MARGUERITE HIGGINS: JOURNALIST 
1920-1960 

by 
Kathleen Kearney Keeshen ... 

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Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School 
of the University of Maryland in partial fulfillment 

of the requirements for the degree of 
Doctor of Philosophy 

1983 

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APPROVAL SHEET 

Title of Dissertation: 

Name of Candidate: 

Marguerite Higgins: Journalist 
1920-1966 

Kathleen Kearney Keeshen 
Doctor of Philosophy, 1983 

Dissertation and Abstract Approved: 

Date Approved: ;/e;/..:J 

on 0. Lounsbury 
Associate Professo 
American Studies 

Program 



© Copyright Kathleen Kearney Keeshen 1983 



Title of Dissertation: 

ABSTRACT 

Marguerite Higgins: Journalist 
1920-1966 

Kathlee n Kearne y Keeshen, Doctor o f Philosophy, 1983 

Dissertation dire cted by: Dr. Myron 0. Lounsbury 
Associate Professor 
American Studies Program 

The purpo se of this dissertation is to explore the 

journalistic c a reer of Marguerite Higgins from 1940 to 

1966, t o analyze her notions of news and news writing and 

of the duties of a journalist, and to assess her 

contributions to the field of American journalism. 

Marguerite Higgins was the first woman to win a 

Pulitzer Prize in journalism for international reporting. 

Her award recognized her war correspondence from Korea, 

where she firmly established the acceptance of women 

covering the news from the battlefield. 

Higgins contributed to mid-twentieth century jour-

nalism in signficant ways: she wrote hundred of articles 

for newspapers and periodicals over the twenty-five years 

of her career. Her work ranged from cub reporting on the 

Vallejo (California) Times-Herald, to a twenty-one year 

career with the New York Herald Tribune, to the rank 

of syndicated columnist with the Newsday Syndicate in the 

early Sixties. 



A graduate of the University of California at 

Berke ley and of Columbia University's Graduate School of 

Journalism in 1942, Higgins d emonstrated that a woman 

could handle the professional demands and responsibil­

ities of fast-paced and often danger-filled journalism. 

In addition to her front-page newspaper stories, 

Higgins described events of the times in scores of 

periodicals and in a number of books that include War in 

Korea: Report of a Woman Combat Correspondent (1951); 

News Is a Singular Thing (1955); Red Plush and Black 

Bread (1956); and Our Vietnam Nightmare (1965). In 

addition in 1962, she wrote a juvenile, Jessie Benton 

Fremont, and with Peter Lisagor, in 1963, described 

experiences of some State Department representatives in a 

collection called Overtime in Heaven: Tales of the 

Foreign Service. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 
Chapter Page 

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii 

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 

I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 

v. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

x. 

XI. 

XII. 

XIII. 

XIV. 

Early Years ........................... . 

Berkeley: The Makings of a Journalist . 

Readying for the Race: Cub Reporter to 
Foreign Correspondent ............ . 

Foreign Correspondence: Dispatches from 
war-Torn Europe .................. . 

Assignment in Germany ................. . 

Berlin Airlift ........................ . 

Korea ................................. . 

The Pulitzer and Its Aftermath ........ . 

Marguerite, Marriage and Motherhood ... . 

Washington: Early Fifties ............. . 

Washington: Late Fifties .............. . 

Washington: Early Sixties ............. . 

Vietnam ............................... . 

Summation ............................. . 

Appendix A. world war II Accredited Women 

Appendix B. 

Appendix C. 

Appendix D. 

Appendix E. 

Reporters ..................... . 

Dachau Liberation ............... . . 

Nuremberg War Trials Coverage 
1. November 20, 1945 ........... . 
2 . November 22, 1945 ........... . 
3. November 24, 1945 ........... . 

Inchon Landing .................. . . 

Crest Testimonial ................ . 

10 

35 

57 

73 

129 

159 

175 

236 

271 

289 

312 

338 

358 

403 

411 

414 

416 
418 
421 

425 

429 

Personal Interviews and Correspondence ........... 431 

Selected Bibliography ........................... . 
Official Documents Consulted ....... ......... ..... 

437 

456 



PREFACE 

A study of Marguerite Higgins's career as a journal­

ist, author, columnist and l e cturer from 1940 to 1966, is 

important for a number of reasons. As one of the most 

successful and we ll-known women journalists in the 

Twentieth Century practicing her craft during a period of 

open sex discrimination, the patterns of her life suggest 

possible paths for success for women journalists of 

succeeding generations. Characteristics common to both 

success ful men and women journalists emerge through an 

examination of those she possessed and exhibited. 

Studying the circumstances and events surrounding 

her contributions may shed light on the experiences of 

her women peer contemporaries and women journalists of 

the future. Finally, an examination of the fame and 

reknown she gained may provide insights to the process of 

how journalists on occasion become public figures in 

American society. 

This study is characterized by a number of impedi­

ments for a researcher. Little critical assessment of 

her work and contributions exists. Much of what has been 

written is drawn from her own statements, her 

autobiography and other self-description, usually 

appearing as short vignettes in collections. Sources for 

her own statements include her published writings -­

newspaper articles, books, magazine pieces and columns. 

Correspondence, as existent in the Margueri te Higgins 



iv 

Collection in the George Arents Research Library at 

Syracuse University, is sparse. In addition, no 

extensive study has yet been conducted. Existing 

descriptions then must be considered subjective and open 

to scrutiny. 

This study investigates her contributions as a 

mid-century American woman journalist from the points of 

view of a number of witnesses: her journalistic peers, 

through their remembrances and descriptive anecdotes; her 

profession's accepted leaders, by the process of their 

selection of her for honors, awards and recognition from 

among her contemporaries; her family and friends, out of 

recollections of incidents that reflect her character and 

motivation; her public, as exemplified by their response 

to her newspaper stories and columns, speeches and books; 

her .professional superiors, based on their assessments of 

her work and observations on her contributions; 

professional critics, as described in their evaluations 

and assessments of her individual works; on those books, 

articles and other material she wrote, and on the record 

itself, through the facts and impressions these 

information sources reveal about her . 

This study also seeks to explore the question of to 

what extent, if any, being a woman in a traditionally 

men's profession obstructed her attainment of profes­

sional objectives, recognition and acceptance. 



V 

Conversely, it also will examine what advantages, if any, 

accrued to her in this regard because of her sex. This 

study also examines the personal conflicts Marguerite 

Higgins experienced in attempting to reconcile the 

demands of a writing career, personal emotional 

fulfillment and family responsibilities. Her ambitions 

and aspirations in any one major endeavor, by her own 

descriptions as well as the observation of others, would 

suggest the possibility of success only through a 

single-minded pursuit of each to the exclusion of the 

others. By contrast, her goals were for a success in 

e very single sphere and for a success superior to that 

enjoyed by peers and role models, in all areas. Within 

the spheres of career , self-satisfaction and family, the 

results of her self-imposed standards will be examined. 

The self-imposed necessity for her not only to be 

recognized as a top ranking newspaper reporter, but also 

as a public figure, provided complications for her. The 

need to appear not only under her newspaper's banner, but 

as a book author, magazine article contributor and 

television show participant reflect the life-long drive 

and ambition she nurtured. In selecting a husband, as a 

practicing professional, her choice would be complicated 

by her spouses's previous marriage and family and a lack 

of financial resources. By the same token, though f e w 

practicing women journalists of her time combined their 



VI 

strenuous and demanding careers with motherhood, her 

desire for a family would lead to three full-term 

pregnancies while she fulfilled day-to-day reporting 

requirements. Later, as mother of two surviving children 

and the wife of an important military general, himself 

somewhat of a public figure, her life oscillated between 

the satisfactions of recognition and the conflicts 

inherent in competing demands. Her response to the 

conflicts will be examined through her own 

autobiographical statements in books and articles, the 

comments of observers and the record itself as it is 

available in existing documentation. 

Her role as a woman member of the journalistic 

profession will be examined from several views: her 

interpretation of the role of a journalist, man or woman; 

her assessment of the expectation held for women as 

journalists and her reaction to that expectation; the 

expectation male journalists held for women ; the role of 

women in newspapers of her time as described in her 

writings, by other participants and in documentation such 

as written statements and official accounts in published 

sources. 

In addition to her own statements of perceived 

discrimination and, in some cases, preference, because of 

her sex , statements of her contemporaries such as 

Kathleen McLaughlin of The New York Times, Toni Howard of 



V(l 

Newsweek, Sonia Tomara of the New York Herald Tribune, 

Helen Kirkpatrick of the Chicago Daily News, and Tania 

Long of the Herald Tribune, will be examined. Her 

relationships with reporter peers, editors and publishers 

will be described, as well as her unique approach to 

newsgathering in technique and performance. 

Additionally, this study seeks to identify the 

unique contributions Marguerite Higgins made to American 

journalism in becoming a public figure as a Twentieth 

Century woman journalist and to explain the significance 

of that role for women to follow. In this regard, her 

life as a public person will be examined through media 

reports as well as the counterpoint of recollections and 

assessments of family, old friends and professional 

acquaintances who knew her over the years. Their 

recollections, where possible, will be compared to the 

record, as it exists. The study will explore the 

influences of her life and the effects of those 

influences, in an attempt to explain what her underlying 

and unstated motivations may have been. In addition, her 

ultimate professional achievements will be related to her 

private pursuits, victories and disappointments. Again, 

much of the available information is subjective in 

nature. Comparisons of her statements and those of 

observers will be made, where possible, to existing 



viii 

documentation and to the recollection of others present 

at the time. 

The views of men in positions of authority -- both 

in the field of journalism and in official capacities 

interacting with women journalists -- will be included as 

a measure of the environment in which she and other women 

journalists of the period worked. In this regard, the 

self-assessments of women peers will also be reviewed. 

Marguerite Higgins's writing style and reportorial 

techniques will be examined, although it may not be 

possible to know from the finished products of her work 

what refinements of editors, rewrite personnel and others 

in the publications process are included. Few of her 

original manuscripts, and none of any signficicant 

length, remain. While journalists are assumed to possess 

basic writing skills and the ability to produce succinct, 

clear and accurate descriptions of events, style, always 

desirable, often may be of less importance to an 

editorial staff than displayed initiative, accuracy, 

vitality, ingenuity and responsiveness to unfolding 

newsworthy events by a reporter, as John Hohenberg, 

formerly of Columbia University's Graduate School of 

Journalism, among others, has cited. (See, for example, 

his text, The Professional Journalist: A Guide To The 

Practices And Principles Of The News Media, published by 

Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973.) In the case of war 



correspondence, f or which Mar guerite was particular ly 

well known, courage and the ability to write under 

pressure were added values. Good reporte rs must also 

have the ability to understand the complex ities of the 

subjects they write about, including the ability to 

discern fact from fiction, quickly, with accuracy, and in 

proper perspe ctive to the overall body of knowledge in 

the particular subject area. In addition to general 

knowledge, a reporter's ability to perservere in pursuing 

questions beyond the obvious and in cultivating contacts 

and sources for cross-che cking, as well as for obtaining 

future information, are vital reporting tools. The 

extent to which Marguerite practiced these reportorial 

techniques will be examined through her own descriptions, 

those of others and the record itself. In addition, the 

increasing monetary value of Marguerite's contributions 

for her newspaper, magazine and book publishing endeavors 

and the extent of her editors' repeated use of her 

writing will also be described as an additional measure 

of her writing effectiveness. 

