Death apparent suicide
Correspondent Merriman Smith dies
WASHINGTON (UPI)—Merriman Smith, distinguished White House correspondent for United Press International, was found dead in his home late Monday, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot. He was 57.
He had covered six Presidents over a span of more than 28 years. As "dean" of White House correspondents, he was the one who usually ended presidential news conferences with "Thank you, Mr. President."
He was an aggressive reporter, facile writer, talented speaker, and friend not only of presidents but of legions of figures high and low in the realms of politics, business and entertainment.
Smith won the Pulitzer Prize, American journalism's highest award, for his reporting of the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. He sent the first bulletin of the shooting in Dallas from a radiotelephone in a car speeding toward the hospital and stayed with the story until Kennedy's body was returned to Washington, where Smith wrote a moving recapitulation of the day's events.
He was at Warm Springs, Ga., when Roosevelt died in 1945, and won the national Headliners Award for his coverage of that story.
In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded him the Freedom Medal, the nation's highest civilian medal, for meritorious achievement.
His competitive spirit was demonstrated in 1945 when President Harry S. Truman announced the
end of the war in Europe. In the stampede to the press room, Smith fell and broke his collarbone, but got to the telephone and dictated his story before getting medical aid.
News of his death brought warm tributes. United Press International President Mims Thomason said "Smitty was a great newspaperman guided by the highest ethics of his profession."
Robert J. Donovan, chief Washington correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, said Smith "was the last of the authentic straight news reporters."
Smith was born Feb. 18, 1913, in Savannah, Ga. He was a student at Oglethorpe University and entered the news field as a sports writer. After working for
newspapers in Atlanta and Athens, Ga., he joined United Press Associations, working in Georgia and Florida. He was transferred to Washington in 1940 and was assigned to the White House a year later.
He was married to Eleanor Doyle Brill in 1937. They had three children, Merriman Jr., an Army captain who died in a Vietnam helicopter crash in 1967;
Timothy and Allison, both students. His first marriage ended in divorce and in 1966 he married Galley L. Johnson. They had one child, Gillean.
Late Monday afternoon, Mrs. Smith discovered Smith's body in a bathroom after he did not answer her calls. A. 357 Magnum revolver—he was an avid gun collector—was on the floor. He left no note.
Kansas City bombings minor
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (UPI) — Dynamite was exploded at a racially troubled high school, a church, and a police building, all on the city's East Side, in a span of eight minutes early today.
No injuries were reported, there was no fire, and police said there was little if any structural damage to the target buildings. However, windows were shattered in those structures and in neighboring buildings.
At 12:06 a.m. an explosion caused what was described as "minor damage" at a police academy building which is in the process of being vacated. Windows were broken and the front door was damaged at the academy building and there was glass damage at a plumbing company and a dress shop across the street.
The first explosion occurred at 12:01 a.m., when dynamite was detonated at the school's library door. Only the door was damaged.
At 12:09 a.m. a dynamite explosion at the Linwood Methodist
Church blew out all the windows in the church and broke "seven or eight" windows in the First Baptist Church, located across the street.
Investigating officers said the explosives "apparently weren't very well planted."
"It's as if someone in a hurry tossed a stick of dynamite against a building or into shrubbery," a detective said.
Timing of the blasts and the distance between locations indicated the explosives were planned by different persons working under a joint plan, he said.
"I don't think you could get from East High to the Academy in five minutes."
A woman living near East High School, which has been the scene of demonstrations as recently as last week when 73 students were suspended, told police she saw several Negro men run between nearby houses to a waiting car in which they fled.
Black militants had appeared at the Linwood Methodist Church
TONIGHT
Vanessa Collins, speaking for the black group said, "We have been trying to get our demands met and he (Medley) said he has been giving us consideration for three years, but the time has come for liberation and an end to consideration."
Medley said, "We give consideration to anything that comes through normal channels." He said Monday's action did not represent normal channels.
fellini la strada
Among the demands of the BSU group were "fair elections," a black spring homecoming queen, one black cheerleader, black literature for all grades and an "all-black Black Students Union."
Medley said, "We had some disturbance today involving our students and outsiders and we're trying to decide now what action we want to take."
LHS blacks interrupt classes,ask liberation
Tues., 7 & 9 p.m.
Dyche Aud.
Non-Members $1
2 KANSAN
Other office personnel were in the room at the same time but there was no violence. The door was unlocked and normal traffic resumed nearly half an hour later.
Nearly 50 students locked themselves in the main Lawrence High office shortly after 2 p.m. One student said the action prompted an announcement from Medley to all teachers to close and lock their classroom doors and not to let anybody in.
Signs were posted in the cafeteria and the halls Monday morning saying, "boycott queen elections," and "elections are unfair."
Classes were temporarily interrupted at Lawrence High School Monday by the LHS Black Students Union in an effort to draw attention to their demands made to principal William Medley.
Apr.14 1970
on successive Sundays, March 25 and April 6, and read a "manifesto" demanding an end of hypocracy in the church and contribution of 30 per cent of the church's income for black service organizations.
KU FILM SOCIETY