R. W. Apple, Jr.

Raymond Walter Apple, Jr. (November 20 1934 – October 4 2006), known to all as "Johnny", but bylined as R.W. Apple, was an associate editor at "The New York Times", where he wrote on a variety of subjects, most notably politics, travel, and food.

Early Life and Education

Born in Akron, Ohio, Apple graduated from Western Reserve Academy, a private, coeducational boarding school in the small town of Hudson, Ohio, where he first practiced journalism at the school's newspaper, "The Reserve Record." Apple first attended Princeton University, where he worked on the "Daily Princetonian", but was kicked out of the school several times for devoting too much time to the paper. He later attended Columbia University School of General Studies, from which he graduated in 1961.

He began his career with "The Wall Street Journal" in the 1950s, covering business and social issues, including the early years of the American Civil Rights Movement. He served as a journalist and speechwriter in the United States Army from 1957 to 1959, and returned to the "Wall Street Journal" after completing his service. In 1961, he went to work at NBC News, becoming the lifelong friend of a then young Tom Brokaw. While at NBC, Apple reported for the "Huntley-Brinkley Report" and won an Emmy Award for his work. In the last of his 29 appearances on the Charlie Rose talk show, he said that the most satisfying time of his career was when he was reporting on the American civil rights movement.

Career in Journalism

Apple joined the "New York Times" in 1963, and over more than 30 years, contributed foreign correspondence from over 100 countries, including coverage of the Vietnam War - where his penetrating questioning helped expose the unreliability of the military briefings known as the "Five O'Clock Follies" - the Biafra crisis, the Iranian revolution, and the fall of Communist governments in the Soviet bloc. In addition, he served as the "Times' " bureau chief in Saigon, Lagos, Nairobi, London and Moscow.

Timothy Crouse profiled Apple in his book The Boys on the Bus about journalists covering the 1972 presidential campaign. Reporters "recognized many of their own traits in him, grotesquely magnified. The shock of recognition frightened them. Apple was like them, only more blatant. He openly displayed the faults they tried to hide: the insecurity, the ambitiousness, the name-dropping" and "the weakness for powerful men." [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/nyregion/05applecnd.html?ex=1317614400&en=7e231b4a0234f616&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss]

From 1993 to 1997 he was the bureau chief in Washington, D.C., which is considered the newspaper's most prestigious reporting assignment. He also served as the New York Times' National Political Correspondent in the 1970s and covered the 1972 presidential election.

Beyond the "Times" and the "Journal", Apple has been published in many prominent magazines, including "The Atlantic Monthly", "Esquire", "GQ", and "Gourmet".

Personal life

His first marriage to Edith Smith, a former vice-consul in Saigon, ended in divorce. [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/nyregion/05applecnd.html?ex=1317614400&en=7e231b4a0234f616&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss]

He married Betsey Pinckney Brown in 1982. They maintained residences in Georgetown, Washington, D.C.; on a farm near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; and in the Cotswold region of England.

Apple was widely known as an expert on food and wine, and has lectured on those as well as political, social, and historical topics on several continents. For his 70th birthday, he threw a party at his favorite Paris bistro Chez L’Ami Louis that Calvin Trillin wrote about in Gourmet Magazine: 'It’s my understanding that Apple has simplified what could be a terribly difficult choice by telling them to bring everything." [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/nyregion/05applecnd.html?ex=1317614400&en=7e231b4a0234f616&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss]

On October 4, 2006, Apple died from complications of thoracic cancer. His last article published for the "New York Times" while he still alive was an article on Singapore cuisine that was published on September 30, 2006. The last "New York Times" article he wrote, entitled "The Global Gourmet" [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/travel/05applepics.html?ref=travel] , was published posthumously on October 5, 2006. The article was meant to be published in the "Times"' travel section several weeks later but was brought forward due to his unexpected and untimely death.

Honors and Awards

Apple was the recipient of a number of honors and fellowships, including the Chubb Fellowship at Yale University.

He was the chair of the Rhodes Scholarship selection committee for the U.S. mid-Atlantic region.

He received honorary degrees from several institutions, including Denison University, Knox College, Gettysburg College, Marquette University, and the University of the South.

Quotations

*"American Danish can be doughy, heavy, sticky, tasting of prunes and is usually wrapped in cellophane. Danish Danish is light, crisp, buttery and often tastes of marzipan or raisins; it is seldom wrapped in anything but loving care." ("The Danish Worth an Ocean Voyage", "New York Times", November 22, 1978)

*"Some of our best journalists take themselves even more seriously than the politicians they write about." ("Reader's Digest", 1986)

Books

*"Apple's America" (North Point Press, 2005), ISBN 0-86547-685-3.
*"Apple's Europe" (Atheneum, 1986), ISBN 0-689-11607-1.

External links

* [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/us/05apple.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087%0A&em&en=775d11b4dbf15478&ex=1160366400 R. W. Apple Jr., Globe-Trotter for The Times and a Journalist in Full, Dies at 71]
* [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/030929fa_fact1 Newshound] Profile of Apple in "The New Yorker"
* [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june05/apple_3-22.html Online NewsHour: R.W. Apple's Travel Guide to the United States]
* [http://www.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/Vietnam/apple-afghan.html A Military Quagmire Remembered: Afghanistan as Vietnam]
* [http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/r_w_jr_apple/index.html Archived listing of articles, op-eds, reviews and essys written by R.W. Apple]
* [http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/r_w_apple_jr.html R.W. Apple Quotes]
* [http://www.slate.com/id/2081240/ Apple Turnover]
* [http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050801/reading Apple's America]
* [http://gawker.com/news/r.w.%20apple%20jr./ R.W. Apple Archive From The Gawker]
* [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3424920882306013879 Charlie Rose - An Appreciation of RW Apple Jr. (18-Oct-2006)]