Since the most signficant body of her work was daily 

newspaper reporting, which traditionally, as well as 

ideally, seeks objectivity and freedom from personal 

opinion, the development of her political and ideological 

thought is difficult to discern from her non-autobio-

graphical writing. Glimpses into her political 



X 

pursuasions come rather from her writings as a columnist 

in the last two year s of her life and descriptions of her 

own development . (See, among others , John Hohenberg's 

text, mentioned earlier, W. G. Bleyer ' s The Profession Of 

Journalism, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1918; e t 

a l.) Somewhat more useful in this regard may be an 

assessment of her last book, Our Vietnam Nightmare , 

described by some as a polemic and yet perhaps as 

revealing a document as any suggesting he r political 

stance . Once more, personal assessments of family , 

friends and professional peers have been sought to 

supplement the scanty evidence available. 

Given the existing research difficulties, this study 

nevertheless will attempt to place Marguerite Higgins and 

her contributions in a framework of Twentieth Century 

journalism. It will attempt to assess both in terms of 

t heir signficance to the broad field of U.S. journalism 

in general and the specfic practice of journalism by 

women in that field. 



INTRODUCTION 

Marguerite Higgins, one o f the mos t successful woman 

journal i sts of the twe ntieth century, was bo rn on 

September 3, 1920, in the British Crown Colony of Hong 

Kong. Her pa rents were an adventurous Irish-American 

busine ssman, Lawrence Daniel Higgins, and his French war 

bride, the former Marguerite de Godard. She was a child 

of relative privilege, though modest circumstances, and 

grew up shutt l ing between America and France during the 

Depression and post-Depression years. She was thus 

blessed with the opportunity for e xceptional experience s 

and a wide ranging education . At the same time, she was 

profoundly affected by the engulfing results of America's 

economic misery. 

Throughout her life, she was dogged by the fear of 

poverty and the need for financial security. For this 

reason, she held the worlds of the wealthy and powerful 

in especially high esteem, and her ambition for profess­

ional succe ss was matched by a burning desire to be 

accepted in these worlds. 

Although of an enigmatic and complex nature, she was 

often portrayed as a simple, stereotypical "lady report­

er.'' Many saw her sharing a likeness to the comics' 

Brenda Star. Marguerite, like Starr, struck observers as 

being beautiful, charming and exceedingly intelligent. 

Marguerite was also aggressive, daring and relentless in 

pursuing the news. Successful as few women reporters 



2 

before or since have been, Marguerite Higgins relished 

her reputation and success, however described. 

Far from being a stereotype, however, Marguerite was 

very much an individual, independent in intellect, 

fierce, tough-minded, discerning and gifted, with an 

abundance of good health and great natural energy. Often 

that energy, together with her enormous spontaneity, led 

her into quandries where the more circumspect would not 

have wandered. 

She proved an able competitor for the best men 

journalists of her time, but thought nothing of trading 

on her femininity if the occasion warranted. In fact, 

she believed the trading somewhat evened the score. 

Being a woman journalist in the period when she worked 

had very real disadvantages, and she was determined to 

make the most of all the assets she had. 

From the beginning, Marguerite was drawn to 

journalism by challenge. Faraway wars, exotic places, 

important people, and the unfolding of power always 

fascinated her. At the same time , she felt deeply for 

all the world ' s victims, and journalism seemed an obvious 

outlet for her interests. As a young person, she was 

inspired by journalists Ernest Hemingway and Vincent 

Sheean, and as a cub reporter, she sought to follow in 

their professional footsteps. 



3 

After graduating from the University of California 

at Berkeley in 1941, and from Columbia University's 

Graduate School of Journalism in New York the following 

year, Marguerite devoted most of her career to reporting 

for the New York Herald Tribune, a leader among the 

country's respected dailies at the time. Part-time work 

as the campus stringer for Columbia University for the 

New York Herald Tribune led to two years as a full-time 

city reporter before Marguerite received the overseas 

assignment she sought. Thi s assignment would lead to her 

coverage of the closing days of World War II, including 

the liberation of the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration 

camps and the Nuremberg war trials that followed. And 

since she was also assigned to cover the Allied forces in 

Europe, she wrote a wide variety of page-one stories, 

including the capture of Berchtesgaden, Hitler's Bavarian 

home, and interviews with the Fuehrer's servants and 

staff, all of which were of apparent interest to the 

American newspaper reader. 

After the war, Marguerite, at 26, become the Herald 

Tribune's youngest Berlin bureau chief. She was on hand 

for the dramatic days of the Berlin Airlift, making more 

than 20 flights in and out of the beleaguered city with 

the American military forces. Newly named Far East 

bureau chief for the paper in 1950, she was among the 

first reporters on the scene at the outbreak of the 



4 

Korean conflict , and she was the only woman covering its 

opening days. 

Marguerite's reporting of that war brought her 

national and international fame as well as the prestig­

ious Pulitzer Prize in journalism for international 

reporting in 1951. She was the first woman in the then 

34-year history of the Prize ever to be recognized for 

war correspondence. In fact, only two other women in the 

Prize's existence had ever won a journalism Pulitzer in 

any category before. 

Marguerite became a cause celebre when Lieutenant 

General Walton H. Walker ordered her out of Korea. It 

wasn't the type of war "where women ought to be running 

around the front lines," he said. She objected directly 

to General o f the Army Douglas MacArthur, as did the 

Trib. MacArthur rescinded the order the next day, but 

not before e ven the Soviet press had featured Marguerite 

and the incident in a cartoon labeled, "MacArthur's First 

Victory." It was, in fact, a significant victory not 

only for Marguerite, but for all women reporters seeking 

battlefield access to cover the news. Many others 

followed her and gave outstanding reporting performances. 

Marguerite's best-selling War In Korea: The Report 

of a Woman Correspondent, was written largely between 

battles as she filed daily copy for the Trib. It was to 

be the beginning of a career of many facets for her. She 



5 

wrote six books, in addition to the endless words of 

newspaper copy pouring from her typewriter. Concurrent-

ly, the publicity surrounding her Korean War coverage 

sparked speaking engagements, radio and television 

appearances on the major networks and public broadcasting 

stations alike, awards and public appearances of all 

kinds. Vogue magazine once ran her photograph, 

full-page, on awarding her its special prize for 

outstanding achievement. 

She was married twice. Her first marriage was of 

short duration, and followed her graduation from Columbia 

in her first year of work with the Trib. The second 

marriage, from all indications, brought her peace, 

stability and fulfillment. With her husband and two 

children (their first child, prematurely born, died as an 

infant), she settled in Washington, a diplomatic corres­

pondent for the Trib. In Washington, she enjoyed the 

life of a high-ranking general's wife and the fame of 

being a celebrity in her own right. The world, she said 
I 

was her beat. She reported from its farthest outposts, 

as well as from the U.S. 

She was comfortable among many of the world's 

leaders and influential individuals and earned a solid 

reputation for obtaining hard-to-get interviews, whether 

with a head of state or the with the mother of a recently 

martyred President. Exclusive interviews, she said, were 



6 

her forte. For two decades, she traveled the globe, 

holding discussions with world statesmen and commenting 

on crucial political developments. 

After 22 years with the New York Herald Tribune, 

including eight on the Washington diplomatic beat, 

Marguerite joined the Newsday Syndicate of Long Island, 

New York, writing "On the Spot," a thrice-weekly 

commentary. A fourth column, "Inside Washington," 

featured exclusive anecdotes and inside details on 

Washington happenings. 

More than 60 papers within two years published her 

columns, including The Washington Star, the Chicago Daily 

News and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She appeared on The 

Washington Post's editorial page when Walter Lippmann 

vacationed, an honor which pleased her greatly. 

Described in her time as a "living legend," she seemed 

continually gifted in being on the scene to report and 

provide commentary on the world's crises. 

In her commitment to uncovering the truth and to 

informing the public about American involvement in 

Vietnam she contracted leischmanaisis -- a tropical 

disease believed to come from a sand fly 's bite. That 

infection was believed to have been contracted during the 

last of her eleven trips to Vietnam and other Asian 

trouble spots. 



7 

Marguerite's reporting was judged incisive by her 

peers, and some said she served as a "journalistic early 

warning system." For example, she was one of the first 

reporters to note an ominously large number of Russians 

entering Cuba in 1962. And she was virtually alone in 

initially reporting that Vietnamese Buddhists, depicted 

originally as victims of religious oppression, were 

actually political enemies of the Diem regime with a 

carefully-orchestrated program of getting media attention 

by spectacular self-immolation. 

Marguerite was not the first woman war corres­

pondent, and in some views, not necessarily the best, but 

her contributions decisively enhanced the professional 

possibilities for all women journalists to follow . There 

was much she owed to the women reporters who preceded her 

and who pioneered in what had traditionally been a man's 

profession. But in many other unique and essential ways, 

she brought a new level of acceptance for her sex in 

newspapering and in recognition of women's ability to 

report and comment on the vital issues of the day. 

She was not without critics. Many reporters 

abhorred what seemed to them unfair use of "feminine 

wiles," resented the special attentions accorded her as a 

woman, attacked her for alleged breaches of ethical 

conduct, and steadfastly refused to grant her profes-

sional respect. Often denigrated by her male peers as a 



8 

glamour girl masquerading as a newspaper professional, 

she nevertheless managed to compete with and often 

surpass the best o f them. 

Her shortcomings were, in fact, the mirror image of 

he r str e ngths: she was strong willed, stubborn, impul­

sive, sel f -centered. She manipulated people for her own 

purposes, spent an inordinate amount of time and energy 

in s e lf-aggrandizement, and was periodically led into 

awkward follies by vanity and the need for admiration and 

acceptance. 

Her intellect, beauty, poise and self-confidence 

were powerful assets, but it would be her drive, above 

all, that directed her life and sustained her success. 

Her peers were, actually, the first to acknowledge that 

she was a force to be reckoned with. She absolutely 

believed her insights were important, and she would not 

be stopped from describing them, even though as a woman 

and often in the political minority as well -- she 

spoke as an isolated voice. Despite sexist bias commonly 

encountered, she accepted challenges as they came and 

usually proved successful. 

There was much about her to appeal to a public 

looking for heroes and heroines. Her bright smile, good 

looks and the gift for a quick and entertaining retort 

often made her the subject of a story. Her peers were 

only too happy to present her as a madcap, glamour girl 



9 

reporter. But her heroism and courage in the face of 

danger, particularly in battle, established her profes­

sional credentials and simultaneously endeared her to the 

reading public. 

