Arthur W. Page: Publisher, Public Relations Pioneer, Patriot

Arthur W. Page was arguably the most influential public relations practitioner of the 20th century. After graduating from Harvard in 1905, he began his career as a staffer for and then editor of the World’s Work magazine, rising to a partnership in the publishing house of Doubleday, Page & Co. He left Doubleday in 1926 to become the public relations vice president of AT&T, serving in that job to retirement in 1946. From 1946 to his death in 1960, he was a public relations consultant and Cold Warrior. As an American persuader and patriot, he served as a propagandist on “Black Jack” Pershing’s staff in France during World War I; was Henry Stimson’s press secretary at the 1930 London Naval Conference; oversaw troop information for the American invasion of Normandy in World War II, and wrote President Harry Truman’s announcement of the first use of the atom bomb at Hiroshima.