Boyd Lewis
The Douglas P. Cooper Distinguished Contemporaries Collection | Dec 31, 2015
Douglas Cooper and Boyd Lewis, President of the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) sat in the study of Lewis' Pelham, New York home, discussing Presidential highlights of his journalistic career.
The Interview
Cooper asks Lewis to briefly summarize his journalistic career at the end of World War II and preceding. He explained how the President of the United Press (now UPI) was looking for someone to cover the Western Front for two weeks. He was selected and stayed nine months, observing the Battle of the Bulge, the bombs falling on Antwerp and the German surrender.
When he returned, he was asked to work for the Newspaper Enterprise Association, a feature service. I asked what a feature service does, and he replied that they covered everything but the local news and "spot" coverage handled by the wire services. Asking him to elaborate, he listed: news columns, features, editorial content, lifestyle reporting, cartoons, the women's section. In short, he said that if a paper had local news, a wire service and a feature syndicate, they were in business.
I knew that Lewis had visited President Kennedy recently and probed for the story. Lewis and his wife were taking a short vacation on the Cape. En route they stopped in Provincetown at the home of an old Pelham friend, Dr. Janet Travell, the doctor to the President. They played a few sets of tennis, and when Travell phoned the President and said that Lewis and his wife were there. Kennedy invited them to the Kennedy Compound in nearby Hyannis Port.
When they arrived, Jackie was lounging outside, and the President came downstairs informally dressed. After Travell had examined him, they had a discussion about world affairs and it was clear that the Soviets were in the midst of a Berlin crisis. During June-November, 1961, it was the last politico-military incident of the Cold War, wherein the USSR issued an ultimatum to get Western forces out of Berlin, leading to the construction of the Berlin Wall.
As they sat sipping coffee and discussing this new crisis, Boyd Lewis realized that this was a story that had to be written. He commandeered the nearby, small post office with its "white phone" direct to the White House and he borrowed a typewriter and batted out 3000 words in 2 1/2 hours. He filled in gaps by speaking to an aide at the D.C. end of the white phone. Next day the story appeared all over the country under Lewis' by line.
I asked Lewis about his recent visit with Johnson to deliver the latest edition of The Encyclopedia Brittanica. He said that every President had one on his desk, and that two years earlier the NEA had bought it, and as President of the NEA he was tasked with delivering to Johnson a specially-bound, Centennial edition. He arrived as Johnson was preparing to travel to New York for the funeral of Cardinal Spellman.
Lewis also saw Eisenhower from time to time after the War. He thought Ike would make a great president given his organizing abilities and capacity to get along with world leaders.
Eisenhower was complex, he felt. He had immense ability. He also was very human, not a typical characteristic visible in West Point grads. He told an anecdote about the German surrender, he asking Eisenhower what he was thinking. Ike said that there was General Jodl, looking very ordinary, yet he had helped Hitler kill 14 million people.
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The Douglas P. Cooper Distinguished Contemporaries Collection (1967-1974) contains rare interviews with influential writers, statesmen, artists, songwriters, journalists and others who have left their mark on our culture.
The Origins of The Cooper Collection
Douglas P. Cooper
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