With page-one by-lines from the Korean battlefield 

and other global crises, she became an example for 

journalists of both sexes. Her rise to fame and influ-

ence had been as swift as it was dramatic. In little 

more than a score of years, she earned a special niche 

among the world's foreign correspondents, who respected 

her tenacity, perserverance and drive. As Dan DeLuce, 

Pulitzer-Prize winning Associated Press newsman, said, 

"Talent and courage and grace . Marguerite had it all." 

A study of Marguerite Higgins's life is particularly 

appropriate at a time when women's roles and work are 

being examined and reassessed. Her career provides a 

meaningful perspective for women journalists today and 

for those who will follow the profession in the future. 



I. EARLY YEARS 

Margue rite Higgins was born in the Bri tish Crown 

l Colony of Hong Kong on September 3, 1920. -- an 

uncommon place for an American citizen to join the world. 

She would prove as extraordinary in her life as in her 

birth. 

Being born i n the Twenties , which for most Americans 

was a time of search for normalcy after victory in the 

"war to end all wars," was a period of special 

conditions. Specifically, to be born female in the 

Twenties would be to be born with special obstacles; this 

was particularly true for a woman who would seek to 

attain male prerogatives -- world-wide fame and 

recognition -- and who would aspire to and realize a 

life-long ambition to become a respected voice 

influencing world-wide opinion. Few American women 

were recognized in the world of journalism , either as 

practicing reporters , columnists, publishers or newspaper 

managing personnel . In addition to the dearth of role 

models for women with such aspirations, the public 

expectation for women in the workplace was not to assume 

such leadership positions. 

I n general, it was hardly a time characterized by of 

political sophistication. Just eight days before her 

birth, America approved the vote for women. 2 And that 

only after years of campaigning by the country ' s 

suffragists and their supporters. The first radio 

(0 



11 

broadcast, too, barely precede d he r birth, and sound 

movies still under development, 3 preceded it. These 

media would p r ove especially importa nt to her, and in the 

span of her career, she exploited all of them in pursuing 

the news and making her point of view known to the 

public. 

In the broadest sense, if there was any era in 

America's history that appreciated "glamour," as an 

elusive but desirable aura, it was the Twenties, as Scott 

Fitzgerald's work illustrated. Compelling charm, 

attractiveness, wit and a sense of style helped establish 

the romantic figure. Marguerite came by "glamour" quite 

naturally. She was born to unusually attractive parents. 

They were, individually and as a couple, both "dashing" 

and "appealing," attributes that would later be applied 

to Marguerite. 4 Her French mother was charming, 

quixotic, strong-willed and impulsive. She was also 

ambitious, demanding, graceful, bright and beautiful. 5 

Marguerite would inherit most of these traits and 

other complementary ones from her father's side. 

Lawrence Daniel Higgins readily fit any number of heroic 

American molds. His handsomeness was often likened by 

friends and family to that of everyone's hero, Charles 

Lindbergh. 6 Like the Twenties' "Lindy," Larry Higgins 

was adventurous and as dramatic a figure as his times and 

circumstances would permit. 



12 

An Irish-American of high spirits, he was immersed 

in the excitement of his times, as a means -- according 

to Marguerite -- of "escaping the flabby routine of his 

petit bourgeois life in Oakland," a city, she added, that 

was ''noted for neither character nor excitement."
7 

Larry Higgins -- the son of Daniel Higgins, an Irish 

immigrant, and Annie Taylor, a native of Utah -- combined 

the pioneering American spirit of both.
8 He had, for 

example, volunteered to fly for France in World War I at 

17. unable to obtain a flying assignment, he became a 

volunteer ambulance driver, 9 abandoning his studies as 

the University of California to partially fulfill his 

strong desire to be where the action was, as friends and 

10 family report . His exhilaration with the excitement 

of war r emained with him throughout his life. 11 

Larry Higgins inspired Marguerite's involvement in 

combat correspondence and from the sidelines cheered her 

forays into battle. Father and daughter both were 

irresistibly drawn to the dramas of their times and 

shared intense desires to play a part in history. 

Neither would be satisfied with a role as witness. Each 

wanted an actual part. And both would succeed to the 

. . . d 12 extent opportunities permitte . 

Marguerite's blonde good looks reflected those of 

both parents. Larry Higgins, six feet tall, is remember­

ed by a close family friend, Jean Craig Clack, 13 as 



13 

being particularly engaging. His blond shock of hair and 

blue eyes complemented a r e ady smile and striking 

features. He was a "good fellow" and admire d by many 

• t h • d 1 14 fr i ends. To Margueri e, e was a paragon, an i ea . 

In difficult times, it is said, heroes are at a 

premium. The Twenties could qualify by that description. 

There was a real need for heroes and for the shre d of 

1 . d d • • d lS hope they symbo ize an inspire . 

Marguerite's parents met in Paris. During the 

German bombardment of the city , Larry Higgins, Marguerite 

de Godard, and a mutual friend in the Red Cross all 

sought a haven in a Metro station the nearest air raid 

shelter. 16 After a brief courtship, the two were 

married shortly after the Armistice, and sailed for Hong 

Kong. 17 He had withdrawn once again18 from the 

University of California, this time for good, in order to 

support his new wife and assume marital responsibilities. 

He took a job as assistant freight manager for what was 

then the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. It was 1918, 

and he was 23.
19 

Their life on the other side of the world would have 

been immensely appealing to the young American and his 

bride. In the years following World War I, Hong Kong held 

a leadership position in world trade -- its harbors were 

filled with thousands of vessels -- steamers, sampans, 

junks and every kind of mechanized ocean vessel. Then, 



1 4 

as today, the U.S. represented its main export market. 

It was here that Marguerite was born on September 3, 

1920. 20 

Hong Kong would have proved exciting for any young 

couple, but it was especially so for Marguerite's adven-

turous parents . She, herself, always took pleasure in 

mentioning her birthplace, dropping the fact of her birth 

in that exotic port into copy or conversation, 

reinforcing her own self-image of uniqueness. Others, 

too, in writing about her, seemed drawn to the fact. 21 

In her autobiography, for example, Marguerite said her 

sense of being different came from, among other things, 

her "bizarre Irish-French Hong Kong heritage." 22 What 

she meant by that is not clear, but she apparently liked 

the phrase and found it useful. 

For the Higginses, Hong Kong would not be a perm­

anent home. Crowding, health and sanitation problems 

abounded. Marguerite, as a six-months old infant, con­

tracted malaria and was taken to Dalat in the central 

provinces of what was then French Indo-China -- today's 

. 23 Vietnam -- for recovery. 

Marguerite's grandfather, Count Georges de Godard, 

had, in fact, died in Indo-China in the 1880s in the 

h ·1· 24 service of the Frenc mi itary. Ironically, more 

than four generations later, after numerous trips 

throughout the Far East, not to mention the world, 



15 

Marguerite would die of complications from a similar 

infection -- contracted most probably in the same part of 

the world. 25 

As a child , Marguerite experienced an American-Asian 

upbringing, at least for the early years, with European 

overtones . The Asian portions came from the obligatory 

amah that Europeans and Ame ricans in Hong Kong hired for 

• h'ld 26 Th • the care of their c i ren. e counterpoint was 

provided by repeated returns to an American home on a 

quiet street in Oakland and by visits to the homes of her 

mother's sisters in France. Soon after the Higginses 

returned to Oakland in 1924, Marguerite and her mother 

went to France to visit her aunts. She came and went 

between the countries dur ing what must have been a 

financially and emotionally disruptive period. Not until 

she was ten did the family stabilize and settle 

permanently on Chabot Court in Oakland. 27 As a result, 

however, Marguerite was always cosmopolitan, at home in 

any place in the world (save, as she once wrote, for some 

disquieting moments experienced behind the Iron 

. ) 28 Curtain. 

Among her first words were Cantonese phrases , spoken 

29 
in exchange with the amah. Photographs of the two 

present an interesting contrast. The Oriental arnah is 

strong, seemingly patient; Marguerite , blonde , blue-eyed, 

a porcelain-featured princess. In image alone, such 



16 

photographs suggest a link between East and Wes t , a link 

30 she would always claim for her own. That association 

may have been influential in developing Marguerite's 

attraction to reporting and interpreting foreign affairs. 

The few Cantonese phrases Marguerite knew are 

apparently the basis for a fluency in Chinese incorrectly 

31 attributed to her. To be sure, she did little to 

correct the record. It would always be an assistance for 

the image she cultivated of the widely traveled, 

multi-lingual versatile reporter. 

what would prove much more valuable, and in some 

ways most influential in her early successes, was her 

fluency in French. She described the language used at 

home as 

... a Higgins home brew of classic French, soldier 
French, and French-accented English, a mixture that 
acc~~odated respectively my mother, father and 
me. 

As a result of these language shifts, it would be 

many years before she felt comfortable in the English 

language's idiosyncrasies. She said, 

... it took a long time for me to feel even 
slightly comfortable in the English idiom, so very 
long that I have been envious of those who learned 
the style and strength of the language via the 
comparatively painless process of absorpti~~ avail­
able to a child in a cultured environment. 

Each parent strove to outdo the other in providing 

everything they believed essential for Marguerite's 

ultimate happiness and success, since as their only 



17 

. . l 34 c hild, she was very specia. Yet she herself felt 

h 1 k . 35 muc was acing. 

After the family returned from Hong Kong to the 

house in Oakland at 5833 Chabot Court in the fall of 

19 24, her f ather e ntered the investment business, trading 

in stocks and bonds. As well as be ing Marguerite's 

life-long hero , Larry Higgins was also her financial 

advisor and putting his special expertise to work, 

throughout her life provided her with periodic counsel 

and reports on her investments. 36 

The impact of Marguerite's father on her life was 

immeasurable. She accepted his leadership and treasured 

their relationship. Lines from her juvenile biography, 

Jessie Benton Fremont, could just as easily describe her 

own childhood and her relationship with her father: 

If her father seemed indulgent toward Jessie, it was 
because he saw in her qualities of his own. She was 
curious about the "whole world, frank and fearless 
beyond her years ... Jessie became the special 
charge of her father. She preferred his company, 
and he in turn realized that a child so independent­
minded and strong-willed needed a f~ 7m guiding hand. 
He spent many hours as her teacher. 

Furthermore, one can also look beyond the description 

Marguerite gives of Jessie's school report to see that 

there was a likeness between herself and her heroine: 

Miss Jessie, although extremely intelligent, lacks 
the docility of a model student. Moreover, she has 
the objectionable manner of seeming to take our 
orders and assignments under consideration to be 
acce~Sed or discarded by some standards of her 
own. 



18 

The account might recall Marguerite's own behavior as a 

girl in the exclusive Anna Head's School where she was 

sent and mixed a near-perfect academic performance with 

some questionable deportment, apparently stemming from 

d h . h .. k 39 pranks an ig Jin s. 

Marguerite, shuttling between two continents, may 

have found Oakland somewhat colorless by comparison, 

seeming t o share Gertrude Stein 's report that "When you 

get there, there's no there there." For when she 

described Oakland in her autobiography, much to the 

d f . d 40 . dismay of family an rien s, it was as a decidedly 

middle-class neighborhood. "Genteel poverty," she said, 

was the lot of her Oakland neighbors. 41 

She concluded that her neighbors relied on a 

"genteel morality " in order to have some grounds for 

feeling superior to those who broke from the norm. She 

said with obvious disdain, 

... our standardized community with its neat 
little rows of lawns and neat little rows of people, 
where women worried about their husbands ' jobs and 
men worried about insurance and very few understood 
anything about the human close~ess and ~agnif~cence 
of character that danger sometimes provides . 

