Margaret Bourke-White: A Fearless News Photographer

Download MP3 (Right-click or option-click the link.) I'm Barbara Klein. And I'm Steve Ember with PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English. Today we tell about photographer Margaret Bourke-White, one of the leading news reporters of the twentieth century. A young woman is sitting on her knees on top of a large metal statue. She is not in a park. She is outside an office building high above New York City. The young woman reached the statue by climbing through a window on the sixty-first floor. She wanted to get a better picture of the city below. The woman is Margaret Bourke-White. She was one of the leading news reporters of the twentieth century. But she did not write the news. She told her stories with a camera. She was a fearless woman of great energy and skill. Her work took her from America's Midwest to the Soviet Union. From Europe during World War Two to India, South Africa and Korea. Through her work, she helped create the modern art of photojournalism. In some ways, Bourke-White was a woman ahead of her time. She often did things long before they became accepted in society. She was divorced. She worked in a world of influential men, and earned their praise and support. She wore trousers and colored her hair. Yet, in more important ways, she was a woman of and for her times. She became involved in the world around her and recorded it in pictures for the future. Margaret Bourke-White was born in New York City in nineteen-oh-four. When Margaret was very young, the family moved to New Jersey. Her mother, Minnie Bourke, worked on publications for the blind. Her father, Joseph White, was an engineer and designer in the printing industry. He also liked to take pictures. Their home was filled with his photographs. Soon young Margaret was helping him take and develop his photographs. When she was eight years old, her father took her inside a factory to watch the manufacture of printing presses. In the foundry, she saw hot liquid iron being poured to make the machines. She remembered this for years to come. Margaret attended several universities before completing her studies at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York in nineteen twenty-seven. She studied engineering, biology and photography. She married while she was still a student. But the marriage only lasted one year. Margaret took the name Bourke-White, the last names of her mother and father. In nineteen twenty-eight, she began working in the midwestern city of Cleveland, Ohio. It was then one of the centers of American industry. She became an industrial photographer at the Otis Steel Company. In the hot, noisy factories where steel was made, she saw beauty and a subject for her pictures. She said: "Industry is alive. The beauty of industry lies in its truth and simpleness. Every line has a purpose, and so is beautiful. Whatever art will come out of this industrial age will come from the subjects of industry themselves…which are close to the heart of the people." Throughout America and Europe, engineers and building designers found beauty in technology. Their machines and buildings had artistic forms. In New York, the Museum of Modern Art opened in nineteen twenty-nine. One of its goals was to study the use of art in industry. Bourke- White's photographic experiments began with the use of industry in art. Bourke-White's first pictures inside the steel factory in Cleveland were a failure. The difference between the bright burning metal and the black factory walls was too extreme for her camera. She could not solve the problem until she got new equipment and discovered new techniques of photography. Then she was able to capture the sharp difference between light and dark. The movement and power of machines. The importance of industry. Sometimes her pictures made you feel you were looking down from a great height, or up from far below. Sometimes they led you directly into the heart of the activity. In New York, a wealthy and influential publisher named Henry Luce saw Bourke-White's pictures. Luce published a magazine called Time. He wanted to start a new magazine. It would be called Fortune, and would report about developments in industry. Luce sent a telegram to Bourke-White, asking her to come to New York immediately. She accepted a job as photographer for Fortune magazine. She worked there from nineteen twenty-nine to nineteen thirty-three. Margaret Bourke-White told stories in pictures, one image at a time. She used each small image to tell part of the bigger story. The technique became known as the photographic essay. Other magazines and photographers used the technique. But Bourke-White – more than most photographers – had unusual chances to develop it. In the early nineteen thirties, she traveled to the Soviet Union three times. Later she wrote: "Nothing invites me so much as a closed door. I cannot let my camera rest until I have opened that door. And I wanted to be first. I believed in machines as objects of beauty. So I felt the story of a nation trying to industrialize – almost overnight – was perfect for me." On her first trip to the Soviet Union, Bourke-White traveled on the Trans-Siberian Railway. She carried many cameras and examples of her work. When she arrived in Moscow, a Soviet official gave her a special travel permit, because he liked her industrial photographs. The permit ordered all Soviet citizens to help her while she was in the country. Bourke-White spoke to groups of Soviet writers and photographers. They asked her about camera techniques, and also about her private life. After one gathering, several men surrounded her and talked for a long time. They spoke Russian. Not knowing the language, Bourke-White smiled in agreement at each man as he spoke. Only later did she learn that she had agreed to marry each one of them. Her assistant explained the mistake and said to the men: "Miss Bourke-White loves nothing but her camera." By the end of the trip, Margaret Bourke-White had traveled eight thousand kilometers throughout the Soviet Union. She took hundreds of pictures, and published some of them in her first book, "Eyes on Russia." She returned the next year to prepare for a series of stories for the New York Times newspaper. And she went back a third time to make an educational movie for the Kodak film company. Bourke-White visited Soviet cities, farms and factories. She took pictures of workers using machines. She took pictures of peasant women, village children, and even the mother of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. She took pictures of the country's largest bridge, and the world's largest dam. She used her skill in mixing darkness and light to create works of art. She returned home with more than three thousand photographs – the first western documentary on the Soviet Union. Margaret Bourke-White had seen a great deal for someone not yet thirty years old. But in nineteen thirty-four, she saw something that would change her idea of the world. Fortune magazine sent her on a trip through the central part of the United States. She was told to photograph farmers – from America's northern border with Canada to its southern border with Mexico. Some of the farmers were victims of a terrible shortage of rain, and of their own poor farming methods. The good soil had turned to dust. And the wind blew the dust over everything. It got into machines and stopped them. It chased the farmers from their land, although they had nowhere else to go. Bourke-White had never given much thought to human suffering. After her trip, she had a difficult time forgetting. She decided to use her skills to show all parts of life. She would continue taking industrial pictures of happy, healthy people enjoying their shiny new cars. But she would tell a different story in her photographic essays. Under one picture she wrote: "While machines are making great progress in automobile factories, the workers might be under-paid. Pictures can be beautiful. But they must tell facts, too." We will continue the story of photographer Margaret Bourke-White next week. This program was written by Shelley Gollust. It was produced by Lawan Davis. Our studio engineer was Tom Verba. I'm Steve Ember. And I'm Barbara Klein. Join us again next week for PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English. Margaret Bourke-White Helped Create Modern Photojournalism Download MP3 (Right-click or option-click the