Peter C. Rhodes

Peter Christopher Rhodes (1909-1965) was an American journalist and writer who worked for the United Press news service and for the United States Office of War Information.

Rhodes in 1941

Personal life

Family

Rhodes was born on September 18, 1909,[1] the son of Christof Beutinger of Germany and Margaret Claire Abrahams of Jamaica, British West Indies.[2] He had four siblings, Frederick, William, Margaret, and Marie.[3] On July 12, 1916, their father was shot and killed by his wife in their Caldwell, New Jersey, home.[4] The wife was tried for murder, pleaded self-defense, and was found innocent.[5]

Marriage

Rhodes was married to Ione Boulenger, a teacher, in Brussels, Belgium, in 1936. Selective Service records showed that Rhodes claimed as dependents daughters Ann Margaret and Alice and a son, David.[6]:291 They lived in Knickerbocker Village, New York City, in 1941–43, and around 1946 they moved to Amenia, Dutchess County, New York.[7]

Boulenger was general secretary of the Office International pour l'Enfance in 1938.[8][9]

Death

Rhodes died in Monroe County, Florida, in September 1965.[10]

Education

Rhodes attended Columbia University between 1929 and 1933, when he received a bachelor's degree. He received a master's degree there in June 1934. He was rated as a "very good student, of excellent character and reputation." He then received a Kellett Fellowship of $2,000 at Oxford University, where he had an excellent record. [6][11]

Professional career

In late 1936 Rhodes worked for the New York Herald Tribune in Paris,[6]:291 and then he was employed in that city by United Press.[11] He covered the early stages of the German invasion of France in 1940.[12]

He also worked in London, Copenhagen and Stockholm. He was in Narvik, Norway, "when the first German destroyers steamed into the harbor and he reported exclusively the part played by the Norwegian commander in delivering the port to the Germans."[13][14] Rhodes wrote a story for United Press recounting his 1940 travel across the Soviet Union on his way to Tokyo, Japan, where he was able to file a report.[15] In August he worked in New York on the cable desk.[11]

While awaiting reassignment, Rhodes spoke at a joint meeting of the Cincinnati Lodge of Elks and the Cincinnati Newspaperman's Club in September 1940.[16] On October 24, 1940, Rhodes was guest speaker along with Publisher David Stern of the Camden Courier-Post at a meeting of the Camden Foremen's Club.[17]

In 1941 he was assigned to the French island of Martinique, where he investigated reports about "a mountain of French gold" worth almost a billion dollars.[18][19]

Upon his return to the United States, Rhodes was a speaker on February 28, 1941, at the Allentown, Pennsylvania, Chamber of Commerce, along with Governor Arthur James, where Rhodes said he disliked being called a journalist but would rather be referred to as a newspaperman.[11]

Rhodes was next sent to England, where he covered the blitz.[6]:291

Rhodes worked for United China Relief and the Federal Communications Commission in 1941, the Selective Service records showed.[6]:291

In 1941, he was also chief of the Atlantic News Service of the Office of War Information, the U.S. State Department reported.[6]:291 Postwar he was with the OWI recruiting personnel "for operations in psychological warfare," where he trained workers "for newly liberated areas."[6] He was described as "head of monitoring for Psychological Warfare Branch AFHQ [Air Force Headquarters] and later in a similar capacity with the ETO (European Theater of Operations, United States Army) during the war."[7]

An article by Rhodes about French poet Louis Aragon was published in Aragon: Poet of the French Resistance, edited by Hannah Josephson and Malcolm Cowley in 1945.[20][21] In 1946 Rinehart & Co. published his translation from the French of The Beast of the Haitian Hills by Philippe Thoby-Marcelin and Pierre Marcelin.[22][23] His book Beautify Your Home Grounds, about property improvement, was published in 1952.[24]

Political position

On February 6, 1942, U.S. Representative Richard B. Wigglesworth, Republican of Massachusetts, included Rhodes in a list of names he read on the floor of the House of Representatives which he said had been furnished to him by the "[Martin] Dies Committee" (the House Committee on Un-American Activities) stating that Rhodes, listed as a "foreign editor," had been a delegate of the International Coordinating Committee for Aid to Republican Spain.[25]

