Silurian News November 2013 (8 Pages)
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Society of the Silurians LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD BANQUET The Players Club 16 Gramercy Park South Thursday, November 14, 2013 In Honor of SEYMOUR TOPPING Drinks: 6 p.m. Dinner: 7:15 p.m. Meet old friends Published by The Society of The Silurians, Inc., an organization Reservations: (212) 532-0887 of veteran New York City journalists founded in 1924 Members and One Guest $100 Each Non-Members $120 NOVEMBER 2013 For Seymour Topping, the Beat Goes On BY WARREN HOGE and much of the Cold War with the So- eymour Topping — known uni- viet Union. versally and aptly as “Top” — is He was a close-up observer and ana- Sreceiving the Silurians’ Lifetime lyst, interviewing commanders in high-risk Achievement Award on Nov. 14, and combat zones and exchanging observa- what a lifetime it has been — and con- tions with local officials, diplomats and tinues to be. specialists in the field and becoming an Nimble of mind and body, elegantly expert himself. In 1951, John F. Kennedy, white-maned, and just a month shy of turn- then a young congressman on a fact-find- ing 92, Top is still lecturing at universities ing visit to Saigon, sought out Top for a here and in China and participating in eve- briefing. nings at foreign affairs venues around Significantly, Top’s view in these highly New York. Just last month, he enthralled contested situations was always an inde- a roomful of listeners at an Overseas pendent one, fact-based, multiple-sourced Press Club gathering with tales from his and disinterested. Commenting on Top’s days as a war correspondent in China in 2010 memoir “On the Front Lines of the the 1940’s, vividly recalling experiences Cold War,” Henry F. Graff, professor as if he had lived them only last week. emeritus of history at Columbia and edi- The anecdotes ranged from alarming tor of The Presidents: A Reference His- moments like learning about the dropping tory, noted this aspect, saying, “As the of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima while preeminent foreign affairs journalist of the he was a soldier on a troop ship headed last half of the 20th century, he shows us for Pacific combat to amusing ones like not only what happened but also where the night he and his wife, Audrey, discov- the United States often misunderstood ered their pillow talk was being tapped what was going on and in consequence by the Soviets when the bugged lighting misperformed.” fixture above their bed in Moscow ex- Top was born on Dec. 11, 1921 on ploded. 117th Street in Harlem, the son of Rus- Long before he became one of the sian Jewish immigrant parents, Anna and great editors in the history of The New Joseph Topolsky. The family legally York Times, he had become a war corre- changed its name to Topping when Top spondent in the classic mold, on the scene, was in high school. no matter how remote or dangerous, pro- Top knew he wanted to be a journalist viding eyewitness accounts. from the time he was the 16-year-old edi- Through more than a half century of tor of his school newspaper at Evander journalism both as a correspondent and Childs in the Bronx. editor, Top was to cover nearly every Obviously a precocious youth, he didn’t major event that shaped post-World War want to be just another city room general II history. That included the Chinese civil The Silurians 2013 Lifetime Achievement Winner assignment hack, he wanted to be a for- war, French Indochina War, Vietnam War, SEYMOUR TOPPING Continued on Page 6 Four Minutes in Dallas BY MICKEY CARROLL Impulsively, you could almost say acciden- t 11:17 a.m. on Nov. 24, 1963, tally, Ruby had murdered the assassin. In four Jack Ruby was in a Western minutes, he had stepped across the street and AUnion office, waiting patiently to send been transformed from a placid Western Union a money order to Little Lynn, a strip-tease customer into a character in the story of the dancer in his club. assassination of a President. Across the street in Dallas police headquar- And ever since, the world has suffered un- ters, WNEW reporter Ike Pappas and I had der a torrent of “conspiracy” stories. Ruby gone up to the fifth floor to shout a few words had “silenced” the assassin, it was said. The at Lee Harvey Oswald as the police led him to shooting was the final step in a plot by the the elevator. We knew the elevator was mafia, the Russians, the Cubans, homosexu- creaky and slow and we could run down to the als, Lyndon Johnson – pick your villain. For basement before it got there. 