link.) I'm Barbara Klein. And I'm Steve Ember with PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English. Today we tell complete our report about photographer Margaret Bourke- White. She helped create the modern art of photojournalism. Margaret Bourke-White began her career as an industrial photographer in the early nineteen thirties. Her pictures captured the beauty and power of machines. They told a story – one image at a time. The technique became know as the photographic essay. In nineteen thirty-six, American publisher Henry Luce started a new magazine, called Life, based on the photographic essay. In this magazine, the pictures told the story. Bourke-White had worked as a photographer for one of Luce's other magazines called Fortune. Luce chose her to work on his new magazine. Margaret Bourke-White took the picture that appeared on the first cover of Life magazine. It was a picture of a new dam being built in the western state of Montana. The light on the rounded supports showed the dam's great strength. The small shapes of two men at the bottom showed the dam's huge size. Bourke-White was no longer satisfied just to show the products of industry in her pictures, as she had in the past. She wanted to tell the story of the people behind the industry: In this case, the people who were building the dam. The dam in Montana was a federal project. Ten thousand people worked on it. Bourke-White took pictures of those people – at the dam, in the rooms where they lived, and in the places where they had fun. With her pictures in Life magazine, she told a story about America's "Wild West" in the twentieth century. Margaret Bourke-White was a social activist. She was a member of the American Artists Congress. These artists supported state financial aid for the arts. They fought discrimination against African-American artists. And they supported artists fighting against fascism in Europe. In the nineteen thirties, Bourke-White met the American writer Erskine Caldwell. Caldwell was known for his stories about people in the American South. The photographer and the writer decided to produce a book to tell Americans about some of those poor country people of the South. They traveled through eight states, from South Carolina to Louisiana. Their book, "You Have Seen Their Faces," was published in nineteen thirty-seven. It was a great success. Caldwell's words were beautiful. But Bourke-White's pictures could have told the story by themselves. They showed the faces of people in a land that still wore the mask of defeat in America's Civil War. In nineteen thirty-eight, some countries in Europe were close to war. Bourke-White and Caldwell went there to report on these events. They produced another book together, this time about Czechoslovakia. It was called "North of the Danube." The next year Margaret Bourke- White and Erskine Caldwell were married. They continued to work together. By the spring of nineteen forty-one, Europe had been at war for a year and a half. Bourke-White and Caldwell went to the Soviet Union. They were the only foreign reporters there. For six weeks, Bourke-White took pictures of the Soviet people preparing for war. Then, one night in July, Soviet officials announced that German bomber planes were flying toward Moscow. No civilians were permitted to stay above ground because of the coming attacks. As others were hurrying to safety, Bourke-White placed several cameras in the window of her hotel room. She set the cameras so they would remain open to the light of the night sky. Then she joined the others in rooms under the hotel. While she waited for the bombing attack to end, her cameras recorded the explosions, which lit up the rooftops of the city. Before leaving the country, Bourke-White received permission to meet with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. She returned home with his picture and a series of other photographic essays for Life magazine. She also had enough material for a book on the war in the Soviet Union. Margaret Bourke-White's marriage to Erskine Caldwell ended in divorce in nineteen forty-two. During World War Two, she became an official photographer with the United States Army. Her photographs were to be used jointly by the military and by Life magazine. She was the first woman to be permitted to work in combat areas during World War Two. Bourke-White flew with American bomber planes in England as they prepared to attack enemy targets on the European continent. She wanted to fly with the Army to North Africa, where the allies were fighting German troops in the desert. But the commanding general told her it would be too dangerous. So she sailed for North Africa instead. Before she reached the African coast, enemy bombs hit the ship and sank it. An allied warship rescued Bourke-White and the other survivors and took them to Algeria. The incident did not stop Bourke-White from reporting on the war. She flew in an allied bombing attack on a German airfield at El Aouina in Tunisia. She flew over the terrible fighting in the Cassino Valley in Italy. And she moved along the Rhine River with the United States Third Army, under the command of General George Patton. At the end of the war, she was with American troops when they entered and freed several Nazi death camps. She took photographs of the prisoners in the Buchenwald death camp in Germany in nineteen forty-five. Later, she wrote about the war. She said she sometimes pulled an imaginary cloth across her eyes as she worked. In the death camps, she said, the cloth was so thick that she did not really know what she was photographing until she saw the finished pictures. In addition to her stories for Life magazine, Bourke-White published books on the allied campaign in Italy and on the fall of Nazi Germany. After the war, Life magazine sent Margaret Bourke-White to India. She stayed for three years as India prepared for its independence from Britain. She photographed the battles between Muslims and Hindus. And she met with the leader of India's non-violent campaign for independence, Mohandas Gandhi. She made a famous photograph of him called "Gandhi at His Spinning Wheel." She was the last person to photograph Gandhi before he was murdered in nineteen forty-eight. After that, Bourke-White traveled to South Africa. Her job was to tell the story of the black people who worked in the country's gold mines. To get the pictures she wanted, she followed the workers deep into the mine tunnels. In the early nineteen fifties, she went to Korea to photograph the effects of war on the Korean people. She took a famous photograph of a returning soldier reunited with his mother in South Korea in nineteen fifty-two. The mother had believed that her son had been killed several months earlier in the Korean War. Margaret Bourke-White tried to make her pictures perfect. Often, she was not satisfied with what she had done. She would look at her pictures and see something she had failed to do, or something she had not done right. Reaching perfection was not easy. Many things got in the way of her work. She said: "There is only one moment when a picture is there. And a moment later, it is gone forever. My memory is full of those pictures that were lost." More of Margaret Bourke-White's beautiful pictures were to be lost, sooner than anyone expected. In the middle nineteen fifties, she began to suffer from the effects of Parkinson's disease. Her hands shook so badly that she could not hold a camera. She wrote a book about her life, called "Portrait of Myself." And, even though she was unable to take photographs, she continued to work for Life magazine until nineteen sixty-nine. She died in nineteen seventy-one at the age of sixty-seven. Margaret Bourke-White was a woman doing what had been a man's job. Her work took her around the world, from factories to battlefields. Her life was full of adventure. She was one of the most important photographers of the twentieth century. This program was written by Shelley Gollust. It was produced by Lawan Davis. I'm Barbara Klein. And I'm Steve Ember. Join us again next week for PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English. Carl Rowan, 1925-2000: An Influential Newsman

