Pat Frank, writer and newspaperman and former chief of the Washington Bureau of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, died here last night. He was 57.
Mr. Frank, a highly regarded Washington newspaperman, left the Washington Times-Herald in 1937 to join the Jewish Telegraphic Agency as Washington bureau chief; He remained in that post during a crucial three-year period in Jewish life when the Hitler regime in Germany was pressing a worldwide campaign against the Jewish people, while an Arab revolt in mandated Palestine threatened the Jewish community there. Mr. Frank’s reporting of Nazi activities in the United States, and his exposure of Nazi diplomatic maneuverings in the capital, won national recognition.
Mr. Frank left the JTA service to join Elmer Davis in the Office of the Coordinator of Information and, later, the Office of War Information. In 1944, he became a war correspondent for the Overseas News Agency, a general news agency affiliated with JTA, As an ONA war correspondent, Mr. Frank established the free world’s first contacts with many of the enslaved European Jewish communities, and played a signal part in dramatizing for the world the story of the Hitler extermination camps.
Mr. Frank retired from active newspaper work in 1946, after the sensational success of his first novel, “Mr. Adam,” to devote himself to writing. He returned to active service from time to time to undertake special assignments for JTA and the Overseas News Agency.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
