After serving in the Army from 1953 to 1955, he returned to the local staff until he was sent overseas in November, 1956, to help cover stories arising from the Hungarian revolution.
He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for coverage of Richard Nixon's trip to the People's Republic of China.
[6] In the debate, Frankel asked incumbent presidential candidate Gerald Ford about his response to criticisms regarding the Helsinki Accords, particularly the accusation that it was favorable to the Soviet Union.
Frankel incredulously asked for clarification, to which Ford replied that the countries Yugoslavia, Romania, and Poland do not consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union.
[11] On November 14, 2001, in the 150th anniversary issue, The New York Times ran an article by the then retired Frankel reporting that before and during World War II, the Times had as a matter of policy largely, though not entirely, ignored reports of the annihilation of European Jews.
Frankel is the author of the book High Noon in the Cold War – Kennedy, Khrushchev and the Cuban Missiles Crisis (Ballantine, 2004 and Presidio 2005) and, also, his memoir, The Times of My Life and My Life with the Times (Random House, 1999, and Delta, 2000).