Download MP3 (Right-click or option-click the link.) I'm Shirley Griffith. And I'm Doug Johnson with the VOA Special English program, PEOPLE IN AMERICA. Today, we tell about the life of writer and reporter, Carl Rowan. He was one of the most honored reporters in the United States. Carl Rowan was known for the powerful stories that he wrote for major newspapers. His columns were published in more than one hundred newspapers across the United States. He was the first black newspaper columnist to have his work appear in major newspapers. Carl Rowan called himself a newspaperman. Yet, he was also a writer of best-selling books. He wrote about the lives of African American civil rights leader, Reverend Martin Luther King Junior and United States Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall. Carl Rowan also was a radio broadcaster and a popular public speaker. For thirty years, he appeared on a weekly television show about American politics. Carl Rowan won praise over the years for his reports about race relations in America. He provided a public voice for poor people and minorities in America. He influenced people in positions of power. Mr. Rowan opened many doors for African Americans. He was the first black deputy Secretary of State in the administration of President John F. Kennedy. And he was the first black director of the United States Information Agency which at the time supervised the Voice of America. Carl Rowan was born in nineteen twenty-five in the southern city of Ravenscroft, Tennessee. He grew up during the Great Depression, one of the worst economic times in the United States. His family was very poor. His father stacked wood used for building, when he had work. His mother worked cleaning the homes of white people when she could. The Rowan family had no electricity, no running water, no telephone and no radio. Carl said he would sometimes steal food or drink warm milk from the cows on nearby farms. The Rowans did not even have a clock. As a boy, Carl said he knew if it was time to go to school by the sound of a train. He said if the train was late, he was late. Growing up, Carl had very little hope for any change. There were not many jobs for blacks in the South. The schools were not good. Racial tensions were high. Laws were enforced to keep blacks and whites separate. It was a teacher who urged Carl to make something of himself. Bessie Taylor Gwynn taught him to believe he could be a poet or a writer. She urged him to write as much as possible. She would even get books for him because blacks were banned from public libraries. Bessie Taylor Gwynn made sure that Carl finished high school. And he did. He graduated at the top of his class. Carl entered Tennessee State College in nineteen forty- two. He almost had to leave college after the first few months because he did not have enough money. But on the way to catch a bus, his luck changed. He found the twenty dollars he needed to stay in college. Carl Rowan did so well in college that he was chosen by the United States Navy to become one of the first fifteen black Navy officers. He said that experience changed his life. Carl served on ships during World War Two. Afterward, he returned to college and graduated from Oberlin College in Ohio. He went on to receive his master's degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota. In nineteen forty-eight, Carl Rowan became a reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune newspaper in Minnesota. He was one of the first black reporters to write for a major daily newspaper. As a young reporter, he covered racial tensions in the South during the civil rights movement. In nineteen fifty-six, he traveled to the Middle East to cover the war over the Suez Canal. He also reported from Europe, India and other parts of Asia. He won several major reporting awards. Mr. Rowan's reports on race relations in the South interested President John F. Kennedy. In nineteen sixty- one, President Kennedy appointed Mr. Rowan deputy assistant Secretary of State. He served as a delegate to the United Nations during the Cuban missile crisis in nineteen sixty-two. Mr. Rowan later was appointed ambassador to Finland. During his years in President Kennedy's administration, Carl Rowan got to know Lyndon B. Johnson. Lyndon Johnson became president after President Kennedy was assassinated in nineteen sixty-three. In nineteen sixty-four, President Johnson named Carl Rowan director of the United States Information Agency. The position made him the highest level African American in the United States government. Mr. Rowan said being chosen to head the United States Information Agency and the Voice of America was one of the great honors of his life. In nineteen sixty-five, Carl Rowan left the government and started writing for newspapers. He wrote a column that told his opinions about important social, economic and political issues. It appeared several times a week in a number of newspapers. Radio and television jobs followed. Mr. Rowan often wrote intensely about race relations. Yet, he wrote with more feeling about one subject than any other: that education and hard work will help young African Americans move forward. Carl Rowan was angered by the ideas of some young blacks. He said they believed that to study hard and perform well in school was "acting white." He deplored the idea that excellence is for whites only. In nineteen eighty-seven, Mr. Rowan created a program called "Project Excellence." The program rewards black students who do well in school. Over the years, the program has provided millions of dollars to help African American students get money for college. Throughout his life, Carl Rowan was a strong voice for racial justice in America. Yet, he also demanded excellence from other black Americans. He wrote about wrongdoing within the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The NAACP fights for the civil rights of African Americans. Mr. Rowan's columns led to the resignation of its chairman and helped speed the organization's financial recovery. Carl Rowan lived with his wife, Vivien Murphy, in a large house in Washington, D.C. They had three children and four grandchildren. He had been a strong supporter of gun control laws. But in nineteen eighty-eight, he was charged for firing a gun that he did not legally own. He shot and wounded a teenager who was on his property illegally. Rowan was arrested and tried. During the trial, he argued that he had the right to use whatever means necessary to protect himself and his family. The jury failed to reach a decision in the case. In nineteen ninety-one, Carl Rowan wrote a book about his life called "Breaking Barriers." Several years later, he wrote a book called "The Coming Race War in America." The book describes the exploding anger between blacks and whites and the possibility of a future race war. Some people praised the book. Others thought it was harmful and irresponsible. Carl Rowan was the first black president of an organization of top reporters in Washington called the Gridiron Club. The group does a show every year that makes fun of the American political process. Mr. Rowan often performed by singing or leading a comedy act. Carl Rowan used simple words when he spoke, yet he was very direct. He was criticized sometimes for that. Some people thought that his ideas were too liberal. Others thought he was too moderate. But most people thought his stories generally were very fair. Mr. Rowan talks about his life in his book, "Breaking Barriers": Carl Rowan died September Twenty-Third, Two- Thousand, in Washington, D.C. He was seventy-five years old. During the last years of his life, he suffered from diabetes and heart problems. But he never failed to write his newspaper column. He never let bad things slow him down. (MUSIC) This Special English program was written by Cynthia Kirk. I'm Shirley Griffith. And I'm Doug Johnson. Listen again next week for another PEOPLE IN AMERICA program on the Voice of Ameri www.manythings.org/voa/people Henry Loomis, 1919-2008: Director of VOA Had Idea to Create Special English Download MP3 (Right-click or option-click the link.) I'm Faith Lapidus. And I'm Bob Doughty with PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English. Today we tell about the research scientist and broadcasting leader Henry Loomis. Mr. Loomis held many interesting communications positions over his long career. He served as director of the Voice of America for seven years starting in nineteen fifty-eight. Mr. Loomis played an important role in creating the Special English service. Henry Loomis was born in nineteen nineteen in Tuxedo Park, New York. His father was Alfred Lee Loomis, a wealthy New York City businessman. Unlike many