Dick Carlson

Richard Anderson{{cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/30/business/media/richard-carlson-dead.html|title = Richard Carlson, Journalist Who Led Voice of America, Dies at 84|last = Sandomir|first = Richard|date = March 30, 2025|accessdate = March 30, 2025|newspaper = The New York Times|url-access = limited}} was born in Boston on February 10, 1941,{{cite web |last1=Battaglio |first1=Stephen |title=Richard Carlson, former KABC reporter and father of Tucker Carlson, dies at 84 |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2025-03-26/richard-carlson-former-kabc-reporter-and-father-of-tucker-carlson-dies-at-84 |work=Los Angeles Times |access-date=March 29, 2025}} the son of college student Richard Boynton and Dorothy Anderson, 18 and 15 years old, respectively.{{cite news |first=Tony |last=Knight |title=Hoping for a runoff |newspaper=Times-Advocate |location=Escondido, California |date=May 27, 1984}} He was born with rickets and mildly bent legs, as Anderson had starved herself to keep the pregnancy a secret.{{cite news |first=Dick |last=Carlson |title=My 40-year goodbye |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1993/08/08/my-40-year-goodbye/9e458838-16ec-4f48-9744-248857ddd627/ |date=August 8, 1993}}

Shortly after he was born, he was given to The Home for Little Wanderers, an orphanage in Boston. The home ran a classified ad about him in the local papers, under the headline: "Home Wanted for Foundling." Florence Moberger, a housewife in Malden, was the only person to respond. She and her husband Carl had three children but were unable to have more.{{cite census|title=Sixteenth Census of the United States: Carl G Moberger|year=1940|location=Malden, Middlesex, Massachusetts|roll=m-t0627-01609|page=10A|enumdist=9-254}} Carl and Florence agreed to foster Richard until a family wanted to adopt him. He lived with the Mobergers for over two years and stated that he developed a deep bond with the family. During that time, he claimed many prospective parents came to visit him, including his birth mother, posing as her own sister. In 1943, Richard Boynton attempted to persuade Dorothy Anderson to accompany him in stealing their baby and get married; when she refused on the grounds that she was a junior in high school and nobody but her parents knew about the baby, he shot and killed himself two blocks from her house.

That same year, he was adopted by Warner Carlson, a wool broker and his wife, Ruth, and took their surname.{{cite book |authorlink=Michael Kerrigan |chapter=Ambassador Richard Carlson (Ret). |pages=46–57 |location=Tucson |publisher=Wheatmark |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=furNVPTV-wMC&pg=PA47 |title=Politics with Principle: Ten Characters with Character |isbn=9781604944471 |access-date=December 12, 2021 |archive-date=September 30, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210930082010/https://books.google.com/books?id=furNVPTV-wMC&pg=PA47 |url-status=live |last1=Kerrigan |first1=Michael J. |year=2010}} Carlson's adoptive father died when he was twelve.{{cite news|first=Scott|last=Harris|date=May 6, 1984|title=Carlson Takes on Embattled Mayor|newspaper=Los Angeles Times}}

Carlson graduated from the Naval Academy Preparatory School and attended the University of Mississippi through an ROTC program, holding odd jobs in between the breaks. He was discharged in 1962 and did not graduate.{{cite web|url=https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/265790|title=George Bush: Nomination of Richard W. Carlson To Be United States Ambassador to the Seychelles|website=The American Presidency Project|access-date=January 25, 2018|date=June 7, 1991}} He then moved to Los Angeles.

When Carlson was 22, he got a job working as a "copy boy" for night city editor Glenn Binford at the Los Angeles Times. There he met and befriended Carl Lance Brisson, the son of actress Rosalind Russell.

In 1963, Carlson became a reporter for United Press International. On his two days off, he wrote for Hearst movie columnist Louella Parsons in her Beverly Hills office. He also wrote for UPI's Foreign Film Bureau, contributing fan magazine stories and working under the editorship of Henry Gris, the first president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.{{cite web |last1=Roberts |first1=Roxanne |title=Out & About: A Garden Party on Memory Lane |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2004/06/14/out-38/d80c0a40-915f-471d-9d3a-a06ebb142958/ |publisher=Washington Post (Archives) |access-date=March 29, 2025}}

Two years later, Carlson and Brisson went to San Francisco to try to establish themselves, working as freelance independent television reporters, producing news features to sell for local and national distribution. They made less than $100 per week, until they were hired full-time by KGO-TV.

