Dr. Marvin H. Alisky

Alisky, Dr. Marvin H., 86, passed away May 23, 2009. He was a distinguished professor, journalist, commentator, and political scientist, and beloved husband, father and grandfather. Born March 12, 1923 in Kansas City, Missouri, he grew up in San Antonio and completed secondary school at Texas Military Institute. He then attended Saint Mary’s University before serving in the United States Navy 1944-45. He used to quip "I was in the war, but we won anyway." Afterwards, he completed B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Texas and did postgraduate work at Instituto Tecnológico de Monterey in Mexico. He was a foreign correspondent in Latin America for NBC radio and The Christian Science Monitor, being one of the first journalists to document Argentine dictator Juan Peron’s persecution of the Catholic Church. Back in the United States, he did television broadcasts for the Texas Quality Network, before teaching journalism at Indiana University where he met the love of his life, Beverly, whom he married in 1955. In 1959, they moved to Tempe when he joined the faculty of Arizona State University, where he served until retiring in 1990.

He was a professor of journalism and then political science, founding the Department of Mass Communication (now the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism) and co-founding the Center for Latin American Studies. He loved the classroom, seeing his mission to teach students how to think critically rather than indoctrinating them to his own personal views. He always tried to give his political science students readings on controversial topics from the left, right and center. He was the author or co-author of 19 books and over 300 articles. He was most proud of his 1981 book Latin American Media: Guidance and Censorship, a pioneering study of how Latin American governments used taxes and regulations to control news flow short of outright censorship. Over the course of his career, he visited every single country in Latin America. In 1960, he was a Fulbright professor in Nicaragua, where he became personal friends with the heroic opposition publisher Pedro Joaquín Chamorro and his wife Violeta, later president of Nicaragua. An ardent champion of press freedom, he visited Chamorro when he was imprisoned by the Somoza dictatorship, and then in the 1980s, when Violeta Chamorro’s La Prensa newspaper was under siege by the Sandinista regime, he led the outcry in America that helped ease conditions until free elections were held that made Violeta president. With his expertise about Latin America, he frequently appeared on local television and radio through the end of the 1990s and at various times wrote columns that appeared in the Arizona Republic, Phoenix Gazette and newspapers out of state. He was active in civic work, serving on local organizations such as the Tempe Public Library Board and the Arizona-Mexico Commission and in Washington D.C. with a presidential appointment to the Board of Foreign Scholarships overseeing the Fulbright program.

He had a sense of humor that never took a hiatus. As just one example, in 1968, he happened to be at the National University in Mexico City giving a lecture when the worst student rioting in history broke out. With a completely straight face, he turned to his ashen Mexican hosts and exclaimed "¿Qué dije?" (What did I say?), before they all beat a hasty retreat. He did a humor column for the former Tempe Daily News ("Marvin Alisky’s Headlines and Deadlines") and was a frequent contributor of quips to the Wall Street Journal’s "Pepper and Salt."

Throughout his more than half-century in the Valley, he was privileged to have many friends from all walks of life and backgrounds. Above all, Marvin Alisky was a faithful and loving husband and father, always putting his wife and children above any personal priorities or desires. The wonderful times his family shared with him are too numerous to count and a blessing to look back on. He is survived by Beverly Alisky, his wife of 53 years, his sons Sander Alisky and Dr. Joseph Alisky, his daughter-in-law Elena, and his grandsons Michael and Peter.

Arrangements were handled by Mountain View Memorial Gardens, with a private family funeral service. In lieu of flowers, please make memorial contributions to the American Heart Association (File 30947 P.O. Box 60000 San Fransisco, CA 94160) or to another charity of your choice.