(Right: A photograph Dan E. Moldea took of Jack with many of his former associates, including POGO Senior Investigator Peter Stockton and POGO Board Vice Chairman Jack Mitchell, at his surprise 80th birthday party in 2002.)
Author Dan E. Moldea writes:
I didn't know Jack Anderson very well, but, as a young independent writer, I received three assignments from him, all related to my four-year investigation of the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa during the mid-1970s. I'll always remember Jack at his 16th-Street office, wearing a pair of slippers and coolly marking up copy at his desk. Whenever I saw Jack, he appeared in control of everything around him. If one of his associates was having difficulty getting a tight-lipped source to talk, all he/she would have to do is tell Jack. He would simply pick up the phone and make the call. Within seconds, the source, awed by Jack and his reputation, would be telling him whatever he wanted to know. Somehow, nearly everyone who came in contact with Jack--even some of his targets--wanted his approval.
I can still sense the respect that Jack's presence commanded, as well as the extent to which people, like me, would go to earn his respect. He could make a young associate's day by simply flashing his wry smile and saying, "Good job." To be sure, Jack, in his familiar role as mentor, kept a watchful eye over all the young journalists in his stable. He wanted them to succeed beyond their work for him.
One of those young reporters, Ed Henry, now a respected on-camera reporter with CNN, filed the following brief story on the night of Jack's death last Saturday. Henry interviewed investigative-journalist Mark Feldstein, another accomplished and well-known Anderson-associate, who now teaches journalism at George Washington University and is current finishing his widely-anticipated biography of Jack, Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of the White House Attack Machine.
Henry and Feldstein, both of whom really knew Jack, speak for those of us who didn't know Jack very well but always looked up to and respected him.