Wiggins, James (1903 - 2000)

Genre: Non-Fiction, Poetry

J. Russell (Russ) Wiggins, a voracious reader, was born in Luverne, Minnesota, on 4 Dec. 1903 and died in Brooklin, Maine, on 19 Nov. 2000.

He was managing editor and then chief editor of The Washington Post from 1947 until 1968. He was named by President Lyndon B. Johnson as ambassador to the United Nations in 1968, serving until Nixon's inauguration in 1969.

Wiggins and his family moved permanently to Brooklin, Maine (his previous summer residence), in 1969, where he published the weekly Ellsworth American, which he had bought in 1966; he sold it in 1989 but remained editor until his death.

He never attended college but had ten honorary degrees and was said to read a book a day. He served in the Army Air Force during World War II, as an intelligence officer in Washington, North Africa and Italy.

Wiggins was married for 67 years, and had four children (three of whom pre-deceased him).

He died in 2000 and is buried in Sedgwick, ME.

Selected Bibliography

  • Down East Poems and Pictures: From the Ellsworth American 1984-1991 (1993)
  • Down East Pictures and Poems (1976)
  • Freedom or Secrecy (1956)
  • Handbook of the St. Paul Pioneer Press and St. Paul Dispatch, July, 1945: A Guide to Policy and Style (1945)
  • Civil Rights, the Constitution, and the Courts (1967), with Archibald Cox and Mark DeWolfe Howe

Selected Links