Thunder Voice and Howard

For those who have forgotten it, on June 17, 1972, there was a break-in at the Democratic Party National Headquarters in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D. C. By the beginning of 1973, it had been proven that the burglary had been planned by people who worked at the White House and at the Committee to Re-Elect the President. President Richard Nixon said he shocked! shocked! at such "bad apples" in the government, and he had agreed to appoint an independent prosecutor to the case who would follow the evidence "even if it led to the President".

Actually Richard didn't mean it. And when the evidence was leading to the president, he had the independent prosecutor fired. There was a backlash and suddenly an impeachment inquiry - until then considered a fringe position for pinkos, commies, and other weirdos - had to be taken seriously. Congressional hearings were begun in July, 1974.

Then a young man - we'll use an obsolete term and call him a "hippie" - read a newspaper story that some of Richard's own aides were beginning to doubt his innocence. They had even warned "a certain conservative commentator" about defending Richard too strongly.

After reading the story, the - quote - "hippie" - unquote - wondered aloud who the "conservative commentator" was. A friend then snorted, "Probably that Howard K. Smith."

"'That' Howard K. Smith" was Howard Kingsbury Smith, then the co-anchor of the American Broadcasting Corporation Nightly News with Harry Reasoner. And it's strange that Howard somehow got labeled as a conservative.

Howard had had grown up in Louisiana. Finding segregation horrible, he became a rabid supporter of Civil Rights in the 1950's. This was by no means an easy stand to take - it could literally be a matter of life or death.

Howard's first job had been as one of the war correspondents working for the pioneering broadcaster Edward R. Murrow. Since Howard had learned German in college and had studied abroad (he was a Rhodes Scholar and later attended the University of Heidelberg), it was natural that he would cover Germany. As the 1930's ran out, he and a handful of other reporters found themselves in a unique position. From September 1939 until December 1941, Germany was at war with Great Britain but not the United States. So they saw first hand what Germany was like in the early days of World War II. Although Howard saw Hitler close-up on a number of occasions, he never interviewed him. But he did speak with other high Nazi officials like Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels and SS-Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler.

There are, of course, hazards to being a war correspondent, especially if you are covering a country run by a bunch of murderous, xenophobic nutballs whose police force has no judicial review. In this case, that was the Geheime Staatspolizei and Howard found himself - ah - "detained" by their representatives.

The usual story is that Howard was arrested because he would not include German propaganda in his dispatches or that he would not remove material critical to Germany. And it is indeed true that Howard was always at odds with the German censors, and they would sometimes confiscate his notes.

But in later years Howard said what had happened is he had gone to visit some friends living in Kiel, which is about 40 miles south of Denmark. For a side trip, he and a friend decided to hitchhike to Copenhagen. Then on his way back in what was a routine stop the Gestapo found German newspapers in Howard's possession.

Normally you'd think carrying German newspapers in Germany would be no big deal. But at that time a German language paper from Denmark was sure to be anti-Nazi. The Gestapo naturally assumed Howard was an enemy of the state, a spy, or both, and locked him up. Fortunately, Howard had the business card of the head of United Press in Germany with his passport. The head Gestapo man in the area saw the card and realized Howard was an American correspondent. So Howard was released but three days in Gestapo custody was not something you could forget.

During the War Howard remained in Europe and made his broadcasts from Switzerland. He also married his first (and only) wife, Benedicte Traberg. After D-Day he joined the army in France, covered the Battle of the Bulge, and after the war, remained in Europe until the mid-1950's.

Howard's liberal sentiments had naturally put him at odds with Senator Joe McCarthy who labeled Howard as a Communist sympathizer. Among the others that Non-Tailgunner Joe harped on as enemies of America were (gasp!) Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Howard Fast (author of the novel Spartacus), Dalton Trubmo (who wrote the screenplay), Burgess Meredith (who played The Penguin on the TV show, Batman), Edward G. Robinson (famed for playing gangsters), Pete Seeger (who invented the long-necked banjo), and Paul Robeson (whose songs sound amazingly patriotic). However, Howard's career was not slowed and his being in Europe helped shield him from the worse of Joe's rantings.

