Tales from the National Press Club explores 112 years of legendary stories
In the 1962 John Ford film "The Man who Shot Liberty Valance," a local newspaper editor tells a surprised James Stewart, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
The National Press Club is “the stuff of legends,” many of which have the added benefit of being true!
April 27 marks the publication of a new book by Gil Klein highlighting many of those memorable moments. Klein, a former president of the Club, is perhaps the foremost expert on what has taken place within these walls over the course of more than a century.
“Tales from the National Press Club,” published by The History Press, compiles many of the stories that Klein has written for The Wire during the past two years under the heading “NPC in History.” It is now available through Amazon and The History Press, and when the Club resumes in-person services, it will be sold at the front desk.
The book highlights moments in which the history of the world, the nation, the city and journalism intersect through events that occurred at the National Press Club. “The Club’s motto is ‘Where News Happens,’” Klein says. “Former Washington Post Publisher Phil Graham famously said, ‘journalism is the first draft of history.’ This book combines those two ideas.”
Klein has been a member for 35 years – as he notes – nearly a third of the Club’s history! He has always been interested in the stories of locations where he has lived and worked. Before becoming president in 1994, he had read every Club history dating back to 1928.
“Think about the thousands of major newsmakers who have come through our doors,” he said. “The problem with writing this book has not been finding material. It’s been deciding what to use and what must be left out. Even after it went to the publisher, I kept finding new items I wish I could have included, and new history keeps being made here.”
FDR helps save Club; Truman plays, Bacall strikes a pose
Highlights of the book include Woodrow Wilson’s musings about what he would rather be doing than serving as President of the United States, how Franklin Roosevelt helped save the Club and the National Press Building during the Great Depression, the story behind the iconic photo of actress Lauren Bacall sitting atop a piano being played by then-Vice President Harry Truman, how Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev forced the Club to admit women journalists as equals for his appearance, how the Club saved a Mexican journalist from being deported to almost certain death, and how it works today to help free Austin Tice, an American journalist held captive in Syria.
“I hope these vignettes of Club history tell the reader why the Club matters and why journalism has always been important throughout the nation’s history,” Klein said. “And, I hope they give our members – and the public a large -- a sense of the history that has happened in every nook and cranny of this Club – and that continues to happen.”
And, it’s not just newsmakers who create history, he said. Behind the scenes, the Club itself has been part of the social and journalism history of the United States. Founded as an all-men’s Club for print journalists, it has seen its share of turmoil (and embarrassment) in admitting African Americans and women. Indeed, the half-century struggle of women journalists to be full members – from the founding of the Women’s National Press Club in 1919 to the final vote to admit women in 1971 -- is a recurring theme of the book.
Klein arrived in Washington in 1985 as a national correspondent for the Media General News Service on the 12th floor of the building. On his first day, his bureau chief, John Hall, took him to lunch in the Fourth Estate dining room. That visit marked a milestone in an even longer relationship with the Club.
After he graduated with a master’s degree in journalism from American University in 1973, he roamed the National Press Building looking for a job. With the help of people he met here, he started in journalism covering small towns in Polk County, Fla., for the Tampa Tribune.
As he drove from Frostproof to Ft. Meade, he would listen to Club luncheons on National Public Radio. If he ever got back to D.C., he told himself, he wanted to be part of the Club.
Klein becomes a Club leader, historian
Two years after he arrived, Klein was chair of the Speakers Committee, and he was elected to the Board of Governors in 1988 and as president in 1994. He worked on the Club’s 1998 history and was largely responsible for the centennial history in 2008. That same year, the Club asked Klein to organize and moderate forums on the First Amendment, Freedom of the Press and the Future of Journalism in front of 40 audiences in 35 states.
Klein and I have worked together since his presidency when we created the public broadcasting series “The Kalb Report” with Marvin Kalb, now in its 26th season. In penning “Tales from the National Press Club,” Klein combines his vast knowledge of Club story with a friendly writing style reflective of his experience, good humor and respect for history.
Since 2010, he has been a journalism professor, first at American University’s Washington Semester Program and now as director of the University of Oklahoma’s Washington Journalism Program where he is bureau chief of the Gaylord News Washington Bureau supplying coverage for outlets throughout Oklahoma. He has always included the Club in his teaching, and all of his Oklahoma students are Club members.