Frank McCulloch in Vietnam
WWII Marine CC Frank McCulloch, who was Time Mag.’s bureau chief in Vietnam, is in a retirement home (as opposed to a nursing home) in Santa Rosa, CA. Frank is totally blind now. (Contact CCHQ if you would like to contact Frank)
– Steve Stibbons
Frank McCulloch enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1942, but what he calls a “bogus” heart condition kept him stateside.
McCulloch spent the war writing up the heroic deeds of soldiers for the Marines’ public information office in San Francisco. After the war, McCulloch returned to Reno to write for the Reno Evening Gazette, where he got his first taste of investigative reporting, delving into how the mafia was surreptitiously acquiring gambling licenses in Las Vegas.
It was where McCulloch learned his legendary ability to cultivate sources–”I started out covering the police beat, which taught me how to talk to people who could become sources,” he says. “I made a lot of good friends in the FBI.” Sources handed him gambling license applications as they came in and McCulloch investigated them for mob ties. “We had a lot of lovely stuff, death threats,” he says. ” ‘You be careful,’ [Las Vegas-based mob figure] Johnny Roselli said to me one day. ‘You keep going with this story, you will be very sorry.’ ” – Jason Felch & Marlena Telvick, American Journalism Review
To read the entire article click here: http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=3699
