Customer Reviews

Events Leading Up to My Death: The Life of a Twentieth-Century Reporter

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This warm and insightful 1997 memoir by Howard K Smith (1914-2002) is worth reading. Smith describes his Louisiana upbringing, his Depression-era studies at Tulane and as a Rhodes Scholar, and his 60-years in journalism. Smith also describes covering Nazi Germany for Ed Murrow and CBS Radio during the war (1940-1941). Leaving Germany just before Pearl Harbor, Smith kept broadcasting from neutral Switzerland, writing LAST TRAIN FROM BERLIN about his experiences. After the war, the author helped usher in television news, moderated the first Kennedy-Nixon Presidential debate, covered civil rights protests, etc. Smith also describes leaving CBS in a dispute, and moving to ABC, where his fatherly voice and reasoned commentaries made him a fixture. Readers also learn his views on LBJ, Vietnam, Nixon, etc. Some criticized Smith for tilting rightward from his early liberalism (he was pro-Vietnam), but he was usually a voice of calm and reason.

This book never took off in sales, but it is as warm and informative as the author. Readers might also enjoy memoirs from other CBS journalists like William L. Shirer, Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid, etc.