Obviously, Marguerite Higgins of Oakland's Chabot 

court chose to believe that her life was to break from 

this norm and that the ambitions she harbored would be 

f ulfilled. she had little tolerance or admiration for 

those who might choose conformity. 



19 

Marguerite's family, especially her mother, and, 

understandably, the neighbors, were hurt by Marguerite's 

public assessment. In their view, the neighbors were 

largely quite successful. Many professional families 

lived in the Chabot Court cul de sac. Among them, for 

example, were the families of an attorney, a retired 

military officer, and two corporate executives, in 

addition to Marguerite's stockbroker father. 43 For 

their part, the neighbors held the Higginses in high 

esteem and were particularly proud of Marguerite's later 

successes. Despite Marguerite's scorn, she kept friend­

ships made there for the rest of her life. 44 

As an example, one of Marguerite's Berkeley sorority 

sisters who knew her from Chabot Court days noted that 

her description of the neighborhood was highly inaccu­

rate, as was, in her view, the overall account of the 

community and the opportunities afforded Marguerite in 

those Depression days. Marguerite, she said, "had had 

many advantages in being sent to a superior high school 

and was in a sorority at a prestigious college ... she 

was definitely not deprived. 

It is always difficult to discern the actual degree 

of deprivation someone might feel. Those who knew 

Marguerite well confirm that she did indeed feel real 

deprivation as a child.
46 

Certainly, the times were 

difficult for many. The Higginses were not alone in 



20 

having limited resources. By contrast , some of 

Marguerite's classmates at Anna Head's did come from 

immense weal th and s ocial prominence. In her auto-

biography, for example, she mentions Diana Dollar , of the 

Dollar Steamship Line family; and Phyllis Hills, of the 

Hills Bros. Coffee interests, as typical examples among 

47 
her classmates. I n fact, although they were class-

mates, "typical" they were not. Others of Marguerite's 

classmates s aw the Do l lar and Hills girls as special --

they would have been anywhere. She too had to be aware 

of the "spe cialness" about them, as she was certainly 

s e nsitive, even years later, to their exis tence. In 

addition, Marguerite would not have been adverse to using 

the deprivation angle in her story, for the tale tells 

bette r when the deprived child in small-town America is 

catapulted into world fame and great good fortune. 

Marguerite's friendship with the neighboring Craig 

family in Oakland was, in fact, life long. 48 

Neve rtheless, in her autobiography she chose to de scribe 

not friendships or pleasures she knew from Chabot Court, 

but strife and grief. She told, for example, of how Jean 

Craig had engineered neighborhood children to taunt her, 

as children are wont to do, with rhymes and cries of 

"dirty Chink," and "dirty Chinese," referring to 

Margue rite ' s Hong Kong birth, and also reflecting some of 

the active prejudices on the West Coast at the time. 49 



21 

Other friends remember Marguerite's parents as being 

concerned about her welfare, being genuinely plea s ed to 

have her bring friends home and generally caring. Jean 

Stock Kelly , a chum from Anna Head's and Berkeley, said 

Marguerite's mother was a "lovely person who wanted 

everything good for her daughter . " 50 

Marguerite's mother and father thought she had 

unique promise and reminded her frequently of their high 

aspirations for her. There were times when Marguerite 

found this a burden and somewhat unfair. As soon as one 

objective that had been set for her had been reached, it 

seemed as though the bar was raised again. It might have 

been for better grades, improved performance, or whatever 

. th . 51 she was engaged in at e time. 

For Mrs. Higgins, nothing short of absolute excel-

• ld b • 52 lence from Marguerite wou e permitted. It was a 

given. And for Marguerite, she wanted the best of 

everything for the gifted child, despite the fact that 

the family resources were modest. 

In a child of lesser abilities, the disparity 

between the dream and the reality might have been dis-

astrous. Instead, the ambition and expectation of 

success were effectively passed on to Marguerite. She 

developed a driving, demanding personality, which in the 

beginning was inwardly directed, but later outwardly, and 



22 

which became a force to seriously reckon with in adult 

competitive situations. 

Her mother, seeking the very best education possi­

ble, chose the exclusive Anna Head School for Girls in 

Oakland as appropriate for Marguerite. The costs, 

clearly beyond the family's means, did not deter Mrs. 

Higgins, who then taught French and piano so that 

Marguerite would also have ballet and music lessons. For 

Marguerite's part, she was to earn her share by winning 

scholarships. 53 Just short of her tenth birthday, 

Marguerite entered the sixth grade at Anna Head's, just 

as Mrs. Higgins had wanted. It was 1930. 54 

with academic scholarships rewarding Marguerite's 

ability and her mother's teaching efforts providing 

additional income, the family was able to afford an 

excellent, somewhat exclusive, education for her. On the 

other hand, Marguerite would never forget the gruelling 

discipline demanded of her in these days, as she saw it, 

by her mother. Though her father shared the high 

expectations, it is her mother who was mentioned with 

resentment. The two were often at odds, not realizing 

that, as one childhood friend believed, Marguerite was 

actually fighting for her father's love and attention, 

and her mother was the unfortunate victim in the 

55 fray. 



23 

Friends and neighbors felt that Marguerite's charac­

terization of her mother was undu ly harsh in her auto-

b • h 56 iograp y. One suggested that Mrs. Higgins was 

always grieved by the account Marguerite gave of their 

lives . Mrs. Higgins saw herself as a woman devoted to 

her family, intent on making whatever sacrifices seemed 

necessary for the family's welfare. For her, Larry 

Higgins and Marguerite occupied the center of any world 

of importance. Marguerite, strong willed and independent, 

was unbending, even in youth. 57 

At Anna Head School, Marguerite maintained the 

necessary scholarships with straight As, supplemented by, 

as she put it, the "less than A performance in 

deportment.," largely stemming from classroom capers 

58 growing out of boredom. 

Marguerite claimed to be a "professional bookworm," 

and commented about those experiences and their effects: 

... Despite occasional lapses in my self-imposed 
discipline, I obviously had a strong competitive 
drive instilled in me very early. In newspaper work 
fear of the second best clearly serves as a powerful 
prod. The emotional intensity and exertion com­
pelled by this drive ~ertainly serves to make 
impossible, at least in my case, what the psycholo­
gists call a stable personality, or what is known as 
serenity. One can become very weary of tension. 
Yet being afraid is seldom boring. And this affords 
adv3~tages to those who prefer excitement to safe­
ty. 

At Anna Head's the emphasis for most students was on 

athletics. Only a few of the girls had boyfriends though 

most, according to her friends' recollections today, were 



24 

interested.
60 

The majority were preoccupied with field 

hockey, tennis or swimming. Competition, Marguerite's 

classmates recall, was not nearly as important to them as 

Marguerite's autobiography reflects. Another interesting 

perception is that Marguerite's classmates do not recall 

. . . 61 her as even being competitive. 

Marguerite reported, however, that it was an 

extremely competitive environment, and she thought she 

had to do battle to the utmost to stay on top. Her 

yearbook entry shows the beginning of her response: 

President of Athletic Association, President of 
Block "H" Society, 1936; Girl Reserves, Dramatic 
Club, Life Saving Corps, Glee Club, Athletic Coun­
cil, Soph Editor of "Nod s and Becks," Swimming 
Captain, All-St~r ~ockey, Vo~~eyball, Basketball, 
Baseball and Swimming Teams. 

Her classmates today remember her as having been a 

tall, thin blonde with lovely blue eyes and a whispery 

voice. Most thought she was probably very protected. 

One friend from Anna Head's recal ls that Marguerite's 

reactions to girl talk about sex was so naive that most 

f . . . 63 believed she was eigning ignorance. 

In retrospect, the classmate thinks Marguerite's 

parents probably did not tell her anything, 64 and 

information on sex was not handily available to young­

sters in general in the mid-Thirties. Inconsistencies 

abound. By contrast, Anne Duhring Cooper, another friend 

from the period, reports, "We were very innocent in high 

school ... Marge sometimes came up with what we thought 



25 

were very worldly ideas." If Marguerite sensed that she 

may not have been as knowledgeable as others her age, she 

would not b e at that disadvantage for long. Mrs. Cooper 

recalls an instance when they were on a Girls Rese rves 

outing, a high school YWCA activity. Marguerite 

reportedly s urprised the group in the middle of a 

midnight gab fest by asking how many of them had "gone 

the limit." Mrs. Cooper reports they were all struck 

absolutely dumb at the thought. Moreover , she believes 

Marguerite enjoyed the ensuing confusion immensely. 65 

Marguerite, from earliest days, in contrast to her 

feelings of inadequacy and need for competitive vie-

tories, showed consistent signs of leadership. She wa s 

reportedly well liked in her high-school years, though 

she saw herself as a grind, and engaged in activities not 

calculated to "inspire popularity." She was an excellent 

student, a star athlete and was involved in widely 

varying student activities including writing for Nods and 

Becks, the school's yearbook. Her sensitivity to being a 

"scholarship student" was not evident to those around 

her, nor was her feeling of social inadequacy. Though 

she described herself as a "financial misfit" at the 

schoo1, 66 most of her classmates were surprised to 

learn of it later. Classmates are also fairly uniform in 

their surprise at her demeaning ''middle-income families " , 

for most thought her circumstances, and theirs, were 



26 

particularly fortunate in light of the fact that the 

country in the mid-Thirties was still reeling from the 

Depression. 

Anne Duhring Cooper reports that Marguerite gave as 

her stated "ambition" in the graduating seniors 

"Horoscope" section of the yearbook her intention to 

become a drama critic. For the "probable end" that 

students were required to identify, she conjectured that 

she would actually be a "court reporter," one o f the 

earliest statements that Marguerite made, though wryly, 

. . . 1 · 67 of ambitions in JOurna ism. 

Like many other concerned students following the 

Depression, she prepared herself , not for a glamorous 

career in an unknown future, but simply for a job. To 

Marguerite, a job with the most security appeared to be 

to teach French. She would consider it a living rather 

than life's fulfillment. 

Journalism at the time presented a world of vast 

excitement. In the aftermath of the war's outbreak in 

1914, editors nationwide focused on happenings abroad. 

Correcting the dearth of earlier coverage, the Thirties 

saw foreign news featured in newspapers nationwide. 6 8 

Despite the enormous expense of coverage, floods in China 

and the Japanese conquest of Manchuria made the pages of 

United States' dailies, and outstanding reporting 

achievements were realized by the U.S. press abroa d. 



