Richard Warner Carlson (born Richard Boynton; February 10, 1941) is an American journalist, diplomat and lobbyist who was the director of the Voice of America from 1986 to 1991. Carlson has also been a newspaper and wire service reporter, magazine writer, documentary filmmaker, and television/radio correspondent. He is the father of conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson.[1]
Carlson was born in Boston, the son of college student Richard Boynton and Dorothy Anderson, 18 and 15 years old, respectively.[2] He was born with rickets and mildly bent legs, as Anderson had starved herself to keep the pregnancy a secret. In 1943, Richard Boynton attempted to persuade Dorothy to accompany him in stealing their baby and get married; when she refused on the grounds that she was a junior in high school and nobody but her parents knew about the baby, he shot and killed himself two blocks from her house.[3]
Six weeks after he was born, Carlson was given to The Home for Little Wanderers, an orphanage in Boston. The home ran a classified ad about him in the local papers, under the headline: "Home Wanted for Foundling." Florence Moberger, a housewife in Malden, was the only person to respond.[4][5]
Florence Moberger and her husband Carl had three children but were unable to have more.[6] Carl and Florence agreed to foster Carlson until a family wanted to adopt him. Carlson lived with the Mobergers for over two years and stated that he developed a deep bond with the family. During that time, Carlson claimed many prospective parents came to visit him, including his birth mother, Anderson, posing as her own sister.[3]
In 1943, Carlson was adopted by a wool broker and his wife, the Carlson family.[5] Carlson's adoptive father died when he was twelve.[7]
When Carlson was 22, he got a job working as a "copy boy" for night city editor Glenn Binford at the Los Angeles Times. There he met and befriended Carl Lance Brisson, the son of actress Rosalind Russell.
In 1963, Carlson became a reporter for United Press International. On his two days off, he wrote for Hearst movie columnist Louella Parsons in her Beverly Hills office. He also wrote for UPI's Foreign Film Bureau, contributing fan magazine stories and working under the editorship of Henry Gris, the first president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
Two years later, Carlson and Brisson went to San Francisco to try to establish themselves, working as freelance independent television reporters, producing news features to sell for local and national distribution. They made less than $100 per week, until they were hired full-time by KGO-TV in San Francisco.
Carlson and Brisson became best known for a September 1969 article in Look, in which they linked Mayor Joseph Alioto to organized crime. Alioto later filed a $12 million libel lawsuit against the magazine. After three inconclusive jury trials, a fourth trial by judge without a jury in 1977 found that the plaintiff had sustained the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that defendant published the defamatory statements contained in the article with actual malice, that is, with reckless disregard for whether they were true or not, and was entitled to judgment in the sum of $350,000, plus costs.[9][10] and the legal costs helped bring about the demise of Look.[7] Legal technicalities prevented Carlson and Brisson from being held as defendants in the trial. Carlson stood by the story, claiming several of their sources refused to testify or died.[7]
Investigative journalism
Carlson with President Gerald Ford on June 4, 1976
In 1971, Carlson was hired by KABC-TV in Los Angeles. Working with producer Pete Noyes, Carlson won several awards, including a Peabody Award for an exposé they produced about car promotion fraud.[7]
In 1975, Noyes took a job at KFMB-TV in San Diego, and asked Carlson to join him as a combination news anchorman and investigative reporter. However, Carlson walked away from the job after 18 months, tiring of news, calling it a "kid's game" that was "insipid, sophomoric and superficial" and laced with "a lot of arrogance and hypocrisy."[7] He admitted to being part of that hypocrisy, by citing a piece he did that outed a local tennis player, Dr. Renée Richards, as a transgender woman.[7]
Carlson also targeted G. Elizabeth Carmichael and outed her as a transgender con-artist, refusing to refer to her as a woman when instructed to by the judge presiding over the trial. This story was popularized in the HBO miniseries, The Lady and the Dale.
"There are so many other things I think are important and interesting but the media can be counted on to do handstands over that kind of scandal and sexual sensation."[7]
Great American First Savings was mired in controversy due to the bank's political connections. For example, in 1984, the bank received negative press for allowing Edwin Meese, adviser to Ronald Reagan, to be 15 months delinquent on his mortgage.[11] That same year, bank officers were accused of receiving federal jobs in exchange for being favorable toward Meese. Luce stated that he saw the loans to Meese as the "natural evolution" of mixing business, politics and friendship.[11]
In 1981, the investigative television magazine 60 Minutes had Mike Wallace interview Carlson about controversial home foreclosures executed by the bank, in which the bank had been accused of duping low-income Californians. Carlson hired a camera crew to videotape the interview and, when the 60 Minutes cameras were not rolling during a commercial break, caught Wallace making a racist joke about blacks and Hispanics:
"'You bet your ass [the contracts are] hard to read'...if you're reading them over watermelon or tacos."[12][13]
Wallace was forced to apologize, and Carlson left Great American in early 1983 to go into politics.
The following year, Carlson decided to run for mayor of San Diego in what became a contentious campaign against incumbent Roger Hedgecock, who was under indictment for perjury and conspiracy.
