James Reston

James Barrett Reston (November 3, 1909 – December 6, 1995), nicknamed "Scotty", was an American journalist whose career spanned the mid-1930s to the early 1990s. He was associated for many years with The New York Times.

Life and career

Reston was born in Clydebank, Scotland, into a poor, devout Scottish Presbyterian family that emigrated to the United States in 1920. He sailed with his mother and sister to New York as steerage passengers on board the SS Mobile and they were inspected at Ellis Island on September 28, 1920. After working briefly for the Springfield, Ohio Daily News, he joined the Associated Press in 1934. He moved to the London bureau of The New York Times in 1939, but returned to New York in 1940. In 1942, he took leave of absence to establish a U.S. Office of War Information in London. Rejoining the Times in 1945, Reston was assigned to Washington, D.C., as national correspondent. In 1948, he was appointed diplomatic correspondent, followed by bureau chief and columnist in 1953.