Sullivan, Walter Seager, Jr.

(b. 12 January 1918 in New York City; d. 19 March 1996 in Riverside, Connecticut), journalist who was the preeminent interpreter of scientific developments to the American public during the second half of the twentieth century.

Sullivan was the only son and the youngest of five children born to Walter Seager Sullivan, Sr., an insurance executive who was advertising manager of the New York Times under Adolph S. Ochs, and Jeanet Loomis, a talented composer and pianist. Music was an important part of his family, and cello playing, which he began at age five, remained an enduring passion for Sullivan. He graduated from Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts, in 1936 and was an English history major at Yale College, where he also pursued music studies. When he graduated with a B.A. degree in 1940, he was employed at the New York Times as a copy boy. When the United States entered World War II, he received a commission in the naval reserve. Sullivan served with distinction on the USS Fletcher in such decisive engagements as the third Battle of Savo Island off Guadalcanal in 1942. He won twelve combat medals and ended the war with the rank of lieutenant commander as captain of the USS Overton, a destroyer.

After Sullivan was discharged, the New York Times assigned him to cover the 1946 Operation Highjump to Antarctica commanded by Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd. The experience fostered Sullivan’s lifelong interest in that continent. Later, while on assignment to survey Pacific islands that had been the scene of fighting in World War II, he was sent to cover the civil war in China. On the way to the mainland, his plane crashed off the Philippine coast, and he suffered a broken rib. Sullivan then witnessed the closing months of the civil war in China and was one of the last Western reporters to visit the remote northwest province of Sinkiang before the Chinese Communists entered. He also reported on the early stages of the war in Korea. On 17 August 1950 he married Mary Barrett, the associate editor of the China Weekly Review; they had three children.

From 1952 to 1956 Sullivan headed the Berlin bureau of the New York Times and reported on the anticommunist uprisings in East Berlin in 1953, which he considered the first crack in the Soviet alliance, and the covert struggle between Western and Eastern intelligence operatives in the divided city. The newspaper shifted him to the science beat in 1956. As he later recalled, science writing “wasn’t a profession when I started doing it. I was just another reporter who had moved from being a foreign reporter” (Science Writers, 1995, p. 13).

Sullivan tracked the preparations for the International Geophysical Year (IGY) in Antarctica. “I was hooked by the Antarctic,” he remembered, “and I felt here was this continent and very little of it had ever been seen by any human eye” (Science Writers, 1995, p. 13). He provided extensive stories about the IGY’s coordinated studies of the Earth’s interior, atmosphere, and space from July 1957 to December 1958, and these writings marked his emergence as a major figure in science journalism. In October 1957 he brought the news of the Soviet launch of Sputnik to a meeting of scientists at the Soviet embassy in Washington. Sullivan won the George Polk Memorial Award for his work on the IGY. From that assignment also came two best-selling books, Quest for a Continent (1957), about Antarctica, and Assault on the Unknown (1961), about the International Geophysical Year itself. In all, Sullivan made seven visits to Antarctica, where a range of mountains thirty miles in length was named the Sullivan Range in honor of his journalistic work.

In 1962 the New York Times made Sullivan its science news editor, and in 1964 he became the science editor. During an era that saw the birth of space exploration and dramatic advances in science and technology, Sullivan pushed the newspaper to expand its coverage of scientific issues and discoveries. When Sullivan stepped down in 1987, the paper’s commitment to science reporting had become securely established through the weekly Science Times and columns in the daily newspaper.

Sullivan’s interests as science editor embraced many aspects of a field in which important discoveries occurred regularly. In 1965 his reporting about the discovery of background radiation in the universe led scientists to remark that they had not realized the significance of their findings until reading his article. He wrote about the origins of plate tectonics, which led to his popular book Continents in Motion: The New Earth Debate (1974). He devoted much attention to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and his book We Are Not Alone: The Search for Intelligent Life on Other Worlds (1964) won the International Non-Fiction Prize. Updated editions of these books were published in 1991 and 1993. Sullivan’s other books include Science in the Twentieth Century (1976), which he edited for the New York Times; Black Holes: The Edge of Space, the End of Time (1979); and Landprints (1984), about the geological history responsible for North American topography.

In his tenure with the New York Times, Sullivan commanded the respect of and ready access to the leading figures in American and world science. As a colleague said when Sullivan died, “Scientists knew and trusted and liked him” (John Wilford, New York Times, 23 Apr. 1996). A larger-than-life individual, Sullivan brought the style and élan of the globe-trotting foreign correspondent to science and infused his coverage of scientific revelations with an infectious aura of romance and adventure. Late in his life Sullivan portrayed Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson in a movie about the development of the atomic bomb. His foray into acting reflected the same willingness to stretch himself that he showed in journalism.

Sullivan retired as science editor in 1987 but remained an active writer and reporter until he was afflicted with the pancreatic cancer that killed him. He is buried in the Cemetery of the First Church of Round Hill in Greenwich, Connecticut. His career brought him many honors, including the Daly Medal of the American Geographical Society, the Distinguished Public Service Award of the National Science Foundation, and the Public Welfare Medal of the National Academy of Science, of which he was an honorary member. The American Geophysical Union named its annual prize for science writing for Sullivan.

In an age of rapid and often complex scientific advances, no reporter did more to make science understandable and meaningful to the American public than Sullivan. His New York Times colleague John Noble Wilford said Sullivan “set the pace for competitors and colleagues with inexhaustible energy, enthusiasm, and a keen sense of what was interesting and important—what was news” (New York Times, 23 Apr. 1996). For several generations Sullivan informed newspaper readers about scientific advancements that changed their lives.

Sullivan’s personal papers were donated to Yale University. The archives of the blew York Times contain much information about his professional career. Sullivan’s own writings are extensive. “The Ship Ahead Just Disappeared,” New York Times Magazine (7 May 1995), describes his World War II service in the Pacific. In addition to the books mentioned, Sullivan edited America’s Race for the Moon (1962) and, with William C. Havard, A Band of Prophets (1982). He also wrote a number of children’s books. “Walter S. Sullivan, Jr.,” in World Authors, 1975–1980, edited by Vineta Colby (1985); and “Sullivan, Walter,” in 1980 Current Biography (1981), are informative brief treatments. An obituary is in the New York Times (20 Mar. 1996). “Walter Sullivan: A Different Time, a Different Style,” Science Writers (summer and fall 1995), is a helpful oral history interview.

Lewis L. Gould