PEARSON, DREW 1896-1969

Journalist

Muckraking Journalist

Drew Pearson served as one of Washington's premier muckraking journalists for over thirty years, writing the syndicated column "Washington Merry-Go-Round," first with Robert S. Allen and later with Jack Anderson.

World Journey

Pearson was born in Evanston, Illinois, to a Quaker professor who served as governor of the Virgin Islands. After graduating from Swarthmore College in 1919, Pearson traveled to post—World War I Europe to learn about diplomacy but instead became the director of relief in the Balkans for the British Red Cross. In 1921 he returned to the United States. In 1922 he began a self-financed world journey, signing on as seaman on the merchant vessel S.S. President Madison for a journey to the Far East. He jumped ship in Yokahama, Japan, and traveled for two years in Japan, the Soviet Union, China, the Phillipines, Australia, New Zealand, and India.

Newspaper Beginnings

During his travels Pearson began publishing his impressions in Australian newspapers. In 1923 he continued his travels into Europe and gained a newspaper syndicate contract. His most important work from this period was his interview series Europe's Twelve Greatest Men. In 1925, after a trip to Japan and China, he married, and the next year he took a job on the staff of the United States Daily newspaper. With this position Pearson began his rise in the world of Washington journalism. In 1928 he traveled with Secretary of State Clark Kellogg on trips to Paris and Dublin and with President Calvin Coolidge to Havana.

Washington Merry-Go-Round

In 1929 he joined the staff of the Baltimore Sun and continued his work as a diplomatic and foreign-affairs reporter. During the presidency of Herbert Hoover and the first years of what became the Great Depression, Pearson became friends with Robert Allen, the Washington bureau chief of the Christian Science Monitor. The two often met and discussed ways to print inside stories of Washington politics that their respective papers refused to publish. In 1931 they wrote and published anonymously Washington Merry-Go-Round, a compilation of rumor and gossip that caused an uproar in official Washington circles. A sequel, More Washington Merry-Go-Round, was published in 1932, but the identity of the authors was revealed, and both Pearson and Allen were dismissed from their jobs.

Daily Column and Radio

Faced with unemployment Pearson and Allen signed with United Features Syndicate to produce a daily "Washington Merry-Go-Round" column. By 1941 it was printed in 350 papers around the world. In February 1941 they began a weekly radio broadcast on NBC that Pearson claimed was a safeguard against censorship efforts by the syndicate or by individual papers. A liberal with a controversialist edge, Pearson campaigned for internationalism abroad and civil rights at home. During the war he had impeccable sources within the War Department and the intelligence groups. In April 1941 he predicted the breakdown of the Nazi-Soviet pact and the German invasion two months before these events happened. In 1943 Pearson broke the story of Gen. George S. Patton striking a soldier who was suffering from battle fatigue.

Nobel Prize Nomination

In 1947 Pearson organized a public movement to donate food for the war survivors in Europe. His talent for publicity and self-promotion was so successful that seven hundred train-car loads of food were distributed in Italy and France through his efforts. He received most of the credit and was nominated for the 1947 Nobel Peace Prize. But he was best known after the war for his attacks on the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), on which he was relentless from the beginning. Pearson was such a thorn in the side of Sen. Joseph McCarthy that in December 1950 McCarthy attacked him physically.

Continuing Influence

Pearson's career continued into the late 1960s; where his influence waned in one degree, it continued in another. After Allen quit the "Washington Merry-Go-Round" during the war, Pearson continued the column on his own. In the late 1940s he recruited a young newspaperman, Jack Anderson, to work with him on it. Anderson, who ended up on President Richard Nixon's enemies list in the early 1970s, was a muckraker in Pearson's image. He was not, however, nearly as principled. It is in his tactics and his doggedness that Pearson's influence lives.

Source:

Oliver Pilat, Drew Pearson: An Unauthorized Biography (New York: Harper's Magazine Press, 1973).

Drew Pearson 1897–1969, American journalist and radio commentator, b. Evanston, Ill. He traveled around the world as a correspondent before joining the Baltimore Sun in 1926. Pearson gained national prominence with his syndicated column, "Washington Merry-Go-Round," which he began with Robert S. Allen in 1932 and later wrote with Jack Anderson . The column featured sensational exposés of government figures. Pearson's books include The Case against Congress (1968) and a novel, The Senator (1968).

Bibliography: See his diaries, ed. by T. Abell (1974); biography by O. Pilat (1973).