Universal Uclick Celebrates 35th Anniversary of Georgie Anne Geyer’s Foreign Affairs Column

(Oct. 20, 2015) Kansas City, Mo. Universal Uclick celebrates 35 years of Georgie Anne Geyer’s award-winning foreign affairs column October 20, 2015. Distributed by Universal Uclick (formerly Universal Press Syndicate) since 1980, Geyer delivers distinctive foreign commentary on an impressive variety of international fronts.

“I’ve always been cognizant of the fact that we handful of foreign correspondents were really the only people who were bringing home to our own beloved country the true ‘news’ that could help us predict the future and to free us,” Geyer said. “Today, we need that news more than ever – and there are, sadly, fewer of us correspondents around the world to do this work. Yet, I know from my own experience that anything is possible: We did it, and we can make it better!”

Geyer's intuition, backed by knowledge of five languages, contacts worldwide and voracious historical research, distinguishes her among other foreign policy specialists writing today. In her reports, Geyer strives for a deeper analysis. She looks beyond the surface of events to examine root causes of revolution and political upheaval. Geyer's depth of experience did not always come easily, however. She was nearly killed in an airport bombing in Managua, Nicaragua, was threatened with death by Guatemala's White Hand death squad, and jailed in Angola for writing about revolutionaries.

Geyer has a history of prescience as well: She was the first to predict guerrilla movements in Latin America in the 1960s; she wrote a book in 1975 that predicted Mikhail Gorbachev's generation would seek rapprochement with the West and change the country's political system; and in the summer of 1973, she told the Israeli foreign minister that Egypt was about to attack. (Egypt attacked that October.) Her interviews are one-of-a-kind: In 1973, Geyer was the first Western reporter to interview Iraq's Saddam Hussein. Similarly, her interviews with Cuba's Fidel Castro have earned her recognition and respect from her peers.

Based in Washington, D.C., Geyer writes on foreign and domestic affairs each week; her work is distributed to more than 500 newspapers and digital outlets around the world. She is also the author of 11 books on Latin America, Russia and the Middle East, including Guerrilla Prince, a biography of Fidel Castro that was later adapted into a TV movie, and her own autobiography, Buying the Night Flight.

Geyer is a member of Washington's Gridiron Club and was the first woman member of the prestigious Cosmos Club. She is the winner of numerous awards for distinguished journalism, most recently the Chicago Journalists Association's Daniel Pearl award.

A Chicago native and graduate of Northwestern University, she holds an honorary degree from her alma mater as well as 23 other universities. Geyer also studied abroad on a Fulbright Scholarship at the University of Vienna. She has represented the United States abroad on U.S. Information Service speaking tours and lectured at the Naval War College, the Marine Corps Base Quantico, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Smithsonian Institution.

Geyer’s column is available online at uexpress.com/georgie-anne-geyer.

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