Topic: Don Bolles

Don Bolles (July 28, 1928 - June 13, 1976) was an American investigative reporter whose murder in a bombing is linked to the Mafia.

Bolles grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey, and pursued a newspaper career, in the footsteps of his father (chief of the Associated Press bureau in New Jersey) and grandfather. He graduated from Beloit College with a degree in government, where he was editor of the campus newspaper, and received a President's Award for personal achievement. After a stint in the U.S. Army in the Korean War assigned to an anti-aircraft unit, he joined the Associated Press as a sports editor and rewriter in New York, New Jersey and Kentucky.

In 1962, he was hired by the Arizona Republic newspaper, published at the time by Nina Mason Pulliam, where he quickly found a spot on the investigative beat and gained a reputation for dogged reporting of influence peddling, bribery, and land swindles. Former colleagues, though, say he seemed to grow disillusioned in late 1975 and early 1976, and that he had requested to be taken off the investigative beat, moving to coverage of Phoenix City Hall and then the state Legislature.