the newspaper PM
PM
PM often means "after noon" in the 12-hour clock .PM or Pm may also refer to:-Sciences:*Particulate matter, particulates — fine dust and soot — suspended in the air...

.

In May, 1949, at the age of 33, Wechsler was named editor of The New York Post and, in an unusual arrangement, was in charge of both the news operation and the editorial page. During this period, The Post
Post
-Mail:* Mail, the postal system, especially in Commonwealth of Nations countries* Post, an entry in a blog or internet forum - see posting style-Newspapers and magazines:* New York Post, USA* The Washington Post, USA...

 became known as a crusading liberal newspaper, undertaking investigate exposes of 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...

, Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell was an American newspaper and radio gossip commentator.-Professional career:Born Walter Weinschel in New York City, he left school in the sixth grade and started performing in a vaudeville troupe known as Gus Edwards' "Newsboys Sextet."His career in journalism was begun by posting...

 and Robert Moses
Robert Moses
Robert Moses was the "master builder" of mid-20th century New York City, Long Island, Rockland County, and Westchester County, New York. As the shaper of a modern city, he is sometimes compared to Baron Haussmann of Second Empire Paris, and is one of the most polarizing figures in the history of...

, among others. In Sept., 1952, the paper published a story about a fund financed by wealthy California businessmen to supplement then-Sen. and vice presidential candidate 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 office expenses that led Nixon to respond in his famous televised Checkers speech
Checkers speech
The Checkers speech or Fund speech was an address made by Richard Nixon, the Republican vice presidential candidate and junior United States Senator from California, on television and radio on September 23, 1952. Senator Nixon had been accused of improprieties relating to a fund established by his...

.

In 1961, Wechsler was shifted to the position of editorial page editor after being replaced as editor of the news section by Paul Sann; he held that position until 1980. Besides editorials, Wechsler also wrote a regular column that continued until shortly before his death.

Wechsler published Revolt on the Campus (1936), War Propaganda and the United States (1940), and Labor Baron (1943), a biography of labor leader John L. Lewis
John L. Lewis
John Llewellyn Lewis was an American leader of organized labor who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 to 1960...

. In 1953 he published his autobiography The Age of Suspicion, explaining his rebellion against the American university system and why he chose Communism, then why he renounced it, warning of the dangers of McCarthyism
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...

.

Wechsler died of lung cancer.
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