Saturday, September 14, 2013

JFK Living History - Walter Mears


At the on going Living History Series at the Sixth Floor Museum the guest speaker was Walter Mears, the Pulitzer prize-winning American journalist with the Associated Press. Mears was also one of the Boys on the Bus that covered the 1972 presidential election between Richard Nixon and George McGovern. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1977 for his coverage of the 1976 presidential campaign. He has been inducted in the Associated Press Hall-of-Fame.
 
He was covering the White House when President Kennedy was shot and was one of the first to report on newly appointed President Johnson returning to the White House following the Kennedy assassination. 

Mears joined the AP in 1955, one year prior to graduating college. He reported on national politics from 1960 - 2001 and was said to be "the most influential political writer of his time." Throughout his career in journalism, he has covered 11 presidential elections. His stories have appeared in almost every American newspaper. He retired in 2001.
Today Mr. Mears participated in great conversation as directed by the Associate Curator for the Sixth Floor Museum, Stephen Fagin.  Mr. Mears told personable and humorous stories about candidates including Al Gore, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and others.  What an amazing career, and such a delightful story teller!  One of my favorite moments was his telling of being on the late, late shift covering the Cuban Missile Crisis and witnessing the first Russian ships to turn back!  We definitely plan to check out his book The Kennedy Brothers and Deadlines Past.

See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
a ruler and commander of the peoples.
Isaiah 55:4

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