Welsome, Eileen 1951–

PERSONAL: Born March 12, 1951, in New York, NY; daughter of Richard H. and Jane M. Welsome; married James R. Martin, August 3, 1983. Education: University of Texas, B.J. (with honors), 1980.

ADDRESSES: Office—Westword Newspaper, 969 Broadway, Denver, CO 80203.

CAREER: Writer and journalist. Beaumont Enterprise, Beaumont, TX, reporter, 1980–82; San Antonio Light, San Antonio, TX, reporter, 1982–83; San Antonio Express-News, San Antonio, reporter, 1983–86; Albuquerque Tribune, Albuquerque, NM, reporter, 1987–94; Westword Newspaper, Denver, CO, reporter, 2000–; writer.

AWARDS, HONORS: Clarion Award, 1989; News Reporting Award, National Headliners, 1989; John Hancock Award, 1991; John S. Knight fellowship, Stanford University, 1991–92; Managing Editors' Public Service awards, Associated Press, 1991 and 1994; Roy Howard Award, 1994; James Aronson Award, 1994; Gold Medal, Investigative Reporters and Editors, 1994; Sigma Delta Chi award, 1994; Investigative Reporting Award, National Headliners, 1994; Selden Ring, 1994; Heywood Broun Award, 1994; George Polk Award, 1994; award, Sidney Hillman Foundation, 1994; Pulitzer Prize for national reporting, 1994; PEN/Martha Albrand Award for first nonfiction, 2000, for The Plutonium Files; PEN/USA West Award for research nonfiction.

WRITINGS:

The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War, Dial Press (New York, NY), 1999.

The General and the Jaguar: Pershing's Hunt for Pancho Villa: A True Story of Revolution and Revenge, Little, Brown (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS: Eileen Welsome is a prize-winning journalist whose notable achievements include an investigation into harrowing experiments on American citizens conducted by physicians researching the effects of radiation under the direction of the Atomic Energy Commission. Welsome reported that eighteen individuals, including children, received plutonium injections from doctors conducting experiments during a two-year period that commenced in the spring of 1945. "None of the subjects was told what was being done, and none gave informed consent," wrote R.C. Longworth in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

According to Monthly Review critic Ali Shehzad Zaidi, potential candidates for the experiments were disadvantaged groups. In her book, Welsome wrote: "women, children, unborn fetuses, minorities, the mentally retarded, schizophrenics, prisoners, alcoholics, and poor people of all ages and ethnic groups were targeted" for experimentation. "They were chosen," wrote Long-worth, "because the doctors believed them to be mortally ill, although many lived for years, even decades, with the plutonium working its damage in their bodies." In a Reason review, Leonard A. Cole commented that "Welsome is most effective when describing the poor, often uneducated souls who were unwitting guinea pigs."

According to Braffman-Miller in USA Today, Welsome wrote: "I was stunned by the idea that human beings had been injected with plutonium and began gathering as much available information as I could…. I wanted to learn more. Who were these people?" As Judith Braffman-Miller noted: "Welsome spent more than six years tracking down victims whose names long had been classified as top secret." Zaidi praised Welsome's research to discover the names of the human subjects. "It is a measure of Welsome's perseverance," commented Zaidi, "that she restored personalities and names to the human subjects who were referred to in documents by code numbers."

In 1999, Welsome published her reports, which had already earned her a Pulitzer Prize, as The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War. A Booklist reviewer described Welsome's volume as a "masterful chronicle," and a Publishers Weekly critic called it "a deeply shocking and important expose … written with commendable restraint."

Cole, however, felt that the journalist was too quick to condemn government agencies and officials for their role in the experiments, noting that "Welsome dismissed observers who allow that these and other Cold War era experiments were understandable by the standards of the time." Cole continued that, "appreciating the shift in values" between the current social and political climate and the postwar period "would have helped Welsome's presentation."

Donna Seaman, meanwhile, wrote in Booklist that The Plutonium Files serves as "a staggering and invaluable chronicle," and she noted "Welsome's aggressive research and courageous reporting." More recognition came from Longworth, who described Welsome's book as "a horrifying story … told with quiet rage." Another critic, Michael Sherry, wrote in the New York Times Book Review that The Plutonium Files is an "expansive and valuable account."

