Tad Szulc

Tadeusz Witold Szulc (July 25, 1926 – May 21, 2001) was a reporter and writer of non-fiction books.

Life

Szulc was born in Warsaw, Poland, the son of Seweryn and Janina Szulc. He attended school in Switzerland. In 1940 he emigrated from Poland to join his family (who had left Poland in the mid-1930s) in Brazil. There he studied at the University of Brazil, but in 1945 he abandoned his studies to work as a reporter for the Associated Press in Rio de Janeiro. In 1968 he was a reporter in Czechoslovakia during the Soviet invasion to quell the Prague Spring.

In 1949 he moved to New York City, and in 1954 he became an American citizen.

Married for 52 years, he had a son and daughter.

Szulc died in 2001 in Washington, D.C. of hepatocellular carcinoma and lung cancer, aged 74.

Career

From 1953 to 1972 Szulc was a foreign and Washington correspondent for The New York Times.

On April 6, 1961, nine days before the CIA-supported Bay of Pigs invasion, Szulc wrote a Times article stating that an invasion of Cuba was "imminent." Before its publication, President Kennedy became aware of the article and personally telephoned the Times' publisher. The Times yielded to the President's demand that the story be reduced in prominence and detail. His interest in Cuba continue over time, with the publication of an in-depth biography of Fidel Castro.

Awards

Szulc was a Knight of the French Légion d'honneur.

Books

• Pope John Paul II: The Biography (ISBN 0-671-00047-0)
• Chopin in Paris: The Life and Times of the Romantic Composer (ISBN 0-306-80933-8)
• The Secret Alliance: The Extraordinary Story of the Rescue of the Jews Since World War II (ISBN 0-374-24946-6)
• Fidel: A Critical Portrait (ISBN 0-688-04645-2)
• To Kill The Pope : An Ecclesiastical Thriller (ISBN 0-684-83781-1)
• Twilight of the Tyrants
• The Cuban Invasion
• The Winds of Resolution
• Dominican Diary
• Latin America (ISBN 0-689-10266-6)
• The Bombs of Palomares
• Portrait of Spain (ISBN 0-07-062654-5)
• Czechoslovakia Since World War II
• Innocents at Home (ISBN 0-670-39843-8)
• Compulsive Spy: The Strange Career of E. Howard Hunt (ISBN 0-670-23546-6)
• The Illusion of Peace: Foreign Policy in the Nixon Years, Viking, 1978

External links

• Tad Szulc Collection of Interview Transcripts with Fidel Castro and other government officials in Cuba and with Cuban exiles in Miami, Florida, from 1984 to 1985, Cuban Heritage Collection of the University of Miami Libraries
• Booknotes interview with Szulc on Then and Now: How the World Has Changed Since World War II, August 19, 1990.