columnist

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fifth columnists was a phrase waiting to be coined, as in modern warfare fears about subversion from within went back at least as far as the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. It first appeared in 1936 when a Spanish Civil War Nationalist general told Republicans defending Madrid that, besides having four armed columns outside the capital, he had a fifth inside waiting to rise and fight for him.

German propaganda intensified the rumours that fifth columnists were at work undermining the morale and defences of the countries which the Nazis wished to conquer. Right-wing sympathizers and minority German groups (see Volksdeutsche) were particularly suspect. A well-known war correspondent wrote that Norway had fallen (see Norwegian campaign) thanks to ‘bribery and extraordinary infiltration by Nazi agents and treason on the part of a few higher Norwegian civil and military personages’; the role of parachutists, when the Netherlands was invaded in May 1940, linked them immediately to fifth column activities; and British newspapers alleged that fifth columnists were at work in the UK supported by the Peace Pledge Union among others. In the UK many anti-Nazi refugees suffered internment in the panic which ensued about fifth columnists, as they did on the Continent where a number of totally innocent people were shot as suspects during the fighting that preceded the fall of France. Fifth column rumours also swept Moscow after the Germans launched their offensive against the USSR in June 1941 (see BARBAROSSA). It became impossible to buy a street map, or obtain street directions, and anyone using a torch—or even lighting a cigarette—at night was liable to be arrested on suspicion of signalling to German aircraft.

In fact, fifth columnists were largely a myth. The Volksdeutsche did play a substantial role in the Sudetenland and in Yugoslavia during the Balkan campaign and an organized one in the Polish campaign. The activities of the Abwehr also helped fuel the rumours of fifth column activities. But virtually all the deeds of treachery with which fifth columnists were accused—and which spurred the formation of SOE—were figments of the imagination. Nazi sympathizers and spies certainly existed in all the conquered countries, but they played a minimal role in those countries' downfall.

Bibliography

Jong, L. de , The German Fifth Column in the Second World War (London, 1956).

columnist the writer of an essay appearing regularly in a newspaper or periodical, usually under a constant heading. Although originally humorous, the column in many cases has supplanted the editorial for authoritative opinions on world problems. Usually independent of the policy of the publication, the columnist is allowed to criticize political and social institutions as well as persons. Well-known American columnists have included Finley Peter Dunne, Heywood Broun , Ernie Pyle , F. P. Adams (F. P. A.), Drew Pearson , Dorothy Thompson, Arthur Krock , Westbrook Pegler, Walter Lippmann , James Reston , Joseph and Stewart Alsop , Russell Baker, Mary McGrory, William F. Buckley , Jr., Jimmy Breslin, William Safire , Tom Wicker, Ellen Goodman, Murray Kempton, and Art Buchwald . Noted newspaper columnists have included gossip columnists Walter Winchell, Louella Parsons, Liz Smith, and "Suzy" ; advice columnists Ann Landers and Abigail van Buren; economic columnist Sylvia Porter; etiquette columnist "Miss Manners" (Judith Martin); and sports columnists Lou Cannon and Red Smith .

Bibliography: See S. G. Riley, ed., Biographical Dictionary of American Newspaper Columnists (1995) and S. G. Riley, The American Newspaper Columnist (1998).

col·um·nist / ˈkäləmnist/ • n. a journalist contributing regularly to a newspaper or magazine.

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