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Vol. I · 2026
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Writers & Intellectuals · USA · Poland (Second Republic)

Tad Szulc

Тад Шульц

Warsaw-born New York Times journalist who covered the Bay of Pigs and became one of America's greatest foreign correspondents

🇺🇸 Fame: USA🇷🇺 Origin: Poland (Second Republic)🔗 Connection: Lived under Russian or Soviet rule🗓 Warsaw to Brazil (family mid-1930s, Szulc 1940), then to the United States🗣 Russian: Fluent
TS
Profile #856
ProfessionJournalist (NYT)
Russian originWarsaw (Poland)Poland (Second Republic)
ConnectionLived under Russian or Soviet rule-
RussianFluent
CategoryWriters & IntellectualsTier B
Biography

Tad Szulc — journalist (nyt) with roots in the Poland (Second Republic)

Tad Szulc was born in Warsaw on 25 July 1926, in independent Poland, to Seweryn and Janina Szulc. His family emigrated to Brazil in the mid-1930s and he joined them in 1940. He reported for the Associated Press in Rio de Janeiro from 1945 and was a foreign correspondent for The New York Times from 1953 to 1972, best known for reporting CIA preparations for the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. He wrote more than twenty books, including biographies of Fidel Castro and Pope John Paul II, became a US citizen in 1954 and died in Washington on 21 May 2001.

"Warsaw to Brazil (family mid-1930s, Szulc 1940), then to the United States"

Migration story
Russian Connection

Tracing the roots — Warsaw (Poland)

The family emigrated to Brazil in the mid-1930s; Szulc joined them in 1940 and moved on to the United States, sponsored by the US ambassador John Cooper Wiley, who was married to his aunt.

Born in Warsaw in 1926, eight years after Poland regained independence. Warsaw had been in the Russian Empire until 1915.

Family Tree
Subject
Tad Szulc🇺🇸 USA
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Self (Born there)
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Origin
Warsaw (Poland)🇷🇺 Poland (Second Republic)
Historical context
Soviet Union (USSR) · 1922–1991
Map of the Soviet Union (USSR)

Warsaw (Poland). At the time, this region was one of the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union.

Map: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA)
Key Achievements

A career defined by ambition

01
New York Times foreign correspondent for decades — Latin America and Europe
02
Broke the Bay of Pigs story — one of the major scoops of the Cold War
03
Fidel: A Critical Portrait (1986) — landmark biography of Castro
04
Pope John Paul II: The Biography (1995)
05
Overseas Press Club Award — multiple times
Russian diasporaborn in Russia/USSRRussian Empire rootsRussian speaker
Sources