Merriman Smith
{{Short description|American journalist}}
{{Infobox person
| name =
| image = Merriman "Smitty" Smith 1962.jpg
| alt =
| caption = Smith in 1962
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1913|02|10}}
| birth_place = Savannah, Georgia
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1970|04|13|1913|02|10}}
| death_place = Washington, D.C.
| nationality = American
| occupation = Journalist
| years_active =
| known_for =
| notable_works =
| awards = {{ubl|Pulitzer Prize|Presidential Medal of Freedom}}
}}
Albert Merriman Smith (February 10, 1913 – April 13, 1970) was an American wire service reporter, notably serving as White House correspondent for United Press International and its predecessor, United Press. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for his coverage of the assassination of John F. Kennedy and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 by Lyndon B. Johnson.{{cite web |url=https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0067/7773889.pdf |title=Medal of Freedom |date=June 14, 1976 |author=Judy Muhlberg |publisher=Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum |page=43 |access-date=May 11, 2020 }}{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/deadlineeverymin013289mbp | title = Deadline Every Minute The Story Of The United Press | year = 1957|author= Joe Alex Morris | publisher = Doubleday & Company }}
Background
Albert Merriman Smith was born on February 10, 1913, in Savannah, Georgia.{{cite news |title=Helen Thomas honored |work=The Pittsburgh Press |date=June 24, 1985 |page=A2 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=U4McAAAAIBAJ&sjid=UWIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5835,5656080&dq=helen-thomas+thank-you-mr-president&hl=en }}
Career
Known by his middle name (and his nickname, "Smitty"), Smith covered US presidents from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Richard Nixon and originated the practice of closing presidential news conferences with "Thank You, Mr. President," which was the title of his 1946 book, written during his coverage of the Harry Truman administration. That honor, accorded the senior wire service reporter present at presidential news conferences, became more popularly known when it was continued by Smith's UPI colleague Helen Thomas.
Smith began covering the White House in 1940. After the United States entered the Second World War, he was designated as one of the wire service reporters to follow the president on all his travels. They agreed for security purposes not to file their stories until after each trip had ended. Consequently, Smith was in Warm Springs, Georgia, on April 12, 1945, and filed one of the first reports on the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.Donald A. Ritchie (2005), Reporting from Washington: The History of the Washington Press Corps, p. 121.
On November 22, 1963, Smith was the main UPI reporter in Dallas for John F. Kennedy's visit. He traveled in the motorcade in the White House Pool car, which had a radiotelephone.{{cite web|url=http://www.pulitzer.org/article/merriman-smiths-account-jfks-assassination|title=Merriman Smith's account of JFK's assassination|first=Bill|last= Sanderson|website=www.pulitzer.org}} When the shots were fired, Smith grabbed the phone and called the UPI office.{{cite web |last1=Sanderson |first1=Bill |title=Fifty Years Ago This Minute: How the Assassination Story Broke |url=https://observer.com/2013/11/how-the-assassination-story-broke/ |website=Observer |accessdate=4 September 2018 |date=2013}} He stayed on the phone while Jack Bell, the AP reporter in the car, started punching Smith and yelling at him to hand the phone over.{{cite web|url=https://nypost.com/2016/11/05/how-this-forgotten-journalist-scored-the-20th-centurys-biggest-scoop/|title=How this forgotten journalist scored the 20th century's biggest scoop|date=6 November 2016|website=nypost.com}} At 12:34 PM CST, four minutes after the presidential shooting, the report went out over UPI wire. In 1964, he received the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy.{{cite book |last=Sanderson |first=Bill |title=Bulletins from Dallas: Reporting the JFK Assassination |publisher=Skyhorse Publishing |date=1 November 2016 |isbn=978-1510712645}} He was the first to publicly use the term "grassy knoll" regarding the assassination.Pages documenting this are held by Gary Mack, the curator of The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.
