 He became, successively, a national political writer (starting with covering the Al Smith presidential campaign in 1928), the Sun's correspondent in London at the height of World War II, a foreign correspondent who made studies of postwar conditions in Greece, France and the Low Countries.His work was hailed by, among others, "New York Times" columnist Russell Baker (in his book "Good Times") and by essayist and BBC correspondent Alistair Cooke, who described O'Neill's coverage of the trials of Alger Hiss as "incomparable" in "A Generation on Trial.