50 years, you’ve read that sort of thing. The basement garage had been emptied It’s all nonsense. The Warren Commission except for the car that was to take Oswald to report on the assassination — 488 ponderous the County Jail. I stepped back against the pages – has all the facts. But it’s so ineptly wall as Oswald and his police guards walked put together, so badly written, so lacking any by. Ike held out his microphone and said, “Lee, sort of narrative thread that polls show that do you have anything to say … ?” most Americans still believe some sort of con- When Ike played his tape for me later dur- spiracy story. ing Ruby’s murder trial, the next thing you heard Assigned at the Trib to keep an eye on this was an innocent “pop” –- the sound of Ruby’s stuff – and later called on to work at The Times gun — then Oswald’s groan. on a reassessment that found the Warren Com- Later, it was determined that the time was mission was right – I had fumed for years over The cover of Mickey Carroll’s book, “Accidental Assassin,” showing 11:21. Continued on Page 3 the moment that Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald. PAGE 2 SILURIAN NEWS NOVEMBER 2013 Learning Journalism Since the Age of 8 BY HERBERT HADAD outsize characters like any Silurians know Mort David Dubinsky of the Sheinman as the energetic, ILGWU; Abe Schrader, M congenial and slightly raff- who when asked if he was ish former president of our Society and a millionaire (when that as its membership chairman. Fewer are word still meant some- aware of his stellar career in New York thing), answered with a journalism for over half a century. shrug, ‘A poor one. Two . Let Mort, now 80, tell you himself of . three’; David Schwartz, his introduction to newspapers and his first whose mouth regularly lesson in our trade: spewed obscenities, but “I’ve been hooked on newspapers whose company (Jonathan since I was a boy. Got my first journalism Logan) became the first lesson on Dec. 7, 1941, when I was 8. A garment firm on the New kid I knew told me we were at war, that York Stock Exchange, some place named Pearl Harbor was and, more important as far bombed. I went upstairs to our apartment as I was concerned, who in the East Bronx. My parents were always came to the phone; huddled around the telephone, talking to and Fred Pomerantz, the relatives. I opened a copy of the Sunday founder of Leslie Fay, News on the foyer floor and began turn- whose formal education ing pages. My father asked what I was ended when he was a doing. I said, ‘Trying to find news about young teenager, but who the war and Pearl Harbor.’ He explained got his name on a building to me that if it happened today, it won’t at Brandeis and at the be in the paper until tomorrow. Aha! Fashion Institute of Tech- Today’s paper has yesterday’s news. nology and who rode Among the celebrities Mort Sheinman interviewed for Women’s Wear Daily was Sid Caesar. Good to know. My father should only know how times have changed.” (Herblock) Block, freelance travel writer, Mort had his ad- In junior high school, Mort learned Peter Max, ventures. He wrote the copy and provided another important lesson. His class Yousuf Karsh and the photographs for a 13-day trek in Nepal; started a mimeographed newspaper. His David Douglas an 11-day camel trek across the Sahara; first article was called “Why I Am a Yan- Duncan; and a volcano climbing in Hawaii; hiking through kee Fan.” His friend Marvin was a rabid miscellany of three mountain ranges in Spain as well as New York Giants fan and wanted des- characters that in- the Vale of Kashmir; putt-putting around perately to write about that. Someone else cluded John Lind- Southeast Alaska on a reconverted fire- had already been chosen, so Marvin — say while he was boat; reporting on two international moun- who was also desperate to get a byline mayor; Ramsey taineering camps in the former Soviet — wrote “Why I Am a Dodger Fan.” Clark and Roy Union, one in the Pamir Mountains, home “That’s when I learned not to trust ev- Cohn; Margaret to the nation’s two highest hills, Peak erything I read in a newspaper,” Mort Mead and Marga- Lenin and Peak Communism, the other in said. ret Truman; the Caucasus (home to Mount Elbrus, the He wrote for newspapers in high Marques Haynes highest peak in Europe). school, and the school paper was the cen- of the Harlem Upon retirement Mort taught an “In- ter of his extracurricular life when he was Globetrotters, af- troduction to Journalism” class at F.I.T.; at CCNY.