Victor Lasky

'''Victor Lasky''' (7 January 1918 – 22 February 1990)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi |title=Social Security Death Index |publisher=Ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com |access-date=2011-10-29}}</ref><ref name=NYTObit>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/23/obituaries/victor-lasky-72-whose-writings-focused-on-fighting-communists.html |title=Victor Lasky, 72, Whose Writings Focused on Fighting Communists |first=Glenn |last=Fowler |newspaper=The New York Times |page=B-5 |date=1990-02-23 |access-date=2020-08-21}}</ref> was a conservative columnist in the United States who wrote several best-selling books. He was syndicated by the North American Newspaper Alliance.

==Background==

On January 7, 1918, Victor Lasky was born in Liberty, New York. He graduated from Brooklyn College in 1940.

==Career==

In 1942, Lasky joined the U.S. Army and served during World War II; during that time, he did correspondence work for the army's newspaper ''Stars and Stripes''.<ref name=NYTObit/>

After World War Two, Lasky joined the staff of the ''New York World-Telegram''; while there, he assisted Frederick Woltman in writing a series of articles on Communist Party infiltration within the US, for which Woltman won a ''Pulitzer Prize for Reporting'' in 1947.<ref name=NYTObit/>

Lasky first came to prominence with his 1950 book ''Seeds of Treason'', co-authored with Ralph de Toledano, in which the authors argued against Alger Hiss and in favor of Whittaker Chambers, with regard to Chambers' accusations both he and Hiss had been spies for the Soviet Union.

He was one of the first journalists to write a critical view of President John F. Kennedy. He expanded on this in his 1963 book ''JFK: The Man And The Myth'', questioning Kennedy's wartime heroics on PT-''109'' and claimed he had a lackluster record as a congressman and senator. Lasky also wrote a similar negative book about Robert F. Kennedy.

Lasky's most controversial book was ''It Didn't Start With Watergate'' published in 1977. The author argued that the scandal that drove Richard Nixon from office was little more than a media event. He believed that the press disliked Nixon and subjected him to unfair scrutiny no other president had ever experienced. Lasky also claimed that Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson had used wiretaps on political opponents.

Lasky professed the greatest political "crime of the century" was not the Watergate scandal, but what he describes as the "theft" of the 1960 Presidential election.

In 1979, Lasky wrote another controversial work called ''Jimmy Carter: The Man And The Myth'', asserting that Carter was one of the most inept presidents of all time.

Lasky's last work was ''Never Complain, Never Explain'' (1981), a biography of Henry Ford II.

==Works==

Books include: * 1950 - ''Seeds of Treason; The True Story of the Hiss-Chambers Tragedy'' (with Ralph de Toledano)<ref>{{cite book |title=Seeds of Treason; The True Story of the Hiss-Chambers Tragedy |first1=Ralph |last1=de Toledano |author-link1=Ralph de Toledano |first2=Victor |last2=Lasky |publisher=Funk & Wagnalls (for Newsweek) |location=New York |date=1950 |oclc=1166583662 }}</ref> * 1960 - ''John F. Kennedy; What's Behind the Image?''<ref>{{cite book |title=John F. Kennedy; What's Behind the Image? |first=Victor |last=Lasky |publisher=Free World Press |location=Washington |date=1960 |oclc=2636393 }}</ref> * 1963 - ''J. F. K.: the Man and the Myth''<ref>{{cite book |title=J. F. K.: the Man and the Myth |first=Victor |last=Lasky |publisher=Macmillan Co |location=New York |date=1963 |oclc=1061885091 }}</ref> * 1965 - ''The Ugly Russian''<ref>{{cite book |title=The Ugly Russian |first=Victor |last=Lasky |publisher=Pocket Books |location=New York |date=1966 |oclc=802653219 }}</ref> * 1968 - ''Robert F. Kennedy; the Myth and the Man''<ref>{{cite book |title=Robert F. Kennedy; the Myth and the Man |first=Victor |last=Lasky |publisher=Trident Press |location=New York |date=1968 |lccn=68028365 }}</ref> * 1970 - ''Arthur J. Goldberg, the Old and the New''<ref>{{cite book |title=Arthur J. Goldberg, the Old and the New |first=Victor |last=Lasky |publisher=Arlington House |location=New Rochelle |date=1970 |oclc=127741 }}</ref> * 1970 - ''"Say ... Didn’t You Used to Be George Murphy?"'' (with George Murphy)<ref>{{cite book |title="Say ... Didn't You Used to Be George Murphy?" |first1=George |last1=Murphy |author-link1=George Murphy |first2=Victor |last2=(with) Lasky |publisher=Bartholomew House |location=New York |date=1970 |oclc=1089565784 }}</ref> * 1977 - ''It Didn’t Start With Watergate''<ref>{{cite book |title=It Didn't Start With Watergate |first=Victor |last=Lasky |publisher=Dial Press |location=New York |date=1977 |lccn=77004298 }}</ref> * 1979 - ''Jimmy Carter, the Man & the Myth''<ref>{{cite book |title=Jimmy Carter, the Man & the Myth |first=Victor |last=Lasky |publisher=R. Marek |location=New York |date=1979 |oclc=263430813 }}</ref> * 1981 - ''Never Complain, Never Explain : the Story of Henry Ford II''<ref>{{cite book |title=Never Complain, Never Explain : the Story of Henry Ford II |first=Victor |last=Lasky |publisher=R. Marek |location=New York |date=1981 |isbn=9780399901041 |lccn=81005962 }}</ref>

Articles include: * "How to Understand Communism," ''American Legion Magazine'' (August 1953)<ref> {{cite magazine | first = Victor | last = Lasky | author-link = Victor Lasky | title = How to Understand Communism | magazine = The American Legion Magazine | publisher = American Legion | url = https://archive.legion.org/handle/20.500.12203/3993 | pages = 22, 55–58 | date = August 1953 | access-date = 21 March 2020}}</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lasky, Victor}} Category:1918 births Category:1990 deaths Category:American columnists Category:American political writers Category:Brooklyn College alumni Category:20th-century American writers Category:20th-century American journalists Category:United States Army personnel of World War II Category:20th-century American male journalists