Robert Breckenridge Ware MacNeil was born in Montreal on January 19, 1931 and grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. After leaving home to attend boarding school, he returned to Halifax in the late 1940's and enrolled in Dalhousie University. Then spurred by ambition to become an actor and playwright, MacNeil withdrew from school and found employment as a radio actor with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He also began working in commercial radio as an announcer and DJ. After doing summer stock in New York for several months, MacNeil returned to Ottawa where he worked at the CBC and with a commercial station while completing his degree at Carleton University. Upon graduation in 1955, MacNeil sailed to London, intent on giving one more chance to his dramatic ambitions. Disillusioned with his prospects there, MacNeil joined the Reuters News Service and worked as a rewrite man until 1960. During this period he also served as a stringer for the CBC.

In January, 1960, Reuters gave MacNeil his first assignment as a correspondent by sending him to cover a UN conference in Tangiers. The experience convinced him that reporting was preferable to a desk job, and he signed on with NBC as a roving foreign correspondent. MacNeil subsequently covered many of the major international news stories of the early 1960's including the Algerian Civil War, the Congo, and the construction of the Berlin Wall. During the Cuban Missile Crisis MacNeil was in Havana briefly, but he was apprehended and deported.

In 1963 MacNeil was transferred to NBC's Washington Bureau. After covering the civil rights movement from this base, he was assigned to cover the White House. As a result, MacNeil was riding in President Kennedy's motorcade at the time of the assassination in Dallas, and MacNeil was thought by some to have encountered Lee Harvey Oswald in the lobby of the Book Depository as he (MacNeil) searched for a telephone to file the story.

MacNeil spent most of 1964 covering the Goldwater campaign. In May, 1965 he transferred to New York and was assigned the job of anchoring WNBC's evening news. Later in the year he teamed with Ray Scherer on the network Saturday evening news, while still maintaining his anchor on WNBC. Increasingly disappointed with network television, MacNeil resigned from the two anchor positions in mid-1966 and from NBC in early 1967. During this period he began work on his first book, The People Machine: The Influence of Television on American Politics (1968), a criticism of television's ability to shape and manipulate the electorate's perceptions and behavior.

Early in 1967 MacNeil became a reporter for the BBC television series Panorama, which many considered to be a forerunner of 60 Minutes. In addition to conducting interviews with important figures and providing coverage of events on both sides of the Atlantic (student and worker uprisings in Paris and the 1968 National Democratic Convention), MacNeil also began his association with American public television as a London-based correspondent for Public Broadcasting Laboratory's The Whole World is Watching (1968) and International Magazine (1969-70).

In September, 1971 MacNeil left the BBC in order to accept a position as a senior correspondent for PBS's newly-formed National Public Affairs Center for Television (NPACT). There MacNeil was teamed with Sander Vanocur on A Public Affair/Election '72 and also served as moderator on Washington Week in Review. In early 1973 he appeared on the weekly news magazine America '73. Later in the year he began his long term association with Jim Lehrer during PBS's coverage of the Watergate hearings. Shortly thereafter, MacNeil was re-hired by the BBC and based in the United States.

In 1975 MacNeil returned to public television for a third time when he was hired by WNET to develop and anchor his own news analysis program. This show, airing for the first time in October and carried by WETA in Washington, D.C. as well as by WNET, served as the prototype for the MacNeil-Lehrer Report (later the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour) which began in 1976.

In addition to his work as co-anchor on the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour, MacNeil has since produced and narrated several PBS serial documentaries. In 1982 he published his professional biography, In the Right Place at the Right Time.

The Robert MacNeil Papers reflect the early career of a journalist who helped to shape news broadcasting on public television into a mature alternative to the commercial networks. The papers consist of biographical material, drafts of his two books and other speeches and writings, and files on various segments of his career in broadcast journalism.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND PERSONAL MATERIAL consists of personal correspondence, information on awards, memorabilia, and numerous biographical clippings.

WRITINGS AND ADDRESSES consist of speeches, related correspondence, testimony before the Presidential Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence (1968), and correspondence, notes, and variant drafts of his two books: The People Machine (1968), which analyzed the influence of television upon the electorate, and the autobiographical In the Right Place at the Right Time (1928).

The BROADCAST JOURNALISM files have been organized to reflect MacNeil's periods of employment with Reuters and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (1956-60), the BBC (1967-71; 1973-75), and public television (1968-73; 1975-). Papers relating to MacNeil's early career in Canada are not represented, however. The Reuters file consists of a style manual and a run of notes and memoranda for correspondents in the field. MacNeil's stringer work for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is documented by scripts.

MacNeil's days as an NBC News roving foreign correspondent are represented by an extensive file of radio and television scripts (often supplemented by notes, memoranda, and other related material) and viewer correspondence concerning the broadcasting of news programs and special assignments. Of special note is an extensive quantity of material resulting from his presence in Dallas at the time of President Kennedy's assassination. Coverage of the Goldwater presidential campaign is also extensively documented. A number of his NBC stories are also documented by tape recordings.

MacNeil was twice employed by the BBC. During the earlier period (1967-1971) he covered events on both sides of the Atlantic as a reporter for the innovative Panorama program. During the latter period (1973-1975) MacNeil was based in the U.S. with the greater part of his work involving programs centered on Watergate and President Nixon. Script material and a small amount of correspondence provide the documentation of this work.

MacNeil's first involvement with public television in the U.S. occurred in 1968 when he served as London-based correspondent and interviewer for the Public Broadcasting Laboratory's The Whole World Is Watching. Included are many tape transcripts and other reference material concerning the election coverage of the major American networks. Over the next two years MacNeil contributed to PBL in the form of reports from London for International Magazine. In 1971 MacNeil was hired as a senior correspondent for the newly incorporated National Public Affairs Center for Television (NPACT). For this period in his career scripts and related material, as well as viewer correspondence, are included for A Public Affair/Election 1972, Washington Week in Review, and America '73.

Also included here is a file entitled "The Fight" gathered by Jim Lehrer concerning the extended funding controversy between public broadcasting and the Nixon Administration. This detailed file consists of station messages, staff correspondence, memoranda, reports, and speeches. Documenting his return to public broadcasting to develop his own news program are memoranda from an early staff planning session, publicity, and a small amount of script material. Transcripts of virtually all of the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour programs are available on microfilm in the Historical Society Library.