William A. Price

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William A. Price (born c. 1921) was an American journalist who worked as the police reporter for the New York Daily News from 1940-1955. He is one of many low-level, not-so-famous journalists to be fired and labeled as outcasts because of their alleged affiliations with the Communist Party. Price was subpoenaed by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee in November 1955, he testified the following January. He was one of 34 journalists, out of a total of 35 subpoenas, who were subpoened in November '55 because of Winston Burdett's testimony before the subcommittee that summer.

Unlike some of the other writers and news employees called before the subcommittee Price didn't take the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering questions. He simply refused to answer them. The Daily News Executive Editor Richard Clarke immediately fired Price by telegram, saying his testimony had "destroyed [his] usefulness" to the News.

During WWII, Price flew planes for the U.S. Navy.

William Addison Price is alive and well in New York City. (His year of birth is 1915, not 1921.) He has been an activist for tenant rights on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for over forty years. He is a direct descendant of the American revolutionary William Henry and one of the founders of Scranton, Pennsylvania: Charles Scranton. His cousin, George Polk, a foreign correspondent for CBS, was honored on a U.S. postage stamp in 2008.

[edit] References

Time Magazine article, Jan. 16, 1956