businessmen at the time, Alfred Loomis protected his wealth during the financial crash of nineteen twenty-nine. He later withdrew from the world of business in order to spend more time working as a scientist. Henry Loomis and his brothers Lee and Farney grew up spending time in the private laboratory their father built. This scientific background and the people who worked with his father would have a big influence on Henry's life. Alfred Loomis taught traditional values to his sons and stressed the importance of education and hard work. Alfred Loomis invited the top scientists in the world to his Loomis Laboratory, including Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi and Niels Bohr. Alfred Loomis and members of his lab team made important discoveries and inventions. They studied many subjects, including the measurement of time, or chronometry, and electroencephalography, or the measurement of electrical activity produced by the brain. Henry Loomis even took part in his father's experiments on measuring brain activity. In an interview six years ago, Henry Loomis remembered an experiment he took part in when he was about seventeen years old. Henry slept in a sound-proof room with electrode devices attached to his head. Alfred Loomis was nearby with a microphone device. He told his son in a soft voice that Henry's favorite object, his boat, was on fire. Henry Loomis jumped out of bed to save the boat. This experiment and others helped Alfred Loomis show how emotional upset could change human brain waves. Alfred Loomis later helped open the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Radiation Laboratory. His work helping to develop the new technology of radar would be used by the United States and Britain to defeat Germany during World War Two. Henry Stimson was related to the Loomis family. He was also an advisor and close friend. Among other positions, Mr. Stimson had served as secretary of state under President Herbert Hoover. He told Henry Loomis that he and his brothers were very lucky in life and that they should serve their country as a way to give thanks. Henry Loomis took these words very seriously. In nineteen forty, Henry Loomis dropped out of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts to join the United States Navy. He was able to put to good use his knowledge of radar technology that he had learned about because of his father's work. After graduating at the top in his naval training class, Henry Loomis became a teacher at the Navy's radar training school in Hawaii. In December of nineteen forty-one, Japan bombed the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This event marked the United States' official entry in World War Two. By the end of the war, Henry Loomis had received many honors for his service, including a Bronze Star and an Air Medal. He left the Navy in nineteen forty-six to begin graduate studies. That year, he married his first wife, Mary Paul MacLeod. Mr. Loomis studied physics at the University of California at Berkeley. He worked as an assistant to Ernest Lawrence, the director of the university's radiation laboratory. Mr. Lawrence had won the Nobel Prize in nineteen thirty-nine for his work in nuclear physics. Henry Loomis later moved to Washington, D.C. to begin another stage of his career in public service. He held positions in the Department of Defense and other agencies. Mr. Loomis also directed the Office of Intelligence and Research at the United States Information Agency. In nineteen fifty-eight, he became director of the Voice of America under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. During his travels around the world, Mr. Loomis saw that English was becoming an important international language. He believed that it was important to make English easier to understand by listeners of VOA broadcasts whose native language was not English. So Mr. Loomis asked VOA program manager Barry Zorthian to develop a way to broadcast to listeners with a limited knowledge of English. The result of this effort was Special English. The first Voice of America broadcast in Special English took place on October nineteenth, nineteen fifty-nine. Critics at the time said the Special English method of broadcasting at a slower rate with a limited vocabulary would never work. American embassies demanded that the program be cancelled. But Mr. Loomis supported the program. Soon, VOA began to receive hundreds of letters from listeners praising the program. Special English programs became some of the most popular on VOA. We are pleased to say that our programs still are. Henry Loomis made other important improvements at VOA. He expanded VOA's broadcasting ability by setting up transmitter devices in countries including Liberia and the Philippines. He also decided that VOA needed a charter document to make its goals and rules clear. Such a charter would also officially state VOA's independence from other government programs. The charter states that VOA has to win the attention and respect of its listeners. It lists VOA's goals: to produce correct, balanced and expansive broadcasts. And to show the many sides of America's society, thoughts and organizations. President Eisenhower approved the charter before he left office. It was later signed into law by President Ford in nineteen seventy-six. Henry Loomis compared the VOA charter to the United States Constitution. He said he believed the charter represented the realities of the world and the moral code of the country. Henry Loomis resigned from VOA in nineteen sixty-five over disagreements with the government about how to report on America's involvement in the Vietnam War. Mr. Loomis believed VOA should report about the war honestly, without censorship from the Administration of President Lyndon Johnson. He gave a farewell speech at VOA headquarters in which he talked about his time working here. HENRY LOOMIS: "How has the Voice changed in these seven years? In my judgment, the most important changes are the codification of the mission of VOA in our charter…" Mr. Loomis also talked about program changes he helped make. HENRY LOOMIS: "English broadcasts have been tripled and diversified. A new language, Special English, has been created to reach those with limited knowledge of, and a desire to learn, the language." Henry Loomis said that he believed VOA serves the world poorly if it is asked to change its news and programs to serve government policy interests. HENRY LOOMIS: "I believe VOA serves the national interest well if it reflects responsibly, affirmatively and without self-consciousness that ours is a society of free men who practice what they preach. To do this effectively, we must do it at all times. Freedom is not a part-time thing." Mr. Loomis talked about government control of the press for political reasons. HENRY LOOMIS: "To sweep under the rug what we don't like, what does not serve our tactical purpose, is a sign of weakness." But he said that to recognize forces and opinions that disagree with government policies is a sign of strength. At the end of his speech, Mr. Loomis said goodbye to VOA workers. HENRY LOOMIS: "It has been a privilege to have served with you, to have learned from you, to have had fun with you." In nineteen seventy-two, Henry Loomis became president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This organization was created by Congress to provide money for public television stations. Around this time he married his second wife, Jacqueline Chalmers. Mr. Loomis later retired to private life. He remained active in his favorite sports -- sailing and hunting. Henry Loomis died in two thousand eight in Jacksonville, Florida. He was eighty-nine years old. He had a life-long career of valuable service in science and communications. And we honor him with a special thank you for helping to make this and other Special English programs possible. This program was written and produced by Dana Demange. I'm Bob Doughty. And I'm Faith Lapidus. You can learn more about famous Americans on our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English. Ida Tarbell, 1857-1944: She Used Her Reporting Skills Against One of the Most Powerful Companies in the World