Carlson and Brisson became best known for a September 1969 article in Look, in which they linked Mayor Joseph Alioto to organized crime. Alioto later filed a $12 million libel lawsuit against the magazine. After three inconclusive jury trials, a fourth trial by judge without a jury in 1977 found that the plaintiff had sustained the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that defendant published the defamatory statements contained in the article with actual malice, that is, with reckless disregard for whether they were true or not, and was entitled to judgment in the sum of $350,000, plus costs.{{Cite web |title=Alioto v. Cowles Communications, Inc., 430 F. Supp. 1363 {{!}} Casetext Search + Citator |url=https://casetext.com/case/alioto-v-cowles-communications-inc-3 |access-date=May 20, 2022 |website=casetext.com}}{{Cite news|first=Wallace|last=Turner|date=May 4, 1977|title=Alioto Is Awarded $350,000 In Libel by Look Magazine|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/05/04/archives/alioto-is-awarded-350000-in-libel-by-look-magazine.html|access-date=April 30, 2021|issn=0362-4331}} and the legal costs helped bring about the demise of Look. Legal technicalities prevented Carlson and Brisson from being held as defendants in the trial. Carlson stood by the story, claiming several of their sources refused to testify or died.

File:Ford B0097 NLGRF photo contact sheet (1976-06-04)(Gerald Ford Library) (cropped).jpg on June 4, 1976]]

In 1971, Carlson was hired by KABC-TV in Los Angeles. Working with producer Pete Noyes, Carlson won several awards, including a Peabody Award for an exposé they produced about car promotion fraud.

In 1975, Noyes took a job at KFMB-TV in San Diego, and asked Carlson to join him as a combination news anchorman and investigative reporter. However, Carlson walked away from the job after 18 months, tiring of news, calling it a "kid's game" that was "insipid, sophomoric and superficial" and laced with "a lot of arrogance and hypocrisy." He admitted to being part of that hypocrisy, by citing a piece he did that outed a local tennis player, Dr. Renée Richards, as a transgender woman.

Carlson also targeted G. Elizabeth Carmichael and outed her as a transgender con-artist, refusing to refer to her as a woman when instructed to by the judge presiding over the trial. This story was popularized in the HBO miniseries, The Lady and the Dale.

{{blockquote|There are so many other things I think are important and interesting but the media can be counted on to do handstands over that kind of scandal and sexual sensation.}}

In 1977, Carlson joined San Diego Federal Savings and Loan (later Great American First Savings), a savings and loan headed by Gordon Luce, a former Governor of California's cabinet member under his close friend Ronald Reagan, as its public affairs director.{{cite news|first=Scott|last=Harris|title=Luce, Great American are part of Power Elite|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=November 25, 1984}} Within three years, he became vice president of finance.

Great American First Savings was mired in controversy due to the bank's political connections. For example, in 1984, the bank received negative press for allowing Edwin Meese, adviser to Ronald Reagan, to be 15 months delinquent on his mortgage. That same year, bank officers were accused of receiving federal jobs in exchange for being favorable toward Meese. Luce stated that he saw the loans to Meese as the "natural evolution" of mixing business, politics, and friendship.

In 1981, the investigative television magazine 60 Minutes had Mike Wallace interview Carlson about controversial home foreclosures executed by the bank, in which the bank had been accused of duping low-income Californians. Carlson hired a camera crew to videotape the interview and, when the 60 Minutes cameras were not rolling during a commercial break, caught Wallace making a racist joke about blacks and Hispanics:

{{blockquote|"You bet your ass [the contracts are] hard to read" ... if you're reading them over watermelon or tacos.{{cite news|title=Michigan Newsman Apologizes for Racist Remarks|newspaper=Miami Herald|date=1987-05-04|pages=13A}}{{cite news|last=Thomas|first=Cal|author-link=Cal Thomas|title=In Andy Rooney Case, CBS Loses Enthusiasm for Free Speech|newspaper=St. Paul Pioneer Press|date=February 19, 1990|pages=11A}}}}

Wallace was forced to apologize, and Carlson left Great American in early 1983 to go into politics.

In 1983, Carlson sought an appointment to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.

The following year, Carlson decided to run for mayor of San Diego in what became a contentious campaign against incumbent Roger Hedgecock, who was under indictment for perjury and conspiracy.

