Cowles was a descendant of Hannah Bushoup (c. 1613–1683) of
Hartford, Connecticut, and John Cowles (1598–1675) of
Gloucestershire,
England. His father
Gardner Cowles Sr. was a banker, publisher, and politician who purchased
The Des Moines Register and the
Des Moines Tribune. Cowles Jr. was born in
Algona, Iowa. His responsibilities in the OWI were to direct a domestic news bureau, coordinating information from non-military government agencies. Cowles served in the OWI under the leadership of
Elmer Davis for about a year and then returned to
Des Moines. Returned to USA Cowles had 2-hours
press conference in November 1942 and told how Stalin allegedly expressed
anti-British sentiment. Stalin denied the accusation. In his 1985 memoir
Mike Looks Back Cowles claimed Willkie had asked him to cover for him during an assignation with
Madame Chiang. The two had absented themselves from a banquet, Cowles said, leaving him to confront an angry
generalissimo and three of his gun-wielding bodyguards—later inflated to 'sixty' in Washington gossip circles—who searched the guesthouse and found nothing. In the 1950s, Cowles was involved with the propaganda campaign
Crusade for Freedom. He was a delegate to the
1954 Bilderberg Conference, the first meeting of the conference. In 1959 during
state visit by Nikita Khrushchev to the United States Cowles asked Khrushchev about freedom of information and the
jamming of radio broadcasts in the USSR. In April 1962 Cowles had an exclusive, three-hour interview with Khrushchev in Moscow. For a time, Cowles owned the infamous "
petrified man" the
Cardiff Giant, which he bought to adorn his basement
rumpus room as a coffee table and conversation piece. During 1947, he sold it to the
Farmers' Museum in
Cooperstown, New York, where it is still displayed. Cowles was a donor to the Gardner Cowles Foundation, an executive of the
Farfield Foundation (supposedly a
CIA front), and sponsor of the journal
History. == Personal life and death ==