A Complex Fate: William L. Shirer and the American Century

William Shirer (1904-1993), a star foreign correspondent with the Chicago Tribune in the 1920s and ’30s, was a prominent member of what one contemporary observer described as an extraordinary band of American journalists, "some with the Midwest hayseed still in their hair," who gave their North American audiences a visceral sense of how Europe was spiralling into chaos and war.

In 1937, Shirer left print journalism and became the first of the now legendary "Murrow boys," working as an on-air...