Richard Severo (aka Thomas Richard Severo), whose fifty-year career in journalism won prizes at The New York Times and the Washington Post, died of Parkinson's related complications at his home in Balmville, New York. He was 90 years old [DOB: Nov. 22, 1932]. He is survived by Emöeke, his wife of 62 years.
The prizes he won included the coveted George Polk Memorial Award of Long Island University; the Mike Berger Award of Columbia University; and the Penney Missouri Award of the University of Missouri.
For many years, he also taught a popular writing course at Vassar College called "The Contemporary Press." He later set up a fellowship for Vassar students in honor of his parents, Thomas and Mary Severo.
Among the more notable stories for The Times were the first definitive newspaper pieces in 1979 on the problems faced by veterans when the government ordered the herbicide known as Agent Orange to be sprayed on jungles during the Vietnam war. The herbicide was sprayed in a vain attempt to deny cover to the enemy but American troops complained for years after that it made them sick and that the government failed to give adequate health care.
Severo also covered another scandal in 1979: that of General Electric and other companies dumping cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the Hudson River. The companies had permission of sorts from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to discharge the substance but hearings conducted later showed that they dumped much more than their permits allowed. The result was the contamination of the Hudson River's sturgeon population and other marine life, so that New York State banned fishing in the river. After years of trying and much delay, General Electric and the others companies failed to cleanse the river.
As an investigative science reporter, Severo also revealed that DuPont and other petrochemical companies were engaging in the genetic screening of workers in chemical plants, which in effect held that certain workers, most of them black, were especially susceptible to exposure to chemicals in the workplace because of their genetic make-up. It opened up a controversy on the rights of workers.
In 1977, Severo wrote a cover story for The New York Times Magazine entitled "Too Hot to Handle" which revealed that the nation's first nuclear waste reprocessing plant in West Valley, NY, was leaking nuclear waste into Lake Erie and other waterways. The plant, which then Governor Nelson Rockefeller hoped would prove to be a safe method of using nuclear waste, was closed down after it went bankrupt.
Although his science stories were widely praised, Severo did much of his work outside the realm of science. In 1969, for example, at the request of his editor, Arthur Gelb, he wrote a front-page series of articles on New York City's growing heroin problem. He followed that up by going to London and Stockholm and writing about the nature of drug abuse in those cities. He wrote quite a different piece for The Times' Sunday magazine in 1992 on Cole Porter's unpublished lyrics.
The Times asked Severo to become a foreign correspondent in 1972. From his base in Mexico City, he covered everything from Mexico to French Guiana. He also wrote about the growing problem of Mexicans and others from Latin America entering the United States and this became the subject of a Sunday Times magazine piece that was published in 1974. He wrote features, too, among them dealing with Acapulco's fading reputation as a resort and, from Honduras, United Fruit's transformation from its beginnings in 1899.
For the Washington Post. where he worked prior to joining The Times in 1968, Severo spent much of his time covering civil rights and the turmoil of the 1960s, with special attention to the capitol's neighborhoods.
Severo was born in Newburgh, N.Y., on November 22, 1932, attended local schools and graduated from Colgate University in 1954 as a history major. Prior to his service with The Times and Washington Post, he worked for the Poughkeepsie New Yorker, the Associated Press, the New York Herald Tribune and CBS News.
Severo was at CBS News in 1963 covering the Kennedy assassination, writing for Walter Cronkite, Mike Wallace, Robert Trout, eventually becoming the writer for Harry Reasoner. In 1966, he won a CBS Fellowship to study at Columbia University's School of Architect and Urban Planning.
Two published works include THE WAGES OF WAR, When American soldiers came home from Valley Forge to Vietnam (Simon & Schuster, 1989) and LISA H., the story of an extraordinary and courageous woman (HarperCollins, 1985). Free-lance articles include The New Yorker, The Reporter, The Nation, and The New Republic.
In 1975, Severo founded The Balmville Citizens Association (BCA) to secure traffic controls, secure the historic Balmville Tree, a 319-year-old Eastern Cottonwood (after which the Balmville hamlet is named), and establish a small public park around the tree.
Predeceased by his sister, Gloria Colandrea, Severo is survived by nieces Linda Jean Colandrea and Mary-Ann Colandrea.
Arrangements are entrusted to Quigley-Sullivan Funeral Home, Inc.; to send condolences, please go to Quigleybros.com