IN MEMORIAM
Newshound in action
V. GANGADHAR
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His writings ranged from politics and war to travel and food. A tribute to R.W. Apple who died early this month.
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For 43 years, Apple covered wars, political upheavals, and became a famous food writer. "Apple had the best mind and the worst body in journalism," observed a colleague.
R.W. Apple: A legend. Photo: New York Times via Bloomberg News
IN his monumental work on the New York Times, author Gay Talese comments on the remarkable impact of rookie reporter, R.W. Apple (Jr) in the paper's newsroom in the early 1960's. Apple grabbed all the assignments available and, like Oliver Twist, asked for more. A newshound in action, he had 73 front-page by-lines in his first year of reporting.
Did anyone want to know how good a reporter Apple was? Don't worry, he told everyone about it.
A citation for an early publisher's award, an in-house prize, stated, "In the interests of efficiency, the New York Times recently equipped its main office with automatic elevators, a Central switchboard, a two-faced Universal Jump clock and a 185-pound water-cooled, self-propelled, semi-automatic machine called R.W. Apple (Jr)."
Tributes galore
On October 4, the machine stopped working, Apple died at age 71. His paper honoured him with a full-page obit and other papers did not lag behind. For 43 years, Apple had covered wars, political upheavals, presidential elections and became a famous food writer, exemplified by his girth. "Apple had the best mind and the worst body in journalism," observed a colleague but the reporter who once churned out a 3000-word piece on pepper from Thekkady, Kerala, would not have minded!
The son of an Iowa grocery store chain owner could never convince his father that he was cut out for better things, like covering the White House. "My son is in New York typing for a living," maintained Dad Apple. Johnny graduated from Columbia University, worked briefly for the Wall Street Journal and the NBC News and had a stint with the U.S. army writing speeches for generals before joining the NYT. He had found his vocation.
He got more raises than any other reporter and covered events from 100 countries becoming the NYT bureau chief at Albany, Lagos, Nairobi, Saigon, Moscow, London and Washington. The 30 months he spent covering the Vietnam War were eventful. The brash Apple often commandeered government vehicles to reach inaccessible enemy regions but when he wrote that the war had reached a "stalemate", President Lyndon Johnson was furious. His coverage of the Vietnam War was so outstanding that the paper's famed executive editor and later respected columnist, James Reston, mentioned in his memoirs, Deadline: "Mr. Apple didn't invent the war but taught a generation of reporters how to cover it."
The Apple legend grew. It was he who informed Robert Kennedy that civil rights leader Martin Luther King had been shot dead. He was the earliest to understand the importance of political caucuses prior to presidential polls. After covering the Iowa caucus in 1976, he predicted that the peanut farmer from Georgia, Jimmy Carter, would win. He did.
David Broder, distinguished political correspondent of the Washington Post, confessed that having to contend with Apple in the opposition gave his team sleepless nights! It was Apple again who squeezed out the reluctant admission from Ron Zeigler, Nixon's press secretary, that his earlier briefings on the Watergate scandal were "inoperative".
Taste for good food
As the London bureau chief, Apple travelled extensively in Europe, and even while covering the Falklands war, the attempted assassination of the Pope and the Iranian elections, acquired a taste for good food and wine.
The Apple hospitality and restaurant spotting became legendary. Whichever restaurant he visited, the maitre d' hotel fawned over him, the wine steward appeared intimidated and the owner rushed out to serve him. After sampling a remarkably tasty pork dish, Apple correctly named the farm from where the restaurant had purchased the pork. During the 1997 Nato summit, he was brash enough to command a favourite Madrid restaurant meet to open its doors on a holiday and then preside over a feast attended among others by the former National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger. He was a gourmand but not a snob; quality mattered as much as quantity and he enjoyed chicken gizzards as much as caviar and foie gras.
According to Adam Nagourney, respected food writer at the NYT, Apple's last e-mail message the night before his death dealt with pancake recipes for a magazine feature. He listed three best pancake places, Bongo Room in Chicago, Breton buckwheat pancakes and the great dosas from the South Indian states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
Johnny Apple remained true to form till the end!
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