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Anthony Lewis

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For other people named Anthony Lewis, see Anthony Lewis (disambiguation).
Anthony Lewis
Born(1927-03-27)March 27, 1927
New York City
Died(2013-03-25)March 25, 2013 (aged 85)
Cambridge, Massachusetts
NationalityUnited States
Alma materHarvard College
OccupationJournalist
Known forwriting
SpouseMargaret H. Marshall

Anthony Lewis (March 27, 1927 - March 25, 2013) was a prominent public intellectual, who wrote for The New York Times op-ed page and The New York Review of Books, among other publications. He was previously a columnist for the Times (1969–2001). Before that he was London bureau chief (1965–1972), Washington, D.C. bureau (1955–64), and deskman (1948–1952) all for the Times. From 1952-55 he worked for the Democratic National Committee and the Washington Daily News.

Lewis authored Gideon's Trumpet, now a non-fiction classic, which told the plaintiff's story in the landmark case.

Career

His first Pulitzer Prize was in 1955, during the period of McCarthyism, for reporting on the U.S. government's loyalty program; he reported specifically on the dismissal of Abraham Chasanow, a US Navy employee who was not informed of the nature of the accusations against him, nor of his accusers. Lewis's articles led to the employee's reinstatement. This story was fictionalized in the movie Three Brave Men starring Ernest Borgnine and Ray Milland. He won a second Pulitzer Prize in 1963 for his coverage of the United States Supreme Court. He has frequently written on the Court and matters of constitutional law.

Lewis taught at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism since the mid-'70s, and has held the school's James Madison chair in First Amendment Issues since 1982. He lectured at Harvard from 1974 to 1989 and has been a visiting lecturer at several other colleges and universities, including the universities of Arizona, California, Illinois, and Oregon.

In 1983, Lewis received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award as well as an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Colby College. On January 8, 2001, he was presented with the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Clinton. On October 21, 2008, Lewis was honored by the National Coalition Against Censorship for his work in the area of First Amendment rights and free expression.

Noam Chomsky has said that Anthony Lewis is at "the far left of the spectrum" that is available in the mainstream media, and thus is useful in discovering the tacit assumptions that underlie all mainstream discussion. Henry Kissinger reportedly once said that Anthony Lewis is "always wrong", which Lewis attributed to his own open dislike of Kissinger.[2]

Personal

Lewis was born in New York City; he attended the Horace Mann School in New York (where one of his classmates was Roy Cohn) and Harvard College, where he earned a A.B. in 1948. While at Harvard, he was an editor of the Harvard Crimson.[3] He was on the board of directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists. He was Jewish and married to retired Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, who was formerly the General Counsel at Harvard University.[4] He had three children from his first marriage, Eliza, David, and Mia, and seven grandchildren: Zoe, Miranda, Lily, Thea, Evie, Beatrice and Jack. Lewis and his wife were longtime residents of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Death

Lewis died on March 25, 2013 from renal failure and heart failure at age 85.[5]

Quotations

"What future possibility could be more terrible than the reality of what is happening to Cambodia now?" -March 17, 1975

Reagan used "sectarian religiosity to sell a political program"…the "evil empire" speech was "primitive"…"a mirror image of crude Soviet rhetoric"… "What is the world to think when the greatest of powers is led by a man who applies to the most difficult human problem a simplistic theology?" -March 10, 1983

Books

Sole or primary author

Editor

  • Written into History: Pulitzer Prize Reporting of the Twentieth Century from The New York Times (Holt, 2001) (ISBN 0-8050-6849-X)

Co-author or contributor

Online articles by Lewis

Sources

References

  1. ^ http://student.cs.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/authors.php?auid=386
  2. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/magazine/23wwlnQ4-t.html
  3. ^ The Harvard Crimson, December 3, 1946
  4. ^ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1999/10/14/margaret-marshall-former-harvard-counsel-named/
  5. ^ Liptak, Adam (March 25, 2013). "Anthony Lewis, Who Transformed Coverage of the Supreme Court, Dies at 85". The New York Times. Retrieved March 25, 2013.

External links

Template:Persondata

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