U.P. Chief in Washington

A man to whom his college education proved to be a four-year leave of absence from his newspaper career with the United Press, Ernest L. Barcella '34 was recently given an appointment of national importance when the U.P. named him Washington Bureau Manager.

Born in Hamden, Conn., Barcella was the youngest of nine children. Immediately after graduation from high school, he went to work as a sports writer on the New Haven Register and New HavenTimes. He joined the United Press in New Haven in 1930, shortly before entering Dartmouth on the Charles F. Brooker Regional Scholarship from Connecticut. As Barcella later wrote, "I newshawked my way through Dartmouth." An idea man from the start, he once obtained a promise from Rosa Ponselle, who was singing in Hanover, that she would have supper after her concert at George Gitsis' restaurant. In return George gave Barcella some free meals, for the honor and business brought to the eatery by her presence. Barcella still remembers her order - two mugs of beer and an onion sandwich and that through her kindness to a Dartmouth undergraduate, she almost missed her late train to New York.

After his graduation from college, Barcella returned to the United Press as a staff correspondent, and for the next twenty years covered stories from the Potomac to Australia. In 1945 he flew 30,000 miles over the Pacific, returning to the Capital to write two of the biggest stories of the era, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the Japanese surrender. Barcella has handled such major stories as the Roosevelt-Churchill conferences, the decisive battles in the Pacific, the invasion of North Africa and the Battle of the Philippine Sea. He has also covered all the national political conventions since 1944, the attempted assassination of President Truman, and other lead stories of two decades.

Following an assignment as night bureau manager in Boston, Barcella was made night manager in Chicago in 1938. Two years later he was assigned to the Washington U.P. staff. In spite of his busy career he has found time to write for leading magazines and his articles have appeared in Collier's, the American Magazine and numerous other publications.

He is married to the former Louise Berniere, and they are parents of a boy and a girl.

ERNEST L. BARCELLA '34