Trinity College, Dublin, has marked the contribution to journalism of Mr Sydney Gruson, a strong advocate of the democratic right of the press to inform the public, who for more than a generation was associated with the New York Times.
A native of Dublin, his early career was as a foreign correspondent for which he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. But he was to rise through the New York Times to become vice-chairman of the newspaper's board in 1979. An honorary doctorate in laws was conferred on him yesterday in New York by the Provost of Trinity, Dr Thomas Mitchell, who said Mr Gruson had risen "like Horace, `from lowliness to empowerment' and has shown by his distinguished career that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword".
He was reared in Dublin's Jewish community - "a circle small in numbers but rich in talent" - before emigrating as a young man with his family to Canada. He earned a considerable reputation with the Toronto Star before being headhunted by the New York Times in 1944.
As foreign correspondent in Poland in the late 1950s, his reporting of the anti-Stalinist revolt earned him the Pulitzer nomination. He became foreign editor in 1965 and head of the New York Times International Edition based in Paris the following year - before presiding over its merger with the International Herald Tribune.
As a special adviser to Mr Arthur "Punch" Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times, he played a major part in the decision to publish in 1971 the "Pentagon Papers", the secret Defence Department history of US involvement in Vietnam - considered one of the most important acts in strengthening the American free press. The paper won a landmark case quashing a restraining order from the Nixon administration and later received the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for its stance.
