John Bertram Oakes (b. April 23, 1913–April 5, 2001) an iconoclastic and influential journalist known for his early commitment to the environment, civil rights, and opposition to the Vietnam War, was born in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, the second son of George Washington Ochs Oakes and Bertie Gans. The creator of the modern op-ed page and editor of the New York Times editorial page from 1961 to 1976, his was an idealistic and progressive American voice. April 23 is the 113th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (114th in leap years). ... 1913 (MCMXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday. ... April 5 is the 95th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (96th in leap years). ... 2001: A Space Odyssey. ... This article belongs in one or more categories. ... Combatants Republic of Vietnam United States Republic of Korea Thailand Australia New Zealand The Philippines National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam Democratic Republic of Vietnam People’s Republic of China Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea Strength US 1,000,000 South Korea 300,000 Australia 48,000... Elkins Park is a unincorporated community in Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania in the Philadelphia area of Pennsylvania. ...

His uncle was Adolph Ochs, the publisher of the New York Times, and Oakes grew up very much a part of the "Times family." But although Oakes was groomed for a life of journalism as a member of one of its ruling families, he earned his laurels. Valedictorian of his class at Princeton University (A.B., 1934), where he was one of the few Jews on campus––and where he conducted Sabbath services for his co-religionists, as well as led a campaign to democratize the selective clubs––he graduated magna cum laude and was a Rhodes Scholar (A.B., A.M., Queens College, Oxford, 1936). Cover of Time Magazine (September 1, 1924) Adolph Simon Ochs (b. ... The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... Princeton University is a coeducational private university located in Princeton, New Jersey. ... Rhodes House in Oxford Rhodes Scholarships were created by Cecil John Rhodes. ...

The New Deal Era

On his return to the States in 1936, he joined the Trenton Times as a reporter. An avid supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal from its earliest days, he seized the opportunity to move to Washington in 1937, where he became a political reporter for the Washington Post. In Washington, he covered the U.S. Congress, the Dies Un-American Activities Committee and F.D.R.’s 1940 campaign. With the outbreak of World War II in 1941, Oakes entered the Army as a private in the infantry. He was recruited to join the O.S.S. (the Office of Strategic Services), and served two years in Europe capturing and "turning" enemy agents still in communication with the Nazis. In recognition of his service there he received the Bronze Star, the Croix de Guerre, the Medaille de Reconnaissance and the Order of the British Empire. He ended the war with the rank of lieutenant colonel. FDR redirects here. ... Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: New Deal For other uses of New Deal and The New Deal, see New Deal (disambiguation). ... ... This article is becoming very long. ... The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime (but not direct) precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency. ...

Career at the Times

Immediately after his discharge in 1946, he joined the "family paper" as editor of the Sunday New York Times "Review of the Week." Three years later, he became a member of the editorial board. While an editorial page writer, in 1951 he convinced the paper’s editors to let him write, in his spare time, a monthly column on a topic that at that time seemed arcane––the environment. He also wrote steadily for other areas of the paper, such as the book review and the Sunday magazine, for which he wrote a memorable and devastating profile of Joseph McCarthy ("This Is the Real,the Lasting Damage," March 7, 1954), in an era when to do so was to invite harassment, that became the basis of an Eleanor Roosevelt newspaper column and was subsequently widely reprinted. Joseph Raymond McCarthy Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was a Republican Senator from the U.S. state of Wisconsin between 1947 and 1957. ... March 7 is the 66th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (67th in leap years). ... 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (October 11, 1884 – November 7, 1962) was an American political leader who used her stature as First Lady of the United States, 1933-1945 to promote her husbands (Franklin D. Roosevelts) New Deal, as well as Civil Rights. ...

His career on the editorial board, first as a writer (1949-1961) and then as editorial page editor (1961-1976) spanned the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford administrations, and saw upheaval, renewal, and social revolution in America. As editorial page editor, he appointed the first woman in fifty years, and the first African American ever, to the editorial board.

Oakes was famously out of step with his more conservative cousin, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, who became publisher in 1963, two years after Oakes' appointment to run the editorial page. In 1976, "Punch" abruptly replaced Oakes as editorial page editor with Max Frankel, and, as journalist John L. Hess said on Oakes' death in 2001, "the editorials never recovered." Arthur Ochs Punch Sulzberger or often called Arthur Sulzberger Jr. ... Max Frankel is a journalist. ... John L. Hess (December 27, 1917 - January 21, 2005) was a prominent American journalist who worked for many years at The New York Times. ...

On his retirement from the editorial page, he became a contributing columnist to the op-ed page, writing primarily (through the Reagan, Carter and first Bush administrations) on domestic politics, foreign affairs, human rights, civil liberties, and the environment.

Areas of Focus

In 1961, the year Oakes was appointed editor of the editorial page, Harper and Brothers published his book "The Edge of Freedom: A Report on Neutralism and New Forces in Sub-saharan Africa and Eastern Europe." But his principle areas of concern were human rights and civil liberties, manifested by anti-McCarthyism and consistent support of the civil rights movement; strong and early criticism of the Vietnam War (1963), making the Times one of the few papers to take such a stand and leading to personal attacks on him by President Lyndon B. Johnson, Dean Rusk and others; and advocacy of conservation and protection of natural resources. In 1966, he was awarded the George Polk Award for bringing to the editorial page "a brilliance, an intensity and a perceptiveness" that made it "the most vital and influential journalistic voice in America." Combatants Republic of Vietnam United States Republic of Korea Thailand Australia New Zealand The Philippines National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam Democratic Republic of Vietnam People’s Republic of China Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea Strength US 1,000,000 South Korea 300,000 Australia 48,000... Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973), often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States (1963–1969). ... David Dean Rusk (February 9, 1909 – December 20, 1994) was the United States Secretary of State from 1961 to 1969 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. ... The George Polk Awards is an American journalism award. ...

He was nothing if not persistent. After pushing the idea for ten years with a succession of publishers, he initiated the first modern op-ed ("opinion"-"editorial") page on September 21, 1970, on which the op-ed page of every other American newspaper is modeled. As he wrote in introducing the page, his basic motive was to provide a window on the ideas and opinions of non-journalists. The appearance of Times columnists on the new op-ed page (limited to one or two per day in the early years) reflected merely the need to create more space for "Letters to the Editor" on the editorial page––as he later wrote, "again in the interests of broadening the opportunity for expression of outside opinion in the Times." An Op-Ed is a piece of writing expressing an opinion. ... September 21 is the 264th day of the year (265th in leap years). ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1970 calendar). ...

The John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism was established in 1994 by the Natural Resources Defense Council as an annual prize for print journalists; it is now administered by the Columbia University School of Journalism. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a New York City-based, non-profit environmentalist advocacy group in the United States. ...

Two weeks before Oakes’ death in 2001 he was awarded a second George Polk Award, for his "lifetime achievements." Wrote Hess, in his obituary, "If people think of the Times today as a great newspaper and a liberal one, it’s largely an illusion, but Oakes believed in it and tried to make it true." The George Polk Awards is an American journalism award. ...

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