Drew Pearson

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Columnist | Newscaster | Radio Personality Born Andrew Russell Pearson on Dec. 13, 1897 in Evanston, Ill.

Journalist Drew Pearson was best known for attacking public figures, often without substantiation, in his muckraking column "Washington Merry-Go-Round." He also had a radio show on NBC called "Drew Pearson Comments."

Probably no other national columnist lived in such a swirl of controversy as the tall, mustached Pearson. Yet he was a mild-mannered man, a Quaker and the originator of many humanitarian campaigns.

Among these causes was the Freedom Train after World War II, which collected 700 carloads of food, valued at $40 million, for the people of France and Italy.

At about the same period, Pearson sponsored the use of gas-filled balloons to send messages to workers for freedom behind the Iron Curtain. Pearson went to Europe in 1951 to release some of the balloons.

After World War I, he worked in Europe for the American Friends Service Committee, helping rehabilitate war victims in Serbia, Montenegro and Albania.

He once served as chairman of National Cat Week. In 1948, he was chosen Father of the Year by the National Father's Day Committee.

— Associated Press in the Los Angeles Times Sept. 2, 1969