John Jermain Slocum (1914–1997) was an American diplomat, book collector, literary agent, and scholar. He spent most of his career in the Inspection Corps of the United States Information Agency. As a bibliophile and philanthropist, he influenced two major US archives and contributed to scholarship on James Joyce.
Contents
Government service
Following study at Harvard University and the Columbia School of Journalism, Slocum began his political career as an aide to Fiorello La Guardia, the mayor of New York City.
He enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1942, and served in public relations for the New York Fighter Wing. His military work culminated with his serving as a spokesman for the Marshall Islands nuclear tests, after which he joined the United States Information Agency. His work for the organization took him to Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America.
Closer to home, he served as the USIA's planning coordinator for Expo 67 in Montreal, a role in which he drew inspiration from his considerable disappointment at the 1964 New York World's Fair. Slocum retired in 1970.
Literary activities
Slocum's literary interests, fostered at Harvard, were pursued prior to and throughout his diplomatic career and became his primary avocation afterward. In the 1940s he helped run a small literary agency, where he worked on behalf of Ezra Pound, whom he had met in 1935 and would represent and defend, officially or otherwise, for the rest of Pound's life; other clients included Wyndham Lewis, Henry Miller, and Anaïs Nin.