AP’s Paris News Editor Dies

Harvey Poff Hudson, 68, of Honolulu, Hawaii, retired Paris news editor for the Associated Press, died Tuesday, May 4, 1982 in St. Francis Hospital, where he had been hospitalized since undergoing  brain surgery in February.

Hudson was born in St. Louis, Missouri on June 20, 1913, son of Ellis E. and Estella (Poff) Hudson and grew up in Olney, Illinois where he graduated Olney high school in 1931. He attended the University of Illinois, graduated in 1935 and joined the Associated Press in Chicago. After a period with the photo department, was transferred to the editorial section in 1941. From 1942 to 1946 he served with a U.S. Army Artillery unit, during World War II, seeing action in France, Belgium and Germany.

He returned to the AP in Chicago in 1946, moved to Associated Press’s foreign desk in New York and was sent to Paris in 1948.

Hudson’s European tour included duty in Prague as Czechoslovakia was taken over by the communists and regular trips to cover summer and winter Olympic games and other top level sports in many parts of the world, including the Olympics in Melbourne in 1956 and in Munich and Sapporo, Japan, in 1972.

He was acting news editor in Paris for two years from 1968 to 1970, became permanent news editor in 1972 and retired in Hawaii in June 1978. He was a veteran of 43 years with the Associated Press, 30 of them in the foreign service.

His Hungarian-born wife, Marika, a doctor of comparative languages and author of a book on the World War II siege of Budapest, died in 1972. He is survived by his daughter, Alexandra, of Paris.

Honolulu Star Bulletin (Honolulu, HI) – Wednesday, May 5, 1982