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opment Program to fill the space the
group had secured for a South African
Nieman Fellow. Sussens recalled earlier
this year that his employer at the
time, the Rand Daily Mail, “never having
heard of the Nieman Fellowship
and, not very impressed, insisted that I
take unpaid leave.” He managed to
borrow enough beyond his modest
stipend for he and his wife to spend the
year in Cambridge.
Shortly after his return to South
Africa, Sussens began a career pioneering
the corporate communications industry
in South Africa. He founded
Group Editors, which he ran until 1981,
when he needed to have a pacemaker
installed and moved to Britain for two
“marvelous” years. After that short
break, he returned to South Africa and
continued in the public relations business
until the age of 74, when he sold
most of his interest and retired to his
farmhouse.
An “indelible person,” is how Tony
Heard (NF ’68) describes him. Sussens
wrote for a conference of South African
Niemans earlier this year that his time
at Harvard “still remains a seminal point
in my personal history, and I have
watched with pride as year after year,
and then decade after decade, the
growth in numbers of the South African
Nieman Fellows.” Tim du Plessis
(NF ’93) writes, “His enthusiasm, his
never-ending efforts to keep our family
of South African Niemans together, is
the reason why, for most of us, the
Nieman experience is a lasting one.”
Sussens is survived by his wife of 47
years, Penny, and three daughters and
six grandchildren.
—1964—
Thomas B. Ross died on October
24 at the age of 73 of pancreatic cancer.
At the Chicago Sun-Times, where he
worked from 1954 to 1977, Ross collaborated
with David Wise beginning
in 1960 to investigate the downing of a
U.S. spy plane over Soviet territory.
Their 1962 book, “The U-2 Affair,” was
the first of three they cowrote investigating
cold war intelligence.
Ross and Wise’s second book, “The
Invisible Government” (1964), brought
much of the CIA’s covert history and
activities to public knowledge in such
detail and scope that the CIA sought to
limit its publication. The book spent
weeks as a bestseller and was The New
York Times’ number-two to Ernest
Hemingway’s “A Moveable Feast” for
22 weeks. According to the Times, Wise
said, “We were a bit disappointed, but
I told him [Ross] that if we had to be
second to someone, Hemingway was
it.” Their third book, “The Espionage
Establishment” (1967), looked at the
intelligence activities of other countries.
When Ross left the Sun-Times in
1977, he became the assistant secretary
of defense for public affairs under
the Carter administration. From 1981
on, he worked in the business world,
first as communications director of the
Celanese Corporation, then as senior
vice president of RCA, NBC, and Hill &
Knowlton. Until he died, he was vice
president for government relations of
Loral Space and Communications.
Ross is survived by his wife, Gunilla,
and two daughters.
Jerrold Schecter and his wife,
Laura, have written a book detailing
how the work of Soviet secret agents
profoundly influenced U.S. policy during
World War II and through the cold
war—and consequently the direction
of 20th century history. “Sacred Secrets:
How Soviet Intelligence Operations
Changed American History,” was
published in May by Brassey’s Inc. The
Schecters write that three independently
operating Soviet intelligence
units in China, Japan and the United
States were responsible for manipulating
Japan to opt against attacking Siberia
and to storm Pearl Harbor instead.
One of those spies, Harry Dexter White,
was director of monetary research at
the U.S. Treasury and was in large part
responsible for advocating U.S. economic
policies that angered Japan.
—1966—
Robert A. Caro was awarded the
National Book Award for nonfiction in
November for the third volume of his
biography, “Master of the Senate: The
Years of Lyndon Johnson” (Alfred A.
Knopf, 2002). On the evening his award
was announced, Caro was at the
Harvard Faculty Club speaking to the
current class of Nieman Fellows and
guests at a Nieman dinner.
“Master of the Senate,” seven years
in the making, covers Johnson’s 12
years in the Senate, from 1949 to 1960,
during which he built his political
power base after becoming Senate
majority leader just one year into his
first term. The book follows “Means of
Ascent,” about Johnson’s 1948 Senate
race, and “The Path to Power,” the first
volume of Caro’s four-part biography
and a National Book Award finalist in
1983.
Caro was also a finalist for the award
in 1975 for his biography of Robert
Moses, “The Power Broker.”
—1968—
Eduardo “Eddie” Lachica writes:
“I remain a Washington, D.C. resident
after retiring last year from being a 25-
year ‘lifer’ at the The Asian Wall Street
Journal and The Wall Street Journal.
I’m working pro bono on conflict management
studies involving a number of
Southeast Asian countries. It’s often a
mind-numbing, time-consuming slog,
but this is ‘giveback time’ for me to
make up for more than three decades
of self-indulgent journalism.”
—1970—
John Ryan’s book, “One Man’s Africa,”
has been published in South Africa.
He writes, “… I have covered
events in Africa for more than 40 years.
The book is a record of that time and is
interlaced with many of my reports of
the day. I was involved in five continental
wars and detained four times. Naturally,
‘One Man’s Africa’ also records
the process of revolution in South Africa
itself.
“When I was awarded the [Nieman]
fellowship, I was a bureau chief for the
now defunct Rand Daily Mail. I took
early retirement three years ago, as
managing editor of the Cape Argus,
here in Cape Town. My wife, Sue, and
I now operate a news feature service.”
Nieman Reports / Winter 2002 113