Censorship was an inescapable aspect of the American effort in World War I, applied not only to soldiers’ mail but also reports from war correspondents—including The Kansas City Star’s Otto P. Higgins.
Higgins sent 218 dispatches during his coverage of the Great War in 1918 and 1919, including first-hand accounts of 35th Infantry night raids and fighting in the trenches. But many details were not revealed to readers at home until after the Armistice.
Historian James J. Heiman spotlights examples of those censored reports in a discussion of his new book Front Lines to Headlines: The World War I Overseas Dispatches of Otto P. Higgins. Heiman, who teaches at Metropolitan Community College, Blue River, examines the issue of wartime censorship and its impact in the 20 years between the world wars.
