H.D. Quigg; Globe-Trotting Journalist

H.D. “Doc” Quigg, 86, a globe-girdling correspondent for United Press International for half a century. Born Horace Dasher Quigg in Boonville, Mo., Quigg took his nickname from his doctor father and carefully avoided ever spelling out his full name. He studied arts and journalism at the University of Missouri and began his career at the Boonville Daily News. He soon joined United Press (later International) in Cleveland and in 1937 transferred to his permanent base of New York. Over the years, Quigg went to the Antarctic with Adm. Richard E. Byrd, interviewed Winston Churchill aboard the Queen Mary and followed Gen. Douglas MacArthur throughout the Pacific and to his final farewell parades. The reporter wrote about the deaths of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower, Eleanor Roosevelt and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He covered the trials of Jack Ruby, Alger Hiss, Dr. Sam Sheppard, James Earl Ray, David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz, Jean Harris and Claus von Bulow. He swam with Jane Russell, went pub crawling with Errol Flynn and covered a nudist convention in New Jersey wearing only a wristwatch, his rimless glasses and a smile. Quigg, who retired in 1985, earned the New York Society of Silurians award for distinguished reporting and the University of Missouri Honor Medal for distinguished service in journalism. On Tuesday in New York of heart disease.