Carlson was criticized throughout his campaign. For example, he was criticized for speaking of his candidacy in terms of political strategy, without mentioning a vision or plans for the city. He was criticized for being "long on generalities and platitudes, but short on specifics."[11] He was criticized as naïve for saying that the city wasn't run by the mayor, but by the city manager. He was further criticized for pledging not to spend his own money on the campaign, but going on to spend nearly $225,000 of his own money, and by "gay-baiting"—falsely claiming that Hedgecock was supported by the gay community in an effort to turn voters away from his opponent.[11] Carlson also had a comic, at one of his major fundraisers, tell a series of racist jokes for which Carlson later apologized.[11]
Carlson's campaign came under scrutiny for its close ties to Great American First Savings, which had direct ties to the White House. Thirty employees donated over $4,000, each, to his campaign, while only one employee donated to Hedgecock. When pressed on the connection, and on other campaign issues, Carlson began to skip candidate forums, and members of the press deemed it increasingly difficult to get ahold of him, with Carlson often not responding to the press for periods of two weeks at a time.[11] Carlson also lacked more exposure because Hedgecock, calling Carlson "a minor candidate," refused to debate him.
"There are two major questions in voters' minds. The first is whether Roger Hedgecock has compromised the office of mayor sufficient to the point where people feel he should be turned out. The other is whether Dick Carlson is competent and qualified to be mayor. On November 6, I think the majority of people will answer 'yes' to both questions."[11] – Dick Carlson, Oct. 21, 1984
After spending $1.2 million on the campaign, and outspending Hedgecock by a 2:1 margin, Carlson lost the election 42.1% to 57.9%.[14]
Voice of America
In the summer of 1986, President Reagan announced his intention to nominate Carlson as an associate director of the United States Information Agency to succeed Ernest Eugene Pell.
Carlson became director of Voice of America, a U.S. government-funded, state-owned multimedia agency which serves as the United States federal government's official institution for non-military, external broadcasting.[15] It broadcasts 24 hours a day in nearly 50 languages to more than 130 million people around the world, with a full-time staff of 3,000 and a part-time staff of 1,200. Carlson was the longest-serving director in VOA's 50-year history.
Ambassador to Seychelles
In June 1991, Carlson left Voice of America after President George H. W. Bush nominated him to be the U.S. ambassador to the Seychelles.[15][16]
CEO
In March 1992, Carlson became the CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a "private corporation funded by the American people" that produces and distributes programming for public broadcasting.[17][18]
During his tenure, the Republican Party began its official shift on public broadcasting when it added a plank to its platform condemning public media as "misguided," "ridiculous," and undeserving of government support.[19] The party's official position was that public media had a liberal bias and "the party looked forward to" the privatization of the system.[19]
Critics decried that Republicans were weaponizing public broadcasting in order to make it an election issue against candidates who supported it.[19] Carlson says he was against the platform change:
"The Republicans are misinformed. They are putting the blame on the wrong outfit."[19]
In 1997, he became president and CEO of King World Public Television, a subsidiary of King World Productions, the syndicator of Oprah, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!, among other successful TV shows, until the network was purchased, in the summer of 1999, by CBS for $2.5 billion.[21]
Foreign relations
Carlson has testified dozens of times before various U.S. Congressional committees, including the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Relations Committee. He has also been involved in negotiations on behalf of the U.S. government with many foreign governments, including those of China, Korea, the USSR, Germany, Costa Rica, Belize, Liberia, Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa, Morocco and Israel.
In 1990, Carlson jointly addressed the Israeli Knesset with Malcolm Forbes, Jr. Three years later, he jointly addressed Britain's House of Commons with Richard Branson.
From 1992 to 1997, he was also president of InterMedia, the global research consulting firm which conducts opinion surveys for government agencies in over 75 foreign countries. He is currently its chairman.[23]
In 2021, Carlson was reported to be a director of Policy Impact, a lobbying firm.[24] The firm has lobbied the United States on behalf of the Viktor Orbán government in Hungary.[24]
Author
Carlson co-wrote Snatching Hillary, A Satirical Novel (Tulip Hill Publishing, 2014, ISBN0692337008) with Bill Cowan.[25]
He is the author of books: Women in San Diego's History (1977), Free and Fair: The Last Two Weeks of Apartheid (1995), and Why Dogs Talk on Christmas Eve. (2014).[citation needed]
He writes a weekly newspaper column, often about terrorism and national security, for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review[26] and the Charleston Mercury.[27] He is a former political gossip columnist writing "The Shadow Knows" for The Hill newspaper in Washington, D.C., with Bill Regardie.[28]
Personal life
In 1967, Carlson married artist Lisa McNear (née Lombardi). They had two sons, Tucker McNear Carlson (later, Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson), born in 1969, and Buckley Peck Carlson (later, Buckley Swanson Peck Carlson).[29] Carlson and Lombardi divorced in 1976.[29][30] Carlson was granted custody of Tucker and Buckley. Tucker Carlson would later say that his mother left the family when he was six, wanting to pursue a "bohemian" lifestyle.[31][32]
In 1979, Carlson married Patricia Caroline Swanson, an heiress to the Swanson frozen-food fortune. Swanson was the daughter of Gilbert Carl Swanson, and the niece of Senator J. William Fulbright.[32][33] This was the third marriage for Swanson, who legally adopted Tucker Carlson and his brother.[34][33]
Carlson was said to be an active father who had a specific outlook in raising his sons:
"I want them to be self-disciplined to the degree that I think is necessary to find satisfaction...you measure a person on how far they go, on how far they've sprung. My parents, the Carlsons, they instilled a modesty in me that, at times, gets in my way...I know it's immodest of me to say it, but it's difficult sometimes when you want to beat your own drum and say what you really think."
