Longest-ever National Press Club member George B. Bookman dies at 103

George B. Bookman, the longest-ever member of the National Press Club at 79 years, died in his sleep on Jan. 24 in Seattle at the age of 103. He joined the Club on Nov. 1, 1938, while a reporter for the Washington Post, and maintained his membership during a career in journalism and public affairs that took him to Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Europe.

Bookman was a native of New York City and moved to Seattle recently to be close to family.

His first effort in journalism was writing a society column as a teenager for a New Jersey Shore newspaper in the 1920s. He was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Haverford College in Pennsylvania. He spent his junior year in Paris and did graduate work in international studies in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1936.

While at the Post, Bookman covered the White House of Franklin Roosevelt and became an early member of the White House Correspondents Association.

During World War II, Bookman worked for the Office of War Information (OWI) and reported in French and English via shortwave radio from Brazzaville, French Congo, the symbolic capital of the French government-in-exile from 1940-1943. Later in the war, he coordinated OWI programs in the Middle East and accompanied U.S. troops through Italy. He worked for OWI in Austria after the war.

After returning to the U.S., Bookman joined U.S. News, later U.S. News & World Report, and was a business reporter for Time and Fortune magazines in Washington and New York. He was a regular panelist on the network news television interview shows "Meet the Press" and "Face the Nation" in the 1950s and covered national presidential campaigns during the 1950s and '60s.

Bookman's memberships included the New York Financial Writers Association, the Cosmos Club, Overseas Press Club, the Society of Silurians, and the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). He served as president of the SPJ's New York Deadline Club in 1972. He was a long-time supporter of efforts to improve journalism. A 2013 tribute by the Society of Silurians, where he was its longest-ever member, said members "never heard a negative word expressed about him. He has legions of devoted admirers."

After his successful career in journalism, Bookman became the director of public affairs for the New York Stock Exchange and the New York Botanical Gardens, where he did a weekly gardening program on CBS Radio. He operated his own public-relations business in New York until retiring in 2002, the same year he completed his autobiography, Headlines, Deadlines and Lifelines.

Bookman would visit the Club whenever he was in Washington and maintained his membership because, he said, "I like the company of journalists."

He married Janet Schrank in 1944 and they had a daughter and a son. She died in 2002.