Harrison Evans Salisbury was born on November 14, 1908 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He graduated from the University of Minnesota at the age of 22. During part of his time at the university, Salisbury served as the editor of the school newspaper. However, his editorship was revoked after he criticized the school’s administration -- Salisbury liked to refer to himself as a “disturber of the peace.”
Salisbury got his start in the journalism industry as a United Press (UP) reporter in Chicago, a position he held for nearly 20 years. However, while he started off in Chicago, much of his career as a United Press reporter took place overseas; during World War II, Salisbury traveled to Europe, the Middle East, and Russia as a United Press correspondent.
After leaving the United Press, Salisbury joined the New York Times in 1949; he would remain with the New York Times for the remainder of his career. From 1949-1954, Salisbury served as the New York Times’ Moscow bureau chief. Despite an endless battle with Soviet censorship, Salisbury’s reporting was seen worthy of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, which he was awarded in 1955. Salisbury’s outstanding work also earned him the George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting on two separate occasions -- once in 1957 and once in 1966.
In 1970, Salisbury created the New York Times’ Op-Ed page and held the title of assistant managing editor from 1964-1972 and associate editor from 1972-1973. He retired from The Times in 1973.
Salisbury was the author of 29 books, including the 1969 best seller “The 900 Days: the Siege of Leningrad.”
Harrison E. Salisbury was constantly present in some of the world’s most isolated, inaccessible places -- one of the reason’s for his wealth of success. Salisbury held a number of reports from Communist China, and, in 1989, he witnessed the tragic events at Tiananmen Square.
Salisbury passed away in the passenger seat of his wife’s car in Providence, Rhode Island on July 5, 1993. He was 84 years old.
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