An Accidental Journalist: The Adventures of Edmund Stevens, 1934-1945

Idealistic American Edmund Stevens arrived in Moscow in 1934 to do his part for the advancement of international Communism. His job writing propaganda led to an accidental career in journalism and an eventual Pulitzer Prize in 1950 for his uncensored descriptions of Stalin s purges. The longest-serving American-born correspondent working from within the Soviet Union, Stevens began his journalism career reporting on the Russo-Finnish War in 1939 and was the Christian Science Monitor s first man in the field to cover fighting in World War II. He reported on the Italian invasion of Greece, participated in Churchill s Moscow meeting with Stalin as a staff translator, and distinguished himself as a correspondent with the British army in North Africa. Drawing on Stevens s memoirs as well as his articles and correspondence, Heckler sheds new light on both the public and the private Stevens, portraying a reporter adapting to new roles and circumstances with a skill that journalists today could well emulate.