Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 2009, page 69
In Memoriam
Russell Warren Howe (1925-2008)
By Andrew I. Killgore
RUSSELL WARREN HOWE, a journalist and the author of more than 20 books, died at his Washington, DC home on Dec. 17, 2008. A bon vivant, he lived life to the fullest, drinking hard and pursuing with vigor the pleasures of the flesh. A charming man, he was married five times. His wife, Young-Ja Kim-Howe, survives him.
Born in England, Howe was a spitfire pilot in World War II. Later he graduated from the Sorbonne University and became a journalist, concentrating on Africa. He traveled hundreds of thousands of miles covering the hot spots of European colonies during their struggles for independence.
“SEEING THE LIGHT”
In the “Seeing the Light” column he wrote for this magazine (see “Fighting the ”˜Soldiers of Occupation,’ From WWII to the Intifada,” July 1991 Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, p. 35), Howe recalled his first visit to Israel, in 1961, with his Jewish American girlfriend. “Having by then reported on South Africa, however,” he wrote, “I was conditioned to sense, behind the facade, the extraordinary gloom and foreboding that reigns in a segregated society, and that one feels everywhere on the streets of Israel.”
In 1968, Israel’s 20th anniversary, Howe was granted an interview with the country’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, and its newest, Golda Meir. When he asked Meir, a former Milwaukee resident, “why Israel didn’t do more to make itself accepted as a Middle Eastern nation,” Howe related, “”˜That’s the last thing we want to be!’ she thundered. ”˜We are and must remain a European nation.’
“This seemed in contradiction to fleeing Europe to be Hebrews in the land of the prophets. I tried to draw her out on this.
“But I am an atheist!” the old Russian American schoolteacher explained. Because I looked surprised—more at the admission than at the fact—she said: ”Half—no, 60 percent—of my ministers are atheists, I think.”
In January 1974, while covering “what the history books call ”Kissinger’s first Sinai Disengagement Shuttle,” Howe conducted a television interview with former terrorist, then-opposition leader and future Prime Minister Menachem Begin. As he recalled in his “Seeing the Light” column:
“The red light had come on, under the lens. Without preamble, I turned my shoulder to the camera, stared straight into Begin’s eyes, and asked: ”How does it feel, in the light of all that’s going on, to be the father of terrorism in the Middle East?”
“In the Middle East?” he bellowed, in his thick, cartoon accent. ”In all the world!”
Howe concluded his article with Ben-Gurion’s words to him in 1968:
“American Jews! I hate them!” he said in his passionate Slavonic way, at one point in that evening in 1968. ”They’ll do anything for Israel except live in the place!”
“Perhaps because then I ”understood nothing,” I was shocked and reminded Ben-Gurion, ”They’re very generous toward Israel.”
“Of course,” he responded. ”They feel guilty. And so they should!”
AN ASTONISHING CAREER
Russell Warren Howe had an astonishing freelance career. He upset President Jimmy Carter, Henry Kissinger and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan by repackaging for sale to Penthouse magazine former interviews for mainstream publications. His books included Theirs the Darkness, on African travel, Sleeping with the FBI, The Power Peddlers, and his 2006 memoir, Truth at Any Price: A Reporter’s Six Decades on Five Continents.
Howe’s eclectic intelligence produced an August 2008 article for The Washington Post on Richard Wright, the late noted black American novelist. In a discussion of World War I, Howe remarked that the famous Zimmermann telegram of 1917 that brought the United States into World War I was actually drafted by British intelligence. (Zimmermann, the German foreign minister, sent a telegram to Mexico promising it Arizona, Texas and New Mexico if Mexico, with German and Japanese help, attacked the United States.)
In addition to his wife, Russell Warren Howe is survived by two children from his second marriage, Ian Howe of New York, NY and Iolande Howe of Atlanta, GA; a son from his fourth marriage, Russell Sage of Washington, DC; two stepchildren he adopted, former Washington Post film critic Desson Thomson of Washington, DC and Deirdre Parker of Silver Spring, MD; and eight grandchildren.
Andrew I. Killgore is publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
