Word: pegler
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Died. Westbrook Pegler, 74, newspaper columnist and for nearly 30 years wielder of U.S. journalism's most malevolent pen (see THE PRESS...
...peak of his parabolic career, Westbrook Pegler was among the best-known figures in U.S. journalism. Carried by 186 newspapers, his column reached 12 million readers, who reacted with anger or admiration or a blend of both. When he died last week in Tucson at the age of 74, Pegler had long been in eclipse. Only a handful of newspapers bothered to remark editorially on his passing-the ultimate slight to a journalist whose caustic style enlivened his times...
Iconoclastic, irascible, Pegler abused his abundant talents. His mastery of the incisive phrase and his flowing yet sardonic style made his opinions, however outrageous, a triumph of readability. At times he could be engagingly funny. He struggled over every phrase and constantly rewrote himself. He scoffed at the "deep-thinking, hair-trigger columnist or commentator who can settle great affairs with absolute finality three days or even six days a week." Yet Pegler recurrently passed devastating judgments on men-or women -with a damning epithet. Sometimes his stiletto was properly aimed. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1941 for exposing...
...most bizarre writer-v.-writer confrontation since Westbrook Pegler took on Drew Pearson. Charging that Gore Vidal waged "a campaign of persistent, false and defamatory allegations, both oral and written, that he is a Nazi," Conservative Columnist William Buckley filed suit asking for $500,000 in damages. The charges stemmed from a fang-and-claw exchange that took place on ABC-TV during the Democratic Convention last August. At one point in the debate, Vidal called Buckley a "crypto-Nazi," to which Buckley replied: "Listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I'll sock...
...CASE OF LIBEL (ABC, 9-11 p.m.). An adaptation of Henry Denker's 1963 courtroom drama based on Louis Nizer's account (My Life in Court) of the case of Quentin Reynolds v. Westbrook Pegler. Starring Van Heflin, Lloyd Bridges, Angie Dickinson. Jose Ferrer and E. G. Marshall. Repeat...