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Richard O. Boyer

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Richard O. Boyer (10 January 1903 – 7 August 1973) was an American freelance journalist.

Background

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Richard Owen Boyer was born on January 10, 1903, in Chicago.[1]

Career

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Boyer worked at various newspapers, including the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Boston Herald, New Orleans Item, and Dallas Times Herald.[1]

Boyer co-founded the Boston Newspaper Guild.

He contributed to The New Yorker magazine during the 1930s and 1940s.[1]

In the late 1940s, he was foreign correspondent for PM newspaper in Germany, France, Italy, and Central America. He was also editor of U.S. Week.[1]

In 1948, he was an editor of the cultural monthly magazine Masses & Mainstream.[1]

Before appearing at a Senate hearing, he had written for the Daily Worker. He was implicated in Winston Burdett's June 1955 testimony before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee hearings as a Communist. The Senate subpoenaed Boyer in November 1955 and he testified the next January.[citation needed] At the hearing, Boyer refused to answer questions about his affiliations with the Communist Party, under the protection of the First and Fifth Amendment.[2] He was one of many witnesses in 1956 called by the Subcommittee in an "inquiry into New York press. To questions of whether he was a Communist or whether others were party members, the write invoked both his First and Fifth Amendments. Privately, however, Boyer identified himself as a Communist, saying that he had been a party member from the 1930s until 1956, when Nikita Khrushchev, the then Soviet leader, disclosed the secrets of the Stalin regime."[2]

Death

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Boyer died age 70 on August 7, 1973.[2]

Works

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  • The Dark Ship (1947)[1]
  • If This Be Treason (1948)[1]
  • Labor's Untold Story: The Adventure Story of the Battles, Betrayals and Victories of American Working Men and Women (1955)

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g Boyer, Richard O. (1948). "If This Be Treason". Prism: Political & Rights Issues & Social Movements. New Century Publishers. Retrieved 19 November 2020.
  2. ^ a b c "Richard Boyer, 70, Biographer and New Yorker Writer Dies". The New York Times. August 9, 1973. Retrieved September 10, 2019.
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