Download MP3 (Right-click or option-click the link.) PEOPLE IN AMERICA, a program in Special English on the Voice of America. Every week we tell about a person who was important in the history of the United States. Today Shirley Griffith and Ray Freeman tell about reporter Ida Minerva Tarbell. Ida Tarbell was one of the most successful magazine writers in the United States during the last century. She wrote important stories at a time when women had few social or political rights. Ida Tarbell used her reporting skills against one of the most powerful companies in the world. That company was Standard Oil. Ida Tarbell charged that Standard Oil was using illegal methods to hurt or destroy smaller oil companies. She investigated these illegal business dealings and wrote about them for a magazine called McClure's. The reports she wrote led to legal cases that continued all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States. Ida Tarbell was born in the eastern state of Pennsylvania in November, 1857. Her family did not have much money. Her father worked hard but had not been very successful. When Ida was three years old, oil was discovered in the nearby town of Titusville. Her father entered the oil business. He struggled as a small businessman to compete with the large oil companies. Ida's mother had been a school teacher. She made sure that Ida attended school. She also helped the young girl learn her school work. Ida wanted to study science at college. Most people at that time thought it was not important for young women to learn anything more than to read and write. Most people thought educating women was a waste of money. Ida's parents, however, believed education was important -- even for women. They sent her to Allegheny College in nearby Meadville, Pennsylvania. She was 19. Those who knew Ida Tarbell in college say she would wake up at four o'clock in the morning to study. She was never happy with her school work until she thought it was perfect. In 1880, Ida finished college. In August of that year, she got a teaching job in Poland, Ohio. It paid $500 a year. Miss Tarbell learned that she was expected to teach subjects about which she knew nothing. She was able to do so by reading the school books before the students did. She was a successful teacher, but the work, she decided, was too difficult for the amount she was paid. So she returned home after one year. A small newspaper in the town of Meadville soon offered her a job. Many years later, Ida Tarbell said she had never considered being a writer. She took the job with the newspaper only because she needed the money. At first, she worked only a few hours each week. Later, however, she was working 16 hours a day. She discovered that she loved to see things she had written printed in the paper. She worked very hard at becoming a good writer. Miss Tarbell enjoyed working for the newspaper. She discovered, though, that she was interested in stories that were too long for the paper to print. She also wanted to study in France. To earn money while in Paris, she decided she would write for American magazines. Ida Tarbell found it difficult to live in Paris without much money. She also found it difficult to sell her work to magazines. The magazines were in the United States. She was in Paris. Some of her stories were never used because it took too long for them to reach the magazine. Yet she continued to write. Several magazines soon learned that she was a serious writer. A man named Samuel McClure visited Miss Tarbell in Paris. He owned a magazine named McClure's. Mr. McClure had read several of her stories. He wanted her to return to the United States and work for his magazine. She immediately understood that this was a very good offer. But she said no. She proposed that she write for McClure's from Paris. Ida Tarbell wrote many stories for McClure's. She did this for some time before returning to the United States. Her writing was very popular. She helped make McClure's one of the most successful magazines of its day. One of her first jobs for the magazine was a series of stories about the life of the French Emperor Napoleon. The series was printed in McClure's Magazine in 1894. It was an immediate success. The series was later printed as a book. It was very popular for a number of years. Her next project was a series about the life of American President Abraham Lincoln. She began her research by talking with people who had known him. She used nothing they told her, however, unless she could prove it was true to the best of her ability. McClure's Magazine wanted a short series about President Lincoln. But Ida Tarbell's series lasted for one year in the magazine. Like her series about Napoleon, the President Lincoln stories were immediately popular. They helped sell more magazines. She continued her research about President Lincoln. Through the years, she would write eight books about President Lincoln. Miss Tarbell's reports about the Standard Oil Company are considered more important than any of her other writings. Her 19-part series was called The History of the Standard Oil Company. McClure's Magazine published it beginning in 1902. Her reports showed that Standard Oil used illegal methods to make other companies lose business. One method was to sell oil in one area of the country for much less than the oil was worth. This caused smaller companies in that area to fail. They could not sell their oil for that low a price and still make a profit. After a company failed, Standard Oil would then increase the price of its oil. This kind of unfair competition was illegal. Miss Tarbell had trouble discovering information about the Standard Oil Company. She tried to talk to businessmen who worked in the oil business. At first, few would agree to talk. They were afraid of the Standard Oil Company and its owner, John D. Rockefeller. He was one of the richest and most powerful men in the world. Miss Tarbell kept seeking information. She was told by one man that Rockefeller would try to destroy McClure's Magazine. But she did not listen to the threats. She soon found evidence that Standard Oil had been using unfair and illegal methods to destroy other oil companies. Soon many people were helping her find the evidence she needed. Ida Tarbell's investigations into Standard Oil were partly responsible for later legal action by the federal government against the company. The case began in 1906. In 1911, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled against Standard Oil because of its illegal dealings. The decision was a major one. It forced the huge company to separate into thirty-six different companies. John D. Rockefeller never had to appear in court himself. Yet the public felt he was responsible for his company's illegal actions. The investigative work of Ida Tarbell helped form that public opinion. That investigative work continues to be what she is known for, even though some of her later writings defendedd American business. She died in 1944. A picture has survived from the long ago days when Ida Tarbell took on the giant Standard Oil Company. It shows John D. Rockefeller walking to his car. It was taken after his company had lost an important court battle. He is wearing a tall black hat and a long coat. He looks angry. Several people are watching the famous man from behind the car. One is a very tall women. Mr. Rockefeller does not see her. If you look closely at the picture, you can see the face of Ida Tarbell. She is smiling. If you know the story, her smile clearly says: "I won." Jacob Riis: A Reporter Who Fought for the Poor in Old New York

