Pulitzer Prize-winning Newspaper Reporter. He is best remembered for his muck-racking column “Washington Merry-Go-Round,” which he took over from his mentor and column founder, Drew Pearson. He won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for his news reporting. Born Jackson Northman Anderson in Long Beach, California, he grew up in Murray, a suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah. A devout Mormon, he served two years as a missionary before beginning his writing career for the local newspaper “The Murray Eagle” and later, the “Salt Lake Tribune.” His first investigative news story was about illegal polygamy being tolerated by his church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and how polygamous groups were trying to infiltrate the mainstream part of the LDS church. During World War II, he served as a civilian war correspondent, and later joined the Army, writing for the Shanghai, China edition of the “Stars and Stripes” newspaper. In 1947, he was hired by Drew Pearson, founder of a muck-racking column “The Washington Merry-Go-Round” in the Washington Post newspaper, and took over the column in 1969 when Pearson died. The column broke a number of political scandals, including Eisenhower’s assistant Sherman Adams taking bribes, Nixon’s Watergate scandal, and Reagan’s secret arms for hostages deal with Iran in 1986. Anderson was known for his investigative reporting, aggressive researching, and enormous political influence in the capital. In 1972, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for reporting that the Nixon administration secretly supported Pakistan with its war against India. Within two years, he had made a place for himself on Nixon’s Secret Enemies List. He exposed Senator Thomas Dodd’s theft of campaign money, and discovered the CIA’s attempt to have the Mafia kill Fidel Castro. As a result of the CIA effort, Castro retaliated by infiltrating snipers to kill President Kennedy; some people believe JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was paid by Castro to kill Kennedy. Anderson also assisted Drew Pearson in writing the book “The Case Against Congress” (1969). Anderson published his autobiography, “Confessions of a Muckraker” in 1979, and later updated it with two books, “The Washington Merry-Go-Round” (1997) and “Peace, War, and Politics: An Eyewitness Account” (1999). In 1986, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, which forced him to retire in 2004, and he died from complications of Parkinson’s at his home in Bethesda, Maryland in December 2005. (bio by: Kit and Morgan Benson)