A. M. Rosenthal

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A. M. Rosenthal (1922–2006) was a Pulitzer Prize–winning foreign correspondent and the longest-serving executive editor of the New York Times, holding the position from 1969 to 1987. He joined the Times as a staff reporter in 1944 and ten years later was assigned to the paper’s New Delhi bureau. As a foreign correspondent, Rosenthal reported from India, Poland, and Japan, among other locales, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1960. In 1963 he returned to New York and quickly rose through the editorial ranks at the Times, overseeing coverage of the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the Iran-Contra scandal. He played a decisive role in the publication of the Pentagon Papers and, for his exceptional support of human rights, received the United States’ highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom, from President George W. Bush in 2002. Thirty-Eight Witnesses (1964), Rosenthal’s groundbreaking account of the murder of Kitty Genovese and ensuing public outcry, is a classic of twentieth-century journalism.