M.S. (Meyer Srednick or "Mike") Handler (born June 3, 1905, New York, New York, died February 11, 1978, Santa Barbara, California) was an American foreign news correspondent and journalist. He was born in New York City and raised in Chicago, where he received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago in 1926. That same year, he married his first wife, Ruth Hammerman of Cook, Illinois. The couple divorced in 1939. Handler pursued postgraduate studies at Harvard University and in Paris at the Sorbonne before becoming a correspondent for International News Service in 1933 in France. He joined the international news agengy United Press in 1935, remaining in France and covering the events leading to World War II until the Nazi invasion of France in 1940, when he transferred to London.

In 1941, the United Press assigned Handler to Moscow for five years, where he reported on the war from the Russian front, and subsequently traveled through parts of Eastern Europe, Iran, and Palestine, ending up as Berlin bureau chief for United Press and covering the Nuremberg trials in the aftermath of the war, as well as the first general assembly of the United Nations in London in 1946. Handler married Helen Sennette in 1947. The Handlers, along with Helen's daughter Elisabeth, lived in Berlin for a little over a year until Handler became a correspondent for The New York Times in 1948. He initially served as bureau chief in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, where he reported on Marshal Josip Tito’s break with Stalin and the Soviet communists. From 1952 to 1957, Handler was once again assigned to Germany, and then served as bureau chief in Vienna, Austria from 1957 to 1962.

In 1962, Handler returned to New York City, assigned by the Times to cover domestic matters, particularly the American civil rights movement. In 1963, Handler held his first meeting with Malcom X, which Handler describes in his introduction to the first edition of Malcom X’s autobiography. In the course of covering Malcolm X for the Times, Handler developed a close association with him, and Alex Haley quoted X as having stated that Handler was “the most genuinely unprejudiced white man I ever met.” During this period, Handler also became acquainted with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He continued to cover civil rights issues for the Times until 1969.

From 1969 to his retirement in 1973, Handler covered education issues for The New York Times. He died in 1978 of cardiac failure at the age of 72.

References

“M.S. Handler.” Circa 1962. M.S. Handler papers. New School Archives and Special Collections, The New School, New York, New York.

McFadden, Robert. “M. S. Handler, a Times Reporter Who Covered World War II, Dies.” The New York Times, February 11, 1978.

“Meyer S. Handler, Vienna.” March 1960. M.S. Handler papers. New School Archives and Special Collections, The New School, New York, New York.

Haley, Alex. Epilogue to The Autobiography of Malcolm X, by Malcolm X. New York: Random House Publishing Group, Inc., 1965.