Born in New York City to William Barrett and Alice (Schneider)
McGurn in 1914, Barrett McGurn received a B.A. (1935) from Fordham University
where he was editor (1934-1935) of the student newspaper, The
Ram, and campus correspondent for the New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune. Joining the
New York Herald Tribune as a copy boy after graduation
from Fordham, he served first as a reporter and, in 1939, as an
assistant correspondent in Rome covering the Papal succession upon the
death of Pope Pius XI. Drafted into the Army in September 1942, he was
transferred to the staff of Yank after three months as a
medic with the Sixty-seventh Texas Regiment.
As Yank's South Pacific correspondent, he covered the
invasion of the Mariana Islands and General Douglas MacArthur's return
to the Philippines. Wounded while covering the second battle of
Bougainville in the Solomon Islands (1944), he received a Purple Heart
and an Army Commendation. McGurn spent the last six months of the war
as the Washington bureau chief for Yank. He later
contributed to several anthologies of Yank reporting:
The Best from Yank, 1945; Yank: A G.I. History of
the War, 1946; and Highlights from Yank, 1953.
After the war, McGurn served with the New York Herald Tribune in a number of positions: Rome bureau chief, 1946-1952 and
1955-1962; Paris bureau chief, 1952-1955; acting Moscow bureau chief,
January-March 1958; and member of the New York reporting staff, 1962-
1966. During those years he reported on events in other countries
besides Italy, France, and Russia. For example, he covered the
Hungarian revolt, 1956 (of which his eye witness account is contained
in the Overseas Press Club's anthology I Can Tell It Now, 1964), and the war in French North Africa, 1955-1958.
In early 1964 McGurn conducted a survey of New York City's problems.
His efforts led to the award-winning New York Herald Tribune
“New York City in Crisis” series, which has been
cited as an important factor in the election of John V. Lindsay as
mayor in 1965. He continued to report frequently on events concerning
Catholicism, with particular attention to the ecumenical movement
launched by Pope John XXIII. Many of these articles appeared in the
New York Herald Tribune and Catholic periodicals, e.g.
Sign Magazine and Catholic Digest.
After the New York Herald Tribune ceased publication
in 1966, McGurn served as a government information officer in American
embassies in Rome, 1966-1968, and Vietnam, 1968-1969. From 1969 to 1972
he was the White House and Pentagon liaison for the State Department,
and in 1972-1973 he was the world affairs commentator for the United
States Information Agency. In October 1973, he was appointed by Chief
Justice Warren Burger to the post of information director for the
United States Supreme Court. McGurn also published several books, including:
Decade in Europe (1959); A Reporter Looks at the
Vatican (1962); A Reporter Looks at
American Catholicism (1967); America's Court: The Supreme Court and the People (2000); and Yank, the Army Weekly, Reporting the Greatest Generation (2004). He also lectured
widely, appeared on radio and television, and contributed to several
other books and to periodicals such as This Week and
Collier's.
McGurn's position among his colleagues is indicated by his
leadership of important press organizations and by his receipt of
several awards and honors. In 1961-1962, McGurn served as the president
of Stampa Estera, an association of foreign correspondents in Italy;
his tenure marked the beginning of definite improvements in Vatican-foreign press relations. He was elected president of the Overseas Press
Club for two successive terms, 1963-1965. His awards and honors
include: the George Polk Memorial Award, 1956, for his coverage of the
war in French North Africa; the Overseas Press Club's award for the
best press correspondent abroad, 1957, for his reporting on the
Hungarian revolt; an honorary Doctor of Letters degree, Fordham
University, 1958; the Christopher Award, 1960, for Decade in
Europe; the Italian Order of Merit, 1962; the Man of the Year
Award, Catholic Institute of the Press, 1962; the Alumni Man of the
Year in Communications, Fordham University, 1963; co-winner of the
Golden Typewriter Award, New York Newspaper Association, 1965, for the
“New York City in Crisis” series; and the Page One Award,
Newspaper Guild, 1966, for the exclusive story on the visit of Pope
Paul VI to the United States in 1965.
McGurn was married twice, first to Mary Elizabeth Johnson in
May 1942, and after her death in February 1960, to Janice M.
McLaughlin in June 1962. He had three children by his first marriage
and three by his second.
McGurn died in Bethesda, Maryland, on July 2, 2010.
