Howard K. Smith

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Howard Kingsbury Smith (May 12, 1914 – February 15, 2002) was an American journalist, radio reporter, television anchorman and commentator, and one of the original Murrow boys. Born in Ferriday (Concordia Parish) in eastern Louisiana, Smith graduated from Tulane University in New Orleans in 1936, with both a bachelor's degree and an L.L.D. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University (Merton College) from which he graduated in September 1939.

[edit] Early career

Upon graduating, Smith immediately went to work for United Press as London reporter. In January 1940, he was sent to Berlin, where he soon went to work for CBS. He visited Hitler's mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden and interviewed many of the most prominent Nazis, including Hitler himself, SS leader Heinrich Himmler and propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

In December 1941 Smith was one of the last American reporters to leave Berlin before Germany and the United States went to war. Smith's 1942 book, Last Train from Berlin: An Eye-Witness Account of Germany at War describes the reporter's observations from Berlin in the year after the departure of Berlin Diary author William L. Shirer. Last Train from Berlin became an American best-seller and was reprinted in 2001, shortly before Smith's death.

Unable to leave Switzerland, Smith reported what he could when the Swiss government would let him. After the liberation of France in 1944, Smith reported on the war effort on the frontlines of Europe for CBS News. He was by then a significant member of the "Murrow Boys" (after Edward R. Murrow) that made CBS News the dominant broadcast news organization of the era. In May 1945 he returned to Berlin to recount the German surrender.

After the war Smith continued to work for CBS as the anchor reporter for CBS Reports. He chaired the first televised presidential debate between Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon.

In 1962 he left his job at CBS over a dispute about a documentary called "Who Speaks for Birmingham." This in-depth investigation concerned the battle between civil rights advocates and the police of Birmingham. His commentary at the end of the piece led to a dispute with CBS management about his reporting of the civil rights movement, and he left CBS.

[edit] 1962, becomes ABC TV news anchor

Smith moved to ABC at a time when that network's news division was a distant third among the "Big Three" networks. After the 1962 mid-term elections, Smith presented prematurely "The Political Obituary of Richard Nixon" on ABC. Smith referred to Nixon's "last press conference" after his disastrous campaign against Democrat Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, Sr., for governor of California. In that press conference, the former vice president told the media representatives that they would not have Nixon "to kick around any more." Within four years, however, Nixon was on the road to a great political comeback.

In 1969, the veteran reporter became the co-anchor of ABC's Evening news, first with Frank Reynolds, then with Harry Reasoner. Smith, Reynolds, and Reasoner were allowed to do commentaries during the broadcasts, unusual for network evening news programs but seen by ABC as a way to differentiate its show from the competition.

During the 1972 presidential campaign, a letter was published that he had written to candidate U.S. Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine, which indicated Smith's full support for Muskie—using ABC stationery. Muskie had also been the Democrats' vice-presidential candidate with presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota in 1968. This was during a contentious period when the Nixon administration was claiming that the press was biased in its news coverage.

Smith remained as co-anchor at ABC until 1976 and stayed briefly as an analyst, but left as the Roone Arledge era of ABC News began.

Smith also appeared in a number of films, often as himself. The films include The Candidate (1972), Nashville (1975), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), and the television series V (1984).

Along with Last Train from Berlin, he wrote three other books, a memoir Events Leading Up to My Death: The Life of a Twentieth-Century Reporter (1996), a children's book Washington, D.C.; the story of our Nation's Capital (1967), and The Population Explosion (1960).

His son, Jack Smith, was an ABC correspondent, winning Peabody and Emmy awards for his coverage of technology. He died in Marin County, in 2004. Smith also had a daughter, Catherine, by his March 1942 marriage to Benedicte Traberg.

Among honors which Smith received over the years were DuPont Awards in 1955 and 1963, a Sigma Delta Chi Award for radio journalism in 1957, and an award from the American Jewish Congress in 1960.

Preceded by Howard K. Smith and Frank Reynolds

ABC Evening News anchor 1970-1975

Succeeded by Harry Reasoner and Barbara Walters

[edit] External links

• Museum of Broadcast Communications
• Spartacus Educational website
• Who's Who in America, 1972 edition

Anchors of ABC Evening News/World News Tonight/World News
Daly • Young • Reynolds • Smith • Reasoner • Walters • Robinson • Jennings • Woodruff • Vargas • Gibson