John S. Blashill, 1949
B.A., Denison University
M.S., University of California, Los Angeles
Nairobi, Kenya
Citation awarded on Saturday, June 6, 1970
A third generation member of a Denison family, he broke into radio news casting in Santa Ana, Calif., upon graduation. During the Korean War, he became the enlisted news chief of the Army’s radio station in Tokyo. On his return, he joined the Beverly Hills Citizen, became its news editor, and then headed for Europe. Time Magazine found him as a wire service correspondent in Madrid, later brought him to New York as a writer in the Hemisphere section.
In 1961, he was assigned to Rio de Janiero as bureau chief to cover Brazil. By 1968 he was Time correspondent in the Paris bureau. In 1969, as East African correspondent, he wrote the Time cover story of the Biafran surrender to Nigeria. He is now bureau chief of Time-Life News Service for Africa, based in Nairobi. Other Time cover stories of his are those on Rhodesia and South Africa, Israel, the Six-Day War, Jordan and the Arabs, Brezhnev and Kosygin, Iran, Indonesia, China, Spain, Argentina, DeGaulle, and the French Monetary Crisis. He has also participated in the discussion of foreign affairs on various TV and radio shows.
