Clark R. Mollenhoff

Clark R. Mollenhoff (April 16, 1921 – March 2, 1991) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, lawyer, and columnist for The Des Moines Register.

Born in Burnside, Iowa, Mollenhoff graduated from high school in Webster City, Iowa. He began working for The Des Moines Register in 1942 while attending Drake University law school, from which he graduated in 1944. Mollenhoff then served two years in the U.S. Navy before returning to the Register.

In 1958 Mollenhoff won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, for a series exposing racketeering and fraud in the Teamsters Union. His work led to a successful crack-down on corruption within the Teamsters.

In 1959 he received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award as well as an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Colby College.

Eisenhower Fellowships selected Mollenhoff as a USA Eisenhower Fellow in 1960.

In 1965, Mollenhoff published Despoilers of Democracy, which provided details of corruption associated with Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson (before he became president), in particular the Billie Sol Estes swindles and the TFX scandal of 1963, investigation into which was suspended after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

In 1969 he served for a year as Special Counsel to President Richard Nixon, after which he became the Register's Washington bureau chief.

In 1977 Mollenhoff became a professor at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia while continuing to write a column for the Register.

...
Wikipedia