Keyes Beech
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2023}}
{{Short description|American journalist (1913–1990)}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Keyes Beech
| image =
| caption =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|mf=yes|1913|08|13}}
| birth_place = Pulaski, Tennessee
| death_date = {{Death date|mf=yes|1990|02|15}}
| death_place =
| other_names =
| known_for =
| occupation = journalist
| years_active =
| alma_mater =
| relations =
| family = Hannah Beech (daughter)
| nationality = American
| spouse =
}}
Keyes Beech (August 13, 1913 – February 15, 1990) was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, best known for his reporting on World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
Biography
A native of Pulaski, Tennessee, Keyes Beech got his first job on the Chicago Daily News as a courier. He left this position in 1936 to become a reporter for the St. Petersburg Evening Independent. A year later, the journalist joined the Akron Beacon Journal.{{cite book
|last=Brennan
|date=1999
|title=Who's who of Pulitzer Prize Winners
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=63nvmt4HqTEC&q=Alfred+Friendly+Pulitzer
|location=Westport
|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group
|page= 666
|isbn=9781573561112
}}
During World War II, Beech served in the United States Marine Corps in Asia as a combat correspondent. He was with the 2nd Marine Division at the Battle of Tarawa and was one of the first journalists at the top of Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima.
At the end of World War II, he worked as a Washington correspondent for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. He joined the Chicago Daily News in 1947 as its Tokyo correspondent, the start of 24 years with the newspaper.{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1990/02/17/keyes-beech-korean-war-reporter-dies/02246ccc-dc25-4e0b-8ff1-c9ccfe451c42/ |title=Keyes Beech, Korean War Reporter, Dies |date=February 16, 1990 |newspaper=The Washington Post |accessdate=November 9, 2024}} One of his assignments in that period was reporting on Asian affairs. In 1951, he was one of six foreign correspondents who were cited for their Korean War coverage by the Pulitzer Prize jury.
{{cite web
|url = https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/16/nyregion/keyes-beech-76-correspondent-in-asia-for-five-decades-is-dead.html
|title = Keyes Beech, 76, Correspondent In Asia for Five Decades, Is Dead
|author = J. Cook
|date = May 5, 2020
|work = New York Times
|access-date = April 21, 2020
|last=Fischer
|first=H.
|date=2014
|title=1946–1962: From the end of World War II to the various stations of the Cold War
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VtE9AwAAQBAJ
|location=Vienna
|publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
|page= 372
| isbn = 9783110849837
}}
In 1979 Beech was working for the Los Angeles Times, he covered the fifth United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Manila, Philippines.[https://www.academia.edu/44795125/United_Nations_Newsletter George Garrigues, United Nations Newsletter, Wayne State University, June 1979, page 1][https://www.newspapers.com/image/387651057/?terms=%22Keyes%20Beech%22&match=1 "In Jet-Age Xanadu, Well-Fed Delegates Ponder Plight of Poor," Los Angeles Times, May 13, 1979, image 60]
He died of emphysema at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington.
His daughter, Hannah Beech, as a foreign correspondent based in Bangkok, Thailand.{{Cite news |last=Beech |first=Hannah |date=2025-05-01 |title=50 Years After the U.S. Left Vietnam, Another Retreat Is Shaking Asia |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/world/asia/vietnam-america-asia-retreat.html |access-date=2025-05-01 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}
In popular culture
Beech was played by John Benjamin Hickey in Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers.
References
{{Reflist}}
{{PulitzerPrize International Reporting}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beech, Keyes}}
Category:20th-century American newspaper editors
Category:American male journalists
Category:American war correspondents of the Korean War
Category:American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
Category:American war correspondents of World War II
Category:Chicago Daily News people
Category:Deaths from emphysema
Category:Journalists from Tennessee
Category:Los Angeles Times people
Category:People from Pulaski, Tennessee
Category:Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting winners
Category:United States Marine Corps personnel of World War II