In The General and the Jaguar: Pershing's Hunt for Pancho Villa: A True Story of Revolution and Revenge, Welsome relates the story of an "obscure but fascinating episode" in U.S./Mexican history: when famed American generals John J. Pershing and George Patton pursued equally notorious Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa into Mexico in retaliation for a murderous raid on Columbus, NM, a small American town near the border. In 1916, with the Mexican revolution in progress, Villa was angry with U.S. president Woodrow Wilson for supporting his enemies. This betrayal, Welsome argues, spurred the volatile revolutionary to mount an attack on Columbus, where eighteen soldiers and civilians were killed. In response, U.S. forces mounted an expeditionary force and sent it into Mexico under the command of General Pershing, with orders to locate and capture Villa and his cohorts. Welsome describes in detail the raid and the unsuccessful attempt to find Villa. She discusses the political fallout that worsened U.S./Mexican relations and led to severe reprisals against Mexicans in the United States. She also traces the post-raid lives of many of those involved, including captured raiders, military men, and Villa himself. "Using extensive historical records, Welsome weaves an intriguing and readable tale," commented Dennis Higgs in a review posted on Once Written. Stephen H. Peters, writing in the Library Journal, observed that "this well-written account is soundly based on archival sources and interviews with descendants of those involved." A Kirkus Reviews contributor deemed it "a worthy chronicle," while a Publishers Weekly critic commented favorably on Welsome's "vivid attention to detail."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, August, 1999, Donna Seaman, The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War, p. 1983; January 1, 2000, review of The Plutonium Files, p. 816; May 15, 2006, Jay Freeman, review of The General and the Jaguar: Pershing's Hunt for Pancho Villa: A True Story of Revolution and Revenge, p. 20.

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, summer, 1994, Bill Breen, "Radiation Fallout," p. 16; November, 1999, R.C. Longworth, review of The Plutonium Files.

Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2006, review of The General and the Jaguar, p. 399.

Library Journal, June 1, 1999, review of The Plutonium Files, "p. 2S9; May 15, 2006, Stephen H. Peters, review of The General and the Jaguar, p. 13.

New England Journal of Medicine, December 16, 1999, Harriet A. Washington, review of The Plutonium Files, p. 1941.

New York Times, April 13, 1994, James Barron, "Radioactivity Experiment and the Human Aftermath Wins a Pulitzer," p. B7.

New York Times Book Review, December 12, 1999, Michael Sherry, "Human Guinea Pigs," p. 38.

Publishers Weekly, August 2, 1999, "The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War," p. 65; August 23, 1999, "Undue Risk: Secret State Experiments on Humans," p. 32; November 1, 1999, review of The Plutonium Files, p. 51; April 10, 2006, review of The General and the Jaguar, p. 62.

Reason, June, 2000, Leonard A. Cole, "Looking Back in Anger," p. 66.

USA Today, March 1, 1995, Judith Braffman-Miller, "When Medicine Went Wrong: How Americans Were Used Illegally as Guinea Pigs."

Washington Post, January 8, 1994, Howard Kurtz, "Big Scoop for a Little Paper; How the Albuquerque Tribune Broke the Radiation Story," p. G1.

Working Woman, June, 1994, Zofia Smardz, "The Payoff for a Whistle-blower," p. 16.

ONLINE

Columbia Journalism Review, http://www.cjr.org/ (March/April, 1995), Bruce Porter, "So What? Pulitzer Prize-winning Exposes and Their Sometimes Dubious Consequences."

Compulsive Reader, http://www.compulsivereader.com/html/ (November 7, 2006), Bob Williams, review of The General and the Jaguar.

Monthly Review, http://www.monthlyreview.org/ (March, 2000), Ali Shehzad Zaidi, "Restoring Memory."

Nation, http://www.thenation.com/ (February 28, 2000), Eric Alterman, review of The Plutonium Files.

Once Written, http://www.oncewritten.com/ (July 15, 2006), Dennis Higgs, review of The General and the Jaguar.

Radio National: Late Night Live, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ (May 4, 2000), Phillip Adams, interview with Eileen Welsome.