Howard's old boss, Edward R. Murrow, left CBS in the late 1950's and Howard took over his broadcasts. He did so but his decidedly liberal stand on Civil Rights made it seem that he was advocating a certain ideology - in particular an ideology that might lose ratings in the South. His views actually got him into a shouting match with CBS head, William S. Paley. William, not a bleeding heart liberal, then told Howard if he didn't like the way he, William, was running things, then he could go to another network

So Howard began to broadcast for ABC. But just before he made the move, he found a place in American history that should be remembered. He chaired the first televised debate between presidential candidates. That was the famous debate in 1960 between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy. Some think that Richard lost the election because he looked so much worse on the telly than did JFK. In any case, Howard said the debate was scarcely a debate.

Harry Reasoner was sometimes considered the "liberal" of the pair, but it was more that Howard was more serious. Harry's comments - the two men swapped editorials on alternate weeks - tended to have a wry and humorous note. But he was no ideologue and once he said he felt that the most negative effect of the Vietnam era was it created a hostility and disdain for the military and that all countries need a strong military that was respected by the people. Scarcely a doctrinaire 1960's liberal position.

Howard, too, did not take any rigid ideological position. In the spring of 1974 a new fad hit the nation's college campuses. Called streaking, a student would make a mad dash through some public area clad in ski mask, tennis shoes, and absolutely nothing twixt the twain.

Howard used one of his commentaries about this ultimately extremely short lived fad. He came out in favor of it. After all, he said, given the brevity of any given event, there was scarcely any time to be offended.

Harry also liked to be the roving reporter and would often take to the field. He covered the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and was with the Israelis when they penetrated into Egypt and seized the Sinai Peninsula which they held for six years. In an Harry-on-the-spot report, Harry mentioned he had not bothered to get an Egyptian visa as at the time he hadn't thought it necessary.

Harry also went with Richard Nixon on the famous trip to China (which was made into a surprisingly popular but unintentionally humorous opera). It was there that Harry was given a Chinese name.

It was done, Harry told us, by writing the sounds of his name using corresponding Chinese characters. Hopefully, because Chinese names have actually meaning, the name will somehow fit in with the individual's personality or characteristics. For Harry, his Chinese name was "Thunder Voice Acceptance".

Harry had been one of the original presenters (to use the British patois) on the popular TV show 60 Minutes on CBS. But being discharged from the army in World War II, he had started out as - get this - a drama critic at the Minneapolis Times. He also wrote a novel Tell Me About Women that was later reprinted when Harry became famous. Harry, who had a reputation as one of the better writers for television, said he had to wince at some of the sentences. He began to work for CBS in 1956.

Starting off as a correspondent and commentator, Harry's ambition to be an anchor man was stymied since in the 1950's CBS had found a news gold mine with formidable (and trusted) Walter Cronkite. Harry sometimes substituted for Walter, but it wasn't like having your own show. So when the opportunity arose, he moved to ABC in 1970. In 1969 the show had been hosted by Howard and newsman Frank Reynolds. Frank left and it was Howard and Harry until 1975.

In 1975, Harry was paired up with Barbara Walters. It's no secret he wasn't happy with the arrangement, and Barbara found herself pretty much out of the loop. She said about the only people that would talk to her on the set were the stagehands. In a later interview, though, Barbara was quite generous to Harry, pointing out that he had not wanted to have a partner on the show in first place, and besides he wasn't happy at ABC anymore. He had also been having some difficulties in his private life which contributed to the problems.

It hasn't been possible to recreate - at least with the limited resources available to CooperToons - the characters to Thunder Voice's Chinese name. Or at least none that sound similar to the name Harry Reasoner. Using a Chinese Dictionary, neither "Thunder", "Voice", nor "Acceptance" seem to give any semblance to the syllables. The most straight forward rendering seems to be 雷聲驗收 which is to be spoken as léi shēng yànshōu.

Could Harry have been pulling our legs?

References

Last Train from Berlin, Howard K. Smith, Knopf, 1942.

"Howard K. Smith, Broadcast Newsman, Dies at 87", Richard Goldstein, New York Times, February 18, 2002.

"Howard K. Smith Interview", Emmy Legends, http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/howard-k-smith#.

"Howard K. Smith", David Marc, American National Biography Online, Oxford University Press.

"Harry Reasoner", Richard Severo, New York Times, August 7, 1991.