Fialka, John J. 1938-

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FIALKA, John J. 1938-

PERSONAL: Born October 5, 1938, in New Ulm, MN; son of J. Ray (an insurance sales manager) and Selma G. (a homemaker) Fialka; married, October 14, 1967; wife's name, Deborah R. (a writer); children: J. Wren, Joseph A. Education: Loras College, B.A. (magna cum laude), 1960; Columbia University, M.S., 1962; Georgetown University, J.D., 1965. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Roman Catholic.

ADDRESSES: Office—Wall Street Journal, Ste. 800, 1025 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20036.

CAREER: Reporter and author. Sun, Baltimore, MD, reporter, 1965-76; Washington Star, Washington, DC, reporter on local and national desks, 1967-81; Wall Street Journal, Washington Bureau, Washington, DC, national security reporter, 1981-97, energy and environment reporter, 1997. Also legislative aide for the National Petroleum Association, 1962-65. Founder of SOAR!, a charity for retired religious people, primarily Roman Catholic nuns.

AWARDS, HONORS: Worth Bingham Award and Raymond Clapper Award, both for investigative journalism.

WRITINGS:

Hotel Warriors: Covering the Gulf War, Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, MD), 1992.

War by Other Means: Economic Espionage in America, Norton (New York, NY), 1997.

Sisters: Catholic Nuns and the Making of America, St. Martin's (New York, NY), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS: A reporter specializing in national security issues for the Wall Street Journal, John J. Fialka has also written two books on military and intelligence topics, Hotel Warriors: Covering the Gulf War and War by Other Means: Economic Espionage in America.

In Hotel Warriors Fialka tells the story of how the American news media covered the Gulf War. Fialka himself was one of the reporters on the scene, and his account includes first-hand observations as well as interviews with many other reporters in the Gulf. Bernhard S. Redmont, in Television Quarterly, writes that Fialka's book "is packed with facts, anecdotes and reasonable conclusions, delineating in graphic detail military officers' totalitarian mentality, manipulation, censorship and sheer incompetence. In truth, the journalists themselves were often ignorant and unprepared." In his review of the book for Parameters, Lieutenant Colonel Larry F. Icenogle notes that "for all the barbs directed at the Army, Fialka is just as tough on the press.... All the issues surfaced by Fialka are worthy of study, by both sides." Writing in the Naval War College Review, El Ahlwardt calls Hotel Warriors "a revealing look through experienced eyes at the relationship between the military and the media.... This work should be required reading for any professional in the military and the media."

Fialka turned to another kind of war with his second book, War by Other Means: Economic Espionage in America. In this study he examines the post-Cold War world and finds many remaining threats to American security, particularly involving the nation's economic strength. Citing examples where supposed allies have stolen industrial secrets and technological procedures, especially Asian nations like Japan, Fialka warns that such theft can steal away a nation's livelihood and he endorses the idea of limiting access to America's technological research. Fialka raises the possibility, according to Peter G. Gosselin in the New York Times Book Review, that "we are being drained of the brains and inventions necessary to maintain our living standards." Fialka informed CA that U.S. Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen described War by Other Means to its author in a letter: "The American people are certain to be both entertained and outraged by War by Other Means. The narrative flows smoothly, the tales of intrigue and espionage unfold smartly, and the conclusion that the U.S. is suffering massive economic losses to foreign bribery and espionage hits home hard. This is an important book that I hope will be widely read by government officials, business leaders, and the public."

In Sisters: Catholic Nuns and the Making of America, Fialka tells the story of America's Catholic nuns, whom he dubs "America's first feminists" because they made significant contributions in a male-dominated society. Discussing the sisters' many accomplishments is an incredible task, since they extended the faith through their hard work, which included establishing 800 hospitals and 10,000 parochial schools. To limit the book's size to one volume, Fialka focuses on one large order, the Sisters of Mercy, often called "the Mercies." Fialka's "approach makes a well-told history of these remarkable women from the time of their arrival in America to the present, when their numbers have dwindled considerably," remarked a Publishers Weekly contributor.

In what Booklist's Margaret Flanagan called "an engrossing glance backward," Fialka chronicles the history of the Sisters of Mercy beginning in 1780 in Dublin when the order was founded by Catherine McAuley. At forty-two, McAuley inherited a fortune from her employer and established a parochial school and a home for servant girls. She worked for the Catholic Church for ten years before asking to be accepted into the convent, a move which most viewed as a huge step backward for McAuley. The Sisters of Mercy were known for their humility and poverty. They were revolutionary during their time, praying in public and establishing schools where there were none. After McAuley's death, the Sisters of Mercy were asked to help people on the American Frontier. For a time, the order grew, but then entered into a period of steady decline. While in 1968 there were about 180,000 sisters in the order, today there are merely 81,000 with an average age of sixty-nine. "Fialka sprinkles his account" of the order "with personal recollections and writes sympathetically of a group that has often been maligned and caricatured," explained a Publishers Weekly contributor, who went on to conclude, "Nuns will appreciate his treatment of their lives, as will Catholics pondering a church with diminishing numbers of the women who helped shape it." While a Kirkus Reviews contributor felt that "the narrative stumbles a bit at the end, when the reader is introduced to a whirlwind of nuns—all very interesting women, but the necessarily brief profiles begin to blend together," the same reviewer ultimately described the book as "a very readable history of the order" and felt that the "author deftly shows the staggering level of involvement of the nuns throughout the fields of education and health care."