Carlson was criticized throughout his campaign. For example, he was criticized for speaking of his candidacy in terms of political strategy, without mentioning a vision or plans for the city. He was criticized for being "long on generalities and platitudes, but short on specifics." He was criticized as naïve for saying that the city wasn't run by the mayor, but by the city manager. He was further criticized for pledging not to spend his own money on the campaign, but going on to spend nearly $225,000 of his own money, and by "gay-baiting"—falsely claiming that Hedgecock was supported by the gay community in an effort to turn voters away from his opponent. Carlson also had a comic, at one of his major fundraisers, tell a series of racist jokes for which Carlson later apologized.

Carlson's campaign came under scrutiny for its close ties to Great American First Savings, which had direct ties to the White House. Thirty employees donated over $4,000, each, to his campaign, while only one employee donated to Hedgecock. When pressed on the connection, and on other campaign issues, Carlson began to skip candidate forums, and members of the press deemed it increasingly difficult to get ahold of him, with Carlson often not responding to the press for periods of two weeks at a time. Carlson also lacked more exposure because Hedgecock, calling Carlson "a minor candidate," refused to debate him.

{{blockquote|There are two major questions in voters' minds. The first is whether Roger Hedgecock has compromised the office of mayor sufficient to the point where people feel he should be turned out. The other is whether Dick Carlson is competent and qualified to be mayor. On November 6, I think the majority of people will answer "yes" to both questions.|Dick Carlson, Oct. 21, 1984}}

After spending $1.2 million on the campaign, and outspending Hedgecock by a 2:1 margin, Carlson lost the election 42.1% to 57.9%.{{cite news |agency=Associated Press |title=Carlson Outspent Hedgecock as the Loser in Mayor's Race |newspaper=Times-Advocate |location=Escondido, California |date=February 5, 1985}}

In the summer of 1986, U.S. President Ronald Reagan announced his intention to nominate Carlson as an associate director of the United States Information Agency to succeed Ernest Eugene Pell.

Carlson became director of Voice of America, a U.S. government-funded, state-owned multimedia agency which serves as the United States federal government's official institution for non-military, external broadcasting.{{cite news |agency=Associated Press |title=Bush raids own staff for "Voice" radio director |newspaper=San Bernardino Sun |date=June 8, 1991}} It broadcasts 24 hours a day in nearly 50 languages to more than 130 million people around the world, with a full-time staff of 3,000 and a part-time staff of 1,200. Carlson was the longest-serving director in VOA's 50-year history.

In June 1991, Carlson left Voice of America after President George H. W. Bush nominated him to be the U.S. ambassador to the Seychelles.{{Cite web |date=March 2, 1993 |title=The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR RICHARD W. CARLSON |url=https://adst.org/OH%20TOCs/CARLSON,%20Richard%20W.toc.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240722172152/https://adst.org/OH%20TOCs/CARLSON,%20Richard%20W.toc.pdf |archive-date=July 22, 2024 |access-date=July 22, 2024 |website=Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training}}

In March 1992, Carlson became the CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a "private corporation funded by the American people" that produces and distributes programming for public broadcasting.{{cite web|url=http://www.cpb.org|title=A Private Corporation Funded by the American People|website=Corporation for Public Broadcasting|access-date=January 25, 2018}}{{cite news|title=Morning Report|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=March 27, 1992}}

During his tenure, the Republican Party began its official shift on public broadcasting when it added a plank to its platform condemning public media as "misguided," "ridiculous," and undeserving of government support.{{cite news|first=Sharon|last=Bernstein|title=Officials Decry Republican Slap at Public Broadcasting|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=August 20, 1992}} The party's official position was that public media had a liberal bias and "the party looked forward to" the privatization of the system.

Critics decried that Republicans were weaponizing public broadcasting in order to make it an election issue against candidates who supported it. Carlson said that he was against the platform change:

{{blockquote|The Republicans are misinformed. They are putting the blame on the wrong outfit.}}

Carlson remained at the CPB for five years.{{cite news|url=https://apnews.com/article/35ca8aa884aa688cb9148d17f616024a|title=Ambassador Carlson Chosen as CPB President|date=March 26, 1992|work=AP News}}

In 1997, he became president and CEO of King World Public Television, a subsidiary of King World Productions, the syndicator of Oprah, Wheel of Fortune, and Jeopardy!, among other successful TV shows, until the network was purchased, in the summer of 1999, by CBS for $2.5 billion.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/02/business/the-media-business-cbs-to-buy-king-world-in-2.5-billion-deal.html|title=THE MEDIA BUSINESS; CBS to Buy King World in $2.5 Billion Deal|first=Geraldine|last=Fabrikant|date=April 2, 1999|access-date=January 25, 2018|newspaper=The New York Times}}

