Video Memoir: Roy Rowan Reflects on a Storied Career

The OPC is recording memories of some of our most venerable members for the club’s archives.

In the videos below, OPC Foundation president Bill Holstein interviews former OPC President Roy Rowan, who spent 35 years at Time-Life serving as bureau chief in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Rome, Tokyo, Bonn and Chicago. In the interview, Rowan recounts a range of experiences from covering the Mao revolution in China to the Korean War to living undercover on the streets of New York for an article on homelessness.

In Part One, Rowan talks about his early career, including a stint delivering relief supplies for the U.N. during the Chinese Civil War in 1946.

In Part Two, Rowan recalls serving as a war correspondent for Korean War for Life.

In Part Three of this interview, Rowan talks about his story about homelessness in January 1990, in which he went undercover for two weeks to live on the streets of New York.