Joseph Hilton Smyth (4 December 1901 – 1972) was an American publisher and pulp author. He and two associates, Walker Gray Matheson and Irvine Harvey Williams, in connection with their publishing activities, were convicted in 1942 for acting as agents for the

Japanese government The Government of Japan consists of legislative, executive and judiciary branches and is based on popular sovereignty. The Government runs under the framework established by the Constitution of Japan, adopted in 1947. It is a unitary state, c ...

without registering with the

State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...

Publishing

In 1940 he and his associates acquired a number of

magazine A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinatio ...

s, using $125,000 funds supplied by the Japanese government. The agreement was to publish pro-Japanese stories. After the three were convicted of being unregistered agents for the Japanese government, the titles ceased, though at least one ''(

North American Review The ''North American Review'' (NAR) was the first literary magazine in the United States. It was founded in Boston in 1815 by journalist Nathan Hale and others. It was published continuously until 1940, after which it was inactive until revived a ...

)'' was later revived. In the 1960s he was co-publisher of the ''

Saturday Review of Literature ''Saturday Review'', previously ''The Saturday Review of Literature'', was an American weekly magazine established in 1924. Norman Cousins was the editor from 1940 to 1971. Under Norman Cousins, it was described as "a compendium of reportage, ess ...

''.

Novels

* ''President's Agent'' (1963) writing as Joseph Hilton * ''Angels in the Gutter'' (1955) writing as Joseph Hilton In addition to novels, Smith also published an autobiography, ''To Nowhere and Return'', prior to his conviction.

References

1901 births 1972 deaths 20th-century American novelists American publishers (people) American male novelists {{DEFAULTSORT:Smyth, Joseph Hilton 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American male writers