Kennett Love

Love was born in St. Louis, Missouri on August 17, 1924, to Mary Chauncey (née Potter) Love and John Allan Love, founder of Prudential Savings of St. Louis.[2][3] His siblings are John, Cynthia, Nathalie, Mary, and Deborah.

He attended Princeton University, receiving an Associate in Arts degree,[4] before serving (1943-1946)[5] as a pilot in the Navy Air Corps during World War II.[3]

In 1946, he married Marie Felicite Pratt (1926–2002),[3] a descendant of Charles Pratt, Pratt Institute founder,[6] with whom he had two daughters, Mary and Suzanna, and two sons, John and Nicholas.[3]

Love received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia College in 1948.[3][5]

In 1948, after finishing college, Love began working as a reporter for The Hudson-Dispatch, a newspaper in Union City, New Jersey before joining The New York Times in 1948,[7] working in the morgue before becoming a newspaper reporter in 1950.[3]

As a foreign correspondent, his assignments included coverage of activities in the Middle East, East Africa, West Africa and Europe.[5]

In 1953, Love wrote about the CIA-orchestrated plot to overthrow Iran’s democratically elected prime minister.[8][9][10][7] Love and a reporter for The Associated Press wrote about the decrees signed by Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi that called for Fazlollah Zahedi to replace Mohammad Mosaddegh.[11] The release of the decrees, which helped legitimize the coup, was engineered by the CIA.[12][13][14][15]

In 1954, when he was based in Cairo,[16] Love wrote front-page articles about the discovery of a 50-foot boat that had been intended to convey the spirit of the pharaoh Cheops to the underworld.[3]

In 1962, Love left The New York Times for the first national monthly news magazine, USA * 1: Monthly News & Current History, its editors included Lewis H. Lapham and Robert K. Massie.[7][17][18][19][20][21][22]

Between 1963 and 1964, Love served as a Peace Corps Planner-Evaluator in Ethiopia, Morocco, Tunisia and in training centers in the United States.[5][23]

Between 1964 and 1968, Love was an associate professor at Princeton University's School of Oriental Studies.[5]

Between 1971 and 1973, Love was a professor of journalism at the American University in Cairo, and served as a Cairo correspondent for ABC News.[5] Love was a correspondent and contributor for broadcaster CBS.[7]

In 1974 Love began a career as a free-lance writer, editor and photographer.[5]

In 1980, someone found a copy of Love’s 1960 term paper, for a professor at Princeton, in the sealed archives of Allen Dulles, and leaked it to CounterSpy, who accused Love of having been a CIA agent. He denied it.[24]

In 1984, Love denied helping the CIA with the 1953 Iran coup, while working for The New York Times, suing Wall Street Journal reporter Jonathan Kwitny,[25][26][27][28][29][30] until, at least, 1993.[31][32][33][34][35][36]

Love was a contributor to the publications New York Times Magazine, Washington Monthly, and Middle East Journal, and others.[7]

Love began research and interviews for a history of the 1953 coup in Iran.[5]

• Royalists Oust Mossadegh; Army Seizes Helm, The New York Times, August 20, 1953[37][38][11]
• U.S. Envoy Lauds Egyptian Regime, The New York Times, December 6, 1954
• Jordan Pressure Denied By Britain, The New York Times, Jan 10, 1956[39]
• The American Role in the Pahlevi Restoration: On 19 August 1953, 1960.

(unpublished manuscript submitted as a term paper (coursework) to a Princeton University professor while the Council on Foreign Relations Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow)[40]

• The Allen Dulles Papers, Princeton University Library[41][42][24][32][43]
• Box/Folder 359, Herbert Romerstein collection, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University[44][45][46]

• Suez: The Twice-Fought War, a History. (New York and Toronto: McGrawHill, 1969) ISBN 007038780X [47][48][49][50]

• eight-time winner of the Publisher's Writing Prize.[5]
• 1959–1960 Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations[51][52][53][54]

Love's sister, Deborah, was the wife of Peter Matthiessen[55][56]

In 1946, Love married Marie Felicite Pratt, later, his partner was Blair Seagram.[7] Love was a descendant of Dr. Bernard Gaines Farrar (1784-1849).[57]

Love was a sailor, who taught celestial navigation at the East Hampton Marine Museum.[7] In 1983, sailed from Sag Harbor to Dark Harbor, Me., in an 18-ft. ketch-rigged open skiff. He made ocean voyages in the Mediterranean, Atlantic, Caribbean and Pacific in yachts.[7]

Love designed several buildings, including a house in Sag Harbor and a house in East Hampton.[7]

Love had two daughters, Mary Christy Love Sadron and Suzanna Potter Love; two sons, John and Nicholas; two sisters, Mary Lehmann and Nathalie Love; a niece, Rue Matthiessen Shaughnessy; a nephew, Alex Matthiessen; and five grandchildren.[7]

Love died on May 13, 2013, of a respiratory failure at his home in Southampton, New York, aged 88.[3][7][58][59]

• Kennett Love Papers, 1953-1990 via University of Pennsylvania
• Kennett Love Papers - Princeton University Library Special Collections