Byron Price
{{Short description|American journalist and government official (1891–1981)}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific-prefix =
| name = Byron Price
| native_name =
| native_name_lang =
| honorific-suffix =
| image = PRICE, BYRON.jpg
| imagesize =
| smallimage =
| alt =
| caption = Price before 1946
| order =
| office = 1st Director of The U.S. Office of Censorship
| term_start = December 20, 1941
| term_end = August 15, 1945
| president = Franklin D. Roosevelt
Harry S. Truman
| succeeding =
| predecessor = Office established
| successor = Office abolished
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1891|03|25}}
| birth_place = Topeka, Indiana, U.S.
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1981|08|06|1891|03|25}}
| death_place = Henderson County, North Carolina, U.S.
| restingplace =
| restingplacecoordinates =
| birthname =
| citizenship = American
| awards = {{awd |Pulitzer Prize |1944}} {{awd |Medal for Merit |1946}}
}}
Byron Price (March 25, 1891{{spaced ndash}}August 6, 1981) was an American government official who served as the 1st and only director of the U.S. Office of Censorship from 1941-1945 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and President Harry S. Truman during World War II.
Life
Price was born near Topeka, Indiana, on 25 March 1891. He was a magazine editor at Topeka High School, and worked as a journalist and newspaper deliverer at the Crawfordsville Journal and the college newspaper while attending Wabash College.
He joined United Press in 1912 and the Associated Press (AP) soon after, where he stayed for 29 years except for two years in the United States Army during World War I. Price served as the AP's Washington bureau chief and, in 1937, became executive news editor of the organization. Price became the U.S. Director of Censorship on December 19, 1941. This was a day after the First War Powers Act was established. Heading the Office of Censorship allowed Price to censor international communication, issue censorship rules, and set up two advisory panels to assist him in his duties.{{r|sweeney2001}}{{rp|36–39}} For his "creation and administration of the newspaper and radio codes" at the Office of Censorship, Price received a special Pulitzer Prize in 1944.[http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Special-Awards-and-Citations "Special Awards and Citations"]. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2013-12-07.{{efn|The Pulitzer citation continued, "At the same time, the members of the Advisory Board of the [Columbia University] Graduate School of Journalism deplore certain acts and policies of Army and Navy censorship in the handling of news at the source, and for the unreasonable suppression of information to which the American people are entitled."}}
In 1946, President Harry S. Truman presented him with the Medal for Merit for "exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services as Director, Office of Censorship, from December 20, 1941, until August 15, 1945."
After the Office closed in November 1945, Price did not return to the AP. Instead he became a vice-president of the Motion Picture Association of America, then an Assistant Secretary General at the United Nations until retiring in 1954.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, Price agreed to resume direction of censorship if war broke out with the Soviet Union.{{cite book | title=Secrets of Victory: The Office of Censorship and the American Press and Radio in World War II | publisher=University of North Carolina Press | author=Sweeney, Michael S. | year=2001 | location=Chapel Hill | isbn=0-8078-2598-0 | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/secretsofvictory00swee }}{{rp|211–212}} The Byron Price papers are located at the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, WI.[https://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/9911124524502121 Byron Price papers]
Wisconsin Historical Society, 816 State Street, Madison, WI 53708.
Notes
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References
{{reflist |25em}}
External links
{{Commons category|Byron Price}}
{{Portal|Biography |Journalism }}
- [http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=12412 Medal of Merit Citation]
- {{Find a Grave|6933382}}
- {{LCAuth|no2010005535|Byron Price|4|}}
{{PulitzerPrize SpecialCitations Journalism}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Price, Byron}}
Category:Wabash College alumni
Category:Associated Press reporters
Category:Pulitzer Prize winners for journalism
Category:United States government officials of World War II
Category:Franklin D. Roosevelt administration personnel
Category:Truman administration personnel
Category:American officials of the United Nations