Gardner Cowles Jr.

Biography Cowles was a descendant of Hannah Bushoup (c. 1613–1683) of Hartford, Connecticut, and John Cowles (1598–1675) of Gloucestershire, England. His father Gardner Cowles Sr. was a banker, publisher, and politician who purchased The Des Moines Register and the Des Moines Tribune.

Cowles Jr. was born in Algona, Iowa. His responsibilities in the OWI were to direct a domestic news bureau, coordinating information from non-military government agencies. Cowles served in the OWI under the leadership of Elmer Davis for about a year and then returned to Des Moines. Returned to USA Cowles had 2-hours press conference in November 1942 and told how Stalin allegedly expressed anti-British sentiment. Stalin denied the accusation.

In his 1985 memoir Mike Looks Back Cowles claimed Willkie had asked him to cover for him during an assignation with Madame Chiang. The two had absented themselves from a banquet, Cowles said, leaving him to confront an angry generalissimo and three of his gun-wielding bodyguards—later inflated to 'sixty' in Washington gossip circles—who searched the guesthouse and found nothing.

In the 1950s, Cowles was involved with the propaganda campaign Crusade for Freedom. He was a delegate to the 1954 Bilderberg Conference, the first meeting of the conference.

In 1959 during state visit by Nikita Khrushchev to the United States Cowles asked Khrushchev about freedom of information and the jamming of radio broadcasts in the USSR.

In April 1962 Cowles had an exclusive, three-hour interview with Khrushchev in Moscow.

For a time, Cowles owned the infamous "petrified man" the Cardiff Giant, which he bought to adorn his basement rumpus room as a coffee table and conversation piece. During 1947, he sold it to the Farmers' Museum in Cooperstown, New York, where it is still displayed.

Cowles was a donor to the Gardner Cowles Foundation, an executive of the Farfield Foundation (supposedly a CIA front), and sponsor of the journal History.

Personal life and death Cowles was married to writer, editor, and artist Fleur Cowles from 1946 to 1955, ending in divorce. His daughter Lois Cowles Harrison (1934–2013) was a civic leader, women's rights activist, and philanthropist. He was married to Jan Hochstraser (also known as Jan Streate Cox) from May 1956 until his death and had a daughter Virginia and stepson Charles, an art dealer.

Cowles Jr. died at age 82 on July 8, 1985, from cardiac arrest in Southampton, New York.