David Franz Schoenbrun, son of Max and Lucy (Cassirer) Schoenbrun, was born in New York City, March 15, 1915. He graduated from Townsend Harris Hall Prep School in 1930 and from City College, New York in 1934. In 1938 he married Dorothy Scher; they have one child, Lucy. From 1934 to 1935, he taught French and Spanish at Townsend Harris Hall, and in the New York City high schools from 1935 to 1936. Then, in a complete change of pace, Schoenbrun took a job as labor relations adjustor for the Dress Manufacturers Association and edited their trade paper.
From 1942 to 1943, he was chief of the Office of War Information, European propaganda desk. In 1943 he became the Chief Allied Forces newsroom commentator on the United Nations radio in Algeria, North Africa. From 1944 to 1945, he was a U.S. Intelligence Liaison Officer with the French Army, and in 1945 was combat correspondent with the U.S. 7th Army. He became a free-lance foreign correspondent in 1945, and worked for CBS News in France from 1946 to 1962. In 1962 CBS appointed him Bureau Chief and Chief Correspondent for CBS News in Washington, D.C. After 1964, he was associated with Metromedia as world affairs correspondent.
In 1967 he made an eleven-week field study in the Pacific and Asia sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. He visited Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, South Vietnam, Cambodia, North Vietnam, and Thailand. In 1968 at Columbia, he taught the first one-year course on the history of Vietnam; this was the first such course offered in the United States.
Schoenbrun has been decorated with the Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre (France). In 1957 he was recipient of the Best Book of Foreign Affairs award, and in 1959 he received the Alfred DuPont award as best radio-TV commentator. He has published three books: As France Goes (1957), The Three Lives of Charles De Gaulle (1965), and David Schoenbrun on Vietnam: How Did We Get In? How Can We Get Out? (1968).
