Correspondent, columnist, editor, author, and one-time president of the American Newspaper Guild, Kenneth Gale Crawford was one of the most prominent and well-respected political journalists of his era. Benjamin Bradley of the Washington Post once called him “a shining example” for his “dedication to lean, explicit prose, and to fairness and integrity.”
Crawford was born in Sparta, Wisconsin, on May 27, 1902, the son of Robert and Madge Gale Crawford. He grew up in Jefferson, Wisconsin and attended Beloit College, where he was a member of Sigma Chi and the president of his graduating class. After receiving his degree in journalism in 1924, Crawford went to work for the United Press holding a succession of assignments as reporter and bureau manager in St. Paul, Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and Lansing. While in Lansing, he met his future wife, Elizabeth Bartholomew, whom he married in July 1928.
In 1927 Crawford was transferred to Washington where he covered the White House and the Senate, before being assigned to the campaign of Senator Charles Curtis, Herbert Hoover's vice-presidential running mate. After a brief interval (1929-1930) as political editor of the Buffalo Times, Crawford returned to Washington as a correspondent for the New York Post, the Philadelphia Record, and other newspapers. In addition, he wrote a regular bylined column for The Nation and anonymously contributed to the New Republic's “TRB” column.
In 1939 Crawford joined the liberal PM in New York as its Washington correspondent. That same year he was elected president of the American Newspaper Guild after the death of its founder and first president, Heywood Broun. During Crawford's year as president he faced several problems including efforts to maintain “closed shop” newsrooms and the growth of communism within the Guild. This latter issue ultimately cost Crawford his reelection at the 1940 ANG convention.
After the outbreak of World War II, Crawford went to North Africa as a war correspondent for PM. Crawford broke with his paper over his interpretation of the Darlan affair and, as a result, became a correspondent for Newsweek. Crawford covered assignments in the Middle East, Italy, England, and France. On D-Day he was the first American correspondent ashore and the first correspondent to file a story on the invasion. He also covered the V-1 and V-2 attacks on England, the break-out from Normandy at St. Lo, and General George Patton's sweep to Paris. For his service as a war correspondent, Crawford was commended by both the U.S. Army and Navy and awarded the French Liberation Medal.
Upon his return to Washington, D.C., Crawford served as an associate editor for Newsweek before moving to New York in 1949 as national affairs editor. Five years later he returned to the nation's capital, where, as bureau manager, he regularly ghosted articles and columns. In 1961 he began writing the weekly “Washington” column under his own name. For the next ten years this column was noted for its astute commentary on the American political scene. In 1962 Crawford traveled to Vietnam to provide first-hand coverage of the situation there. Following his retirement in 1970, Crawford continued to be active in the profession as a contributor to the Washington Post.
In addition to his work as a correspondent and columnist, Crawford was a popular public speaker and a guest on political panels and radio programs. His speeches and freelance editorials and articles appeared in the New York Times, the New York Post, The Progressive, the Daily Worker, The Saturday Evening Post, the New Republic, and many other publications. Crawford was the author of two books: The Pressure Boys (1939), a pioneering but controversial study of lobbying, and Report on North Africa (1943), which concerned his observations of the diplomacy during the war in that theater.
Kenneth Crawford died of lung cancer on January 13, 1983 at the age of 80. He was survived by his wife and his two children, William and Gale.
