Howard
Kingsbury Smith, the son of a nightwatchman, was born in Ferriday,
Louisiana,
on 12th May, 1914. He worked as a journalist for the New
Orleans Item, before winning a scholarship to study German
and journalism at Tulane University. After working as a deckhand he
briefly attended Heidelberg University in Germany.
In 1936 Smith found work
as a reporter in New Orleans before securing a Rhodes scholarship
to Oxford University. He became involved
in student politics and became the first American to be elected chairman
of the university Labour club. He was also active in the campaign
against the appeasement policy of
Neville
Chamberlain and
his Conservative government.
On the outbreak of the
Second World War the United Press sent Smith
to Nazi Germany to report on the
conflict. In 1941 he was recruited by Edward
Murrow to
work for CBS Berlin Bureau. Within a few months Smith was arrested
by the Gestapo for refusing to include
Nazi propaganda in his scripts being broadcast. When he was released
he moved to Switzerland. The following
day Pearl Harbor was bombed and the United
States entered the war.
For the next two years
Smith reported on Germany and central Europe
from Berne. He also published Last Train
from Berlin (1942). In 1945 Smith accompanied Allied troops
when they invaded Nazi Germany.
After the war he reported
on the Nuremberg Trials. He was the
only journalist to be selected to witness the execution of Wilhelm
Frick, Hans
Frank, Ernst
Kaltenbrunner,
Walther Funk,
Fritz Saukel,
