Joseph Alsop, born in 1910, was the older brother of
Stewart Alsop, born in 1914, both of whom would come to
be known
for their work as political journalists for the New
York Herald Tribune, the Saturday Evening
Post,
and Newsweek. Their mother, Corinne Robinson Alsop,
was Eleanor Roosevelt's first cousin, and the Alsops maintained
a relationship with the first lady until her death in 1962,
despite sometimes breaking with her publicly on issues
of
policy, or even on issues of fashion and taste. After graduating
from Harvard, Joseph joined the New York Herald Tribune's
Washington bureau as a reporter where he remained through
the war. His brother, on the other hand, worked in publishing
following the completion of his studies at Yale and in
1944
joined the Office of Strategic Services. Joseph and Stewart
partnered after the war to produce their famous "Matter
of Fact" column, which they wrote jointly from 1946
to 1958. It was during this period that the Alsop brothers
earned
the recognition and level of circulation (at one point
their column was the most heavily syndicated in the
United States)
that made them, alongside other notables like Walter Lippmann,
two of the most important political newspapermen of
the
twentieth century. Although Stewart left the New York Herald
Tribune for the more liberal Saturday Evening
Post
and then for Newsweek, his brother continued
to produce the syndicated opinion column. While Stewart
was more liberal than Joseph, he nonetheless characterized
both of them as "New Deal liberals," despite Joseph's
affiliation with the Republican party and his support
for conservative
foreign policies, including the war in Vietnam.
Sources:
Beasley, Maurine H., Holly C. Shulman, and Henry R. Beasley,
eds. The Eleanor Roosevelt Encyclopedia. Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001, 4-5.
"Joseph and Stuart Alsop." The Columbia
Encyclopedia.
Internet on-line. Available From http://www.bartleby.com/65/al/Alsop-Jo.html.
The Concise Dictionary of American Biography.
5th ed.
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1997, 22.
Lash, Joseph. Eleanor, The Years Alone. New
York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1972, 85-86.
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