Musings: Of My Early Life

Ralph B. Jordan rose from relative obscurity working while in high school and college on Salt Lake City newspapers, to the top of his dual professions as a newsman with William Randolph Hearst's International News Service (INS), and as a publicist with Louis B. Mayer's Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). During World War II he was INS's Chief Correspondent for the Pacific Theater, and then became Assistant Director of Publicity for MGM. Along the way he returned to Salt Lake City briefly as Managing Editor of the Deseret News, although his earlier newspaper experience was with the Salt Lake Tribune. He also was the first Athletic Director at the University of Utah.

This small volume of his autobiographical essays were written over a period after the end of World War II, and are drawn from his early life in Salt Lake City. They are entertaining as well as informative of the "life and times" in Utah around World War I, when he was leaving his youthful 'teen years and entering adulthood.

As his youngest son (and only surviving child), I feel honored to have this opportunity to edit Ralph Jordan's "musings."

Dr. Jordan has received degrees from U.C.L.A., Utah, Princeton and Oxford Universities. His career has combined both studying and practicing international administration, focusing on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (N.A.T.O.) during the Cold War, and on the United Nations. His published works range from detailed discussions of administration in all its forms, to general studies of international relations, focusing on the Euro-Atlantic area. He has served as President of the International Studies Association and has been a member of many other scholarly associations, including the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the American Society for Public Administration, the International Studies Association, and the Committee on Atlantic Studies. He has served in the administration or on the faculties (or both) of a variety of universities, including The George Washington University, Columbia University, Fourah Bay College of the University of Sierra Leone, Brigham Young University, Lancaster University (U.K.), the Air War College, and the U.S. Naval War College.