Tom Wicker

Thomas Grey Wicker (June 18, 1926 – November 25, 2011) was an American journalist. He was best known as a political reporter and columnist for The New York Times for nearly three decades.

Besides writing non-fiction books about U.S. presidential history and race relations, he also wrote ten novels, including mysteries and political thrillers.^[1]

Thomas Grey Wicker was born on June 18, 1926, in Hamlet, North Carolina, to Delancey David, a railroad freight conductor, and Esta Cameron Wicker. He served in the Navy in World War II. He was a 1948 graduate of the University of North Carolina. In 1957, Wicker won a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. In 1993, he returned to Harvard, where he was a fellow at Harvard Kennedy School.

Wicker began his journalism career in 1949, first serving as editor of the small-town Sandhill Citizen in Aberdeen, North Carolina. He eventually worked for other newspapers, including The Winston-Salem Journal and The Nashville Tennessean. By the early 1960s, he had joined The New York Times. On the day of President Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, Wicker was a relatively unknown White House correspondent in Dallas.^[1] But he quickly vaulted to national prominence when he wrote The New York Times lead story the following morning, after having ridden in a press bus in the motorcade that accompanied Kennedy. In September 1964, Wicker was named Washington bureau chief for the Times upon the recommendation of his boss and mentor James Reston.^[1]

Wicker was a shrewd observer of the Washington, D.C. scene. In that capacity, his influential "In the Nation" column ran in the Times from 1966 through his retirement at the end of 1991. In a final Q & A interview with fellow Times reporter R. W. Apple, Wicker reflected on lessons he had learned during his years covering Washington. He was asked whether he had any "heroes" in political life:

I think it tends to work the other way. Which doesn't mean that I look at all those people with contempt—quite the opposite. But the journalist's perspective makes you see the feet of clay and the warts, and that's a good thing. I found them in many cases to be truly engaging human beings and admirable persons but not really, in the long run, impeccable heroes, or even just heroes without the "impeccable." We should try to see people as clearly as we can. Then if a hero does come into view, why, we can give him his due.^[2]

External videos
Booknotes interview with Wicker on One of Us: Richard Nixon and the American Dream, April 7, 1991, C-SPAN

Wicker wrote numerous books throughout his life. He is the author of several about U.S. presidents including:

• Kennedy Without Tears: The Man Beneath the Myth (1964)
• JFK & LBJ: The Influence of Personality Upon Politics (1966)
• One of Us: Richard Nixon and the American Dream (1991)
• Dwight D. Eisenhower (2002)
• George Herbert Walker Bush (2004)

Other works Wicker penned include:

• The Kingpin (1953), a novel about politics
• The Devil Must (1957), a novel
• The Judgment (1961), a novel
• Facing the Lions (1973), a novel about a presidential campaign involving a candidate modeled on Sen. Estes Kefauver
• A Time to Die: The Attica Prison Revolt (1975), this book recounted the events in September 1971 at the Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York; it won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Fact Crime book and inspired a 1980 made-for-TV movie.
• On Press: A Top Reporter's Life in, and Reflections on, American Journalism (1978)
• Unto This Hour (1984), a novel of the American Civil War, during the Second Battle of Bull Run (1862)
• Donovan's Wife (1992), a novel about the sleazy side of politics
• Prison Writing in 20th-Century America (1992)
• Tragic Failure: Racial Integration in America (1996)
• Easter Lilly: A Novel of the South Today (1998), a novel about a murder in the South
• On the Record: An Insider’s Guide to Journalism (2001)
• Shooting Star: The Brief Arc of Joe McCarthy (2006)

In addition, Wicker wrote three detective novels in the 1950s under the pseudonym "Paul Connolly":^[3]

• Get Out of Town (1951)
• Tears Are for Angels (1952)^[4]
• So Fair, So Evil (1955)

Wicker's journalism for The New York Times earned him a place on the master list of Nixon's political opponents. Wicker later wrote an essay on Richard Nixon for the book Character Above All: Ten Presidents from FDR to George Bush (1996).

Wicker was mentioned in a 60 Minutes report from the 1970s which detailed how he, along with other journalists and members of Congress who publicly supported desegregation busing, had nevertheless sent their children to Washington, D.C. private schools.^[5]

In a secret operation code-named "Project MINARET", the National Security Agency (NSA) monitored the communications of leading Americans, including Wicker and other prominent U.S. journalists, Senators Frank Church and Howard Baker, civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., and famous American athletes like Muhammad Ali who criticized the Vietnam War.^[6] A subsequent review by NSA of its Minaret program concluded that the program was "disreputable if not outright illegal."^[6]

Wicker died from an apparent heart attack, on November 25, 2011, at the age of 85.^[1]

• Ubben Lecture at DePauw University; March 12, 1993
• Tom Wicker biography via PBS.
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Tom Wicker papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library.