1. Pierre Emil George Salinger was an American journalist, author and politician.
41 Facts About Pierre Salinger
1. 2.
Pierre Salinger served as the ninth press secretary for United States presidents John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson.
3.
Pierre Salinger's father, Herbert Salinger, was a New York City-born mining engineer, and his mother, Jehanne, was a French-born journalist.
4.
Pierre Salinger was considered a child prodigy in music who played on a grand piano even before he learned to read.
5.
Pierre Salinger gave his first public concert when he was six and was considered a concert pianist.
6.
Pierre Salinger continued studying piano after they returned to San Francisco and was able play scores by Bach, Debussy, Beethoven and George Gershwin, whom he once met.
7.
When he was 12, Pierre Salinger's mother told him his full-time piano studies were isolating him from society.
8.
Pierre Salinger suggested he spend a year away from piano to engage in other social activities, including sports.
9.
Pierre Salinger did, but never returned to his original goal of becoming a pianist and instead wanted to become a writer or journalist.
10.
President Lyndon B Johnson once had Salinger perform on the piano for 600 of his guests.
11.
Pierre Salinger attended public magnet Lowell High School in San Francisco.
12.
Pierre Salinger attended San Francisco State University from 1941 to 1943, during which time he became managing editor and columnist for the student newspaper.
13.
Pierre Salinger left SF State to enlist in the United States Navy in July 1943 and became skipper of a submarine chaser off Okinawa during World War II.
14.
Pierre Salinger distinguished himself during Typhoon Louise by making a daring rescue of some men stranded on a reef.
15.
Pierre Salinger began his journalism career as "Lucky Pierre", a horse racing columnist and later reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle and as a contributing editor to Collier's in the 1940s and 1950s.
16.
Pierre Salinger was a guest lecturer in journalism at Mills College from 1950 to 1955.
17.
Pierre Salinger worked on John Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1960 and became one of its leading figures.
18.
Pierre Salinger was at times described as being part of Kennedy's Kitchen Cabinet of unofficial advisers.
19.
When Kennedy became the first president to allow live television broadcasts of his news conferences, Pierre Salinger was said to have managed the press corps with "wit, enthusiasm and considerable disdain for detail", which made him a "celebrity in his own right".
20.
Pierre Salinger accompanied Kennedy to conferences with other world leaders, including the 1961 meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna.
21.
In May 1962, Pierre Salinger went to Moscow alone to meet with the press.
22.
In October 1962, Pierre Salinger briefed the press about what had been learned about Soviet missiles being stationed in Cuba.
23.
Pierre Salinger later said that Kennedy's actions during that crisis were among the most incredible things a president had ever done in the 20th century and noted how close the countries had come to nuclear war.
24.
At the time of President Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, Pierre Salinger was on a plane to Tokyo with six Cabinet members, including Secretary of State Dean Rusk.
25.
Pierre Salinger was to attend an economic conference and start working on a February 1964 visit by Kennedy as the first United States president to visit Japan since the end of World War II.
26.
Pierre Salinger published a biography of the president, With Kennedy, in 1966.
27.
Pierre Salinger defeated California State Controller Alan Cranston in a contentious Democratic primary.
28.
Pierre Salinger was hurt by his adamant support, despite advice from his political managers, of legislation banning racial housing discrimination.
29.
Pierre Salinger's loss made California the sole Democratic-held seat to go Republican in what was otherwise a Democratic landslide.
30.
Pierre Salinger resigned from the Senate on December 31,1964, three days before his term was to expire.
31.
Murphy, who was to take office on January 3,1965, was appointed to fill the remaining two days of Pierre Salinger's term, giving Murphy a slight advantage in seniority in the Senate over other members elected in 1964 when seniority was more vital in Senate affairs than now.
32.
Pierre Salinger went on to work in the private sector, which included a stint as a vice president of Continental Airlines.
33.
Pierre Salinger, devastated by the assassination, moved to France and was a correspondent for the weekly news magazine L'Express.
34.
In 1978, Pierre Salinger took over Radio Caraibes International with his friend, the French advertising pioneer Jacques Dauphin.
35.
Pierre Salinger became the network's chief European correspondent based in London in 1983 when Peter Jennings moved to New York to become sole anchor of ABC World News Tonight after the death of Frank Reynolds.
36.
In 1981, Pierre Salinger was bestowed with a George Polk award for his scoop that the US government was secretly negotiating to free Americans held hostage by Iran.
37.
Pierre Salinger provided commentary on the 1989 Tour de France for ABC Sports.
38.
Three months after the explosion of TWA Flight 800, Pierre Salinger claimed to have received a document verifying conspiracy theories about the flight that it had been shot down by friendly fire, and that this had been covered up by the United States government.
39.
Pierre Salinger claimed that an intelligence agent had sent him the document.
40.
The term Pierre Salinger syndrome was coined in the years after this.
41.
Pierre Salinger died from heart failure at the age of 79 on October 16,2004, at a hospital in Cavaillon, near his home, La Bastide Rose, in Le Thor.