Helen Thomas

Helen Amelia Thomas (August 4, 1920 – July 20, 2013) was an American reporter and author, and a long-serving member of the White House press corps. She covered the White House during the administrations of ten U.S. presidents—from the beginning of the Kennedy administration to the second year of the Obama administration. Thomas worked for the United Press and post-1958 successor United Press Inter...

Helen Amelia Thomas (August 4, 1920 – July 20, 2013) was an American reporter and author, and a long-serving member of the White House press corps. She covered the White House during the administrations of ten U.S. presidents—from the beginning of the Kennedy administration to the second year of the Obama administration. Thomas worked for the United Press and post-1958 successor United Press International (UPI) for 57 years, first as a correspondent, and later as White House bureau manager. She then served as a columnist for Hearst Newspapers from 2000 to 2010, writing on national affairs and the White House. Thomas was the first female officer of the National Press Club, the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents' Association and the first female member of the Gridiron Club. She wrote six books; her last (with co-author Craig Crawford) was Listen Up, Mr. President: Everything You Always Wanted Your President to Know and Do (2009). Thomas retired from Hearst Newspapers on June 7, 2010, following controversial remarks she made about Israel in an impromptu, unstructured amateur short interview when solicited for "any comments on Israel," she replied, "tell them to get the hell out of Palestine." She then served as an opinion columnist for the Falls Church News-Press until February 2012. Early life and education Born in Winchester, Kentucky, Thomas was the seventh of the nine children of George and Mary (Rowady) Thomas, Christian immigrants from Tripoli, Lebanon (then part of the Ottoman Empire). Thomas said her father's surname, "Antonious", was anglicized to "Thomas" when he entered the U.S. at Ellis Island, and that her parents could neither read nor write. Thomas was raised mainly in Detroit, Michigan, where her family moved when she was four years old, and where her father ran a grocery store. Of her experience growing up, Thomas said: We were never hyphenated as Arab-Americans. We were American, and I have always rejected the hyphen and I believe all assimilated immigrants should not be designated ethnically. Or separated, of course, by race, or creed either. These are trends that ever try to divide us as a people. She also said that in Detroit in the 1920s, she came home crying from school, "They wanted to make you feel you weren't 'American'... We were called 'garlic eaters' ". She was a member of the Antiochian Orthodox Church. Thomas attended Detroit Public Schools, and decided to become a journalist while attending Eastern High School. She enrolled at Wayne University in Detroit, receiving a bachelor's degree in English in 1942, as the school did not yet offer a degree in journalism. Early career Thomas moved to Washington, D.C. Her first job in journalism was as a copygirl for the now-defunct Washington Daily News. After eight months at the paper, she joined with her colleagues in a strike action and was fired. Thomas joined United Press in 1943 and reported on women's topics for its radio wire service. Her first assignments focused her on societal issues, women's news and celebrity profiles. Later in the decade, and in the early fifties, she wrote UP's Names in the News column, for which she interviewed numerous Washington celebrities. In 1955, she was assigned to cover the United States Department of Justice. She later was assigned to cover other agencies, including the United States Department of Health, as well as Capitol Hill. Thomas served as president of the Women's National Press Club from 1959 through 1960. In 1959, she and a few of her fellow female journalists forced the National Press Club, then barred to women, to allow them to attend an address by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Presidential correspondent In November 1960, Thomas began covering then President-elect John F. Kennedy, taking the initiative to switch from reporting the "women's angle" to reporting the news of the day. She became a White House correspondent for UPI in January 1961. Thomas became known as the "Sitting Buddha," and the "First Lady of the Press." It was during Kennedy's administration that she began ending presidential press conferences with a signature "Thank you, Mr. President," reviving a tradition started by UPI's Albert Merriman Smith during the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. In a 2008 article, The Christian Science Monitor wrote: "Thomas, a fixture in American politics, is outspoken, blunt, demanding, forceful and unrelenting. Not only does she command respect by the highest powers in the US, her reputation is known worldwide." When Cuban leader Fidel Castro was asked in the early 2000s what was the difference between democracy in Cuba and democracy in the United States, Castro reportedly replied, "I don't have to answer questions from Helen Thomas." Thomas considered Castro's reply to be "the height of flattery." In 1962, Thomas convinced President Kennedy not to attend the annual dinners held for the White House correspondents and photographers if they disallowed women from attending. President Kennedy moved for the dinners to be combined into one event, with women allowed to attend. In 1970, UPI named Thomas their chief White House correspondent, making her the first woman to serve in the position. She was named the chief of UPI's White House bureau in 1974. Thomas was the only female print journalist to accompany President Richard Nixon during his 1972 visit to China. During the Watergate scandal, Martha Mitchell, wife of United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell, frequently called Thomas to discuss how the Nixon administration was using Mitchell as a scapegoat. Thomas circled the globe several times, traveling with every U.S. president from Richard Nixon through Barack Obama. She covered every