Charles Christian Wertenbaker. (11 February 1901 – 8 January 1955) was an American journalist for ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
,'' and author.
Career
Wertenbaker was born in 1901, the son of American football coach
Bill Wertenbaker
William C. Wertenbaker (September 15, 1875 – March 24, 1933) was an American football coach and physician. He served as the head football coach at Wofford College (1895), the University of Richmond (1897), the University of South Carolina (189 ...
.
Wertenbaker worked for Time publications (
Fortune
Fortune may refer to:
General
* Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck
* Luck
* Wealth
* Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling
* Fortune, in a fortune cookie
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''The Fortune'' (1931 film) ...
,
Life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
, and Time) from 1931 to 1948. In 1940,
William Saroyan
William Saroyan (; August 31, 1908 – May 18, 1981) was an Armenian-American novelist, playwright, and short story writer. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940, and in 1943 won the Academy Award for Best Story for the film ''The ...
lists him among "associate editors" at ''Time'' in the play, ''Love's Old Sweet Song''.
By 1942, Wertenbaker was the magazine's foreign editor.
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938), ...
, who served as foreign editor later in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, described him and other colleagues in his 1952 memoir:
I had scarcely edited it so long when most of Time's European correspondents joined in a round-robin protesting my editorial views and demanding my removal . They were seconded by a clap of thunder out of Asia, from the Time bureau in
Chungking
Chongqing ( or ; ; Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Chungking (), is a municipality in Southwest China. The official abbreviation of the city, "" (), was approved by the State Counc ...
. Let me list the signers of the round-robin, or those among Time's foreign correspondents who supported it, and continued to feed out news written from the viewpoint that the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
is a benevolent democracy of unaggressive intent, or that the Chinese Communists are "agrarian liberals," for I think that they are enlightening. Foremost among them were:
John Hersey
John Richard Hersey (June 17, 1914 – March 24, 1993) was an American writer and journalist. He is considered one of the earliest practitioners of the so-called New Journalism, in which storytelling techniques of fiction are adapted to n ...
,
John Scott John Scott may refer to:
Academics
* John Scott (1639–1695), English clergyman and devotional writer
* John Witherspoon Scott (1800–1892), American minister, college president, and father of First Lady Caroline Harrison
* John Work Scott (180 ...
(son of my old teacher of the law of social revolution,
Scott Nearing
Scott Nearing (August 6, 1883 – August 24, 1983) was an American radical economist, educator, writer, political activist, pacifist, vegetarian and advocate of simple living.
Biography
Early years
Nearing was born in Morris Run, Tioga County, ...
), Charles C . Wertenbaker, the late
Richard Lauterbach
Richard Edward Lauterbach (June 18, 1914, New York - September 20, 1950, New York) was the ''Time'' magazine Moscow bureau chief during World War II.
Background
Lauterbach was born in New York in 1914. He studied China and the Far East under Pro ...
,
Theodore White
Theodore Harold White (, May 6, 1915 – May 15, 1986) was an American political journalist and historian, known for his reporting from China during World War II and the ''Making of the President'' series.
White started his career reporting for ...
.
Towards the end of the war, Wertenbaker reported from Paris, where he knew people like
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...
and
Irwin Shaw
Irwin Shaw (February 27, 1913 – May 16, 1984) was an American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author whose written works have sold more than 14 million copies. He is best known for two of his novels: ''The Young Lions'' ( ...
. He was one of many journalist who hung out at the Bar in the Hotel Scribe, as painted by colleague
Floyd MacMillan Davis
Floyd MacMillan Davis (April 8, 1896 – October 25, 1966) was an American painter and illustrator known for his work in advertising and illustration; Walter and Roger Reed described him as "someone who could capture the rich, beautiful people o ...
in Paris in 1945. Wertenbaker described the scene in an article for ''
Life (magazine)
''Life'' was an American magazine published weekly from 1883 to 1972, as an intermittent "special" until 1978, and as a monthly from 1978 until 2000. During its golden age from 1936 to 1972, ''Life'' was a wide-ranging weekly general-interest ma ...
''.
After the war, he remained in France, where he continued as both journalist and author.
Personal life
In 1942, Wertenbaker married Lael Tucker Wertenbaker, also a ''Time'' journalist, whom an official of the German Nazi propaganda ministry called ''a dangerous woman.''
Later, she became an author. Her best known book is ''Death of a Man'', an account of her husband's illness and death by
euthanasia
Euthanasia (from el, εὐθανασία 'good death': εὖ, ''eu'' 'well, good' + θάνατος, ''thanatos'' 'death') is the practice of intentionally ending life to eliminate pain and suffering.
Different countries have different eut ...
. In 1962,
Garson Kanin
Garson Kanin (November 24, 1912 – March 13, 1999) was an American writer and director of plays and films.
Early life
Garson Kanin was born in Rochester, New York; his family later relocated to Detroit then to New York City. He attended ...
adapted the book for a Broadway play called ''
A Gift of Time
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes' ...
''.
They had a son, Dr.
Christian Wertenbaker
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρισ ...
, and a daughter,
Timberlake Wertenbaker
Timberlake Wertenbaker is a British-based playwright, screenplay writer, and translator who has written plays for the Royal Court, the Royal Shakespeare Company and others. She has been described in ''The Washington Post'' as "the doyenne of po ...
, a playwright.
In 1955 Lael Tucker Wertenbaker and her son Christian were interviewed by
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...
Around the World with Orson Welles
''Around the World with Orson Welles'' is a series of six short travelogues originally written and directed by Orson Welles for Associated-Rediffusion in 1955, for Britain's then-new ITV channel. Despite its title emphasizing the world, it was en ...
".
Death
Wertenbaker died of
colon cancer
Colorectal cancer (CRC), also known as bowel cancer, colon cancer, or rectal cancer, is the development of cancer from the colon or rectum (parts of the large intestine). Signs and symptoms may include blood in the stool, a change in bowel mo ...
in 1955. After his death in Paris, his wife moved to New York and New Hampshire in 1966, settling in
Keene, New Hampshire
Keene is a city in, and the County seat, seat of Cheshire County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 23,047 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, down from 23,409 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census.
Keene is ho ...
in 1985.
Writing
Wertenbaker began publishing books in college.
Books
* ''Boojum!'' (1928)
* ''Peter the Drunk'' (1930)
* ''Before They Were Men'' (1931)
* ''To My Father'' (1936)
* ''A New Doctrine for the Americas'' (1941)
* ''Invasion'' (1945)
* ''Write Sorrow on the Earth'' (1947)
* ''The Death of Kings'' (1954)
Articles
* ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' (sampling)
:: "Precision in the North" (April 19, 1943)
:: "Paris is Free: Merci! Merci! Merci!" (September 4, 1944)
:: "Germany's Chance on the Western Front" (January 15, 1945)
:: "This Invasion Was Different" (April 2, 1945)
:: "No. 21" (July 21, 1947)
* ''
New Yorker
New Yorker or ''variant'' primarily refers to:
* A resident of the State of New York
** Demographics of New York (state)
* A resident of New York City
** List of people from New York City
* ''The New Yorker'', a magazine founded in 1925
* ''The New ...
''
:: "The Pursuit of the Wild Pigeon" (November 11, 1950)
:: "Department of Amplification" (October 20, 1951)
:: "The World on His Back" (December 26, 1953)
:: "The Testing of M. Thulier" (June 5, 1954)
* ''
Harper's Magazine
''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...