Nelson subsequently worked at the
Digest of Soviet Press, The
Bergen County Record, and The
New York Herald Tribune. Nelson went to work for the
Riverdale Press before joining
Reuters in 1967 as a correspondent. He was posted in Moscow, London, and
Prague, where in 1968 he covered the
Prague Spring. Nelson covered the State Department for
Newsweek, from 1977 until 1979, when he left to join
The New York Daily News Washington staff. Shortly after beginning his career at the
Daily News, Nelson won an
Albert Merriman Smith Memorial Award, named after the longtime reporter for
United Press International, for writing under deadline pressure. Nelson was bureau chief at
The Daily News for about a decade before becoming a columnist for
Newsday in 1993. In 1995, he returned to
The New York Daily News as a columnist. Nelson became well known for his syndicated column in the
New York Daily News, but his career in the news industry spanned over 40 years and took him all over the world. His work appeared in
The New York Review of Books,
The Nation magazine,
Mother Jones,
Foreign Affairs, among others; and his column ran in newspapers across the country. In December 1983, while speaking to an audience of Congressional
Medal of Honor recipients,
Ronald Reagan recounted an inspirational act of bravery by a former Medal of Honor recipient: Nelson subsequently checked all 434 Medal of Honor awards and could find no citation matching Reagan's story. Days later Nelson wrote, “It’s not true ... It didn’t happen. It’s a Reagan story ... The President of the United States went before an audience of 300 real Congressional Medal of Honor winners and told them about a make‑believe Medal of Honor winner." Disabled veteran Dominic Antonucci, after reading Nelson's column, suggested that the story bore similarities to a scene in the 1944 film
Wing and a Prayer. "Adding to the confusion," wrote Nelson, "
Dana Andrews at one point reprimands a glory‑seeking young pilot with the words: 'This isn’t Hollywood.' ... You could understand that some in the audience might confuse reality with fiction." Nelson later wrote that Reagan's story was also found to have similarities to a fictional account in the April 1944 issue of ''
Reader's Digest''. While Nelson was questioning
Newt Gingrich in November 1995, Gingrich admitted that he had shut down the federal government because President
Bill Clinton had made him sit at the back of
Air Force One. The infamous
Daily News "Cry Baby" cover story ran the following day. In 1998, during a guest appearance on
Meet the Press, Nelson told
Tim Russert, "You know Tim, you really ought to call this show 'ME the Press.'". Just a few months before his death, Nelson was a guest on
The News Hour with Jim Lehrer and said this about coverage by
The New York Times of accused nuclear spy
Wen Ho Lee: Nelson's reporting on the Wen Ho Lee case resulted in an unprecedented full-page retraction on page A2 of
The New York Times. When Nelson was accused of having an anti-
Times agenda, he responded with this: "I have no anti-Times agenda... I have read it since I was 9 years old. I challenged its coverage of the Wen Ho Lee case precisely because that coverage was such a betrayal of
The Times’ own history of accuracy, impartiality, and fair play. Behind the defensiveness of yesterday's correction, I suspect that at least some at
The Times agree." == Death and legacy ==