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Eric Sevareid | |
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| Born | Arnold Eric Sevareid November 26, 1912 Velva, North Dakota, U.S. |
| Died | July 9, 1992(1992-07-09) (aged 79) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Education | University of Minnesota (B.A. 1935) |
| Occupation(s) | News journalist, author |
| Years active | 1930–1990 |
| Employer | CBS |
| Notable work | Canoeing with the Cree(1935) |
| Television | CBS Evening News(1965–1977) |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 3[1] |
| Awards | Peabody Award (1950, 1964, 1968) Television Academy Hall of Fame (1987) Emmy Award nominee (1955, 1958) For More: See Honors |
Arnold Eric Sevareid (November 26, 1912 – July 9, 1992) was an American author andCBS news journalist from 1939 to 1977. He was one of a group of elitewar correspondents who were hired by CBS newsmanEdward R. Murrow and nicknamed "Murrow's Boys." Sevareid was the first to report theFall of Paris in 1940, when the city was captured byGerman forces during World War II.[2][3]
Sevareid followed in Murrow's footsteps as a commentator on theCBS Evening News for thirteen years,[4] for which he was recognized with Emmy and Peabody Awards.[5]
Sevareid was born in centralNorth Dakota atVelva to Alfred Eric and Clara Pauline Elizabeth Sevareid (née Hougen). The town's economy was largely dependent on wheat farming.[6] According to Sevareid, his neighbors were extremely charitable towards friends but very wary of outsiders; it was an egalitarian but politically conservative community.[6] After the failure of the bank in Velva in 1925,[7] his family moved to nearbyMinot, and then toMinneapolis,Minnesota,[8] settling on 30th Avenue North. He attendedCentral High School in Minneapolis.[9] Sevareid graduated from theUniversity of Minnesota in 1935. A descendant ofNorwegian immigrants, he preserved a strong bond with the country ofNorway throughout his life.[10]
Sevareid was adventurous from a young age; several days after he graduated from Central High School in 1930, he and his friend Walter Port embarked on an expedition sponsored by theMinneapolis Star to travel by canoe from Minneapolis toYork Factory, onHudson Bay. They canoed up theMinnesota River and its tributary, theLittle Minnesota River, toBrowns Valley,portaged toLake Traverse, and descended theBois des Sioux River to theRed River of the North, which led toLake Winnipeg. They then went down theNelson River,Gods River, andHayes River toHudson Bay, a trip of 2,250 miles (3,620 km).[11] Sevareid's bookCanoeing with the Cree (1935) was the result of this canoe trip and is still in print.[12]
At age 18, Sevareid entered journalism as a reporter for theMinneapolis Journal while he was a student at theUniversity of Minnesota in political science. At theJournal, he wrote a five-part series on theSilver Shirts.[6] He was disappointed with the way the editors portrayed the organization as ridiculous rather than a legitimate political threat.[6] He received many personal threats of physical force in response to the story, but believed that the people issuing them were too cowardly to follow through.[6]
He continued his studies abroad, first in London, and then at theSorbonne University in Paris, where he also worked as an editor forUnited Press. Sevareid then became city editor of theParis Herald Tribune, and later joinedCBS as a foreign correspondent based in Paris.[citation needed]
Sevareid broadcast theFall of Paris and followed the French government from there toBordeaux and thenVichy before he left France for London and later Washington, D.C. He was appointed as CBS's Washington bureau chief in July 1942.[13]
He wrote about the Plains influence on his life in his early memoir,Not So Wild A Dream (1946). The book is still in print and covers his life in Velva, his family, the Hudson Bay trip, his hitchhiking around the U.S., mining in theSierra Nevada, theGreat Depression years, his early journalism, and (especially) his experiences in World War II.
Sevareid's work during World War II, withEdward Murrow as one of the originalMurrow's Boys, was at the forefront of broadcasting. In 1940, he was the first to report on the Fall of France. Shortly afterward, he joined Murrow to report on theBattle of Britain. Later, Sevareid would refer fondly to the early years working with Murrow: "We were like a young band of brothers in those early radio days with Murrow." In his final broadcast with CBS, in 1977, he would call Murrow the man who "invented me."[14]
On August 2, 1943, Sevareid was on board aCurtiss-Wright C-46 Commando that, having taken off fromAssam in India, developed engine trouble over Burma while it was on aHump airlift mission. He grabbed a bottle ofCarew's gin[15] before he parachuted out of the plane.[14] TheU.S. Army Air Forces formed asearch and rescue team to bring the group out from behind enemy lines. The operatives parachuted in, located the party, and evacuated them safely to India, for whichJohn Paton Davies Jr. later won theMedal of Freedom. Davies was a U.S. diplomat who, having been a passenger himself, initially led the group away from the crash site and out of harm's way before the rescuers arrived.[16][17]
In Yugoslavia, Sevareid later reported onJosip Broz Tito'sYugoslav Partisans.