27 

Notable particularly were correspondents Richard Harding 

Davis, who wrote dramatically of the German army entering 

Brussels, Will Irwin's stories on the battle of Ypres, 

and Frank H. Simonds' work as a military critic f or the 

New York Tribune. 69 

In 1933 , U.S. readers were given account's of 

Hitler 's coup in Germany, and two years later, Italy's 

• Ab • • 7o S f Am • ' f. war in y s sinia. ome o erica s inest report-

ers, including Ernest Hemingway and Robert Capa, were on 

the scene when t he Spanish Civil War erupted in 1936, 

bringing facts and photographs to newspaper r eaders. 70 

Marguerite was a member o f that reading public, and these 

reporters were larger-than-life figures to her. In a 

71 real sense, they were her heroes. She was later to 

witness Capa's death dramatically in another place, 

another war. 7 2 

The Spanish Civil War was particularly diffi cult and 

dangerous to cover. Censorship was stringent. During 

the same period, American readers had reports of the 

undeclared war between China and Japan. Many other 

journalists writing in these stri fe -packed areas became 

familiar to readers through their by-lines. 73 Best 

known were Fred S. Ferguson of the United Press for his 

coverage of the battle of Saint-Mihiel, Webb Miller, also 

of the United Press; Edwin L. James of The New York 

Times, Martin Green of the New York World; Junius Wood of 



28 

t h e Chicago Daily News, and Floyd Gibbons of the Chicago 

Tribune . 74 

In addition, although they were few in number, wome n 

c o rre spondents were unde rtaking dangerous assignments. 

Pe ggy Hul l , f or example, was particularly well known for 

the time. 75 Her earlier experience s preceded 

Marguerite's by a number of years, and it is possible 

that Ma r guerite as a young woman wa s aware of her as a 

reporter. Hull was openly resented by male report-

76 • th • t b. . ers. Despite eir s renuous o Jections and com-

plaints to Army officials, Hull went on to visit American 

camps and cove r the news. Setting a pattern that 

Marguerite would follow years later, she had no problem 

sleeping on the ground with other correspondents and 

among the troops themselves when quarters were not 

available. 77 

Though few in number, women reporters were following 

a long tradition. Examples include d Rheta Childe Dorr, 

actively reporting wars long before Marguerite was 

born. 78 Anne O'Hare McCormick might have represented a 

role model for her. McCormick, while not a combat 

correspondent, was a prominent woman journalist of the 

period well known for her trenchant political 

commentary. 79 McCormick was also the first practicing 

woman reporter to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism, a 

fact which led John Hohenberg, long secretary of the 



29 

Pulitzer Prize Committee to note in his history of the 

Prizes that, 

She became the first woman journalist to receive 
such an award. It says something about the status 
of women in the newspapers of the era when the 
editors and publishers of the advisory board let 
twenty years elapse before honoring one of their 
own, although they had not hesitated from the outset 
to bestow Psbzes on women authors, poets and 
dramatists. 

Other noteworthy women reporters who could in all 

liklihood have come to Marguerite's attention include 

Mary Margaret McBride, a newspaperwoman who later 

. b d • 81 pioneered radio roa casting; Agness Underwood, 

formidable Los Angeles Evening Herald-Express 

journalist; 82 Dorothy Thompson, to whom Marguerite 

referred as a role model while at Columbia; 83 Sigrid 

Schultz, Chicago Tribune overseas bureau chief; 84 

Martha Gellhorn, who covered the Spanish Civil War and 

d 85 f • • 86 many others afterwar s; erninist May Craig; with 

whom Marguerite would later share television coverage, 

Ruth Finney, Sylvia Porter and Dorothy Kilgallen. 87 



Footnotes: Chapter One 

1. Autobiography portion of Marguerite Higgins 's 
Application for Admission to Columbia University's 
Graduate School of Journalism, September 1941. 

2. James Trager, The People's Chronology: A Year-by ­
Year Record of Human Events from Prehistory to the 
Present (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 
1979), p. 799. 

3 . Ibid ., p. 800. 

4. Interviews with Jean Craig Clack, December 5, 1979; 
Lt. Gen. William E. Hall, U.S.A.F., Ret., 
February 26, 1973; and letter to the author from 
Jean Stock Kelly, May 20, 1975. 

5 . Ibid. 

6. Interview with Jean Craig Clack, December 5, 1975; 
letter to the author from Anne Duhring Cooper, 
March 24, 1980; and Marguerite Higgins, News Is a 
Singular Thing (New York: Double day & Co., 
1955), p. 26. 

7. Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, p. 27. 

8. Death Certificate No. 6005, Lawrence Daniel Higgins 
State of California Department of Public Health, ' 
November 30, 1964. 

9. Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, p. 26. 

10. Interviews with Gen. Hall, February 26, 1973; and 
Jean Craig Clack, December 5, 1979. 

11. Ibid. 

12. Ibid. 

13. Interview with Jean Craig Clack, December 5, 1979. 

14. Interview with Gen. Hall, February 26, 1973. 

15. Marshall Fishwick, The Hero, American Style (New 
York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1969), p. 6. 

16. Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, p. 34. 

1 7. Ibid. 

18 . Ibid. 

19. Official Transcript of Application for Admission for 

..30 



31 

Lawrence Daniel Higgins to the University of 
California, Berkeley, August 27, 1915. 

20. Autobiogr aphy portion of Marguerite Higgins's 
Application to Columbia University. 

21. Carl Mydans, "Girl Correspondent," Life, October 2, 
1950, p. 51. 

22. Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, p. 36. 

23. Autobiography portion of Marguerite Higgins's 
Application to Columbia University. 

24. Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, p. 33. 

25. Obituary, Marguerite Higgins, The Washington star, 
January 4, 1966. 

26. Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, p. 35. 

27. Autobiography; Application for Admission to 
Columbia. 

28. Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, p. 115. 

2 9. Ibid. , p. 3 5. 

30. Scrapbooks, Marguerite Higgins Papers, George Arents 
Research Library, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New 
York. 

31. Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, p. 35. 

32. Ibid., p. 36. 

33. Ibid. 

34. Interview with Gen. Hall, February 26, 1973. 

35. Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, p. 39. 

36. Autobiography; Application for Admission to 
Columbia. 

37. Marguerite Higgins, Jessie Benton Fremont (Boston: 
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1962), p. 13. 

38. Ibid., pp.34-34. 

39. Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, p. 39. 



32 

40. Interview with Jean Craig Clack, December 5, 19 79 ; 
and Gen. Hall, February 26, 1973. 

41. 

42. 

43. 

44. 

45. 

46. 

47. 

48. 

49. 

50. 

51. 

52. 

53. 

54. 

55. 

56. 

57. 

58. 

59. 

60. 

Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, p. 27. 

Ibid. 

Interview with Jean Craig Clack, December 5, 1979. 

Ibid. 

Letter to the author from Marjorie Barker Malmquist 
(Mrs. Lincoln C. Malmquist), October 28, 1979. 

Interviews with Jean Craig Clack, December 5, 1979; 
and Gen. Hall, February 26, 1973. 

Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, pp. 38-39. 

Interview with Jean Craig Clack, December 5 1979 , . 
Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, p. 37. 

Letter to the author from Jean Stock Kelly, May 20, 
1975. 

Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, p. 38. 

Ibid. 

Ibid. 

Marguerite Higgins's Application for Admission to 
the University of California, Berkeley, June 29, 
1937. 

Interview with Jean Craig Clack, December 5, 1979. 

Ibid. 

Ibid. 

Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, p. 39. 

Ibid. 

Interview with Jean Craig Clack, December 5, 197 91 
and letter to the author from Jean Stock Kelly, 
May 20, 1975. 

61. Letter to the author from Jean Stock Kelly, May 20 , 
1979. 



33 

62. 1937 Nods and Becks, Yearbook for the Anna Head 
School for Girls, p. 13. 

63. Letter to the author, Jean Kelly Stock, May 20, 
1975. 

64. Ibid. 

65. Letter to the author from Anne Duhring Cooper, 
November 28, 1979. 

66. Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, p. 38. 

67. Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, p. 16. 

68. Frank Luther Mott, American Journalism: A History of 
Newspapers in the United States Through 250 Years: 
1690 to 1940 (New York: The MacMillan Company, 
1941), p. 705. 

69. Edwin Emery, The Press and Arne~ica: An Interpre­
tative History of the Mass Media (Englewood Cliffs, 
New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1972), pp. 518-519. 

70. Ibid. 

71. Autobiography, Application to Columbia University. 

72. Marguerite Higgins, Our Vietnam Nightmare (New York: 
Harper and Row, 1965), p. 2. 

73. Mott, American Journalism, p. 705. 

74. Emery, The Press and America, p. 519. 

75. Marion Marzolf, Up From the Footnote: A History of 
women Journalists (New York: Hastings House, 1977), 
p. 44. 

76. Ibid. 

77. Ibid. 

78. Ibid., p. 45. 

79. Ibid. , p. 46. 

80 . John Hohenberg, The Pulitzer Pr~zes: A History of 
the Awards in Books, Drama , Music, and Journalism 
Based on the Private Files Over Six Decades (New 
York: Columbia University Press, 1974), p. 132. 



34 

81. Marzolf, Up From the Footnote, p. 48. 

82. Ibid., p. 53. 

83. Ibid., p. 54; John Chamberlain, "Marguerite Higgins: 
The Good Die Young," Kankakee Daily Journal, January 
11, 1966. 

84. Marzolf, Up From the Footnote, p. 54. 

85. Ibid. 

86. Meet the Press Transcript of December 13, 1953, 
Lawrence Spivak Papers, Library of Congress, 
Washington, D.C. 

87. Marzolf, Up From the Footnote, p. 54. 



II. BERKELEY : THE MAKINGS OF A J OURNALIST 

On J une 29, 1937, Marguerite Hi ggins graduated from 

Anna Head' s Schoo l. She was sixteen . Her picture in the 

local newspapers is o f a be aut iful girl among graduating 

seniors, grace f u l i n a long white dre ss, sereni ty itself , 

ho lding a bouque t a s a de butan t e at a ny good fin i s hing 

h 1 . h 1 SC 00 m1g t . 

For Ma r g ueri t e and mos t of he r friends at Anna 

Head' s , the mos t i mportant obj e ctive s were t o g e t into 

c olle ge , join a sorority, and a s one of her f riends s a id, 

2 t o meet some boys. Marguerite a pp l ied to the Univer-

sity o f California, Berkele y, at the end of June, as did 

a numbe r o f f riends f r om the school. She had c ompleted 

four years of French and English, two of Latin and 

history, and a year each o f algebra, geometry, chemistry, 

p hysics and German. She wa s admitted to Berkeley's 

School of Le tters and Science, a ma j or in languages, in 

August. 3 

She wrote little about her colle ge experie nces at 

Be rke ley e xce pt to say tha t funds were short and in the 

process o f obtaining an education she lear ne d how to 

survive financially through study. By this, she meant 

she learned the fine art of winning scholarships and 

a wa rds. 4 

Perhaps because she was away from home, or b e cause 

there were many dis t ractions for Marguerite at Berkeley , 

li fe wa s not the grinding effort for schola rships t ha t 

35 



36 

Anna He ad's had been. Expenses we re always critical, 

although tuition, room and board and miscellaneous 

e xpense s could be covered then for as little as $300 a 

year for a state resident. 5 Later on, in her applica­

tion for admission to Columbia University's Graduate 

School of Journalism, Marguerite's Berkeley experience 

proved a strong recommendation for her maturity and 

dedication: 

"I was a good student and had an A average in high 
school. After my graduation from Anna Head in June 
1937, I was fortunate enough to receive a scholar- ' 
ship to the University of California. In addition 
to the part-time jobs during the college semesters, 
I also worked Christmas and summer vacations. In 
this way, 6I became self-supporting while a college 
student." 

