Henry J. Taylor | |
Birth Name: | Henry Junior Taylor |
Birth Date: | 2 September 1902 |
Occupation: | Author, journalist, broadcaster, diplomat |
Known For: | U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland |
Henry Junior Taylor (September 2, 1902 – February 24, 1984) was an American author, economist, radio broadcaster and former United States Ambassador to Switzerland (1957–1961).[1] [2]
Taylor was born in Chicago to Henry Noble and Eileen O'Hare Taylor. He graduated from the Lawrenceville School in 1920 and the University of Virginia in 1924.[3] He served as a foreign correspondent for the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain in the early years of World War II. After the war, Taylor hosted the General Motors-sponsored radio program Your Land and Mine, on which he was known for his conservative commentary.[4] Taylor was a columnist for the United Feature Syndicate after serving as Ambassador. He authored several nonfiction books, including An American Speaks His Mind and It Must Be a Long War, and a novel, The Big Man.
In 1959 an anonymous source identifying themselves as Sniper wrote a series of letters to Taylor, as American Ambassador to Switzerland. These revealed much useful intelligence and would be regarded as the British Security Service's 'finest post-war investigation'. This included the arrest of Swedish Air Force Colonel Stig Wennerström, as a spy for the Soviet Union. In December 1960, Sniper was revealed as the Polish Military Intelligence officer Michał Goleniewski, who then defected to the US.
He won a Human Interest Storytelling Ernie Pyle Award in 1959 from the Scripps Howard Foundation.[5] He is credited with introducing kabuki as a term used by American political pundits as a synonym for political posturing.[6]
Taylor died at his home in Manhattan at the age of 81.