Norman Cousins
Norman Cousins (
June 24,
1915 â€"
November 30, 1990) was a prominent political
journalist,
author,
professor, and
world peace advocate.
Cousins was born in
Union City, New Jersey. At age 11, he was misdiagnosed with
tuberculosis and placed in a
sanatorium. Despite this, he was an athletic youth [
1], and he claimed that as a young boy, he had "set out to discover exuberance."
After graduating from Union Hill High School, he received a
Bachelor's degree from
Teachers College, Columbia University in
New York City.
He joined the staff of the
New York Evening Post (Now the
New York Post) in 1934, and in 1935, he was hired by
Current History as a book critic. He would later ascend to the position of managing editor. He would also befriend the staff of the
Saturday Review of Literature (later renamed
Saturday Review), which had its offices in the same building. He would later join the staff of that publication as well by 1940. He was named editor-in-chief in 1942, a position he would hold until 1972. Under his direction, circulation of the publication would increase from 20,000 to 650,000.
Cousins' philosophy toward his work was exemplified by his instructions to his staff, "not just to appraise literature, but to try to serve it, nurture it, safeguard it." Cousins believed that "There is a need for writers who can restore to writing its powerful tradition of leadership in crisis.
Politically, Cousins was a tireless advocate of
liberal causes, such as
nuclear disarmament and world peace, which he promoted through his writings in
Saturday Review. In a 1984 forum at the
University of California, Berkeley entitled "Quest for Peace," Cousins recalled the long
editorial he wrote on
August 6, 1945, the day the
United States dropped the bomb in
Hiroshima. Titled "The Modern Man is Obsolete," Cousins, who stated that he felt "the deepest guilt" over the bomb's use on human beings, discussed in the editorial the social and political implications of the
atomic bomb and
atomic energy. He rushed to get it published the next day in the
Review, and the response was considerable, as it was reprinted in newspapers around the country, and enlarged into a book that was reprinted in different languages.
Cousins also wrote a collection of
non-fiction books on the same subjects, such as the 1953
Who Speaks for Man? , which advocated a
World Federation and nuclear disarmament. He also served as president of the
World Federalist Association and chairman of the
Committee for Sane Nuclear Policy, which in the 1950s, warned that the world was bound for a
nuclear holocaust if the threat of the
nuclear arms race was not stopped. Cousins became an unofficial
ambassador in the 1960s, and his facilitating communication between the
Holy See, the
Kremlin and the
White House helped lead to the
Soviet-
American test ban treaty, for which he was thanked by
President John F. Kennedy and
Pope John XXIII, the latter of which awarded him his personal
medallion. Cousins was also awarded the
Eleanor Roosevelt Peace Award in 1963, the Family Man of the Year Award in 1968, and the
United Nations Peace Medal in 1971. His proudest moment by his own reckoning, however, was when
Albert Einstein called him to
Princeton University to discuss issues of nuclear disarmament and world federalism.
Cousins also served as Adjunct Professor of Medical Humanities for the School of Medicine at the
University of California, where he did research on the
biochemistry of human emotions, which he long-believed were the key to human beings' success in fighting illness. It was a belief he maintained even as he battled
heart disease, which he fought both by taking massive doses of
Vitamin C and, according to him, by training himself to laugh. He wrote a collecting of best-selling non-fiction books on illness and healing, as well as a 1980
autobiographical memoir,
Human Options: An Autobiographical Notebook. Late in life Cousins was diagnosed with a form of
arthritis then called Marie-Strumpell's disease (
Ankylosing Spondylitis--although this diagnosis is currently in doubt and it has been suggested that Cosuins may actually have had
Reactive arthritis). His struggle with this illness is detailed in the book and movie
Anatomy of an Illness.
Told that he had little chance of surviving, Cousins developed a recovery program incorporating megadoses of
Vitamin C, along with a positive attitude, love, faith, hope, and laughter induced by
Marx Brothers films. "I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep," he reported. "When the pain-killing effect of the laughter wore off, we would switch on the motion picture projector again and not infrequently, it would lead to another pain-free interval."
Cousins received the
Albert Schweitzer Prize in 1990. He died of
heart failure on November 30, 1990 in
Los Angeles,
California, having survived years longer than his doctors predicted: 10 years after his first heart attack, 16 years after his collagen illness, and 26 years after his doctors first diagnosed his heart disease.
He and his wife Ellen raised five daughters.
"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live."
*
Norman Cousins, Medicine: Los Angeles, University of California.
The Union City Reporter;
January 12, 2006. "Native Sons and Daughters: Prominent author, peace advocate Norman Cousins Lived Here" by Jessica Rosero.
