By Mark Rhoads
Georgie Anne Geyer is one of America's foremost columnists on foreign affairs. Now with the Universal Press Syndicate, "Gigi" or "Gee Gee" Geyer began her journalistic career on the South Side of Chicago. Gigi was born in Chicago on April 2, 1935. She was salutatorian of her class at Calument High School in 1952 and graduated from the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism in 1956 where she was a member of the Chi Omega sorority. After Northwestern, Gigi attended the University of Vienna on a Fullbright Scholarship. Gigi's first job as a reporter was for The Southtown Economist. From 1959 to 1974 Gigi was a reporter for The Chicago Daily News where she started out on society news but progressed to general news assignments and finally was stationed overseas as a foreign correspondent. Gigi left The Chicago Daily News in 1974 to become an independent nationally syndicated columnist.
During her career of more than forty years, Gigi has interviewed world political leaders such as Yasser Arafat, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush.
For 25 years, Geyer has been the internationally syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate. For nearly 40 years, she has delivered distinctive foreign commentary and now addresses issues such as "While America Slept—How Terrorism Crept Up on Us" and the evolution of the Iraq war.
Based in Washington, D.C., she wrote the "definitive biography" of Fidel Castro, Guerilla Prince (Little, Brown and Co.) and is the author of Americans No More: The Death of Citizenship (The Atlantic Monthly Press). She is also the author of books on Latin America, Russia and the Middle East; winner of numerous awards for distinguished journalism; and commentator on public television's "Washington Week in Review." She has also recently republished her autobiography, "Buying the Night Flight: The Autobiography of a Woman Foreign Correspondent," which is now in its fourth printing.
Geyer's most recent book branched outside of politics. She authored When Cats Reigned Like Kings, (Andrews McMeel Publishing) the richly illustrated book with photos of Geyer's journeys and historical cat images. She describes the origins and characteristics of the 38-40 recognized modern cat breeds, including photos of each.
Geyer's intuition, supported by knowledge of five languages, contacts worldwide and voracious historical research, distinguishes her from other foreign correspondents writing today. In her reports, Geyer focuses beyond the surface events and the next deadline to examine root causes of revolution and political upheaval. Gigi has faced dangers and death threats overseas and was once jailed in Angola for predicting a Soviet-sponsored coup against the Cuban-backed Marxist government.
She predicted the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia; she was the first to predict the guerrilla movements in Latin America in the '60s; she wrote a book in 1975 that predicted that Mikhail Gorbachev's next generation would be the one to seek rapprochement with the West and changes in the country's system. In the summer of 1973, she predicted the Egyptian attack on Israel that was launched a few months later in October
Although her reports are often dispatched from volatile arenas of warfare and intense civil strife, Geyer maintains a woman's perspective. Her writings on foreign affairs are distributed by Universal Press Syndicate to approximately 100 newspapers across the country.
In January 2001 Geyer received an "Outstanding Illinoisan Award" from the Illinois State Society of Washington, DC and was awarded the Stewart Alsop award from the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. She has received 21 Honorary Degrees from universities and colleges, including one from her beloved alma mater, Northwestern University.
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