Journalist James Reston Dies At 86 New York Times Columnist ‘Greatest Of His Generation’

James Reston of The New York Times, one of the giants of American journalism in the 20th century and twice the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, died Wednesday. He was 86.

The legendary Times columnist and Washington bureau chief covered national and international affairs for half a century.

Thomas Reston said his father died at home in Washington D.C. of cancer after a long illness.

R.W. Apple, Washington bureau chief for the Times, said Reston was known for bringing along many talented journalists who shaped the news of the past - and who will continue to shape the news in the future.

“He was the greatest journalist of his generation,” Apple said. “And he recruited and trained two more generations of journalists at the Times and elsewhere.”

Washington Post publisher Donald Graham said “Scotty Reston was a great columnist and a great man. He broke many of the biggest stories of his time, and hired many of the best reporters. I never knew anyone more deeply admired by those who knew him best.”

Reston was a brilliant reporter and graceful writer whose access to the top politicians of his time was second to none.

Among Reston’s many accomplishments: he helped create the nation’s first Op-Ed page in 1970 - carving out the page across from newspaper editorials as a stage for columnists’ opinion pieces.

He was chief of the Times Washington bureau from 1953 to 1964. He devoted his time to writing columns after a brief stint as the newspaper’s executive editor in New York, writing his last column for the Times in 1987. He retired in 1989 on his 80th birthday.

Reston obtained the Allies’ secret proposals at the 1944 Dumbarton Oaks conference on planning the United Nations. That journalistic coup won him his first Pulitzer Prize. He won his second Pulitzer for covering the 1956 presidential campaign.

Born in Clydebank, Scotland, James Barrett Reston and his parents came to the United States, when he was 11.

He began his career as a reporter on the Springfield (Ohio) Daily News in 1932. He was a sports writer for The Associated Press in New York and London until 1939, when The New York Times hired him just as England went to war against Germany.

In 1941, he transferred to Washington to cover the State Department.

Reston succeeded Arthur Krock as Washington bureau chief, serving from 1953 until 1964, and his hires included some of the big names in American journalism - Tom Wicker, Anthony Lewis, Allen Drury and Russell Baker.