In the 1960s, Smith was a frequent guest on television interview programs hosted by Jack Paar and Merv Griffin. Smith was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon Johnson in 1969.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}}
Death
Despondent over the death of his son in the Vietnam War and perhaps suffering from PTSD as a result of witnessing the Kennedy assassination, Smith died at his home in Alexandria, Virginia, on April 13, 1970, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.{{cite journal |last1=Lim |first1=Young Joon |last2=Sweeney |first2=Michael S.|date=2016 |title=UPI's Merriman Smith may have suffered from PTSD |journal=Newspaper Research Journal |volume=37 |issue=2 |pages=113–123 |doi=10.1177/0739532916648956 }} Although he never served in the military himself, his grave is in Section 32 of Arlington National Cemetery next to his son's, by special permission of the Commanding General of the Military District of Washington.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}}
At the end of the President's press conference of May 8, 1970, concentrating on the Kent State shootings and his decision to expand the war into Cambodia, Nixon called on the White House press corps to stand in Smith's remembrance.
Merriman Smith Memorial Award
In 1970, the White House Correspondents' Association established The Merriman Smith Memorial Award for excellence in presidential news coverage under deadline pressure.{{cite web |title=2013 WHCA Journalism Award Winners |url=https://whca.press/news/awards/past-winners/2013-award-winners/ |website=whca.press |publisher=White House Correspondents’ Association |access-date=March 11, 2022}} His name was removed from the award in 2022 because of his support of excluding Black and female journalists from membership in the National Press Club and from attending the White House Correspondents' Dinner.{{cite news |last=Farhi |first=Paul |title=His reporting on the Kennedy assassination made him a legend. Then a press group looked into his past. |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/03/11/merriman-smith-award/ |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=March 11, 2022 |access-date=March 11, 2022}}
Works
{{cite book
| first = A. Merriman
| last = Smith
| authorlink = Merriman Smith
| title = Thank You, Mr. President: A White House Notebook
| publisher = Harper & Brothers
{{cite book
| first = A. Merriman
| last = Smith
| authorlink = Merriman Smith
| title = Thank You, Mr. President: A White House Notebook
| publisher = Da Capo Press
| date = 1976}})
{{cite book
| first = A. Merriman
| last = Smith
| authorlink = Merriman Smith
| contribution = translation (Herbert Mühlbauer)
| title = Thank You, Mr. President: A White House Notebook
| publisher = Humboldt
| place = Vienna
| date = 1948}}
{{cite book
| first = A. Merriman
| last = Smith
| authorlink = Merriman Smith
| title = President is Many Men
| publisher = Harper
| date = 1948}}
{{cite book
| first = A. Merriman
| last = Smith
| authorlink = Merriman Smith
| title = Meet Mister Eisenhower
| publisher = Harper
| date = 1955}}
{{cite book
| first = A. Merriman
| last = Smith
| authorlink = Merriman Smith
| title = President's Odyssey
| publisher = Harper
{{cite book
| first = A. Merriman
| last = Smith
| authorlink = Merriman Smith
| title = President's Odyssey
| publisher = Greenwood Press
| date = 1975}})
{{cite book
| first = A. Merriman
| last = Smith
| authorlink = Merriman Smith
| title = Good New Days: A Not Entirely Reverent Study of Native Habits and Customs in Modern Washington
| publisher = Bobbs-Merrill
| date = 1962}}
{{cite book
| first1 = A. Merriman
| last1 = Smith
| authorlink1 = Merriman Smith
| first2 = Howard K.
| last2 = Smith
| authorlink2 = Howard K. Smith
| first3 = Osborn
| last3 = Elliot
| authorlink3 = Osborn Elliott
| title = News Media – A Service and a Force
| publisher = Memphis State University Press
| date = 1970}}
{{cite book
| first1 = A. Merriman
| last1 = Smith
| author-link1 = Merriman Smith
| title = Merriman Smith's Book of Presidents: A White House Memoir
|editor=Timothy G. Smith
| publisher = WW Norton
| date = 1972}}
See also
References
{{reflist}}
External links
{{commons category}}
- [http://www.shapell.org/manuscript.aspx?truman-contacts-newspaper-over-macarthur President Truman Correspondence with Merriman Smith] Shapell Manuscript Foundation
- [http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/albertme.htm Albert Merriman Smith, News Reporter] at Arlington National Cemetery
- [http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2006/12/not-your-fathers-upi.html Reflections of a Newsosaur: Not Your Father's UPI]
{{PulitzerPrize National Reporting}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Merriman}}
Category:American male journalists
Category:Burials at Arlington National Cemetery
Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
Category:Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting winners
Category:Suicides by firearm in Washington, D.C.
Category:20th-century American writers
Category:20th-century American journalists