Szulc was born in Warsaw, the son of Seweryn and Janina Baruch Szulc. He attended school in Switzerland. In 1940 he emigrated from Poland to join his family (who had left Poland in the mid-1930s) in Brazil. There he studied at the University of Brazil, but in 1945 he abandoned his studies to work as a reporter for the Associated Press in Rio de Janeiro.

In 1949 he moved to New York City, and in 1954 he became an American citizen.

Married for 52 years, he had a son and daughter.

Szulc died of hepatocellular carcinoma and lung cancer, aged 74.

From 1953 to 1972 Szulc was a foreign and Washington correspondent for The New York Times.

On 6 April 1961, nine days before the CIA-supported Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, Szulc wrote a New York Times article stating that an invasion of Cuba was "imminent." Prior to its publication, President Kennedy became aware of the article and personally telephoned the New York Times' publisher. The Times yielded to the President's demand that the story be reduced in prominence and detail.

Szulc was a Knight of the French Légion d'honneur.

• Pope John Paul II: The Biography (ISBN 0-671-00047-0)
• Chopin in Paris: The Life and Times of the Romantic Composer (ISBN 0-306-80933-8)
• The Secret Alliance: The Extraordinary Story of the Rescue of the Jews Since World War II (ISBN 0-374-24946-6)
• Fidel: A Critical Portrait (ISBN 0-688-04645-2)
• To Kill The Pope : An Ecclesiastical Thriller (ISBN 0-684-83781-1)
• Twilight of the Tyrants
• The Cuban Invasion
• The Winds of Resolution
• Dominican Diary
• Latin America (ISBN 0-689-10266-6)
• The Bombs of Palomares
• Portrait of Spain (ISBN 0-07-062654-5)
• Czechoslovakia Since World War II
• Innocents at Home (ISBN 0-670-39843-8)
• Compulsive Spy: The Strange Career of E. Howard Hunt (ISBN 0-670-23546-6)
• The Illusion of Peace: Foreign Policy in the Nixon Years, Viking, 1978

Tad SzulcTadeusz Witold Szulc