Death of a Newsman: Johnny Apple
Posted on October 5, 2006
Growing up, I had Hemingway dreams. I wanted to be that globetrotting writer, raconteur and connoisseur of fine clarets exemplified by “Papa†and the New York Times’ R.W. Apple Jr. Apple died yesterday. Thankfully we still have his words.
As a cub reporter in the 70s, I pored with admiration over Apple’s dispatches from Vietnam, his chronicles of Watergate and the demise of our once and former president Richard (Tricky Dick) Nixon. But he was also a travel and food writer, a good one, in a genre that attracts panhandlers, poseurs and PR agents in disguise. Although he enjoyed the good life, his words put it in the perspective of a battle and politics-hardened correspondent with an eye for local cultures. I never met “Johnny†as he was affectionately called. I wish I had.
