The Robert Knight McCormick papers relate almost exclusively to his career as a news correspondent for the National Broadcasting Company. The majority of the papers date from 1951 to 1966, with the bulk of the collection comprised of radio and television news scripts. The collection also includes correspondence, a transcribed tape interview with McCormick, and subject files generated during particular assignments on which he worked throughout his career. McCormick has attached informative, handwritten notes to some papers in the collection. His correspondence with the Society's Field Services Division also contains some pertinent information.
The taped INTERVIEW with McCormick was conducted in 1964 by Leslie H. Fishel Jr., then director of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Topics covered include McCormick's career and his reporting on politics and personalities in the news during the New Deal, World War II, and the post-war era.
The CORRESPONDENCE, 1944-1963, falls into three groups. The first section, 1944-1946, includes letters and expense accounts dating from McCormick's assignment in the Pacific during World War II. Of particular interest are letters to William Brooks, director of the News and Special Events Department, concerning problems in establishing a broadcasting system and a smaller amount of correspondence with Admiral Chester Nimitz and others concerning difficulties created by Nimitz's chief censor. The second group, 1953-1954, contains telegrams about scheduling and assignments sent by NBC to McCormick while he was on assignment in Germany. The third group consists of listener correspondence, 1959-1966.
The SCRIPTS, 1943-1966, are divided into three categories: radio, television, and unidentified media. Within each category the scripts are arranged alphabetically by program title and chronologically thereunder. In content, the scripts generally reflect McCormick's varied international and political assignments.
Because his reports were primarily broadcast over the radio, NBC RADIO SCRIPTS comprise the major portion of the collection. Within this section scripts for News on the Hour bulk largest. This five-minute program was broadcast on the hour seventeen times daily. For a while McCormick's regular assignment was the 4:00 P.M. News on the Hour broadcast. Another frequent assignment was News of the World, a 7:30 P.M. daily news program anchored by Morgan Beatty. McCormick's contribution consisted primarily of one-page reports on political events. The collection also contains scripts broadcast over Monitor, primarily reports on post-war Germany, hourly news headlines, congressional news, and comments on national and international affairs. Other programs for which McCormick occasionally wrote include Emphasis, Hotline, News in Depth, Nightline, Today in Washington, and Weekend Report.
Filed as miscellany are a bulletin interrupt, a promotion for a local Virginia station, and scripts entitled “Hourly” for which the precise program format could not be determined. Under the heading World War II are scripts broadcast during the war for which the program title was uncertain. The specials category includes reports on a wide variety of topics such as the 1960 New Hampshire primaries, the Senate investigation of Billie Sol Estes, a 1964 civil rights march, the funeral of John F. Kennedy, and a 1964 nuclear explosion.
The NBC TELEVISION SCRIPTS, 1955-1966, which make up a relatively small portion of the collection, document such programs as Comment, Day Report, Eleventh Hour News, News and Comment, Situation Report, Today, and Vietnam Weekly Review. The latter file includes an interview with Senator William J. Fulbright. In addition, there are few scripts for news carried over WNBW and WNBC-TV, including material for programs entitled Your Senator Reports and Your Man in Office on which Senators Jacob Javits and Abraham Ribicoff and Representative Peter Rodino were interviewed. Other scripts for use on local stations are filed under the category syndication. The miscellaneous category contains scripts for one-time appearances on series such as Outlook and Here and Now, a filler, and several brief news spots.
The NBC SCRIPTS-UNIDENTIFIED MEDIA divide into four categories: scripts broadcast over an unidentified New York station, scripts broadcast from Germany, scripts for some specials, and miscellany.
The SUBJECT FILES consist primarily of non-script material related to specials, background reports and memoranda for NBC officials, unused story ideas, and a small amount of non-NBC material relating to magazine articles. Of particular interest are McCormick's scripts for the first coast-to-coast television broadcast, a special on American Indians (“The American Stranger”), and one on the Angolan situation (“Angola: Journey to a War”).
“The American Stranger,” which was broadcast November 16, 1958, as part of the Kaleidoscope series, was an hour-long documentary dealing with conditions on certain reservations and the policies of the federal government toward Indians and Indian lands. The program was critical of government policy and generated a great deal of controversy which is reflected in the correspondence files. The papers relating to this program provide relatively complete documentation from inception of the original idea, through research and production, to viewer reaction. Attached to some items are explanatory notes prepared by McCormick. The researcher is warned, however, that some material appears not to correspond with his descriptions, and it is possible that some items may have been removed from the collection between its original processing in 1964 and its reprocessing in 1978.
“Angola: Journey to a War” was another controversial television program with which McCormick was involved. This program was broadcast on September 19, 1961, as part of the NBC White Paper series. Some of the material was also used on the Today program in October, 1961. Of special interest in this subject file is the correspondence between McCormick and Robert Sarnoff and other NBC officials. The subject file entitled Japanese Peace Treaty includes clippings and scripts for the first coast-to-coast television broadcast which was made at the time of the signing of the peace treaty with Japan. One typewritten script introduces Dean Acheson; the closing script is handwritten. The remainder of the subject files are small, and their titles are self explanatory.
The entire Robert Knight McCormick collection has been microfilmed, at which time deteriorating files were returned to the donor. The researcher may also want to consult the papers and recordings which are part of the National Broadcasting Company Papers (17AF) for further McCormick material.
