Roaming Around-From Hollywood to Outer Mongolia
My Life as a Reporter for The Hollywood Citizen-News
by
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The He drove the jeep like it was a Mongolian pony, and he had an uncanny knowledge of the Crossing the At one point I asked him if he would like to replace John Wayne in the movies. He threw his cap into the air and did a brief Mongolian gig, shouting “Gollywok” [ At Ude, Dorgi learned there had been a massacre of Chinese laborers by Soviet troops and retaliation was expected at any moment. What’s more, Soviets had shot some natives of Ude in cold blood. Why? Perhaps racism. They were of primitive Mongolian blood. Dorgi and I returned to There was a beauty and majesty in the scenery – the sand and surrounding mountains. It wasn’t always so beautiful, Dorgi assured me, adding that during the spring and fall equinoxes it was a raging whirlpool of sand. “This area is so sparsely populated a regiment could hide in that mountain flanking the desert and no one would ever know they’re there. Chinese refugees – you’d probably call them guerrillas – are in the area now. It’s only by accident they meet a Russian. When they do, there is shooting. I have seen the bodies of both Chinese and Russians.” I didn’t see any Chinese, dead or alive, in the
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About the Book
“Roaming Around” was Austin Conover’s column in the Hollywood Citizen-News and roam he did. He covered the movie capital during the “nightmare years” when Communist infiltration was suspect in the film industry. As foreign correspondent he was present during the first CIA incited revolt in Guatemala. He roamed to Israel in search of the Dead Sea Scrolls, to Outer Mongolia during the clash that broke the Communist monolith, to South Viet Nam for updates on the war and to the USSR for glimpses of life behind the Iron Curtain. In the course of 32 years, he interviewed five U.S Presidents, the general who led the first air raid on Tokyo, a chancellor of West Germany who defied Hitler and the first Prime Minister of India. Also included are noteworthy stories about actors, educators, novelists and scientists, as well as blacklisted Communist Party members and one idealist who served with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. His “Campground Russia” series, in which he reported a trek across Russia with his family, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. At the heart of this book is a love story: for almost 65 years, he shared these adventures with his beloved Cathy.
About the Author
Austin Conover, a native Midwesterner, came to Hollywood in the late 1930s, when Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz were box office hits and the Spanish Civil War was winding down on the International front. A child of the Great Depression, he was advised to major in Business Administration. But with a cheeky stroke of good luck, the young University of Southern California graduate convinced the chief of the Citizen-News that he could write better editorials and became a by-lined columnist. Along the way he married Catherine, the girl of his dreams, an English major who helped him polish his prose and produced two lively sons, John and Tom. After several years of covering local events and service organizations, movie glitterati, rising political stars – Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon among them – he began a new career as foreign correspondent covering revolutions and world trouble spots. “I was a story teller of sorts – or, as I like to express it – a writer of contemporary history,” said Conover. In later years, he found a quiet harbor with Cathy at Valley College as public relations officer, “giving back” to the community.