Wilson Hall, a well-known foreign correspondent and reporter with
NBC for over 20 years, was born in Champaign, Illinois, on November 5,
1922. After receiving a degree in Speech and English from the
University of Illinois in 1943, he enlisted in the army and served in
Europe until his discharge in 1946. Hall then returned to the United
States where he was offered a job by his alma
mater as an instructor. In 1947 he enrolled in an M.F.A. program
at Yale University, but not long after completing his degree, he again
enlisted in the army and this time served in Korea until 1953.
Hall began his broadcasting career immediately after his discharge,
staying in Korea to cover the prisoner exchange program and
treatysigning at Panmunjom for NBC. In October 1953 he opened the
network's bureau in Cairo, and for the next three years he covered
various trouble spots throughout the Middle East. This assignment ended
when illness forced him to return to the United States early in 1957.
After several years as a commentator in NBC's New York headquarters,
Hall was assigned to Cuba. This assignment coincided with the
revolution, and he was briefly jailed following Castro's rise to power.
Hall's next assignment was in Latin America, which he covered for over
four years as bureau chief in Rio de Janeiro. From 1965 to 1967 Hall
did a daily “Vietnam Report” on the Today show from New York. In the fall of the latter year he became a
war correspondent, covering the Tet offensive from Saigon, Hue, and
DaNang. Hall returned briefly to the United States to be a floor
reporter for NBC's radio news coverage of the 1968 political
conventions. Later that same year he was again sent to the Middle East,
this time as bureau chief in Beirut. After returning to the United
States in May 1971, subsequent assignments took him to New York and
Washington, D.C. In October 1968 he became anchorman and managing
editor of WAST-TV, a CBS affiliate in Albany, New York.