In June 1949, FBI informant Elizabeth Bentley included Rhodes, who was identified as a "broadcaster for the army in Africa and Sicily," in a list of names she furnished to the House Committee on Un-American Activities. She stated they were those of federal employees who had been "involved in giving information to the Soviet government."[26][27]

John Lautner, a former Communist Party, official, told a subcommittee of the Senate Internal Security Committee in October 1952 that Rhodes, a "former Communist," had been "in charge of intelligence for the Military Government in the Mediterranean."[28]

Winston Burdett, a broadcast journalist, testified at a hearing of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee on June 28, 1955, that he "surmised" that Rhodes was a "very active Communist sympathizer and partisan of Communist causes." He said, "I did not know Peter Rhodes to be a member of the Communist Party."[29] Burdett said he formed his impression from "my acquaintance with him and particularly his activities."[30]

References
  1. Social Security Death Index
  2. George Garrigues, The Battered Wife and Her Five Little Kids All Dressed in White, City Desk Publishing, 2016
  3. "Refused Access to Mother," The Richmond Palladium and Sun-Telegram, Richmond, Indiana, December 18, 1916, page 8
  4. "Beutinger Killed in Wife's Bedroom," The New York Times, July 12, 1916
  5. "Mrs. Beutinger Freed by Jury," The Sun, December 8, 1916, page 1
  6. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Julius Rosenberg et al., Silvermaster, FBI File No. 65-56402
  7. "Friends Respond With Lumber From Queer Places," The Berkshire Evening Eagle, June 1, 1946, page 5
  8. Guide to the Spanish Civil War Collection, 1909, 1925, 1931-2013
  9. "Children in Spain," The Vancouver Sun, March 16, 1938, image 6
  10. Ancestry.com, Florida Death Index, 1877-1998. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004
  11. "Newspaperman One of Speakers for C of C Dinner," The Morning Call, Allentown, Pennsylvania, February 18, 1941, page 5
  12. "Raids Fail on French," Daily Republican-Register, December 5, 1939, page 1
  13. "WTJS Listeners Keep Apace With War Developments Through U.P.," The Jackson (Tennessee) Sun, April 21, 1940, image 22
  14. "Norse Blame Traitors For Swift Nazi Sweep," The San Bernardino Daily Sun, April 16, 1940, page 1
  15. "Says Russia Prepared to Strike Soon" Belvidire (Illinois) Daily Republican, July 12, 1940, pages 1 and 3
  16. "20 Years Ago In Cincinnati," The Cincinnati Enquirer, September 17, 1960, image 23
  17. "Hitler War Plan Miscarried, Newsman Tells Foremen Club," The Morning Post, October 25, 1940, page 22, with an illustration
  18. "Hungry Martinique Guards Mountain of French Gold," The Pittsburgh Press, Pennsylvania, January 12, 1941, page 10
  19. "Huge Fortune in Gold on French Isle of Martinique Is Regarded Source of Danger by Observers," Evening Herald, Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, January 8, 1941, page 3
  20. "Literary Guideposts," The Ithaca Journal, December 27, 1945, page 8
  21. Harry Hansen, "The First Reader," Pittsburgh Press, December 29, 1945, page 13
  22. "Classified List of New Books: Fiction," The Philadelphia Enquirer Book Review, October 27, 1946, page 15
  23. "Grim Tragedy in Hills of Haiti," The Philadelphia Enquirer Book Review, November 17, 1946, image 147
  24. Joan O'Sullivan, "The Home Grounds," The Journal-News, October 8, 1952, page 6
  25. F.R. Kent Jr., "Stops Use of OCD Funds by Actors," The Sun, Baltimore, Maryland, February 7, 1942, page 6, column 8
  26. "Buffalo Worker," The Kingston (New York) Daily Freeman, June 6, 1949, page 5
  27. "Ex-Spy Queen Names 6 More U.S. Payrollers," Daily News, New York, June 6, 1949, page 3
  28. Associated Press, "Testifies Red Held Vital U.S. Wartime Post," Greeley (Colorado) Daily Tribune, October 14, 1952, page 6
  29. "News Guild Reds Barred by Burdette," The Shreveport (Louisiana) Times, June 30, 1955, page 12-A
  30. United Press, "Reporter," Alexandria (Louisiana) Town Talk, June 30, 1955, page 8
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