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Hedrick Smith
Hedrick Smith is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times reporter and Emmy award-winning producer and correspondent. After serving 26 years with The New York Times from 1962 to 1988 as correspondent, editor and bureau chief in both Moscow and Washington, Smith moved into television in 1989, reporting and producing more than 50 hours of long-form documentaries for PBS over the next 25 years on topics from the inside story of the terrorists who mounted the 9/11 attacks and Gorbachev's perestroika to Wall Street, Walmart and The Democracy Rebellion of grassroots citizen reform movements. Smith has authored five best-selling books including The Russians, The Power Game: How Washington Works, and Who Stole the American Dream?, and co-authored several other books, including The Pentagon Papers and Reagan: The Man, the President. Smith is currently Executive Editor of the website ReclaimTheAmericanDream.org and the YouTube channel The People vs. The Politicians.
Smith was born on July 9, 1933, in Kilmacolm, Scotland. He was educated at The Choate School (now Choate Rosemary Hall) in Wallingford, Connecticut, and at Williams College, where he earned a B.A. in American history and literature in 1955. From 1955 to 1956, Smith did graduate work in PPE (Politics, Philosophy, and Economics) as a Fulbright Scholar at Oxford University. He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1956 to 1959. In 1969, he won a Nieman Fellowship to study at Harvard University, concentrating in Russian studies.
Smith's career in print journalism began in the 1950s, with summer jobs as a cub reporter for The Greenville (S.C.) News. After college and serving three years in the U.S. Air Force, Smith joined United Press International in 1959, serving in bureaus in Memphis, Nashville, and Atlanta. In the early 1960s, Smith began his long tenure with The New York Times covering Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, and the civil rights struggle, including hot spots such as Birmingham, the desegregation of Ole Miss, and the March on Washington.
As a foreign correspondent, Smith reported on the Vietnam War in Saigon (1963–64), on the Middle East region based in Cairo (1964–66), and on the Cold War from both Washington (1967–70) and Moscow (1971–74). Smith won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting from Russia and Eastern Europe in 1974.
In 1971, Smith and fellow New York Times journalist Neil Sheehan were members of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team that produced the Pentagon Papers series, based on Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's top secret history of the Vietnam War under four U.S. presidents. Prior to publishing, Smith and Sheehan spent over three months studying 7,000 pages of classified documents and history, hiding from the government in New York's 6th Avenue Hilton hotel under an assumed name.
Recalling his work with Sheehan on the Pentagon Papers, Smith said: "What Neil Sheehan did was bring to the public a reckoning with the truth.. It was a real pleasure and real honor for me to have had the fun and the accomplishment of sharing the experience with Neil Sheehan."
In 1975, Smith became deputy national editor of the Times and then moved on to serve as Washington Bureau Chief (1976–79) and Chief Washington Correspondent (1979–88). During his Washington tours he covered five American presidents and their administrations.
Smith's book The Russians (1975), based on his years as the New York Times Moscow Bureau Chief from 1971 to 1974, was a No. 1 American best-seller. It has been translated into 16 languages and widely used in university courses. His next book, The Power Game: How Washington Works (1988), was another major best-seller. In a video tour of the White House, C-SPAN filmed the book sitting on President Clinton's bedside table. It became a political bible for many newly elected members of Congress and their staff.
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Hedrick Smith
Hedrick Smith is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times reporter and Emmy award-winning producer and correspondent. After serving 26 years with The New York Times from 1962 to 1988 as correspondent, editor and bureau chief in both Moscow and Washington, Smith moved into television in 1989, reporting and producing more than 50 hours of long-form documentaries for PBS over the next 25 years on topics from the inside story of the terrorists who mounted the 9/11 attacks and Gorbachev's perestroika to Wall Street, Walmart and The Democracy Rebellion of grassroots citizen reform movements. Smith has authored five best-selling books including The Russians, The Power Game: How Washington Works, and Who Stole the American Dream?, and co-authored several other books, including The Pentagon Papers and Reagan: The Man, the President. Smith is currently Executive Editor of the website ReclaimTheAmericanDream.org and the YouTube channel The People vs. The Politicians.
Smith was born on July 9, 1933, in Kilmacolm, Scotland. He was educated at The Choate School (now Choate Rosemary Hall) in Wallingford, Connecticut, and at Williams College, where he earned a B.A. in American history and literature in 1955. From 1955 to 1956, Smith did graduate work in PPE (Politics, Philosophy, and Economics) as a Fulbright Scholar at Oxford University. He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1956 to 1959. In 1969, he won a Nieman Fellowship to study at Harvard University, concentrating in Russian studies.
Smith's career in print journalism began in the 1950s, with summer jobs as a cub reporter for The Greenville (S.C.) News. After college and serving three years in the U.S. Air Force, Smith joined United Press International in 1959, serving in bureaus in Memphis, Nashville, and Atlanta. In the early 1960s, Smith began his long tenure with The New York Times covering Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, and the civil rights struggle, including hot spots such as Birmingham, the desegregation of Ole Miss, and the March on Washington.
As a foreign correspondent, Smith reported on the Vietnam War in Saigon (1963–64), on the Middle East region based in Cairo (1964–66), and on the Cold War from both Washington (1967–70) and Moscow (1971–74). Smith won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting from Russia and Eastern Europe in 1974.
In 1971, Smith and fellow New York Times journalist Neil Sheehan were members of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team that produced the Pentagon Papers series, based on Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's top secret history of the Vietnam War under four U.S. presidents. Prior to publishing, Smith and Sheehan spent over three months studying 7,000 pages of classified documents and history, hiding from the government in New York's 6th Avenue Hilton hotel under an assumed name.
Recalling his work with Sheehan on the Pentagon Papers, Smith said: "What Neil Sheehan did was bring to the public a reckoning with the truth.. It was a real pleasure and real honor for me to have had the fun and the accomplishment of sharing the experience with Neil Sheehan."
In 1975, Smith became deputy national editor of the Times and then moved on to serve as Washington Bureau Chief (1976–79) and Chief Washington Correspondent (1979–88). During his Washington tours he covered five American presidents and their administrations.
Smith's book The Russians (1975), based on his years as the New York Times Moscow Bureau Chief from 1971 to 1974, was a No. 1 American best-seller. It has been translated into 16 languages and widely used in university courses. His next book, The Power Game: How Washington Works (1988), was another major best-seller. In a video tour of the White House, C-SPAN filmed the book sitting on President Clinton's bedside table. It became a political bible for many newly elected members of Congress and their staff.
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