Carlson testified dozens of times before various U.S. Congressional committees, including the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Relations Committee.{{cite news |last1=Dickey |first1=Josh |title=Dick Carlson, Award-Winning Journalist, Political Whisperer and Father of Tucker Carlson, Dies at 84 |url=https://www.yahoo.com/news/dick-carlson-award-winning-journalist-175725967.html |access-date=March 30, 2025 |publisher=Yahoo News |date=March 26, 2025}} He was also involved in negotiations on behalf of the U.S. government with many foreign governments, including those of China, Korea, the USSR, Germany, Georgia, Zaire (today the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Lesotho, South Africa, Somalia, and Israel.

In 1990, while serving as Director of VOA, Carlson jointly addressed the Israeli Knesset with Steve Forbes.{{cite book |last1=Cull |first1=Nicholas |title=The Cold War and the United States Information Agency American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945–1989 |date=2008 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=442-481 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cold-war-and-the-united-states-information-agency/showdown/D89A017A802171FB08BF0C1162615011 |access-date=March 30, 2025}}

In 1994, Carlson was an international observer at the first democratic elections in South Africa.{{cite web |last1=Carlson |first1=Richard |title=A Retirement Plan for Tyrants |url=https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2003/07/27/a-retirement-plan-for-tyrants/ |website=fdd.org |publisher=Foundation for Defence of Democracies |access-date=March 30, 2025}}

In 1997, he was deployed by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to work as an international observer at the Parliamentary Elections in Albania, overseeing polling places near the Greek border.{{cite news |title=Albania - International observers footage (AP Archives) |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYkSuu5GtkM&ab_channel=APArchive |access-date=March 30, 2025 |publisher=Associated Press |date=June 27, 1997}}

From 1992 to 1997, he was president of InterMedia, the Russian state-owned global research consulting firm which conducts opinion surveys for government agencies in over 75 foreign countries. He was recently its chairman.{{cite news|title=Former CPB president joins InterMedia|url=https://current.org/2010/07/former-cpb-president-joins-intermedia/?wallit_nosession=1|newspaper=Current|date=July 14, 2010}} Later, Carlson became an advisor of the Institute for the Study of Terrorism & Political Violence.

In 2003, Carlson became the vice-chairman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the counter-terrorism institute in Washington, D.C., and Brussels, Belgium. He held the position for eight years.{{cite web|title=Richard Carlson joins FDD|url=http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/richard-carlson-joins-fdd/|publisher=Foundation for Defense of Democracies|date=April 1, 2003}}

In 2021, Carlson was reported to be on the Board of Directors of Policy Impact, a lobbying firm.{{Cite news|last1=Novak|first1=Benjamin|last2=Grynbaum|first2=Michael M.|date=August 7, 2021|title=Conservative Fellow Travelers: Tucker Carlson Drops In On Viktor Orban|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/07/world/europe/tucker-carlson-hungary.html|access-date=August 7, 2021|issn=0362-4331}} The firm has lobbied the United States on behalf of the Viktor Orbán government in Hungary.

Carlson co-wrote Snatching Hillary: A Satirical Novel (Tulip Hill Publishing, 2014, {{ISBN|0692337008}}) with Bill Cowan.{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/hillary-clinton-the-novel-pushy-self-centered-and-gassy|title=Hillary Clinton, the novel: Pushy, self-centered, and gassy|first=Paul|last=Bedard|website=Washington Examiner|access-date=January 25, 2018|date=December 15, 2014}}

He was also the author of numerous independently published books, including Women in San Diego: A History in Photographs (1978),{{cite book |last1=Carlson |first1=Dick |title=Women in San Diego: A History in Photographs |date=1978 |publisher=San Diego Federal Savings & Loan |url=https://www.abebooks.com/signed/WOMEN-SAN-DIEGO-HISTORY-PHOTOGRAPHS-Carlson/31385961880/bd |access-date=March 29, 2025}} and Why Dogs Talk on Christmas Eve (2014).{{cite book |last1=Carlson |first1=Dick |title=Why Dogs Can Talk on Christmas Eve |date=2015 |publisher=CreateSpace Independent Publishing |isbn=978-1499702538 |pages=28 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UhkujwEACAAJ |access-date=March 29, 2025}}

