Deborah Cohen - Last Call at the Hotel Imperial : The Reporters Who Took On a World at War

John Gunther : Chicago-born foreign correspondent (b. 1901). Interviewed Leon Trotsky, Tom Masaryk, and Winston Churchill, among others, for the Chicago Daily News. Author of Inside Europe (1936) and Death Be Not Proud (1949). A fixture of the American bestseller lists from the mid-1930s through the 1950s.

Frances Fineman Gunther : Born in New York, 1897. Foreign correspondent for the London News Chronicle, as well as a Zionist, an Indian nationalist, and the author of Revolution in India (1944).

H. R. Knickerbocker (Knick) : Born in Yoakum, Texas, 1898. Foreign correspondent for the Philadelphia Public Ledger and Hearsts International News Service, awarded Pulitzer Prize in 1931 for series on Stalins first Five-Year Plan. Married to Agnes Knickerbocker.

James Vincent (Jimmy) Sheean : Born in Pana, Illinois, 1899. International journalist, author of Personal History (1935), awarded the inaugural National Book Award for Biography. Married to Dinah Forbes-Robertson Sheean.

Dorothy Thompson : Born in Lancaster, New York, 1893. First woman chief of a major American overseas news bureau (Berlin), widely syndicated political columnist for the New York Herald Tribune. First husband: Joseph Bard; second husband, Sinclair Lewis; third husband, Maxim Kopf.

Marcel Fodor : b. 1890, Hungarian foreign correspondent, Vienna correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, central European correspondent for American papers, including the Philadelphia Public Ledger and New York Evening Post.

Emily (Mickey) Hahn : b. 1905, St. Louis, writer for the New Yorker, reporting from Shanghai as of 1935, author of China to Me (1944) and dozens of other books.

Jawaharlal Nehru : b. 1889, Allahabad (British India). Leader of the Indian freedom struggle, first prime minister of India.

Harold Nicolson : b. 1886, Tehran. British diplomat, Member of Parliament and writer (including Some People and Peacemaking 1919). Husband of Vita Sackville-West.

Edward (Eddy) Sackville-West : b. 1901, London. Music critic and heir to Knole, 5th Baron Sackville.

William (Bill) Shirer : b. 1904, Chicago, reared in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, including stints in Vienna and India, later broadcasting for CBS. Author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960).

Rebecca West : b. 1892, London. Writer, TheReturn of the Soldier (1918) and Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), among many others.

This map uses the historic place names conventional in American cartography during the year 1938. Boundary lines are fixed in February 1938.

Map 1. The travels of John Gunther, H. R. Knickerbocker, Vincent Sheean, and Dorothy Thompson, 19261928

This map uses the historic place names conventional in American cartography during the years 19261928.

Sources : Newspaper cutting books of John Gunther, H. R. Knickerbocker, and Dorothy Thompson; Sheeans Personal History, and articles from newspapers.com. The maps accurately reflect the order and destinations of the reporters trips, though not necessarily the precise routes followed.

Map 2. The travels of John and Frances Gunther, H. R. Knickerbocker, Vincent Sheean, and Dorothy Thompson, 1938

This map uses the historic place names conventional in American cartography during the year 1938. Boundary lines are fixed in February 1938.

Sources : Newspaper cutting books of John Gunther and H. R. Knickerbocker, Frances Gunthers travel diary, articles from newspapers.com. The maps accurately reflect the order and destinations of the reporters trips, though not necessarily the precise routes followed.

Map 3. John Gunthers Inside U.S.A. travels, 19441945

SEPTEMBER 1939

T he Nazi spies were watching from the shore as the passengers boarded the Dutch liner in Southampton, England, bound for New York. The war was a few weeks old, and every transatlantic ship was full. England would be bombed from the airthat was a certainty. Prepare for poison gas attacks, the British government had instructed its populace. To accommodate the crowds scrambling for berths, the ships crew had set up cots in the gymnasium and filled the Delft-tiled swimming pool with makeshift bunks.

At the harbor, newly minted security officials, zealous in their duties, were screening every traveler. Overzealous, judged some of the passengers, especially the well-heeled ones, as the guards picked through their valises and badgered them with questions about their plans abroad and their acquaintances in America. The security officials had been warned about smugglers and saboteurs trying to get on board. At this rate, it would be hours before all the passengers had made their way through the long lines onto the ship.