Robert St John

Methuselah of 20th-century American journalism

Robert William St John, journalist and writer: born Chicago 9 March 1902; married first Eda Guerrieri (marriage dissolved), second 1965 Ruth Bass; died Waldorf, Maryland 6 February 2003.

Journalists, and in particular foreign correspondents, are supposed to lead interesting lives. But none, surely, more perfectly conformed to the image than Robert St John. Near the end of his long life, with his white flowing hair, moustache and beard, he looked the Methuselah of his trade, present at every major news event since the creation. In the narrower span of the 20th century, he almost was.

From gangland Chicago in the 1920s to Franklin Roosevelt's first presidential campaign in 1932, from the outbreak of war in Europe to the surrender of Japan, from America's post-war "Red Scare" to the creation of Israel and several Middle East wars – history for St John was up close and personal. Sometimes, indeed, too close and too personal.

In the 1920s, he was beaten up by the hoods of Al Capone, after some over-zealous investigation for the Cicero Tribune, a paper he co-founded. For his pain, he gained the recompense of a personal apology from Scarface for

what his boys had done to me. He told me, "I have always instructed them not to bother newspaper men because the papers give me good advertising for my joints when they write about me."

Then in 1950, as America was gripped by fear of Communist infiltration, St John lost his job at NBC after he had been mentioned in Red Channels, a magazine which specialised in exposing Communist sympathisers in the media (though his second wife, Ruth, maintained that he had neither been a Communist nor supported the Party's goals).

But these were mere incidents during a reporting and writing life which covered almost 80 years, some four million miles of travel and reporting from 88 countries. He wrote two dozen books, including three autobiographies as well as acclaimed biographies of Ben Gurion, Abba Eban and Nasser. He turned them out just as he produced his news stories – with two fingers on a manual typewriter.

Even before he became a journalist, St John had the journalist's knack of being in the right place at the right time. In Oak Park, the comfortable Chicago suburb where he grew up, he attended high school with Ernest Hemingway, claiming later that their teacher had told them both that "neither of you will ever learn to write".

When he was 16, he lied about his age and was enlisted into the navy during the First World War. On his return from France, he plunged into journalism. In 1923, at the age of 21, he set up the Tribune with his brother, to become the youngest editor-owner in America.

Then came a spell at the Associated Press, and an attempt to write the great American novel, before he set off to Europe in 1939 at the suggestion of a friend, to find a job covering the looming conflict. At the beginning of September he turned up in the AP's Budapest bureau. "Can you write English?" yelled a harassed AP reporter, pounding his typewriter. Yes, replied St John. "Well then you're hired – the Luftwaffe is bombing Warsaw."

St John's war subsequently took him to Romania, Bulgaria and down through Yugoslavia, ahead of the advancing Germans. At one point his train was strafed by German fighters, leaving three pieces of shrapnel in his leg for the rest of his life. Finally he made it to Cairo, and back to New York. There he wrote his first book, From the Land of Silent People (1942), in just 28 days, recounting his Yugoslav experiences. The book would be a best-seller.

But AP reporters could not publish books, so St John resigned and moved to NBC Radio. As a broadcaster he was no less indefatigable, logging 117 hours straight in the studio for the D-Day landings, and 72 hours for the surrender of Japan (on which he secured a daring 20-second scoop over rival radio networks).

After the Red Channels allegations ended his NBC career, St John spent the next 15 years based in Switzerland, where he re-invented himself yet again, this time as a Middle East specialist, covering Israel and its wars until he was into his eighties. He completed his final book, another autobiography, just a year before he died.

Rupert Cornwell