Whiteside, Thomas, 1918-1997

BIOGHIST REQUIRED Thomas Whiteside was born in Berwick-Upon-Tweed, England in 1918. He moved to the US by way of Canada in 1940 to study at the University of Chicago. During WWII, Whiteside worked for the Office of War Propaganda, compiling reports on Axis propaganda. In 1945, he became a US citizen and joined the staff of Newsweek as a foreign affairs writer. Whiteside later went on to write for The New Republic and joined the staff of The New Yorker in 1950.

As a journalist, Whiteside wrote for The New Yorker for over 45 years. He covered a range of topics for the magazine's various series - Annals of Advertising, Annals of Business, Annals of Crime, Annals of the Cold War, Annals of Espionage, Annals of Migration, Annals of Television, Onward and Upward with the Arts, Reporter at Large, and Talk of the Town. The topics Whiteside wrote on were broad and complex, including pieces on cable television, the Channel Tunnel, cigarettes and the cigarette industry, computer crime, dioxins (most notably 2, 4, 5-T, a component in Agent Orange), the publishing industry, Stig Wennerstrom, and yellow rain. Whiteside also wrote several biographical articles for the magazine's "Profiles" section. This included pieces on Teddy Adams, Captain Kurt Carlsen, Daniel Fraad Jr., Ralph Nader, Rosser Reeves, David Susskind, and Sylvester "Pat" Weaver. Several of Whiteside's articles, most of which were published in serial form formed the basis for longer book length works. He published 11 books, working with a number of different publishing houses and literary agencies.

Whiteside was married to Marie Whiteside and had three children. He lived his later years in West Cornwall, Connecticut.

From the guide to the Thomas Whiteside Papers, 1839-1995, [Bulk Dates: 1952-1992], (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)