Economic Summit since 1975, working up to the position of UPI's White House Bureau Chief, a post she would hold for over 25 years. While serving as White House Bureau Chief, she authored a regular column for UPI, "Backstairs at the White House." The column provided an insider's view of various presidential administrations. In 1975, the Washington Press Corps club, known as the Gridiron Club, admitted Thomas, making her the first woman to become a member. From 1975 through 1976, she served as the first female president of the White House Correspondents' Association. Thomas was the only member of the White House Press Corps to have her own seat in the White House Briefing Room. All other seats are assigned to media outlets. In 1979, the Supersisters trading card set was produced and distributed; one of the cards featured Thomas's name and picture. Departure from UPI On May 17, 2000, the day after it was announced that the UPI had been acquired by News World Communications Inc., an international media conglomerate founded and controlled by Unification Church leader Reverend Sun Myung Moon which owns The Washington Times and other news media, Thomas resigned from the UPI after 57 years with the organization. She later described the change in ownership as "a bridge too far." Less than two months later, she joined Hearst Newspapers as an opinion columnist, writing on national affairs and the White House. After leaving her job as a reporter at the UPI, Thomas became more likely to air her personal, negative views. In a speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she quipped, "I censored myself for 50 years when I was a reporter. Now I wake up and ask myself, 'Who do I hate today?'" George W. Bush administration During President George W. Bush's first term, Thomas reacted to Press Secretary Ari Fleischer's statements about arms shipments to the terrorists by asking: "Where do the Israelis get their arms?" He responded: "There's a difference, Helen, and that is—" "What is the difference?" she asked. He responded: "The targeting of innocents through the use of terror, which is a common enemy for Yasser Arafat and for the people of Israel, as well as—" She interrupted him, saying: "Palestinian people are fighting for their land." He responded: "I think that the killing of innocents is a category entirely different. Justifying killing of innocents for land is an argument in support of terrorism." In January 2003, following a speech at a Society of Professional Journalists banquet, Thomas told an autograph seeker, "I'm covering the worst president in American history." The autograph-seeker was a sports writer for The Daily Breeze and her comments were published. After that she was not called upon during a press conference for the first time in over four decades. She wrote to the President to apologize. For many years, Thomas sat in the front row and asked the first question during White House press conferences. However, according to Thomas in a 2006 Daily Show interview, this ended because she no longer represented a wire service. During the Bush administration, Thomas was moved to the back row during press conferences; she was called upon at briefings on a daily basis but no longer ended presidential news conferences by saying, "Thank you, Mr. President." When asked why she was seated in the back row, she said, "They didn't like me. . . . I ask too many mean questions." On March 21, 2006, Thomas was called upon directly by President Bush for the first time in three years. Thomas asked Bush about the War in Iraq: I'd like to ask you, Mr. President, [about] your decision to invade Iraq . . . Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is: Why did you really want to go to war? . . . You have said it wasn't oil . . . quest for oil, it hasn't been Israel, or anything else. What was it? Bush responded by discussing the war on terror, stating as a reason for the invasion that Saddam Hussein chose to deny inspectors and not to disclose required information. In July 2006, she told The Hill, "The day Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I'll kill myself. All we need is another liar . . . I think he'd like to run, but it would be a sad day for the country if he does." At the July 18, 2006, White House press briefing, Thomas remarked: "The United States . . . could have stopped the bombardment of Lebanon. We have that much control with the Israelis . . . we have gone for collective punishment against all of Lebanon and Palestine." Press Secretary Tony Snow responded: "Thank you for the Hezbollah view." In a press conference on November 30, 2007, Thomas questioned White House Press Secretary Dana Perino as to why Americans should depend on General David Petraeus in determining when to re-deploy U.S. troops from Iraq. Perino began to answer, when Thomas interjected with "You mean how many more people we kill?" Perino immediately took offense, responding: Helen, I find it really unfortunate that you use your front row position, bestowed upon you by your colleagues, to make such statements. This is a...it is an honor and a privilege to be in the briefing room, and to suggest that we, the United States, are killing innocent people is just absurd and very offensive. Refusing to back down, Thomas responded immediately by asking Perino if she knew how many innocent Iraqis had been killed and then questioned the worth of regret when Perino responded that the administration regretted the loss of all innocent Iraqi lives. Obama administration On February 9, 2009, Thomas was present in the front row for newly elected President Obama's first news conference. President Obama called on her with the statement, "Helen. I'm excited, this is my inaugural moment," seemingly a reference to her long-term presence in the White House Press Corps. Thomas asked if he knew of any Middle Eastern country that possessed nuclear weapons, implicitly asking him to confirm or deny Israel's alleged nuclear arsenal, despite Israel's long held stance of "nuclear ambiguity". Obama replied that he did not want to "speculate" on the matter. On July 1, 2009, Thomas commented on the Obama administration's handling of the press, "we