When did Reston start writing for the Times?
I have probably posted most of his output for the period October 1939 through November 1940, when he was covering WWII from London. He submitted many stories about the blitz and other war-related topics. Then he returned to Washington and pretty much dropped off the WWII +70 Years radar. I see his name as I scroll through the pages so I know he was still a full time writer for the Times but I tend to only pick up articles with Washington datelines when they are the day’s lead article. Reston as avoided writing lead articles for some reason.
I have his articles indexed on my profile if you care to check it out. The index takes up about the bottom 98% of the profile and the authors are listed alphabetically.
Reston started writing for the NYTimes shortly before WWII. He was covering sports in the UK, since he was originally a sportswriter, but switched when WWII began.
In the early 50s, he was promoted to head of the Washington bureau, so he spent a lot of his time supervising the team of reporters. The work that involved hanging out with presidents, secretaries of state, and such, he did himself. He covered Eisenhower, JFK, Johnson, and Nixon.
He did well for a man who arrived at age 12 as a poor immigrant from Scotland.