Columnist Jack Anderson had close ties to the Sun

Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2005 | 9:15 a.m.

Although he never attended a Las Vegas Sun board of directors meeting or reaped any profits from the newspaper, syndicated columnist Jack Anderson said he was nevertheless proud to have had a partial ownership of the publication.

The five shares of stock that Anderson received in a single certificate in the late 1950s was a gift from then-Sun Publisher Hank Greenspun -- a thank you for introducing Greenspun to powerful Washington attorney Ed Morgan, who defended a crusading Greenspun in high-profile libel cases.

Anderson often mused that his Sun stock probably was valued at about the cost of a door at the newspaper's offices. But he said he could not put a value on his close friendship with Greenspun or his ties to Las Vegas.

Anderson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer whose investigative Washington-based column once appeared in more than 1,000 newspapers, died Saturday following a lengthy battle with Parkinson's disease. He was 83.

"Dad kept a special eye on Las Vegas," said Las Vegas attorney Kevin Anderson, one of Anderson's nine children. "Utah was No. 1 and Nevada was No. 2 of the places that he would have considered a second home.

"Dad loved to tell the story of when he debated (former Nevada Gov.) Paul Laxalt (in 1970). Laxalt called Dad an East Coast columnist. Dad responded that he grew up in Utah and that the people of the West 'are my people.' "

In the 1980s and 1990s, Anderson visited Las Vegas several times a year for speaking engagements and to visit with his son and grandchildren.

Anderson's association with Las Vegas goes back to the Sun's beginnings in the early 1950s, when Greenspun's often controversial front-page "Where I Stand" columns attracted the attention of Anderson, who at the time was doing research for then-"Washington Merry-Go-Round" muckraking columnist Drew Pearson.

"When you think of my father in Las Vegas, you think of his relationship with Hank Greenspun," Kevin Anderson said. "The driving force of their friendship was the mutual respect they had for each other."

In the mid-1950s, when Las Vegas attorney George Franklin was accused by the Sun of running a baby-selling business, Franklin sued the paper, prompting Anderson to introduce Greenspun to Morgan. Greenspun later wrote that Morgan provided a brilliant defense for the Sun, topped off with a moving summation.

Although Franklin won the case, the Las Vegas jury awarded him just $80,000 -- a far cry from the millions of dollars he wanted. Franklin would go on to become a Las Vegas city councilman, Clark County commissioner, state assemblyman, North Las Vegas city attorney and, ironically, a Sun columnist.

The Sun columns and stories that were the subject of Franklin's suit led to reforms in state adoption procedures.

Morgan and Greenspun remained close until their deaths in the late 1980s.

Anderson and Greenspun also teamed up to take on powerful Communist witch-hunter Sen. Joe McCarthy. Their critical writings helped discredit McCarthy and bring about his downfall.

Anderson long kept a watchful eye on how national issues affected Las Vegas and how major news out of Southern Nevada influenced Washington politics.

In a May 1, 1997, story, Anderson said he doubted that a high-level nuclear waste repository would ever be built at Yucca Mountain.

"Given the (Energy Department's) record of mental constipation, there is no reason to fear that the project ever will reach the construction phase," Anderson said. "Based on my 50 years in Washington, when a project like this gets caught up in a whirlpool, it winds up going nowhere but in circles."

Born Jackson Northman Anderson on Oct. 19, 1922, in Long Beach, Calif., he started in the newspaper business at the Murray (Utah) Eagle at age 12, earning $7 a week. At age 18, he became a reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune.

Anderson studied at the University of Utah and Georgetown, but never earned a journalism degree.

During World War II, he worked as a civilian correspondent for the Deseret News. In 1947 Pearson hired him. Anderson took over the column when Pearson died in 1969 and three years later won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting that the Nixon administration secretly favored Pakistan in its war with India.

"I think my father would want to be remembered as an example, but not just in his field," Kevin Anderson said. "He would want to serve as an example of how anyone from nowhere could apply themselves and one day make a difference."

In addition to his children, Anderson is survived by his wife, Olivia.

Ed Koch can be reached at 259-4090 or at koch@lasvegassun.com.