The Edward M. Korry Scholarship
The Edward M. Korry Scholarship is awarded by faculty members to a journalism student on financial assistance who has an interest in foreign policy and international relations, and who has obtained a summer or other internship with a news organization. The stipend is $750.
Edward M. Korry was both a journalist and a diplomat. Throughout his life, he believed passionately in the importance of integrity and truth in both public service and the press. A native New Yorker, he graduated from Washington and Lee in 1942 and received an honorary doctorate of laws from the University in 1980. He began his career as a page boy at NBC, then joined the United Press and served as chief correspondent for the United Press at the United Nations, bureau chief for the Balkans, Germany and France, and chief European correspondent until 1954. From 1954 to 1960, Korry served as European Editor for Look Magazine, earning the Overseas Press Club Award for Best Reporting on Foreign Affairs, and the Page One Award from the Newspaper Guild of New York.
Among the major stories he covered were the following:
- The Tito-Stalin break in 1948, the major event of the period, for which he was labeled by Moscow as an "apologist" and a "tool" for Tito;
- The treason trial in 1949 of the Hungarian Primate, Cardinal Mindszenty, as the only non-communist representative of the US press;
- The 1954 Indochina Peace Conference in Geneva as head of the United Press team when he wrote an exclusive story "…President Eisenhower is today considering a secret Joints Chiefs of Staff recommendation to commit U.S. Air and sea forces to the Battle of Indochina…" He was fired because he refused to divulge the names of U.S. government sources. Almost immediately Korry's exclusive was corroborated by Joseph Alsop of the New York Herald Tribune and Korry’s dismissal was reversed.
- An in-depth article on India (1958) for which he received the first Newspaper Guild Page One Award in Journalism for the best foreign reporting, given to a magazine journalist. He also received the Overseas Press Club’s citation for excellence in foreign reporting.
In 1963, President Kennedy appointed Korry U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia; in 1967, President Johnson appointed Korry U.S. Ambassador to Chile, and in 1969, President Nixon asked Korry to remain in Chile, where he continued to serve until 1971.
After leaving Chile, Ambassador Korry was president of the Association of American Publishers and president of the United Nations Association – USA. His career was destroyed by media reports beginning in 1974 relating to U.S. involvement in Chile that falsely implicated him in the U.S. attempt in 1970 to prevent Chile’s newly elected socialist president, Salvador Allende, from assuming the presidency. From that time on, Korry sought to clear his name and ensure that the truthful story of American involvement in Chile be told. In 1981, the New York Times issued a rare front page exoneration of Korry’s role in Chile.
The fellowship is appropriate for students seeking support for a newsroom internship abroad.
Applications should be addressed to the department head and comprise 1) a letter specifying the exact nature of the academic work and related travel to be undertaken, and the nature of the applicant's interest and background in the proposed subject; 2) a detailed budget. The project proposed may be the work of the internship itself.
Further information is available from the head of the journalism department. The Journalism Department cannot support projects that require travel to countries on the State Department's current travel warning list. To see a list of those countries, click here.