From Humphrey Bogart to Malcolm X to—hold on to your hats!—Osama Bin Laden, Charles W. Wiley interviewed them all.
And he always had a fabulous story to tell about these times and more.
Charlie died just over a week ago at the age 95.
His passing evoked memories of a journalist, photographer, raconteur and conservative activist whose words and experiences motivated so many.
The joke among friends of the wordsmith they all called "Charlie" was that if you left him alone in a room for two hours, he would find a somehow invent a new committee or cause—from honoring U.S. veterans at home to supporting freedom fighters abroad.
The son of vaudeville actors, the young Charlie appeared on Broadway as Wally Webb in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. He later acted in such hit plays as The Old Maid, where he frequently spoke with Humphrey Bogart backstage ("Bogie’s girlfriend was in the show"), and Arrest That Woman.
Pearl Harbor was a defining moment for the young Wiley, and he joined the USO at age 15 to entertain troops at bases throughout the US.
At 17, he lied about his age to enlist in the Navy and saw action in the Pacific theater, including Okinawa. Wiley also was part of the U.S. occupation force in postwar Japan.
Following his discharge, Wiley knew precisely what he would do with his life.
After studying journalism at New York University, he began a career in reporting with datelines from more than 100 countries for the United Press International, the London Express, and numerous other publications.
His much-praised photographs were carried in venues from the New York Times to major magazines.
Having reported first-hand on Communism and its growing domination of Eastern Europe, Wiley developed a passion for freedom.
He loved to recall how he was arrested eight times by the secret police of several Iron Curtain countries and how KGB boss Vladimir Semichastny once showed him his own file that labeled Wiley "a very dangerous enemy of the Soviet Union."
Beginning in 1962, Wiley covered South Vietnam and the growing U.S. involvement in that country’s fight against conquest by the Communist North Vietnam.
He accompanied the South Vietnamese Air Force of five combat missions, including the famously bloody battle of Hue.
Wiley’s admiration of U.S. servicemen he met in Vietnam was translated into his efforts to honor them.
On March 31, 1973, the day the U.S. officially withdrew from Vietnam, Wiley organized the "Home With Honor" parade in New York City.
More than 1000 servicemen marched through Times Square to Central Park, then sat in stands as more than 150,000 New Yorkers ranging from police officers to construction workers filed past them to pay tribute.
"And we had more than 100 brass bands in the parade," Wiley happily recalled to me.
At home, Wiley was a frequent guest on the late Barry Farber’s popular radio program in New York and frequently scolded the national media for what he condemned as its slanted and hostile coverage of the Vietnam War.
The journalist frequently interviewed the controversial Black Muslim militant Malcolm X, and considered him brilliant.
Malcolm, who once called Wiley “Satan,” spoke often with him right up to an interview in 1965 shortly before he was assassinated by a fellow Muslim.
Wiley later wrote a much-praised reminiscence for National Review entitled “Who Was Malcolm X?”
Discussing Ronald Reagan’s coming bid for the presidency, Wiley told me in 1980: "I’ve been for Reagan for President since 1960"—insisting he urged his fellow actor and anti-Communist to run for office years before his "Time for Choosing" speech for Barry Goldwater in 1964.
Wiley himself challenged Democratic Rep. Edward J. Patten in New Jersey’s heavily Democratic 10thDistrict. In 1976, Republican Wiley ran the campaign out of his home with volunteers gathered from the fights he had led against a state income tax and school busing.
He lost to Patten but in ’78, the veteran incumbent was investigated for ties (albeit never charged with any crime) to South Korean influence peddler Tongson Park in the notorious "Koreagate" scandal.
Wiley seemed headed for victory but lost by a heartbreakingly close 2,836 votes.
In his seventies and eighties, Charlie Wiley showed no signs of slowing down. He reported from Kosovo as the former Yugoslavia was breaking up into Croatia, Serbia, and Moldova.
He covered the Mujahedeen, who led Afghanistan to successfully repel Soviet invaders in the 1980’s.
A picture from that period shows Wiley and a figure in white robe enjoying a joke.
"I had that one photo taken, had my wife Alice put it up when I got home, and then never looked at the damned thing again for I swear 20 years," Wiley later recalled to Prof. Paul Kengor of Grove City College.
"Well, one day, after 9/11 obviously, a visiting friend walks through our hall, looks at the photo, and nearly has a heart attack. He gasps, ‘Oh, my God, Charlie — it’s you and Osama bin Laden!’ I looked at it and said, 'I’ll be damned.'"
Agreeing that the architect of 9/11 was "an evil son of a bitch," Wiley nonetheless told Kengor that "on that occasion, he was perfectly nice and very friendly. What can I say?"
But the old wordsmith’s greatest passion was speaking to and motivating young people.
Whether it was a high school auditorium or a college campus or a session of Boys State, Wiley could be counted on to speak on freedom, foreign policy, the importance of fair reporting, and the slanted views of the mainstream media.
And at forums from the University of Bogota in Columbia to Jinan University in China, he stayed until every question was answered.
Grove City’s Kengor recalled how his university was trying to bring Wiley, at 95, back for one last hurrah with students. COVID dashed his hopes and death doomed them forever.
"I actually knew the most interesting man in the world," wrote Kengor in the American Spectator.
"A non-fiction, real guy. He was Charlie Wiley [and] now he entertains the angels. And they’re smiling and laughing."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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