WECHSLER, JAMES ARTHUR

WECHSLER, JAMES ARTHUR (1915–1983), U.S. editor and author. Born in New York, Wechsler graduated from Columbia University in 1935. In his early years Wechsler wrote for the Student Advocate, The Nation, and the New York liberal daily, P.M., where he served as assistant editor and Washington bureau chief. In 1946 he joined the staff of the New York Post as Washington correspondent. He was particularly concerned with civil liberties and labor relations. In 1948 he was appointed editor of the Post. Under his editorship the paper assumed the role of crusader, taking on such issues and public figures as J. Edgar Hoover, Senator Joseph McCarthy, Richard Nixon's slush fund, and the mass evictions incurred by Robert Moses' slum clearance program. He served as editor until 1961, when the reins were turned over to executive editor Paul Sann, and Wechsler became a columnist and chief of the editorial page. Wechsler's books include Revolt on the Campus (1935); Labor Baron (1944); The Age of Suspicion (1953); Reflections of an Angry Middle-Aged Editor (1960); and In a Darkness (1972). (Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)