After the war, Sevareid continued to work for CBS. He had begun his own program,Eric Sevareid and the News, on June 27, 1942, on CBS; it ran for five minutes, starting at 8:55 (ET) on Saturdays and Sundays.[18] In 1946, he reported on the founding of the United Nations and then pennedNot So Wild a Dream (University of Missouri Press, 1946). The book, whose title comes from part of the closing passage ofNorman Corwin's radio playOn a Note of Triumph, appeared in eleven printings and became one of the primary sources on the lives of the generation of Americans who had lived through the Great Depression, only to confront the horrors of World War II. In the 1976 edition of the book, Sevareid wrote, "It was a lucky stroke of timing to have been born and lived as an American in this last generation. It was good fortune to be a journalist in Washington, now the single news headquarters in the world since ancient Rome. But we are not Rome; the world is too big, too varied."[14]
Sevareid always considered himself a writer first and often felt uneasy behind a microphone and even less comfortable on television. Nonetheless, he worked extensively for CBS News on television for decades after the war. During the middle and the end of 1950s, Sevareid found himself on television as the host and science reporter of CBS'sConquest. He also served as the head of the CBS Washington bureau from 1946 to 1954 and was one of the early critics ofJoseph McCarthy's anticommunism tactics.[citation needed]
Sevareid wound up the 1950s as CBS's roving European correspondent from 1959 to 1961. He contributed stories toCBS Reports during that time and served as moderator on a number of CBS series such asTown Meeting of the World,The Great Challenge,Where We Stand, andYears of Crisis. Sevareid also appeared in or on CBS coverage of every presidential election from 1948 to 1976, the year before his retirement.[14]
One of Sevareid's biggest scoops from this time period was his 1965 exclusive interview withAdlai Stevenson II shortly before Stevenson's death.[19] The interview was not broadcast over CBS but instead appeared inLook magazine.[14]
On November 22, 1963, Sevareid joinedWalter Cronkite on CBS television with a commentary about theassassination of John F. Kennedy and the road ahead for the new president,Lyndon Johnson. From 1964 to his 1977 retirement from the network,[4] Sevareid's two-minute segments on theCBS Evening News (anchored by Cronkite) inspired his admirers to dub him "The Grey Eminence."[citation needed]
During his long run as a commentator, his segments earned bothEmmy andPeabody Awards. In 1987, he was honored as an inductee into theAcademy's Fourth Hall of Fame.[20] Those who disagreed with his views nicknamed him "Eric Severalsides." Sevareid recognized his own biases, which caused some to disagree with him vehemently. He said that as he had grown older, he had tended to become more conservative in foreign policy and liberal in domestic policy.[14]
His commentary touched on many of the day's important issues. After a 1966 trip toSouth Vietnam, he commented that prolonging the war would be unwise and that the U.S. would be better off pursuing a negotiated settlement. He also helped keep alive another Murrow tradition at CBS that began with the interview showPerson to Person. OnConversations with Eric Sevareid, he interviewed such famous newsmakers asWest German ChancellorWilly Brandt and novelistLeo Rosten. In somewhat of a spoof of that tradition, he also had a conversation withKing George III, portrayed byPeter Ustinov, titledThe Last King in America.[14]
In his finalCBS Evening News editorial, on November 30, 1977, Severaid paid tribute to his colleagues and mentors, noting those who died, includingWalter Lippmann andEdward R. Murrow, the latter of whom Severaid described as "the man who invented me." Severaid ended his farewell by thanking the American public for their engagement with his work, noting that the work of journalism, in his eyes, involves the "perception of honesty and fair intent."
"There is, in the American people, a tough undiminished instinct for what is fair. Rightly or wrongly, I have the feeling that I have passed that test. I shall wear this like a medal. Millions have listened in agreement and in powerful disagreement. Tens of thousands have written their thoughts to me. I will feel always that I stand in their midst. This was Eric Severaid in Washington. Thank you and goodbye."[21]
Walter Cronkite ended the broadcast by celebrating Severaid as, in his view, "one of the finest essayists of the century."
Sevareid later narrated the American history seriesBetween The Wars. In 1981, Sevareid hosted a documentary series onPBS, entitledEnterprise, a profile on how America portrays business. The following year, he hosted the syndicated newsmagazine programEric Sevareid's Chronicle.[citation needed]
He made a guest appearance as himself in a 1980 episode of the sitcomTaxi and also played himself in the 1983 space flight filmThe Right Stuff.[22]
Sevareid married the former Lois Finger. They had twin sons, Peter and Michael, born in Paris while Sevareid was stationed there as a war correspondent for CBS. In 1946 they were among the founders of Burgundy Farm Country Day school in Alexandria, Virginia, the first integrated school in the state.[23]
Sevareid's second marriage was to Belen Marshall. They had a daughter, Cristina, born in New York while he was working as a commentator at the New York bureau.[citation needed]
Sevareid died of stomach cancer in Washington, D.C., on July 9, 1992, at age 79.[24][25][26][27]
