Richard Beebe Dudman (May 3, 1918 – August 3, 2017) was an American journalist who spent 31 years with the ''

St. Louis Post-Dispatch The ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' is a major regional newspaper based in St. Louis, Missouri, serving the St. Louis metropolitan area. It is the largest daily newspaper in the metropolitan area by circulation, surpassing the ''Belleville News-De ...

'' during which time he covered Fidel Castro's insurgency in Cuba, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, the

Watergate scandal The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's contin ...

, the Iran-Contra scandal, and wars and revolutions in Latin America, the Middle East, and the Far East. He was chief of the Washington bureau during the 1970s which landed him on the

master list of Nixon political opponents Master or masters may refer to: Ranks or titles * Ascended master, a term used in the Theosophical religious tradition to refer to spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans * Grandmaster (chess), National Maste ...

Biography

Dudman was born in Centerville, Iowa. He majored in journalism and economics at Stanford University, where he wrote for the school paper, graduating in 1940. During World War II, he served in the merchant marines, dodging German submarines in the North Atlantic. He joined the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1942 and served four years, becoming executive officer of his ship. He started his journalism career at ''

The Denver Post ''The Denver Post'' is a daily newspaper and website published in Denver, Colorado. As of June 2022, it has an average print circulation of 57,265. In 2016, its website received roughly six million monthly unique visitors generating more than 13 ...

'', where he wrote for four years before joining the ''Post-Dispatch'' in 1949. Dudman reported on the assassination of President

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

, on November 22, 1963. He reported seeing an entrance bullet hole in the windshield of the presidential limousine. In May 1970, he was captured by the Viet Cong and held captive in Cambodia, an experience he wrote about in his book ''Forty Days With the Enemy''. A few days after his release, he and his wife hosted a young

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

who was working in Washington for the summer as part of Project Pursestrings. In December 1978 he was a member, along with Elizabeth Becker and

Malcolm Caldwell James Alexander Malcolm Caldwell (27 September 1931 – 23 December 1978) was a Scottish academic and a prolific Marxist writer. He was a consistent critic of American foreign policy, a campaigner for Asian communist and socialist movements a ...

, of the only group of Western journalists and writers invited to visit Cambodia since the Khmer Rouge had taken power in April 1975. During this visit Caldwell was murdered under mysterious circumstances.Becker, Elizabeth, ''When the War was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution'' New York: Public Affairs Books, 1998, pp. 426–430 On his last day as Washington bureau chief, in 1981, he ran up Connecticut Avenue to cover the shooting of President Ronald Reagan. He moved to

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and ...

after retirement, but continued to work for the ''Post-Dispatch''. From 2000–2012, he was the ''

Bangor Daily News The ''Bangor Daily News'' is an American newspaper covering a large portion of central and eastern Maine, published six days per week in Bangor, Maine. The ''Bangor Daily News'' was founded on June 18, 1889; it merged with the ''Bangor Whig and ...

senior contributing editor, writing over 1,000 editorials. In 1993, he won the George Polk Career Award. He died on August 3, 2017, at the age of 99.

Selected works

*''Forty Days With the Enemy'' *''Men of the far right'' *''Dateline: Vietnam'' *" Pol Pot
Brutal, Yes, but No Mass Murderer"
''The New York Times'', August 17, 1990; accessed August 3, 2017.

References

External links

*
Imperial War Museum Interview

Ralph Stanley: An Eye for Wood
1918 births 2017 deaths American male journalists Journalists from Iowa Writers from Iowa St. Louis Post-Dispatch people People from Centerville, Iowa Stanford University alumni 20th-century American journalists {{US-journalist-1910s-stub