Journalist, author: When he worked with his hands, it was not just to type his many books, scores of white papers, and countless Time magazine articles. He started out as a welder in Russia, and later, when he came to Ridgefield, Conn., in 1948, built his stone-and-wood home with his own hands. The son of the liberal social reformer, Scott Nearing, he dropped his father's name after a disagreement, left college after two years, and, intrigued by communism, headed for Russia where he worked in a Urals factory as a welder for several years. In Stalin's 1937 purge, he lost his job, but remained in Russia as a French and British news correspondent. Kicked out in 1940, he began covering World War II for Time magazine, remaining with Time until his retirement in 1973. During his journalistic career, he wrote eight books on world politics, economics, war, and hunger, did countless Time special reports that were widely circulated in government and industry, and delivered more than 4,800 speeches — including some in Ridgefield — all while also writing for Time. After his retirement, he became vice president of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. He still had time for home town, belonging to the Democratic Club early on — a frequent guest at his house was U.S. Vice President Henry Wallace of nearby South Salem, N.Y. But he later became a Republican. "He wanted to build the structure of a better world," said the Rev. Clayton R. Lund of the First Congregational Church at his funeral in 1976. "Such optimism never left him because he had such access to human weakness and nobility; he was obsessed with the triumph of the human spirit."—Jack Sanders
Journalist, author: When he worked with his hands, it was not just to type his many books, scores of white papers, and countless Time magazine articles. He started out as a welder in Russia, and later, when he came to Ridgefield, Conn., in 1948, built his stone-and-wood home with his own hands. The son of the liberal social reformer, Scott Nearing, he dropped his father's name after a disagreement, left college after two years, and, intrigued by communism, headed for Russia where he worked in a Urals factory as a welder for several years. In Stalin's 1937 purge, he lost his job, but remained in Russia as a French and British news correspondent. Kicked out in 1940, he began covering World War II for Time magazine, remaining with Time until his retirement in 1973. During his journalistic career, he wrote eight books on world politics, economics, war, and hunger, did countless Time special reports that were widely circulated in government and industry, and delivered more than 4,800 speeches — including some in Ridgefield — all while also writing for Time. After his retirement, he became vice president of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. He still had time for home town, belonging to the Democratic Club early on — a frequent guest at his house was U.S. Vice President Henry Wallace of nearby South Salem, N.Y. But he later became a Republican. "He wanted to build the structure of a better world," said the Rev. Clayton R. Lund of the First Congregational Church at his funeral in 1976. "Such optimism never left him because he had such access to human weakness and nobility; he was obsessed with the triumph of the human spirit."—Jack Sanders
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