Expenses f or living in a sorority house were manage­

able, although Marguerite would not remain actively 

involved with the Gamma Phi Beta house as her interests 

extended, particularly in the realm of social and politi-

cal activism. The former straight-A student was suffi-

ciently involved in college activities for her grades to 

slip to a mixture of As, Bs and a occasional C, although 

she did graduate cum laude in 1941. 
7 

And while she 

seldom wrote of campus experiences otherwise , she often 

made reference to the cum laude designation, with obvious 

' d 8 relish and great pr1 e . 

She and a friend from Anna Head's, Jean Kelly, went 

the ir separate ways in college, each joining different 

sororities. Jean Kelly Stock relates that other 



37 

differences between Marguerite and her contemporaries 

were emerging in this period. Even though their 

preparatory school days of writing for Anna Head's Nods 

and Becks were past, she relates, each applied in her 

freshman year for the same job -- a summer position at 

Yosemite; both were excited when they were accepted. By 

then , however, Jean Kelly's mother came to the conclusion 

that Marguerite's maturity outstripped Jean's, based on a 

conversation she overheard between the two girls. 

Marguerite reportedly insisted on the advantages of 

sexual experimentation, arguing, "You wouldn't buy a 

horse without riding him, would you?" Whether Marguerite 

said this for mere shock value or because Margueri te 

sincerely believed the analogy valid is not clear. In 

any case, Mrs. Kelly refused to allow Jean to accompany 

her one-time chum to Yosemite for the summer. 9 

Although Marguerite joined Gamma Phi Beta, a social 

sorority on the Berkeley campus, she chose not to list 

her membership in her later application to graduate 

school.lo And despite Marguerite's later worldwide 

fame, the sorority apparently never featured her in any 

of its alumnae publications, according to its current 

1 . t 11 a umnae coordina or. In general, Marguerite was 

never a joiner. Her membership affiliations were few and 

usually served a practical purpose, even in later life. 

More serious for her age than other 17-year-olds, she was 



38 

apparently more intensely interested in campus poli­

tics. 12 

With the independence she was to show throughout he r 

life, she took to the informal campus speech circuit, 

speaking on issues of importance to her. One of these 

was the right of Communist speakers to be heard on 

campus. Never shy or reticent about her beliefs, she 

made impassioned speeches at the campus's Sather Gate on 

Telegraph Road -- practically, as some of her friends 

say, on a soap box side by side with students seen then 

as b . . d. l 13 eing quite ra ica. 

The sorority sisters increasingly thought her actions 

unbecoming and took it upon themselves to discipline her. 

Marguerite never received criticism lightly, though there 

would be plenty in her life. When disapproval of her 

behavior failed, the sorority employed ostracism. 14 

But ostracism was not as effective a tool as it might 

have been. Marguerite sought more approval from her 

father than from any of her friends, and his loyalty was 

always with her, whatever the cause she embraced. In 

this case, he made it a special point to be supportive 

and thus mitigated the sorority's effectiveness in 

bringing her in check. Her collegiate objectives grad­

ually evolved beyond the social orientation of a post­

Depression sorority girl to the political orientation of 

a campus political activist . She clearly wished both 



39 

world s , but, as in later life , she could be exp e cted to 

choose with consis tency political powe r over socia l 

acceptance. One sorority siste r thought Margue r i t e "a 

ge neration ahe ad of her time." The rest of those who 

k ne w her we re much more interested in conforming; she was 

"clearly quite radical. 1115 

Berkeley's journalism program had begun the year 

be f ore Marguerite entered. However, Marguerite did not 

enroll in any journalism classe s, at least in he r fresh-

16 man year. A French major, her program was full, and 

her objective was to be able to get a job after grad­

uation. 17 Her ideas about a career were amorphous at 

the time, although once she began newspaper work, no 

other career appealed. 

Like others on campus who were interested in the 

college newspaper, she signed up as a freshman to work on 

Berkeley's The Daily Californian. She had enjoyed 

working on school publications at Anna Head's, and the 

transition probably seemed quite natural. Anne Duhring, 

her friend from Head's, also joined the staff. 18 The 

competition was demanding, and frequent staff cuts kept 

everyone on their toes as they fought for coveted soph­

omore, junior and senior editorial staff appointments. 

Marguerite described herself making "a bee-line to~ 

Daily californian 19 in her determination to take a shot 

20 
at "running the newspaper." Anne Duhring Cooper 



40 

recalls that "Margue rite was very serious about it, from 

th b 
. . ..21 e eginning. Later, as upperclassmen, "the rest 

of us would try to figure out 'what made Marge run' --

she seemed to have a compelling need to stay ahead of the 

group, and worked herself ragged to excel ••• 
1122 

Marguerite was always quick to learn what it took to 

produce a winning performance. In an English class she 

and Anne Duhring took, the professor found great merit in 

Anne's use of recurring symbolism to illustrate the point 

she was making. The next week's "best paper," was, 

according to Mrs. Cooper, "building around an adaptation 

of the same device. 
It was Marge's. 1123 Such are the 

first obvious, overtly competitive actions attributable 

to Marguerite. Although she had felt keen competition at 

Anna Head's, and her behavior at the school in her own 

eyes had been extremely competitive, she had apparently 

not been viewed by her classmates as aggressive.
24 

However, at Berkeley, many of the same friends 

generally agreed her competitiveness and aggressiveness 

were carried to a point of questionable taste. As Mrs. 

Cooper recounts these performances, 

Time and again, it seemed that Marge's single minded 
pursuit of a story b~i~d~d_her to the territorial 
assignments and sensitivities of her fellow report­
ers. There would be cries for her scalp, and she 
would be scolded, and_repentan25 and it would quiet 
down until the next time ••• 

This driving competitive instinct would characterize 

Marguerite's work throughout her career. It would elicit 



41 

comment b y admirers a nd critics, f ans and competitors , 

favo r a b le a nd unfavo r able, most o f whom would fi nd i t 

entirely predictable. 

Newsma n and war corre spondent Edmund Ant robus was a t 

Berkeley at t he s ame t ime as Marguerite. The fr iend o f 

one of Ma r gueri t e 's beaux , Antrobus recalls tha t s he 

seeme d t o posses s d r ive and ambition, his assessment 

because she intently sought advice about he r wri ting f rom 

t hei r mutual f r iend, though Antrobus knew of no special 

knowled ge the fri e nd had. 26 

In t he first p a ragraph of News Is a Singular Thing, 

Ma rguerite wrote that, in addition to being a twenty­

year-old girl fresh out o f college, s he also possessed 

what she c a lle d "the dubious merit of having e dite d a 

2 7 c o lle ge newspaper." That was stretching the facts 

somewhat . Technica l ly, Marguerite was not the editor of 

her college newspaper; she was one of five associate 

e ditors on the Daily Cal,
28 

al t hough each of them d i d 

take a we e kly turn at being the night e ditor, a point 

noteworthy only because Marguerite throughout he r life 

stretched the facts to create impressions that put her at 

an advantage over others, sometime s much to annoyance o f 

the knowing. The comment that she had "edited a college 

newspaper" as though she had been the editor is 

particularly characteristic of Marguerite. It provides 

an i mportant perspective in assessing her accounts of 



42 

herself. Marguerite's interpretation of what happened in 

her life is her interpretation; often it may simply 

present the facts in such a way that a reader might 

easily jump to an incorrect conclusion. If Marguerite 

was misleading when she wrote about herself, it may be 

because the reader has not read carefully enough . On the 

other hand, it is e ntirely possible, and in some cases, 

quite likely, that Marguerite may have intentionally 

misled . Her copy, when she wanted it to be, was lucid 
' 

sparkling and accurate. Clearly, she intended the reader 

to assume she had a role on the Daily Cal which, in fact, 

she did not have. She would not have been as unclear 

reporting some one else's role in perhaps one of her own 

stories. 

These early years at Berkeley are particularly 

significant in her professional development, for it was 

here for the first time that Marguerite's actions caused 

her to be disliked. This was a significant change. 

Because not only was she disliked, but she was aware she 

was doing things that made her disliked, and in a seeming 

new independence of spirit, she deviated not a whit from 

her practices. 

Indeed, on entering Berkeley she began to exhibit a 

whole new set of behavior patterns. She did what she 

felt was important for her to do, regardless of what 

others thought, and she in no way camouflaged her 



43 

motives. 
That turned out to be very difficult for many 

of her peers to accept. Conformity went by the 

wayside. 29 Communication between Marguerite and the 

Beta Gamma Phi sorority sisters deteriorated, 

particularly after the freshmen year when she dropped out 

Of th 
I • • • 30 

e groups act1v1t1es . 
The parting may have been 

mutually agreeable, however, for her grooming, by some 

accounts, had gone to pieces. She, friends report, 

looked sloppy and somewhat unkempt, racing about the 

campus with uncombed hair and oblivious to the standards 
. 31 

expected by her college contemporaries. 

She became heatedly involved in political causes, 

particularly those with a Marxist bent, just as many 

other sensitive and idealistic people at the time were 

In this era arising out of the Depression, there 
doing. 
were large numbers of very rational people looking for a 

new form of society that could provide an assurance for 

better living for everyone. Marguerite embraced these 

causes and spoke her piece wherever she could.
32 

When Marguerite started out at The Daily 

Californian, her first job would have been as a "proof," 

or proofreader, as lower classmen traditionally start­

ed. 3 3 From time to time, the Daily Cal restructured 

itself as far as financing and control were concerned. 

Sometimes it functioned entirely independent of the 

school; sometimes it was sponsored by the Journalism 



44 

Department; sometimes it received partial support from 

the Associated Students of the University of Cali f ornia 

(ASUC). 
But its independence and freedom had always bee n 

jealously guarded. At the time that Marguerite joined 

the staff, it was strictly a student production. The 

sta f f, quite formally structured, rewarded high perfor-

mance with select assignments and, in the students' 

senior year, with editorships appropriate to perfor­

mance. 34 

Basically, freshmen, as lower classmen, tradition-

ally read proof. 
Juniors supervised "beats" with lower 

classmen under them. And, in addition, juniors also 

served regularly on the night staff. At the top of the 

paper's hierachy were the seniors who made up the board 

-- the editor, managing editor, assistant editor and five 

associate editors. These were the coveted spots, and the 

staffers competed fiercely for the honor of serving on 

th . b d • 35 is oar as seniors. 

