Breaking Barriers: A Memoir

Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1991. First Edition [stated]. Fourth printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Jarney Stillings (Jacket Photograph). xi, 395 p. Illustrations. Index. Inscribed and dated by the author on the half-title page. DJ has slight wear, soiling and edge wear. Carl Thomas Rowan (August 11, 1925 - September 23, 2000) was an American government official, journalist and author. In 1961, Rowan was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State by President John F. Kennedy. He served as a delegate to the United Nations during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Rowan became the U.S. Ambassador to Finland in 1963. In 1964, Rowan was appointed director of the United States Information Agency (USIA) by President Lyndon B. Johnson. In serving as director of the USIA, Rowan became the first African American to hold a seat on the National Security Council and the highest level African American in the United States government. From 1966 to 1998, Rowan wrote a syndicated column for the Chicago Sun-Times and, from 1967 to 1996, was a panelist on a television program Agronsky & Company, later called Inside Washington. Derived from a Kirkus review: Educational opportunity in the form of the V-12 program (which made him one of the US Navy's first black officers during WW II) allowed Rowan to escape his roots. Having earned degrees from Oberlin and the Univ. of Minnesota after the war, he won a job as a reporter at the Minneapolis Tribune. The author's bylined coverage of the Third World's early postcolonial years as well as the civil-rights movement gained him an international reputation. Tapped for a State Department post by JFK's talent scouts, he subsequently became ambassador to Finland and head of the USIA. In mid-1965 to become a syndicated columnist and broadcast personality. Rowan offers observations on many public figures, including Marion Barry, Jesse Jackson, LBJ, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ronald Reagan, Dean Rusk, and Whitney Young. Rowan delivers critiques of the FBI, ethnic politics, blacker-than-thou separatists, closet racists, and those who offend his liberal sensibilities.