William Randolph Hearst Jr. and Bob Considine

William Randolph Hearst, jr., editor-in-chief of the Hearst Newspapers, while visiting President Kennedy in his White House office, Washington, Feb. 9, 1961.

This episode is from the WNYC archives. It may contain language which is no longer politically or socially appropriate.

Barrett McGurn introduces.

William Randolph Hearst Jr. and Bob Considine speak about the "Hearst Task Force." The joke about the absence of Frank Conniff due to gout.

Hearst opens the speech by describing how the Hearst Task Force travel started. The first task force included Hearst, Conniff and Joe Kingsbury-Smith; they traveled to the Soviet Union.

The most recent trip, which included Hearst, Conniff and Considine "swept the other side of the Pacific." They began in Japan, and traveled through Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Vietnam, and ended in Jakarta. The three newspaper men wrote a series about their travels to acquaint American readers with the side of the Pacific they were, perhaps, less familiar with.

Considine speaks about their travels. During the trip they met with Japanese Prime Minister Ikeda and the President of the Republic of China Chiang Kai-shek. He talks about political relations between countries, including a pact between the Philippines and Indonesia.

The main focus of Considine's speech is their meeting Ngo Dinh Diem the day before the 1963 South Vietnamese coup and assassination of Diem and his brother.



Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection


WNYC archives id: 70508
Municipal archives id: T242