Download MP3 (Right-click or option-click the link.) I'm Shirley Griffith. And I'm Ray Freeman with the VOA Special English program, PEOPLE IN AMERICA. Every week at this time, the Voice of America tells about someone important in the history of the United States. This week we tell about Jacob Riis. He was a writer who used all his energy to make the world a better place for poor people. In the spring of eighteen seventy, a young man traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to New York City. The young man came from Denmark. His name was Jacob Riis. He was just twenty-one years old. His first years in the United States were difficult, like those of most immigrants at that time. It was difficult to get a job. Jacob Riis went from place to place seeking work. He did any kind of work he could find. Farming, coal mining, brick-making. He even tried to earn money as a peddler. He went from house to house selling things. Many times he slept wherever he could. Soon he was beginning to lose hope. He decided to leave New York. He started to walk north. After a time, he arrived in the Bronx, the northern part of New York City. His feet burned with pain. And he was hungry. "I had not eaten a thing since the day before. I had no breakfast, and decided to have a swim in the Bronx River, instead. But that did not help. I was just as hungry when I came out of the water. "Then I walked slowly to Fordham College, which was not far from where I was. The doors to Fordham College were open, and I walked in, for no reason. I was just tired and had nothing else to do. "Fordham is a Catholic college. And an old monk came to me and asked in a kind voice if I was hungry. I still remember in my dreams at night the beautiful face of that old monk. I was terribly hungry, and said I was, although I did not mean to do so. I had never seen a real live monk before. My own religious education as a Lutheran did not teach me to like Catholic monks. "I ate the food that was brought to me. But I was troubled. I was afraid that after giving me food, the churchman would ask me to change my religious beliefs. I said to myself: 'I am not going to do it. ' But when I had eaten, I was not asked to do anything. I was given more food when I left, and continued on my way. I was angry with myself for having such bad thoughts about the Catholic churchmen at Fordham College. For the first time, I learned something about how to live with people of different religious beliefs." Later, Jacob Riis learned more about liking people, even if they are different. This time, it happened while he was working on a railroad with men who did rough work and looked rough. "I had never done that sort of work, and it was not the right job for me. I did my best to work like the other men. But my chest felt heavy, and my heart pounded in my body as if it were going to explode. There were nineteen Irishmen in the group. They were big, rough fellows. They had chosen me as the only 'Dutchman' -- as they called me -- to make them laugh. They were going to use me as part of their jokes. "But then they saw that the job was just too hard for me. This made them feel different about me. It showed another side to these fun-loving, big-hearted people. They thought of many ways to get me away from the very rough work. One was to get me to bring water for them. They liked stronger things to drink than water. But now they suddenly wanted water all the time. I had to walk a long way for the water. But it stopped me from doing the work that was too hard for me. These people were very rough in their ways. But behind the roughness they were good men. " At last, Jacob Riis got a job writing for a newspaper in New York City. This was his chance. He finally had found a profession that would lead to his life work -- making the world a better place for poor people. The newspaper sent him to police headquarters for stories. There he saw life at its worst, especially in a very poor part of New York which was known as Mulberry Bend. "It was no place for men and women. And surely no place for little children. It was a terrible slum -- as such places are called -- where too many are crowded together, where the houses and streets are dirty and full of rats. The place began to trouble me as the truth about it became clear. Others were not troubled. They had no way of finding out how terrible the lives of people were in Mulberry Bend. But as a newspaper reporter, I could find the truth. So I went through the dark dirty streets and houses, and saw how the people suffered in this area. And I wrote many stories about the life there. "I did good work as a police reporter, but wanted a change. My editor said, 'no'. He asked me to go back to Mulberry Bend and stay there. He said I was finding something there that needed me." The words of Jacob Riis' editor proved to be very true. Riis started a personal war against slum houses, the sort he saw in Mulberry Bend. He learned to use a camera to show the public clearly what the Mulberry Bend slum was like. The camera in the eighteen eighties was nothing like it is today. But Riis got his pictures. "I made good use of them quickly. Words could get no action to change things. But the pictures did. What the camera showed was so powerful that the city's health officials started to do something. At last I had a strong partner in the fight against Mulberry Bend -- my camera. " Jacob Riis continued the fight to clean up the slums for many years. There were not many people to help him. It was a lonely fight. But his camera and fighting words helped to get a law passed which would destroy the Mulberry Bend slum. Finally, the great day came. The slum housing was gone. The area had become a park. "When they had fixed the ground so the grass could grow, I saw children dancing there in the sunlight. They were going to have a better life, thank God. We had given them their lost chance. I looked at these dancing children and saw how happy they were. This place that had been full of crime and murder became the most orderly in the city. "The murders and crimes disappeared when they let sunlight come into the Bend. The sunlight that shone upon children who had, at last, the right to play. That was what the Mulberry Bend Park meant. So the Bend went. And I was very happy that I had helped to make it go. " That was not Riis' last battle to make life cleaner and better for many people. He had great energy. And his love for people was as great as his energy. He started a campaign to get clean water for the state of New York. He showed that water for the state was not healthy for people. State officials were forced to take actions that would clean the water. He also worked to get laws against child labor, and made sure that these laws were obeyed. In those days, when Riis was a fighting newspaper reporter, laws against child labor were something new. People did not object to making young children work long hours, in places that had bad air and bad light. But in the United States today, child labor is not legal. It was because of men like Jacob Riis that this is so. He was also successful in getting playgrounds for children. And he helped establish centers for education and fun for older people. His book, "How the Other Half Lives," was published in eighteen ninety. He became famous. That book and his newspaper reports influenced many people. Theodore Roosevelt, who later became president of the United States, called Riis the most useful citizen in New York City. Riis continued to write about conditions that were in need of major reform. His twelve books including "Children of the Poor" helped improve conditions in the city. The books also made him popular as a speaker in other cities. Jacob Riis's concern for the poor kept him so busy writing and speaking around the country that he ruined his health. He died in nineteen fourteen. This Special English program was written by Herbert Sutcliffe and produced by Lawan Davis. I'm Ray Freeman. And I'm Shirley Griffith. Listen again next week for another PEOPLE IN AMERICA program on the Voice of America. Nellie Bly, 1864-1922: Newspaper Reporter Used Unusual Methods to Investigate and Write About Illegal Activities in New York City

Download MP3 (Right-click or option-click the link.) I'm Shirley Griffith. And I'm Ray Freeman with the Special English program, PEOPLE IN AMERICA. Every week we tell about a person important in the history of the United States. Today, we tell about a reporter of more than one hundred years ago. The year was eighteen eighty-seven. The place was New York City. A young woman, Elizabeth Cochrane, wanted a job at a large newspaper. The editor agreed, if she would investigate a hospital for people who were mentally sick and then write about it. Elizabeth Cochrane decided to become a patient in the hospital herself. She used the name Nellie Brown so no one would discover her or her purpose. Newspaper officials said they would get her released after a while. To prepare, Nellie put on old clothes and stopped washing. She went to a temporary home for women. She acted as if she had severe mental problems. She cried and screamed and stayed awake all night. The police were called. She was examined by doctors. Most said she was insane. Nellie Brown was taken to the mental hospital. It was dirty. Waste material was left outside the eating room. Bugs ran across the tables. The food was terrible: hard bread and gray-colored meat. Nurses bathed the patients in cold water and gave them only a thin piece of cloth to wear to bed. During the day, the patients did nothing but sit quietly. They