He wrote a weekly newspaper column, often about terrorism and national security, for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review{{cite news|url=https://archive.triblive.com/opinion/featured-commentary/obamas-bowe-bergdahl-powder-keg/|title=Obama's Bowe Bergdahl powder keg|first=Richard W.|last=Carlson|date=September 27, 2014|work=Pittsburgh Tribune-Review}} and the Charleston Mercury.{{cite news|url=http://www.charlestonmercury.com/index.php/en/opinion/309-danger-zone-analysis-from-bill-cowan-of-fox-news|title=Danger Zone: Analysis from Bill Cowan of Fox News|first=Richard W.|last=Carlson|work=Charleston Mercury|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141028191717/http://www.charlestonmercury.com/index.php/en/opinion/309-danger-zone-analysis-from-bill-cowan-of-fox-news|archive-date=October 28, 2014|date=2014}} He was a political gossip columnist writing "The Shadow Knows" for The Hill newspaper in Washington, D.C., with Bill Regardie.{{cite news |title=NAMES & |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2004/04/09/names-38/908415b5-6024-45d7-b410-87992721f0a6/ |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=April 9, 2004}}

In 1967, Carlson married artist Lisa McNear (née Lombardi). They had two sons, Tucker McNear Carlson (later, Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson), born in 1969, and Buckley Peck Carlson (later, Buckley Swanson Peck Carlson).{{cite news|first=Albert|last=Morch|title=Albert Morch [Column]|newspaper=The San Francisco Examiner|date=February 15, 1971}} Carlson and Lombardi divorced in 1976.{{cite news|publisher=Center for Health Statistics, California Department of Health Services|title=California Divorce Index, 1966–1984|location=Sacramento, California}} Carlson was granted custody of Tucker and Buckley. Tucker Carlson would later say that his mother left the family when he was six, wanting to pursue a "bohemian" lifestyle.National Social Directory, National Social Register Company, 1959, page 86.{{cite magazine |last=Lenz |first=Lyz |date=September 5, 2018 |url=https://www.cjr.org/the_profile/tucker-carlson.php |title=The mystery of Tucker Carlson |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180908093046/https://www.cjr.org/the_profile/tucker-carlson.php |archive-date=September 8, 2018 |magazine=Columbia Journalism Review}}

In 1979, Carlson married Patricia Caroline Swanson, an heiress to the Swanson frozen-food fortune. Swanson was the daughter of Gilbert Carl Swanson, and the niece of Senator J. William Fulbright.{{cite news|first=David|last=Harris|title=SWANSON SAGA: END OF A DREAM|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/09/09/archives/swanson-saga-end-of-a-dream-they-were-the-pride-of-omaha-but-today.html|work=The New York Times|date=September 9, 1979}} This was the third marriage for Swanson, who legally adopted Tucker Carlson and his brother.{{cite web|title=IN RE ESTATE OF VAUGHN|url=https://www.leagle.com/decision/incaco20190606085|website=Leagle|date=June 4, 2019}}

Carlson was said to be an active father who had a specific outlook in raising his sons:

{{blockquote|I want them to be self-disciplined to the degree that I think is necessary to find satisfaction ... you measure a person on how far they go, on how far they've sprung. My parents, the Carlsons, they instilled a modesty in me that, at times, gets in my way ... I know it's immodest of me to say it, but it's difficult sometimes when you want to beat your own drum and say what you really think.}}

In 1984, Carlson was in business with Karon Luce, wife of savings and loan executive Gordon Luce, manufacturing modular cabinets.

Carlson and his wife lived in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and in a small Virginia town on the Chesapeake Bay. They had a summer home on an island in Maine.{{cite web |title=Woodstock potholes / by Stan Bartlett ; Natures simple pleasures / by Dick Carlson |url=https://bethelhistorical.org/catalog/item/2016.001.0103b |publisher=Museums of the Bethel Historical Society |access-date=April 29, 2023}}

Carlson died from pneumonia at his home in Boca Grande, Florida, on March 24, 2025, at the age of 84.

{{Reflist}}

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• [https://littlesis.org/person/261609-Dick_Carlson Dick Carlson] at Public Accountability Initiative

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{{Succession box|title=United States Ambassador to Seychelles|before=James B. Moran|after=Mack F. Mattingly|years=1991–1992}}

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Category:1941 births

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Category:Deaths from pneumonia in Florida

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