AP executive Tom Curley, LSU provost plan Book Rap about WWII censorship, May 9

Tom Curley, president and chief executive of the Associated Press, and John Maxwell Hamilton, executive vice-chancellor and provost of Louisiana State University, plan to discuss the book Ed Kennedy’s War: V-E Day, Censorship, and the Associated Press, at 6:30 p.m. on May 9 in the conference rooms.

Reservations are required for the event, which commemorates V-E Day, and may be made at [email protected] or by calling 202-662-7523.

This event is free for National Press Club members and $5 for all non-members. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing. Proceeds benefit the National Press Club Journalism Institute. No outside books will be permitted.

On May 7, 1945, Associated Press reporter Ed Kennedy became the most famous--or infamous--American correspondent of World War II. On that day in France, Gen. Alfred Jodl signed the official documents as the Germans surrendered to the Allies.

Army officials allowed a select number of reporters, including Kennedy, to witness this historic moment--but then instructed the journalists that the story was under military embargo.

In a courageous but costly move, Kennedy defied the military embargo and broke the news of the Allied victory. His scoop generated instant controversy. Rival news organizations angrily protested, and the AP fired him several months after the war ended.

In this absorbing and previously unpublished personal account, Kennedy recounts his career as a newspaperman from his early days as a stringer in Paris to the aftermath of his dismissal from the AP.

During his time as a foreign correspondent, he covered the Spanish Civil War, the rise of Mussolini in Italy, unrest in Greece and ethnic feuding in the Balkans. During World War II, he reported from Greece, Italy, North Africa and the Middle East before heading back to France to cover its liberation and the German surrender negotiations.

His decision to break the news of V-E Day made him front-page headlines in the New York Times. In his narrative, Kennedy emerges both as a reporter with an eye for a good story and an unwavering foe of censorship.