Clark R. Mollenhoff (April 16, 1921 – March 2, 1991) was a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist, an attorney who served as Presidential Special Counsel, and a columnist for The Des Moines Register.

Life and career

Born in Burnside, Iowa on April 16, 1921, to Margaret and Raymond E. Mollenhoff, Clark R. Mollenhoff graduated from high school in Webster City, Iowa. He began working for The Des Moines Register in 1942 while attending Drake University law school, from which he graduated in 1944. Mollenhoff then served two years in the U.S. Navy before returning to the Register.

In 1955 he was given the Raymond Clapper Memorial Award for his Washington reporting. In 1958 Mollenhoff won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, for a series exposing racketeering and fraud in the Teamsters Union. His work led to a successful crack-down on corruption within the Teamsters. Mollenhoff is portrayed by Douglas Dirkson in the film. In 1969 he served for a year as Special Counsel to President Richard Nixon, after which he became the Registers Washington bureau chief.

Mollenhoff wrote twelve books and won many additional awards.

While living in Lexington, Virginia, Clark R. Mollenhoff died of cancer on March 2, 1991, at the age of 69.

The Clark Mollenhoff Award for Excellence in Investigative Reporting is awarded annually by the Institute on Political Journalism for the best investigative journalism article in a newspaper or magazine.

Books

  • Washington Cover-Up: How Bureaucratic Secrecy Promotes Corruption and Waste in the Federal Government (1962), Doubleday. (2007 edition)
  • Tentacles of Power: The Story of Jimmy Hoffa (1965), World Publishing
  • Despoilers of Democracy: The real story of what Washington propagandists, arrogant bureaucrats, mismanagers, influence peddlers, and outright corrupters are doing to our Federal Government (1965), Doubleday
  • The Pentagon: Politics, Profits and Plunder (1967), G.P. Putnam's Sons
  • George Romney: Mormon in Politics (1968), Meredith Press
  • Strike Force: Organized Crime and the Government (1972), Prentice Hall,
  • The Man Who Pardoned Nixon (1976), The K.S. Giniger Company, Inc.,
  • Game Plan for Disaster (1976), W.W. Norton & Co.,
  • The President Who Failed: Carter out of Control (1980), Free Press,
  • Investigative Reporting: From Courthouse to White House (1981), Macmillan,
  • Ballad to an Iowa Farmer: and Other Reflections (1991), Iowa State University Press

References

  • American Journalism Review
  • Clark Mollenhoff Papers (1968-1990), at Iowa State University