Victor Lasky (7 January 1918 – 22 February 1990) was a conservative

columnist A columnist is a person who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Column (newspaper), Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs. They take the fo ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

who wrote several best-selling books. He was syndicated by the North American Newspaper Alliance.

Background

On January 7, 1918, Victor Lasky was born in

Liberty, New York Liberty is a town in Sullivan County, New York, United States. The population was 9,885 at the 2010 census. The town contains a village also named Liberty. The village is bisected by New York State Route 52 (NY 52) and NY 55, and is ...

. He graduated from

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...

in 1940.

Career

In 1942, Lasky joined the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

and served during

World War two 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 opposing ...

; during that time, he did correspondence work for the army's newspaper '' Stars and Stripes''. After World War Two, Lasky joined the staff of the ''New York World-Telegram''; while there, he assisted

Frederick Woltman Frederick Woltman (March 16, 1905 – March 6, 1970) was a 20th-century American newspaper journalist for the ''New York World-Telegram'', known as "an anti-communist reporter in the 1940s and early 1950s, best known for criticism of U.S. Senato ...

in writing a series of articles on

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...

infiltration within the US, for which Woltman won a ''

Pulitzer Prize for Reporting The Pulitzer Prize for Reporting was awarded from 1917 to 1947. Winners *1917: Herbert Bayard Swope, ''New York World'', for articles which appeared October 10, October 15 and from November 4 daily to November 22, 1916, inclusive, entitled, "Ins ...

'' in 1947. Lasky first came to prominence with his 1950 book ''Seeds of Treason'', co-authored with

Ralph de Toledano Ralph de Toledano (August 17, 1916 – February 3, 2007) was an American writer in the conservative movement in the United States throughout the second half of the 20th century. A friend of Richard Nixon, he was a journalist and editor of ''Newsw ...

, in which the authors argued against

Alger Hiss Alger Hiss (November 11, 1904 – November 15, 1996) was an American government official accused in 1948 of having spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Statutes of limitations had expired for espionage, but he was convicted of perjury in con ...

and in favor of

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), ...

, with regard to Chambers' accusations both he and Hiss had been spies for 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 ...

. He was one of the first journalists to write a critical view of President

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...

. He expanded on this in his 1963 book ''JFK: The Man And The Myth'', questioning Kennedy's wartime heroics on PT-''109'' and claimed he had a lackluster record as a

congressman A Member of Congress (MOC) is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The term member of parliament (MP) is an equivalen ...

and

senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

. Lasky also wrote a similar negative book about

Robert F. Kennedy Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925June 6, 1968), also known by his initials RFK and by the nickname Bobby, was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 64th United States Attorney General from January 1961 to September 1964, ...

. Lasky's most controversial book was ''It Didn't Start With Watergate'' published in 1977. The author argued that the scandal that drove

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

from office was little more than a media event. He believed that the press disliked Nixon and subjected him to unfair scrutiny no other president had ever experienced. Lasky also claimed that

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

, John F. Kennedy and

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

had used wiretaps on political opponents. Lasky professed the greatest political "crime of the century" was not the

Watergate scandal The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continual ...

, but what he describes as the "theft" of the 1960 Presidential election. In 1979, Lasky wrote another controversial work called ''Jimmy Carter: The Man And The Myth'', asserting that

Carter Carter(s), or Carter's, Tha Carter, or The Carter(s), may refer to: Geography United States * Carter, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Carter, Mississippi, an unincorporated community * Carter, Montana, a census-designated place * Carter ...

was one of the most inept presidents of all time. Lasky's last work was ''Never Complain, Never Explain'' (1981), a biography of Henry Ford II.

Works

Books include: * 1950 - ''Seeds of Treason; The True Story of the Hiss-Chambers Tragedy'' (with

) * 1960 - ''John F. Kennedy; What's Behind the Image?'' * 1963 - ''J. F. K.: the Man and the Myth'' * 1965 - ''The Ugly Russian'' * 1968 - ''Robert F. Kennedy; the Myth and the Man'' * 1970 - ''Arthur J. Goldberg, the Old and the New'' * 1970 - ''"Say ... Didn’t You Used to Be George Murphy?"'' (with

George Murphy George Lloyd Murphy (July 4, 1902 – May 3, 1992) was an American dancer, actor, and politician. Murphy was a song-and-dance leading man in many big-budget Hollywood musicals from 1930 to 1952. He was the president of the Screen Actors Guild fro ...

) * 1977 - ''It Didn’t Start With Watergate'' * 1979 - ''Jimmy Carter, the Man & the Myth'' * 1981 - ''Never Complain, Never Explain : the Story of Henry Ford II'' Articles include: * "How to Understand Communism," ''American Legion Magazine'' (August 1953)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lasky, Victor 1918 births 1990 deaths American columnists American male journalists American political writers Brooklyn College alumni McCarthyism 20th-century American writers 20th-century American journalists United States Army personnel of World War II