John Aloysius Farrell is an American author. He has written biographies of U.S. President Richard Nixon, House Speaker Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, and defense attorney Clarence Darrow. He is a former White House correspondent and Washington editor for The Boston Globe and a former Washington bureau chief and columnist for The Denver Post. On January 2, 2017, The New York Times reported that historian Farrell had unearthed notes written by Nixon aide H.R. Haldeman, which confirmed that Nixon personally authorized "throwing a monkey wrench" into Lyndon Johnson's attempts to negotiate peace in Vietnamon the eve of the 1968 election. In his famous interviews with newsman David Frost, and elsewhere, Nixon had always denied any participation in what history has come to call the Chennault Affair - after Anna Chennault, the Nixon campaign's go-between with South Vietnam. Farrell's discovery earned praise from his peers. On April 16, 2018 the Pulitzer Prize board announced that Richard Nixon: The Life was a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Biography. On April 13, 2018, the New-York Historical Society awarded Farrell the title of "American Historian Laureate," and presented him with the $50,000 Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize in American History for Richard Nixon: The Life.
Life
Born in Huntington, New York, Farrell graduated from the University of Virginia "With Distinction" in 1975 before working at newspapers in Montgomery County, Annapolis and Baltimore, Maryland. While at the Globe, he also worked as an investigative reporter on the vaunted Spotlight team. Excerpts of his work have been published in Jack Beatty's collection Pols: Great Writers on American Politicians from Bryan to Reagan, and in Leadership for the Public Service by Richard A. Loverd. Farrell was a contributor, as well, to The Boston Globe's 2004 biography of United States Senator from MassachusettsJohn Kerry. Farrell is an on-camera commentator in the PBSAmerican Experience documentaries "Jimmy Carter" and "The Perfect Crime," a study of the Leopold and Loeb thrill-killers case, and in the television series The Irish in America.
Awards and honors
Finalist, Pulitzer Prize in Biography, 2018, for Richard Nixon: The Life
George Polk Award, 1984, for investigative reporting of deaths caused by malfunctioning medical devices, as part of a team at The Denver Post
Gerald R. Ford Prize, 1996, for coverage of the American Presidency https://geraldrfordfoundation.org/past-reporting-prize-recipients/ for The Boston Globe
Aldo Beckman Memorial Award, 1996, for coverage of the American Presidency for The Boston Globe
Raymond Clapper Award, 2001, for reporting in The Boston Globe on flaws in the criminal justice system that lead to the conviction of innocent defendants
D.B. Hardeman Prize, 2001, for Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century
Los Angeles Times Book Prize, 2011, winner in Biography for Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned
