Richard Fine, "The Price of Truth: The Journalist Who Defied Military Censors to Report the Fall of Nazi Germany" (Cornell, 2023)

Jan 13, 2026

Richard Fine, Professor emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University, explores Edward Kennedy's bold journalism during World War II. Fine reveals how Kennedy defied military censorship to break the news of Nazi Germany's surrender, igniting a fierce debate about press freedom and ethics. He discusses the intense backdrop of negotiations at Reims, the fallout from Kennedy's scoop, and how this pivotal moment reshaped media-military relations. Fine challenges long-held notions of wartime reporting, showing the complexities and conflicts of truth in times of war.

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INSIGHT

Surrender Is A Process Not An Event

Surrender is a process involving negotiations, logistics, and staged ceremonies rather than a single event.
The May 7 Reims signing and the May 8/9 Berlin ceremony show how political and diplomatic needs shape when surrender becomes 'official'.

INSIGHT

Military Holds Controlled Wartime Reporting

Eisenhower's SHAEF limited reporters at the forward headquarters and imposed holds on release of sensitive news.
The press was told to withhold surrender coverage until Allied governments coordinated announcements, often 36 hours later.

ANECDOTE

Kennedy's Long Reporting Career

Ed Kennedy had long wartime experience from the Spanish Civil War through North Africa and Italy.
He served as AP's Paris bureau chief overseeing Northwest Europe coverage by 1945.

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In The Price of Truth: The Journalist Who Defied Military Censors to Report the Fall of Nazi Germany (Cornell, 2023), Richard Fine recounts the intense drama surrounding the German surrender at the end of World War II and the veteran Associated Press journalist Edward Kennedy’s controversial scoop.

On May 7, 1945, Kennedy bypassed military censorship to be the first to break the news of the Nazi surrender executed in Reims, France. Both the practice and the public perception of wartime reporting would never be the same. While, at the behest of Soviet leaders, Allied authorities prohibited release of the story, Kennedy stuck to his journalistic principles and refused to manage information he believed the world had a right to know. No action by an American correspondent during the war proved more controversial.

The Paris press corps was furious at what it took to be Kennedy’s unethical betrayal; military authorities threatened court-martial before expelling him from Europe. Kennedy defended himself, insisting the news was being withheld for suspect political reasons unrelated to military security. After prolonged national debate, when the dust settled, Kennedy’s career was in ruins.

This story of Kennedy’s surrender dispatch and the meddling by Allied Command, which was already being called a fiasco in May 1945, revises what we know about media-military relations. Discarding “Good War” nostalgia, Fine challenges the accepted view that relations between the media and the military were amicable during World War II and only later ran off the rails during the Vietnam War. The Price of Truth reveals one of the earliest chapters of tension between reporters committed to informing the public and generals tasked with managing a war.

Dr. Andrew O. Pace is a historian of the US in the world who specializes in the fog of war. He is currently a DPAA Research Partner Fellow at the University of Southern Mississippi and a co-host of the Diplomatic History Channel on the New Books Network. He is also working on his first book manuscript which explains why the United States pursued victory at practically all costs in World War II. He can be reached at andrew.pace@usm.edu or here. Andrew is not an employee of DPAA, he supports DPAA through a partnership. The views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of DPAA, DoD or its components. 

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