Albert Merriman Smith was an American wire service reporter, notably serving as White House correspondent for United Press International and its predecessor, United Press.
11 Facts About Merriman Smith
2.
Merriman Smith won the Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for his coverage of the assassination of John F Kennedy and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 by Lyndon B Johnson.
3.
Albert Merriman Smith was born on February 10,1913, in Savannah, Georgia.
4.
Consequently, Smith was in Warm Springs, Georgia, on April 12,1945, and filed one of the first reports on the death of President Franklin D Roosevelt.
5.
On November 22,1963, Smith was the main UPI reporter in Dallas for John F Kennedy's visit.
6.
Merriman Smith traveled in the motorcade in the White House Pool car, which had a radiotelephone.
7.
Merriman Smith stayed on the phone while Jack Bell, the AP reporter in the car, started punching Smith and yelling at him to hand the phone over.
8.
Merriman Smith was the first to publicly use the term "grassy knoll" regarding the assassination.
9.
Merriman Smith was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967.
10.
Despondent over the death of his son in the Vietnam War and perhaps suffering from PTSD as a result of witnessing the Kennedy assassination, Merriman Smith died at his home in Alexandria, Va.
11.
Merriman Smith's name was removed from the award in 2022 because of his support of excluding Black and female journalists from membership in the National Press Club and from attending the White House Correspondents' Dinner.