Dick Carlson

Richard Warner Carlson (born Richard Anderson; February 10, 1941 – March 24, 2025) was an American journalist, diplomat and lobbyist who was the director of the Voice of America from 1986 to 1991. Carlson also was a newspaper and wire service reporter, magazine writer, documentary filmmaker, and television/radio correspondent. He was the father of conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson.

Early life and education Richard Anderson was born in Boston on February 10, 1941, the son of college student Richard Boynton and Dorothy Anderson, 18 and 15 years old, respectively. He was born with rickets and mildly bent legs, as Anderson had starved herself to keep the pregnancy a secret.

Shortly after he was born, he was given to The Home for Little Wanderers, an orphanage in Boston. Carl and Florence agreed to foster Richard until a family wanted to adopt him. He lived with the Mobergers for over two years and stated that he developed a deep bond with the family. During that time, he claimed many prospective parents came to visit him, including his birth mother, posing as her own sister. Carlson's adoptive father died when he was twelve.

Carlson graduated from the Naval Academy Preparatory School and attended the University of Mississippi through an ROTC program, holding odd jobs in between the breaks.

Two years later, Carlson and Brisson went to San Francisco to try to establish themselves, working as freelance independent television reporters, producing news features to sell for local and national distribution. They made less than $100 per week, until they were hired full-time by KGO-TV.

Carlson and Brisson became best known for a September 1969 article in Look, in which they linked Mayor Joseph Alioto to organized crime. Alioto later filed a $12 million libel lawsuit against the magazine. After three inconclusive jury trials, a fourth trial by judge without a jury in 1977 found that the plaintiff had sustained the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that defendant published the defamatory statements contained in the article with actual malice, that is, with reckless disregard for whether they were true or not, and was entitled to judgment in the sum of $350,000, plus costs. and the legal costs helped bring about the demise of Look.

Investigative journalism

In 1971, Carlson was hired by KABC-TV in Los Angeles. Working with producer Pete Noyes, Carlson won several awards, including a Peabody Award for an exposé they produced about car promotion fraud.

Carlson also targeted G. Elizabeth Carmichael and outed her as a transgender con-artist, refusing to refer to her as a woman when instructed to by the judge presiding over the trial. This story was popularized in the HBO miniseries, The Lady and the Dale.

Wallace was forced to apologize, and Carlson left Great American in early 1983 to go into politics.

1984 mayoral campaign In 1983, Carlson sought an appointment to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.

Voice of America In the summer of 1986, U.S. President Ronald Reagan announced his intention to nominate Carlson as an associate director of the United States Information Agency to succeed Ernest Eugene Pell.

Carlson became director of Voice of America, a U.S. government-funded, state-owned multimedia agency which serves as the United States federal government's official institution for non-military, external broadcasting. It broadcasts 24 hours a day in nearly 50 languages to more than 130 million people around the world, with a full-time staff of 3,000 and a part-time staff of 1,200. Carlson was the longest-serving director in VOA's 50-year history.

Ambassador to Seychelles In June 1991, Carlson left Voice of America after President George H. W. Bush nominated him to be the U.S. ambassador to the Seychelles.

CEO In March 1992, Carlson became the CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a "private corporation funded by the American people" that produces and distributes programming for public broadcasting.

During his tenure, the Republican Party began its official shift on public broadcasting when it added a plank to its platform condemning public media as "misguided," "ridiculous," and undeserving of government support. The party's official position was that public media had a liberal bias and "the party looked forward to" the privatization of the system.

King World Public In 1997, he became president and CEO of King World Public Television, a subsidiary of King World Productions, the syndicator of Oprah, Wheel of Fortune, and Jeopardy!, among other successful TV shows, until the network was purchased, in the summer of 1999, by CBS for $2.5 billion.

Foreign relations Carlson testified dozens of times before various U.S. Congressional committees, including the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Relations Committee. He was also involved in negotiations on behalf of the U.S. government with many foreign governments, including those of China, Korea, the USSR, Germany, Georgia, Zaire (today the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Lesotho, South Africa, Somalia, and Israel.

In 1994, Carlson was an international observer at the first democratic elections in South Africa.

In 1997, he was deployed by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to work as an international observer at the Parliamentary Elections in Albania, overseeing polling places near the Greek border.

From 1992 to 1997, he was president of InterMedia, the Russian state-owned global research consulting firm which conducts opinion surveys for government agencies in over 75 foreign countries. He was recently its chairman. Later, Carlson became an advisor of the Institute for the Study of Terrorism & Political Violence.

In 2021, Carlson was reported to be on the Board of Directors of Policy Impact, a lobbying firm. The firm has lobbied the United States on behalf of the Viktor Orbán government in Hungary.

He was also the author of numerous independently published books, including Women in San Diego: A History in Photographs (1978), and Why Dogs Talk on Christmas Eve (2014).

He wrote a weekly newspaper column, often about terrorism and national security, for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and the Charleston Mercury. He was a political gossip columnist writing "The Shadow Knows" for The Hill newspaper in Washington, D.C., with Bill Regardie.

Personal life In 1967, Carlson married artist Lisa McNear (née Lombardi). They had two sons, Tucker McNear Carlson (later, Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson), born in 1969, and Buckley Peck Carlson (later, Buckley Swanson Peck Carlson). Carlson and Lombardi divorced in 1976. Carlson was granted custody of Tucker and Buckley. Tucker Carlson would later say that his mother left the family when he was six, wanting to pursue a "bohemian" lifestyle.

In 1979, Carlson married Patricia Caroline Swanson, an heiress to the Swanson frozen-food fortune. Swanson was the daughter of Gilbert Carl Swanson, and the niece of Senator J. William Fulbright. This was the third marriage for Swanson, who legally adopted Tucker Carlson and his brother.

Carlson died from pneumonia at his home in Boca Grande, Florida, on March 24, 2025, at the age of 84.