Todd, Alden 1918-2006

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born January 12, 1918, in Washington, DC; died of congestive heart failure, March 8, 2006, in Anchorage, AK. Journalist, editor, and author. A former reporter, teacher, and publications director, Todd also wrote books of history and biography. Graduating fromSwarthmore College in 1939, he taught English at a Wilmington, Delaware, Quaker school and then was a machinist for a ship building company in Pennsylvania. When America entered World War II, Todd enlisted in the U.S. Army, becoming part of the parachute infantry regiment. His war years would prove extremely harrowing. Todd saw action at theBattle of the Bulge, where half his company was slaughtered before they were saved by a U.S. tank destroyer. After the war was won, Todd served as an interpreter for awhile in Europe and helped translate Nazi documents that told of Germany's plans to build a nuclear warhead. In 1946, he joined the Federated Press as a reporter, and during the early 1950s he was a correspondent in Europe and then Washington, DC. His next career pursuit was education; he was hired as an adjunct assistant professor at New YorkUniversity's School of Continuing Education in 1966. Continuing to teach there for the next twenty years, Todd was also the editor and publications director for the accounting firm Deloitte Haskins & Sells from 1968 to 1983. His first book, Abandoned (1961; 2nd edition, 2001), was a History Book Club alternate selection, while his second, Justice on Trial: The Case of Louis D. Brandeis (1964), won the Gavel Award from the American Bar Association in 1965 and was a selected title of the Lawyers' Literary Club and Contemporary Affairs Society. He was also the author of such books as A Spark Lighted in Portland (1966),Richard Montgomery: Rebel of 1775 (1967), andFinding Facts Fast (1972).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Washington Post, March 21, 2006, p. B6.