Marguerite's work on the Daily Cal was in addition 

to her sorority and campus political activities. Her 

schedule was a fairly reasonable one, usually made up of 

a fifteen to sixteen credit-hour program. 
Since her 

major was French, and it was the language she spoke 

fluently from childhood, she had a natural advantage in 

those classes. A Berkeley colleague who later went on to 

become a war correspondent himself, and who says that 



45 

"those of us who had known or known of her in school, 

were conscious of her success and I suspe ct envious," 

expresse d another annoyance that others probably shared: 

"One or both of Marguerite's parents were French, 
and I was told, she spoke French at home. That she 
made French her college major struck us super­
critical, ultra-idea1~stic critics as foul ball. 
Why not journalism?" 

In addition, when Marguerite was interested in 

mastering information on any subject, she had the ability 

to do so in very short order, approaching the subject 

with intensity and applying her intellect with perserver­

ance and drive. Her schedule, in fact, easily allowed 

time for her studies, the paper, politics, and the social 

37 
life she sought. In her four years at Berkeley, 

Marguerite registered for only one journalism course, and 

• 38 H f that was in her senior year. er per ormance demon-

strated no special promise; she earned a undistinguished 

c. 39 As she would in later years, Marguerite saw 

herself as restless, impatient and given to taking things 

too hard, traits she pointed out are attributed by 

. . t 40 psychiatrists to 1nsecur1 y. 

When the Daily Cal eliminated the "women's editor" 

slot in 1940, the action was seen as a quite a break­

through for women on the paper. Nevertheless, when the 

appointments for that year's slots were announced 

Marguerite's senior year -- she lost out to three other 

women for the best positions. She was, however, named 



46 

one of the five associate editors and, as such, occasion­

ally served as night editor, putting the paper to 

bed. 41 

By her senior year, she was also writing a column 

called "The Ins and Outs," which dealt mainly with 

foreign affairs. Typical articles included defense of 

the right of communists to speak on campus, so long as 

they remained within the law, a then debated draft bill, 

and the wisdom of selling steel to Japan . 42 

By the spring of her senior year, she appeared in 

the Daily Cal's masthead as the paper's rewrite editor, a 

job she created for herself, according to Michael Emery, 

then a graduate student at Berkeley. Once she graduated, 

no one followed her as "rewrite editor." 43 

The late Bruce Lee , assistant city editor with the 

Redwood City Tribune and long with the San Francisco 

Chronicle, was a staffer on the Daily Cal with 

Marguerite, and a member of the 1940 graduation class. 

Lee was also sports editor in his senior year, and thus a 

member of the board with Marguerite. Lee liked to report 

that he had pushed for Marguerite's dismissal from the 

board . Probably, he thought in retrospect, it was 

because he felt she had more extracurricular activities 

than could be handled simultaneously with responsibil­

ities on the Daily Cal . Lee described himself in those 

days at Berkeley as "a dedicated, 100-percent-



47 

of-the-time-and-effort type," who would have found 

Marguerite's interest in things extraneous to the paper 

unacceptable. 
In later years, he liked to say, though it 

was hardly true, that he was "probably the only newspaper 

editor in history who wanted to fire a Pulitzer Prize 

winner." 44 Years later, when the memory of his at­

tempted ouster of Marguerite was dim, he recalled she was 

a warm, friendly person, a popular and attractive girl on 

campus. He was flattered when she remembered him at a 
45 

crowded gathering many years later. 

Marguerite's academic program at Berkeley included 

her French major, history, economics, and political 

science as well as art and music. 
In addition, she 

signed up for philosophy courses each semester in her 
46 

sophomore, junior and senior years. 

Stanley Moore was a teaching assistant and section 

leader in Berkeley's philosophy department. Considered 

by some of Marguerite's colleagues to be "quite polit­

ically far out," Stanley Moore no doubt attracted 

Marguerite for a number of reasons, but one seems espe­

cially probable. Throughout Marguerite's life, she was 

drawn to people in positions of power and authority. 

This was particularly true of men, who, by and large, 

occupy those places. But in addition to Stanley Moore's 

position as a young professor, an authority figure or 

leader in the classroom, he represented something else 



48 

that Marguerite valued -- social acceptance. Moore was 

the son of a wealthy and socially prominent family, and 

as such, provided a means for her to shed some sense of 

being t he "freak ," or the di ffe rent sort she often 

describes herself as being in the early years . 

Six years older than Marguerite, Stanley Moore was 

I 

making a name for himself as a promising young academi­

cian. He was awarded the Sutton Fellowship at Berkeley in 

1939 -- a time when Marguerite held the University's La 

Verne Noyes and Irene Purington Scholarships, both of 

which rewarded competitive academic performance.
47 

Moore received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Berkeley in 

1940, and Marguerite graduated the following year with a 

bachelor's degree in French. By the fall of 1941, 

Marguerite, unable to find a full-time newspaper job in 

New York, had enrolled in Columbia's Graduate School of 

J 1
. 48 

ourna ism. 
Moore, meantime, joined the faculty of 

Harvard university as an instructor and tutor in philo­

sophy. 49 

According to Moore, they met initially while she was 

a student of his in a philosophy section at Berkeley.so 

They were acquaintances with mutual friends and sometimes 

encountered each other socially until he left for Harvard 

in the fall of 1940. Meeting him by chance on a Berkeley 

street the following summer, she told him of her plans to 

e nter Columbia in the fall, and they arranged to get 



49 

together. Moore also c onfirms that shortly after her 

arrival in New York they did meet, became lovers, and 

continued to see each other until he joined the Army in 

1942 . 51 

They were married on November 20, 1942, at St. 

Clement's Church, an Episcopalian chapel near the 

Berkeley campus, and the site of fashionable campus 

marriages of the time, according to Marguerite's friend, 

Jean Craig Clack, who attended the wedding. 52 

Marguerite's parents were deeply disappointed that it was 

not a Catholic wedding. Nevertheless, they were present 

at the ceremony. The Moores were socially prominent in 

the San Francisco Piedmont area, and a reception for the 

newlyweds was held at their home following the st. 

53 Clements' ceremony. 

After a Carmel honeymoon, Marguerite returned to New 

York, Stanley Moore to his Texas military post. 54 

Subsequently, Moore spent six weeks at the Harvard 

Business School where he received his commission. He was 

then stationed in Connecticut until he shipped out for 

England in August 1943. "During this six-month period r 

came to New York for most weekends. And we spent some 

1 ft .,55 
days in Nantucket before I e . 

It was to be a marriage of short duration. 

has been written about it. Marguerite made few 

Little 



50 

references to it, although she did say in her 1955 auto­

biography that 

" . My marriage had been a wartime thing and had 
gone the way of many marriages built on a seven-day 
honeymoon followed by many years of s eparation. 
When we marr ied, my husband was on his way to wa r as 
a draftee, a private first-class. 5 Gn peace-time, he 
had been a philosophy instructor. 

It is true that Moore did sign up with the Air Force 

as the private first-class she described. However, 

characteristic of Marguerite' s tendency to describe the 

details of her personal life in what4ever light makes her 

position most favorable, she fails to mention, though she 

wri tes he r description from a 1955 perspective, that 

Moore eventually rose to the rank o f major before 

completing his tour of duty four years later. 57 

In the beginning, there was a likely match between 

Moore's academic studies, publishing and teaching, and 

Marguerite's campus activism and aggressiveness. His 

publications in political philosophy focused on socialism 

and Marxism. Although he and Marguerite from all indica­

tions appeared to start out compatibly enough, five years 

would bring a sharp divergence in their points of 

view. 58 

For Marguerite's part, deep and long-lasting im­

pressions would later result from her experiences in post 

World war II, and she was to become increasingly conser­

vative as she covered political developments in Europe. 

That conservatism became even more strongly entrenched 



51 

with her personally frightening e ncounters with 

t 
59 otalitarian governments. She was disturbed by 

conditions where peoples were closely controlled. Though 

of liberal persuasion in her college year s , a conserva­

t ive tendency emerged and grew in intensity throughout 

her life. 60 

J ean Craig Clack recalls Marguerite's writing to her 

from Europe during the Forties, professing her continuing 

love for Stanley Moore, but also expressing growing 

reservations about what appeared to be his increasingly 

socialistic bent. As the separation stretched over the 

years, reconciliation seemed more and more unlikely.
61 

Ke n McCormick, Marguerite's editor later at Doubleday & 

Company, recalls their marriage as one that couldn't 

possibly last. He attributed its failure basically to 

the fact that Moore was a professorial stay-at-home, and 

. t' 62 
Marguerite, by nature, peripate ic. 

Stanley Moore returned to the U.S. at the war's 

close, serving for a brief period as a lecturer on the 

Berkeley campus. 
Shortly thereafter, he was selected a 

Rockefeller Foundation Post war Fellow in a special 

fellowship category set up to provide assistance for 

those whose studies had been interrupted by the war. He 

sued Marguerite for divorce in 1947 on grounds of extreme 

cruelty. 6 3 According to Moore, their separation and 

eventual divorce was agreed to mutually. They 



52 

"considered a French divorce but decided it would be too 

complicated." Moore says that he had been in " friendly 

consultation with Larry," and the decree became final in 

1948. 64 

Marguerite's passing explanation of why the marriage 

did not work is interesting, but sheds little light on 

the nature of their relationship. By the time she wrote 

of the distinction between love and admiration and how it 

related to her relationship with Stanley Moore, as 

briefly mentioned in her autobiography, she had re­

married, this time choosing a high-ranking Air Force 

general. She said, 

" ... although hindsight is admittedly untrust­
worthy, it seemed, looking back, that in my first 
attempt at matrimony, I had felt admiration and 
affection but not love. Although my concept of 
love, like most people's, seems to change with the 
seasons of life and of the year, I am, for the 
purposes of this book, speaking of love in the sense 
of needing someone so much that it is more painful 
to be without him that it is to be with him (ir­
respective of how much_pain may be attached to being 
with him). I don't think I ever needed my first 
husband at all because there was g5ver the time or 
occasion for the need to develop. 



1. 

2 . 

3. 

4 . 

5 . 

6. 

7. 

8. 

9. 

10. 

11. 

12. 

13. 

14. 

15. 

16. 

17. 

Footnotes: Chapte r Two 

Scrapbooks , Margue rite Higgins Papers, Ge orge Arents 
Rese a rch Library , Syracu se Universi t y , Sy racuse , New 
York. 

Le tter t o the author from Jean Kelly Stock (Mrs. 
John P. St ock), May 20, 1 975. 

Margueri t e Hi ggin~• s A~pl ica t ion for Admis s ion, 
Unive r sity of Cal ifornia, Be rke l ey , June 29, 1 937 . 

Margue rite Hi gg ins, News Is a Singu lar Thing (New 
York: Doub leday & Co. , Inc ., 195 5 ), p. 23 . 

Catalogs , Unive rsity o f Ca l i f o r n ia , Berke ley , 
1936-1940. 

Autobiography p o r tion o f Margue rite Hi ggin s's 
Application fo r Admis sion t o Columbia Univers ity ' s 
Graduate Sc hool of Jour nalism, Se pte mbe r 1 941. 

Of ficial Tr ans cript of Re cord for Marguerite 
Higgins, Unive r sity o f Cali f o r nia, Berke l ey , 
July 16, 1975. 

