Remembering John Barron

John Hubbell is the author of the pioneering work P.O.W.: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964-73 and a former colleague of John Barron’s at Reader’s Digest. We noted Mr. Barron’s death earlier this week here, and posted an update including a message from another of Mr. Barron’s former colleagues at the Digest. Mr. Hubbell writes to take issue with that message:

Not to challenge the assertion that there has been ideological slippage at The Reader’s Digest, where I spent a 40-year career, but I can’t imagine who it might have been, either in Chappaqua or in Washington, who could find no record of John Barron ever having worked for RD. In fact, the current chief of the Washington bureau called the Chappaqua headquarters with the news of John’s passing, his obit was posted on the bulletin board in the Research department and was the subject of much discussion throughout Editorial.

Mr. Hubbell adds his own estimate of John Barron, which is one that coincides with ours and our previous correspondent’s:

John was a good and highly valued friend and colleague, and a great American patriot who did more than any other journalist of his time to expose the KGB and its works.

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