When Germany surrendered in World War II, military leaders told reporters to keep it a secret. 1945 edition of Australia's The Sun newspaper (Reuters) Sixty-nine years ago this month, world leaders tried to delay the reporting of one of the biggest stories of the 20th century. They might have been successful, too, if not for one rogue journalist.
On May 7, 1945, Edward Kennedy, Paris bureau chief for the Associated Press, went around American censors to report the news that Germany had surrendered in World War II. Naturally, his decision frustrated the military officials who were trying to control the timing of the story, but Kennedy's decision infuriated his fellow journalists, too.
Looking back, the way the news spread—very, very slowly—seems impossibly old- fashioned by today's real-time news standards, and yet the debate Kennedy started is fundamental in journalism: What, exactly, does the public have a right to know? And who gets to decide?
For Kennedy, there was never a question that what he decided to do was right, and he wrote as much in an essay, titled "I'd Do It Again," for this magazine in August 1948. What follows is the story of Kennedy's decision to tell the world about Germany's surrender, drawn largely from that 1948 account.
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