Higgins, News I s a Singular Thing, p. 15 . 

Lette r to the author, Jean Ke lly Stock, May 20, 
1975 . 

Autobiography, Applicati on t o Columbia . 

Letter to the author from Mar ge Shupert, Gamma Phi 
Beta a lumnae coordinator, January 8, 1982. 

Interview with Lt. Gen. William E. Hall, U.S.A.F., 
Ret., February 26, 1973. 

Interview with Jean Craig Clack, December 5, 1979· 
and letter to the author from Ma rjori e Ba rke r ' 
Malmquist, October 28, 1979. 

Letter to the author, J e an Kelly Stock, May 20, 
1975. 

Letter to the a uthor, Anne Duhring Cooper, November 
28, 1979. 

Official Transcript of Record f or Marguerite 
Higgins, University of California, Berkeley, July 
16, 1975. 

Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, p. 16. 



18. 

54 

Letter to the author, Anne Duhring Cooper, 
November 28, 1979. 

19. 
Autobiography, Marguerite Higgins's Application to 

Columbia. 

20 . 

21. 

22. 

23. 

24. 

25. 

26. 

Letter to the author, Anne Duhring Cooper, 
November 28, 1979. 

Ibid. 

Ibid. 

Ibid. 

Letter to the author, Jean Kelly Stock, May 20 

1975. 

Letter to the author, Anne Duhring Cooper, 
Nove mber 28, 1979. 

Letter to the author from Edmund Androbus , 

February 1, 1982. 

Higgins, News rs a Singular Thing, p. 15. 

, 

27. 

28. 
Letter to the author, Anne Duhring Cooper, March 24 , 

1980. 

29. 
Letter to the author, Jean Kelly Stock, May 20, 

1975. 

30. Ibid. 

31. Letters to the author, Jean Kelly Stock, May 20 
1975; and Anne Duhring cooper, March 24, 1980. ' 

32. Letter to the author, Marjorie Barker Malmquist, 

October 28, 1979-

33. Letter to the author from Anne Duhring Cooper, 

November 28, 1979. 

34. Letter to the author from Michael Emery, July 8, 

1975. 

35. Letter to the author, Anne Duhring Cooper, 

November 28, 1979. 

36. Letter to the author, Edmund Androbus, February 2 , 

1982. 



55 

37. 

38. 

Interview with Ge n. Hall, February 26, 19 73. 

Official Transcript, University of California, 
Berkeley, for Marguerite Higgins. 

39. 

40. 

41. 

42. 

43. 

44. 

45. 

46. 

47. 

48. 

49. 

so. 

51. 

52. 

53. 

54. 

Ibid. 

Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, pp. 21-22. 

Letter to the author, Michael Emery, July 8, 1975. 

Ibid. 

Ibid. 

Letter to the author from Bruce Lee, July 9, 1975. 

Ibid. 

Official Transcript, University of California. 

University of California catalogs, 1937-1941. 

Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, p. 39. 

Letter to the author from Stanley Moore, April 19, 
1982. 

Ibid. 

Ibid. 

Interview with Jean Craig Clack , December 5, 1979· 
• I and Divorce Complaint, Stanley W. Moore vs. 

Marguerite H. Moore, in the Superior Court of the 
State of California, in and for the County of 
Alameda, No. 198745. 

Interview with Jean Craig Clack, December 5, 1979. 

Letter to the author from Stanley Moore, April 29, 
1982. 

Ibid. 55. 

56 . 

57. 

58. 

Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, p. 39 . 

Ibid. 

Interview with Jean Craig Clack, December 5, 1979. 

59. Interview with Peter Lisagor, December 12, 1972. 



56 

60. Interview with Lt. Gen. William E. Hall, February 
26, 1973. 

61. Interview with Jean Craig Clack, December 5, 1979. 

62. Interview with Kenneth J. McCormick, March 13, 1973. 

63. Divorce Complaint, Stanley W. Moore vs. Marguerite 
H. Moore, in the Superior Court of the State of 
California , in and for the County of Alameda, 
No. 1298745. 

64. Letter to the author from Stanley Moore, April 29, 
1982. 

65 . Higgins, News Is a Singular Thing, p. 107. 



III. READYING FOR THE RACE : CUB 
REPORTER TO FORE I GN CORRESPONDENT 

In the summer of 1 941, following graduatio n from 

Berkeley , Margue ri te went t o work for the s mall 

(circulation 10,00 0) Va llej o Times-Hera ld in a t own south 

of San Franc isc o. She was a cub reporter, a job she 

would later de s cribe as a "summe r of p rocessing 

c l assified a ds. 111 When he r work in t he classified 

section was done , she wrote news s t o ries . Some times they 

were used, with her by-line, to mark he r o fficia l start 

in j ourna lism. Thi s taste o f " rea l ne wspa pering " made 

he r eager f or more recognit i on . Ultimate l y , the smal l 

Valle jo Times -He rald would not be e nough, fo r b y t he n her 

ambition was to be a r e po rter wi t h a maj or metropolitan 

daily or, better yet, a f o r e ign correspondent at some 

2 e xotic overseas bureau . 

Journalism would p r ove a more satisfying career to 

her than the possibility o f a career teaching French, as 

h db • • 1 • t t 3 At th 1 f h a een her origina in en. e c ose o t e 

summe r of 1941, Marguerite ma de her way to New York, 

using the home of relatives in Long Island as a base 

until she found employment . On arriving in the City, and 

asking directions to the nearest newspape r, she found the 

N 'b 4 e w York Herald Triune. 

In those days, women r e porters we re not in any great 

demand at the Ne w York Herald Tribune, nor at any other 

major newspaper. In fact, as a newspaper opening prove d 

impossible to find throughout the city, Marguerite ha d 



58 

a pplie d to Columbia Unive r sity's Graduate School o f 

Journalism for the coming fall. By that t i me of the 

y ear, it seemed much too late to be granted admission. 

Dea n Ac ke rman, who was considering her application, 

doubte d that the admission deadlines could be met. In 

one of her earliest descriptions of the responsiveness of 

he r father in s upporting he r efforts, Marguerite tells of 

c alling him a t home on the West Coast, explaining that 

the lette rs of recommendation, transcripts and other 

documentation would be needed within 48 hours. He r 

father had them sent. 
She was admitted to Columbia's 

Journalism School that fall.
5 

She described the furious spurt of energy required 

to gain admission, a step toward attaining her ambition: 

"By the time I reached New York ••• I told myself 
that this was very much of a last chance. On 
graduation from the University of California, I 
had given myself just one year in which to land a 
newspaper job. A career in journalism symbolized 
the epitome of excitement and adventure. Foreign 
correspondence and national reporting were 
particularly intriguing, I thought, because they 
offered the stimulation of being in a perpetual 
intellectual race against history, one's 
competitors, and time: the time it takes to meet 
a deadline and the time required to do the infinite 
reading and studying that equip you in the quest 
both for information and for the exercise of sound 
judgment. I have never lo~t this sense of 
ex~it~ment about newspapering. If I ever do, I'll 

quit. 

Realizing that money was going to be scarce, she 

returned repeatedly to the Herald Tribune, hoping to win 

some assignment, however small, on the paper. The only 



59 

possibil ity -- to be selected a s the Trib's Columbi a 

campus corre spondent - - had been seized by Murray Morgan, 

a J-school classmate. Then Time magazine offered Morgan, 

a n experience d newsman, a job, and he accepted. As soon 

as Morgan told Marguerite of his good fortune, she made 

her way t o the Trib, despite Morgan's warnings, "Engel 

told me he didn't want to hire a woman reporter!" 7 

As it turned out, City Editor Lessing Engelking gave 

her the job despite his preference for a man. Later 

Engelking was to remark on her competitive nature, fire 

a nd zea1. 8 She credited such successes, howeve r, to 

"good fortune:" 

"It disappoints the youngsters who look for a sure 
calculated formula for so-called success, but I've 
always found that when the breaks finally came, it 
was either through such an accident o9 through the 
kind of luck that defies all formula. 

No doubt, Marguerite did consider herself "lucky." 

More likely, however, would have been her thought that 

"luck" was the more socially acceptable explanation a 

woman could offer for success in a traditionally male 

profession. Certainly, an ambitious male reporter, 

similarly successful, would hardly have attributed his 

S • l "l k breaks. " uccess primari y to uc Y Nor would he have 

been expected to do so. 

Nevertheless, the theme of good fortune underlying 

her success runs through Marguerite's work, particularly 

in her early work. she further described her good 



60 

f ortune in getting City Editor Lessing Enge l king's 

a ttention: 

Fortunately, luck prescribed that on this particular 
day this tall gangling city editor who hailed from 
Texas should be amicably disposed toward a young 
female job seeker who arrived unannounced and 
without -- as Engel drew out of me -- in fact, 
knowiyg a single soul in the newspaper world of New 

York. 

At the same time, in her journalism classes at 

Columbia, signs were emerging that she knew in a singular 

way what she wante d. 

Chamberlain, said: 

one of her instructors, John 

I was once Marguerite Higgins' teacher in a course 
c alled "Editorial Methods" which I gave at the 
Columbia School of Journalism in 1941-42. Since she 
knew right where she was going, I don't think I had 
any ef fect on he r .. Marguerite Higgins showed her 
... go-for-broke style quite early. If she wanted 
to write 20 pages on a topic when one had only asked 
for 700 words, she would gladly risk getting a poor 
mark for ters1yess and compression just to have her 

complete say. 

It did not deter her that women we re not welcome in 

the newspaper business. 
She decided to make up for being 

female b y being better, an avenue many another woman 

journalist has taken. Being a bette r reporter often 

means being faster, more thorough and persistent. During 

the early days of her Herald Tribune career, she showed 

these characteristics, among others, was recognized for 

them, and she practiced her craft with relish. 

"Some of her Columbia classmates," John Chamberlain 

said, "thought that Maggie Higgins was arrogant." He 

said, "they used to quote her prediction that she would 



61 

some day be as well known in the newspaper world as 

columnist Dorothy Thompson." Chamberlain accepted her 

self-confidence : 

. this, as it turned out, was not mere bravado ; 
it was a statement of desire1,atched by a unique 
quality of iron in her will. 

The significant thing about Marguerite Higgins, 

Chamberlain said, "is that she could reach conclusions 

even against her own ideological preconceptions when 

exposure of facts dictated a change." 13 

A number of Marguerite's early stories as a campus 

correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune provided 

opportunities for her to mark her mark. One example, 

often quoted, is the Chiang Kai-shek scoop, which 

represented an early triumph. In that case, Chiang 

Kai-shek was meeting a small group of Republican 

governors at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City -- some 

twelve in all. The press was not to be admitted. After 

the other reporters left the hotel, Marguerite remained, 

begging officials to permit one reporter. "Just me!" At 

t he last minute, she was permitted to stay, wrote the 

story for the Trib and as the only account of the 

meeting, garnered a "scoop" for the Trib over the other 

papers. 14 

In the mid-Fifties, when Newsweek sought the answer 

to "What Makes Maggie Run?" they recalled the Chiang 

Kai-shek epis