In 1984, Carlson was in business with Karon Luce, wife of savings and loan executive Gordon Luce, manufacturing modular cabinets.[7]
Edwin Meese III is an American attorney, law professor, author and member of the Republican Party who served in Ronald Reagan's gubernatorial administration (1967–1974), the Reagan presidential transition team (1980–81), and the Reagan administration (1981–1985). Following the 1984 presidential election, Reagan considered him for the White House Chief of Staff position, but James Baker was chosen instead. Meese was eventually appointed and confirmed as the 75th United States Attorney General (1985–1988), a position he held until resigning in 1988 amidst the Wedtech scandal.
Peter Barton Wilson is an American attorney and politician who served as a United States senator from California from 1983 to 1991 and as the 36th governor of California from 1991 to 1999. A member of the Republican Party, he also served as the 29th mayor of San Diego from 1971 to 1983.
Roger Allan Hedgecock is an American politician and conservative talk radio host, who served as 30th mayor of San Diego between May 1983 and December 1985. His show is syndicated by Radio America.
Daniel J. Walker was an American lawyer, businessman and politician from Illinois. A member of the Democratic party, he served as the 36th governor of Illinois, from 1973 until 1977. Born in Washington, D.C., Walker was raised in San Diego, before serving in the Navy as an enlisted man and officer during World War II and the Korean War. He moved to Illinois between the wars to attend Northwestern University School of Law, entering politics in the state during the 1960s.
Francis Earl Curran was an American Democratic politician from California.
Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson is an American conservative political commentator and writer who hosted the nightly political talk show Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News from 2016 to 2023. Since his contract with Fox News was terminated, he has hosted Tucker on X and The Tucker Carlson Show. An advocate of the former U.S. president Donald Trump, Carlson has been described as "perhaps the highest-profile proponent of Trumpism", "the most influential voice in right-wing media, without a close second," and a leading voice of white grievance politics.
Joseph Lawrence Alioto was an American politician who served as the 36th mayor of San Francisco, California, from 1968 to 1976.
The mayor of the City of San Diego is the official head and chief executive officer of the U.S. city of San Diego, California. The mayor has the duty to enforce and execute the laws enacted by the San Diego City Council, the legislative branch. The mayor serves a four-year term and is limited to two successive terms.
Meredith Pinxton Snyder was a California property owner and businessman who was mayor of Los Angeles on three occasions from 1896 through 1921, and was also on the California Industrial Accident Commission.
The 2006 United States Senate election in California was held November 7, 2006. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein won re-election to her third full term.
Maureen Frances O'Connor is an American politician who served as the 31st mayor of San Diego from 1986 to 1992. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the youngest person ever to be elected to the San Diego City Council and the first woman to serve as mayor of San Diego.
William H. Carlson was an American land developer and Independent politician from California. He served in the state legislature and served two terms as mayor of San Diego. He was the first developer of the San Diego neighborhood of Ocean Beach.
KSDO is a radio station in San Diego, California, broadcasts at 1130 KHz. The station is licensed for 10,000 watts of power from a directional antenna system, but has been operating since 2016 with 2,500 watts non-directional from a different site. It is owned by Hi-Favor Broadcasting, and airs a Spanish Christian format branded "Radio Inspiración".
Kevin Lee Faulconer is an American politician who served as the 36th mayor of San Diego, from 2014 to 2020. A member of the Republican Party, Faulconer served as the member of the San Diego City Council for the 2nd district from 2006 to 2014.
Ed Struiksma is an American Republican politician from California. He served two terms on the San Diego City Council representing District 5. He served as acting mayor of San Diego after the resignation of Roger Hedgecock until the special election of Maureen O'Connor.
The 1986 San Diego mayoral special election was held on June 3, 1986, to elect the mayor for San Diego. The special election was necessary due to the resignation of former Mayor Roger Hedgecock.
The 1984 San Diego mayoral election was held on November 6, 1984, to elect the mayor for San Diego. Incumbent mayor Roger Hedgecock stood for reelection.
The 1983 San Diego mayoral special election was held on May 3, 1983, to elect the mayor for San Diego. The special election was necessary due to former mayor Pete Wilson's resignation to take a seat in the United States Senate.
The San Francisco mayoral election of 1971 was held on November 2, 1971, with incumbent Joseph Alioto being re-elected with 38.6 percent of the vote, from among 11 candidates, there being no provision for a runoff.
↑ Sixteenth Census of the United States: Carl G Moberger, United States census,1940;Malden, Middlesex, Massachusetts; roll m-t0627-01609, page 10A,, enumeration district 9-254.
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