had to talk in quiet voices. Yet, Nellie got to know some of them. Some were women whose families had put them in the hospital because they had been too sick to work. Some were women who had appeared insane because they were sick with fever. Now they were well, but they could not get out. Nellie recognized that the doctors and nurses had no interest in the patients' mental health. They were paid to keep the patients in a kind of jail. Nellie stayed in the hospital for ten days. Then a lawyer from the newspaper got her released. Five days later, the story of Elizabeth Cochrane's experience in the hospital appeared in the New York World newspaper. Readers were shocked. They wrote to officials of the city and the hospital protesting the conditions and patient treatment. An investigation led to changes at the hospital. Elizabeth Cochrane had made a difference in the lives of the people there. She made a difference in her own life too. She got her job at the New York World. And she wrote a book about her experience at the hospital. She did not write it as Nellie Brown, however, or as Elizabeth Cochrane. She wrote it under the name that always appeared on her newspaper stories: Nellie Bly. The child who would grow up to become Nellie Bly was born during the Civil War, in eighteen sixty-four, in western Pennsylvania. Her family called her Pink. Her father was a judge. He died when she was six years old. Her mother married again. But her new husband drank too much alcohol and beat her. She got a divorce in eighteen seventy-nine, when Pink was fifteen years old. Pink decided to learn to support herself so she would never need a man. Pink, her mother, brothers and sisters moved to a town near the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pink worked at different jobs but could not find a good one. One day, she read something in the Pittsburgh Dispatch newspaper. The editor of the paper, Erasmus Wilson, wrote that it was wrong for women to get jobs. He said men should have them. Pink wrote the newspaper to disagree. She said she had been looking for a good job for about four years, as she had no father or husband to support her. She signed it "Orphan Girl". The editors of the dispatch liked her letter. They put a note in the paper asking "Orphan Girl" to visit. Pink did. Mr. Wilson offered her a job. He said she could not sign her stories with her real name, because no woman writer did that. He asked news writers for suggestions. One was Nellie Bly, the name of a girl in a popular song. So Pink became Nellie Bly. For nine months, she wrote stories of interest to women. Then she left the newspaper because she was not permitted to write what she wanted. She went to Mexico to find excitement. She stayed there six months, sending stories to the Dispatch to be published. Soon after she returned to the Pittsburgh Dispatch, she decided to look for another job. Nellie Bly left for New York City and began her job at the New York World. As a reporter for the New York World, Nellie Bly investigated and wrote about illegal activities in the city. For one story, she acted as if she was a mother willing to sell her baby. For another, she pretended to be a woman who cleaned houses so she could report about illegal activities in employment agencies. Today, a newspaper reporter usually does not pretend to be someone else to get information for a story. Most newspapers ban such acts. But in Nellie Bly's day, reporters used any method to get information, especially if they were trying to discover people guilty of doing something wrong. Nellie Bly's success at this led newspapers to employ more women. But she was the most popular of the women writers. History experts say Nellie Bly was special because she included her own ideas and feelings in everything she wrote. They say her own voice seemed to speak on the page. Nellie Bly's stories always provided detailed descriptions. And her stories always tried to improve society. Critics said Nellie Bly was an example of what a reporter can do, even today. She saw every situation as a chance to make a real difference in other people's lives as well as her own. Nellie Bly may be best remembered in history for a trip she took. In the eighteen seventies, French writer Jules Verne wrote the book "Around the World in Eighty Days." It told of a man's attempt to travel all around the world. He succeeded. In real life, no one had tried. By eighteen eighty-eight, a number of reporters wanted to do it. Nellie Bly told her editors she would go even if they did not help her. But they did. Nellie Bly left New York for France on November fourteenth, eighteen eighty-nine. She met Jules Verne at his home in France. She told him about her plans to travel alone by train and ship around the world. From France she went to Italy and Egypt, through South Asia to Singapore and Japan, then to San Francisco and back to New York. Nellie Bly's trip created more interest in Jules Verne's book. Before the trip was over, "Around the World in Eighty Days" was published again. And a theater in Paris had plans to produce a stage play of the book. Back home in New York, the World was publishing the stories Bly wrote while travelling. On days when the mail brought no story from her, the editors still found something to write about it. They published new songs written about Bly and new games based on her trip. The newspaper announced a competition to guess how long her trip would take. The prize was a free trip to Europe. By December second, about one hundred thousand readers had sent in their estimates. Nellie Bly arrived back where she started on January twenty-fifth, eighteen ninety. It had taken her seventy-six days, six hours, eleven minutes and fourteen seconds. She was twenty-five years old. And she was famous around the world. Elizabeth Cochrane died in New York in nineteen twenty- two. She was fifty-eight years old. In the years since her famous trip, she had married, and headed a business. She also had helped poor and homeless children. And she had continued to write all her life for newspapers and magazines as Nellie Bly. One newspaper official wrote this about her after her death: "Nellie Bly was the best reporter in America. More important is the work of which the world knew nothing. She died leaving little money. What she had was promised to take care of children without homes, for whom she wished to provide. Her life was useful. She takes with her from this Earth all that she cared about -- an honorable name, the respect and affection of her fellow workers, the memory of good fights well fought and many good deeds never to be forgotten. Happy the man or woman that can leave as good a record." This VOA Special English program, PEOPLE IN AMERICA, was written by Nancy Steinbach. Your narrators were Shirley Griffith and Ray Freeman. Walter Cronkite, 1916-2009: A Trusted TV Newsman

Or download MP3 (Right-click or option-click and save link) I'm Steve Ember. And I'm Shirley Griffith with PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English. WALTER CRONKITE: "And that's the way it is ... And that's the way it is ..." For almost twenty years, that was how Walter Cronkite would end his newscasts. Americans all knew him. So did many world leaders. Today's news anchors could only hope for such recognition. He was often called the most trusted man in America. He anchored the "CBS Evening News" until nineteen eighty-one. The sixties and seventies produced more than enough stories to fill a daily newscast. Those were years of social change and civil rights protests. Years that saw John Kennedy, his brother Robert and Martin Luther King all murdered, the war in Southeast Asia expand, a president resign. Years of worry that the same rockets that could take people to the moon could also bring nuclear war to Earth. And years when most of us still thought of a "mouse" as a small creature. Yet smart minds were thinking up the technology behind today's computers and the Internet. Walter Cronkite brought it all home each evening, Monday through Friday. As President Barack Obama said in a statement: "He was there through wars and riots, marches and milestones, calmly telling us what we needed to know." And when the anchorman was not in front of the camera, there was a good chance he was on his boat. He went sailing up until almost his final days. He died on July seventeenth, two thousand nine, at the age of ninety-two. Walter Cronkite was born on November fourth, nineteen