In 1946 Smith succeeded Murrow as CBS's London correspondent. He wrote about his experiences in a 1942 bestseller, 'Last Train from Berlin: An Eyewitness Account of Germany at War.' He arrived on December 7, 1941, just as Japan was attacking Pearl Harbor, halfway across the world. With his reports under heavy scrutiny by the Nazis, he decided to leave Berlin for Switzerland. In 1941, Smith was hired by CBS as a Berlin correspondent and became part of the group of wartime correspondents - others included Eric Sevareid, Daniel Schorr and William L. In 1940, he joined the United Press news agency, reporting from Copenhagen, Denmark, before transferring to Berlin, Germany. He earned a scholarship to Tulane University and moved to Europe for a post-graduate stint at Heidelberg University in Germany. There, Smith first entered journalism as a newspaper reporter for the New Orleans Item. The family left Ferriday when Smith was a child, settling in New Orleans, Louisiana. Howard Kingsbury Smith was born May 12, 1914, in Ferriday, Louisiana, a small Mississippi River town also known for producing musicians Jerry Lee Lewis and Mickey Gilley and evangelist Jimmy Swaggart. 'He was outspoken, sometimes controversial and never afraid of taking on the powerful.' Smith was 'a passionate newsman who for nearly 40 years was one of the country's most distinguished broadcasters,' ABC News President David Westin said in a statement.

Smith, a CBS World War II correspondent and later a news anchor for ABC, dies at age 87. By 1969, he was co-anchoring the network's news, a position he held until 1975, when he became a commentator. Smith joined ABC News in the early '60s, covering the Cuban Missile Crisis. The debate, one of the most widely viewed television programs of its time, is believed to have contributed to Kennedy's election later that year. In 1960, he moderated the first debate between presidential candidates John F. He began as a CBS radio correspondent from Berlin, Germany, and later moved to other outposts in Europe.Įventually, he turned to television, first as a European correspondent, later as a commentator and documentary narrator. He died at his home in Bethesda, Maryland, his son Jack told The Associated Press.įor 40 years, Smith was one of the major names in broadcast news. Smith had congestive heart disease, which led to the pneumonia that caused his death late Friday evening, a source told CNN. Smith, one of the legendary CBS World War II correspondents known as 'Murrow's Boys' and later a news anchor for ABC, has died.

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