Dazzled by Power

A World in Revolution By Herbert L. Matthews

Scribners, 462 pp., $12.50 I went to work in the New York Times City Room in 1926, at just about the time a saturnine Columbia University linguist and student of Dante took a job as secretary to Acting Managing Editor Frederick T. Birchall. The Dante student was Herbert L. Matthews. Although we were friends, largely because we had a common friend in Thomas Bergin of Yale, who was to become the foremost Dante scholar in America, Matthews remained something of a puzzle. He had no ambitions to become a city-side reporter. Instead, he asked to be put on the newly formed Cable Desk. The story went around in the City Room that Matthews wanted to get abroad and become a Lawrence of Arabia.

JC

About the Author

John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain (1903–1995) was an American writer.

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A World in Revolution By Herbert L. Matthews

Scribners, 462 pp., $12.50 I went to work in the New York Times City Room in 1926, at just about the time a saturnine Columbia University linguist and student of Dante took a job as secretary to Acting Managing Editor Frederick T. Birchall. The Dante student was Herbert L. Matthews. Although we were friends, largely because we had a common friend in Thomas Bergin of Yale, who was to become the foremost Dante scholar in America, Matthews remained something of a puzzle. He had no ambitions to become a city-side reporter. Instead, he asked to be put on the newly formed Cable Desk. The story went around in the City Room that Matthews wanted to get abroad and become a Lawrence of Arabia.