sixteen, in Saint Joseph, Missouri. His father was a dentist, his mother a housewife. With young Walter, the family moved from the Midwest to Texas. He worked on his high school newspaper and later left the University of Texas at Austin to become a journalist. He was a newspaper and radio reporter and sports announcer. In nineteen forty he married Mary Elizabeth Maxwell, known as Betsy. They had three children and were together for nearly sixty-five years, until Betsy died in two thousand five. As a young reporter, Walter Cronkite covered World War Two. He worked for United Press, the wire service which later became United Press International. He landed in Holland with American soldiers in a glider. And he was in a military plane overhead as Allied forces stormed the beach at Normandy, France. It was June sixth, nineteen forty-four, the start of the Allied invasion of Europe, the final push to defeat Nazi Germany. Later, Walter Cronkite reported on the trials of Nazi war criminals at Nuremburg, Germany. One day during the war, the famous journalist Edward R. Murrow offered him a job. It was a chance to report for a major television network, CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System. Yet TV was still young then. Walter Cronkite decided to stay where he was. United Press raised his pay and later made him its chief in Moscow. But in nineteen fifty he accepted another offer and went to work for CBS. One of his early programs was a history show where he questioned actors playing people like Aristotle and Joan of Arc. But he was a serious newsman, and in nineteen fifty- two he led CBS' coverage of the national political conventions. They were the first to be televised coast to coast. Ten years later, on April sixteenth, nineteen sixty-two, he became anchor of the "CBS Evening News." The program was only fifteen minutes long then. It took him two years to get his wish to extend it to thirty minutes. He also became managing editor, which expanded his influence over the program. WALTER CRONKITE: "I participate very directly in the entire process -- in the decision of what stories we cover, in the decision on how we're covering them, what length of time we're going to give to them. It's a continuing process. I write part of the broadcast. Every bit of copy that goes on the broadcast passes through my hands. I edit every word that I say, I say no words that have not gone through my hand, many of them my own." Walter Cronkite met some of the most important people of his time. This was the time of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. In one interview, though, he asked President John F. Kennedy about another conflict that was growing then. WALTER CRONKITE: "Mister President, the only hot war we've got running at the moment is of course the one in Vietnam." JOHN KENNEDY: "I don't think that, uh, unless a greater effort is made by the government to win popular support, that the war can be won out there." Americans would come to find truth in Kennedy's words. But, just two months after that interview, shots were fired at his open-top car. As we will hear later, Walter Cronkite had the sad duty of reporting that the young president was dead. Happier moments came as he reported on the American space program. In July of nineteen sixty-nine he was almost speechless when Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon. WALTER CRONKITE: "Oh, boy! Whew! Boy!" Walter Cronkite rarely expressed his own opinions. That was not a reporter's job. But in the late sixties he went to report on the war to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam. President Lyndon Johnson and his advisers kept telling Americans that the United States was making progress. Walter Cronkite went to see for himself. Then, in a commentary in February of nineteen sixty-eight, he said the war seemed unwinnable. WALTER CRONKITE: "It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate." Some people denounced him and questioned his loyalty. Others praised him for "speaking truth to power," as some might say. Several weeks later, Lyndon Johnson surprised Americans and announced that he would not seek re-election. The unpopular war had cost him support. It was Richard Nixon who brought home most of the troops before South Vietnam fell to the north in nineteen seventy- five. But it was also Nixon who became the first and only American president to resign. Americans learned from the press that there was political corruption in his administration. Night after night, millions turned to Walter Cronkite for the latest developments. There were other anchors and other networks. But people thought of him like family -- "Uncle Walter." He anchored the "CBS Evening News" for nineteen years. He was sixty-four when he stepped down on March sixth, nineteen eighty-one. But he explained that he was not leaving the network. WALTER CRONKITE: "Old anchormen, you see, don't fade away; they just keep coming back for more. And that's the way it is. Friday, March sixth, nineteen eighty-one." Now, Steve Ember looks back with a personal story about Walter Cronkite. I remember the afternoon of November twenty-second, nineteen sixty-three. I was a first-year student at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and was relaxing between classes at the student union building. A TV was on. My eyes were elsewhere, but my ear was caught by the unmistakable voice of Walter Cronkite. WALTER CRONKITE: "A bulletin from CBS News. In Dallas Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas. The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting." The first bulletins coming in from Dallas were read by Cronkite over the CBS News "bulletin" slide. WALTER CRONKITE: "More details just arrived. President Kennedy shot today, just as his motorcade left downtown Dallas. Missus Kennedy jumped up and grabbed Mister Kennedy. She called 'Oh, no!'" Before long, though, there were pictures, with Cronkite at his desk in the CBS newsroom in New York. For so many of us, the presidency of J.F.K. represented a time of promise. "This could not be happening" was the sentiment expressed as a growing crowd gathered around that black-and-white TV set. And Walter Cronkite, in measured tones, informed us that yes it was. What I'll always remember was seeing him, about an hour later, momentarily take off his thick dark rimmed glasses, and announce: WALTER CRONKITE: "From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official, President Kennedy died at one p.m. Central Standard Time, two o'clock Eastern Standard Time, some thirty-eight minutes ago." You could see the flash of emotion as Cronkite removed and replaced his glasses and regained his composure. WALTER CRONKITE: "Vice President Lyndon Johnson has left the hospital in Dallas, but we do not know to where he has proceeded. Presumably, he will be taking the oath of office shortly, and become the thirty-sixth president of the United States." But going beyond this trusted anchor's solid presence in delivering such news, you have to know something about television news in that era. There wasn't the clutter of crawls, flashing graphics or other moving "stuff" that we see today. There was Walter Cronkite in shirtsleeves, with a microphone in front of him. That was it -- nothing to distract the senses from the message. It was up close, and very personal. It was not long after the Kennedy assassination that I actually got to meet Mister Cronkite. He was anchoring live coverage of the nineteen sixty-four Maryland Democratic primary election, originating in Baltimore. I was hired in a minor role on the CBS production team for that night's broadcast. I can't say I remember all that much about the experience, other than it being very fast-paced. But what I do remember was, at the end of that long, continuous coverage -- it must have been about two a.m. -- Cronkite sat down briefly with us production functionaries to chat. I could not begin to tell you what we spoke about. It was enough to be in the presence of this great anchor I so admired, and to realize he was not above having a beer at the end of a very long broadcast with low-level support people. That was the sort of thing that made a young man with broadcasting stars in his eyes ... glow in the dark. I'm Steve Ember. And I'm Shirley Griffith. Our program was written by Jerilyn Watson and produced by Dana Demange. You can find transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English.