George Herman papers

George Herman was born on January 14, 1920, in Manhattan, New York. He attended the Horace Mann School before earning a degree in mathematics from Dartmouth College in 1941. He went on to receive a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University in 1942 and began his career as a radio news writer for Manhattan-based station WQXR that same year. He joined CBS in 1944 as a radio news writer and was the first broadcaster on air to announce Japan’s surrender during World War II.

Herman’s first television broadcast occurred in 1948, at the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia. A year later he traveled to Asia and provided CBS with its first sound and film reports from overseas. This secured him a role as a combat reporter during the Korean War, beginning in 1950, where he landed with United Nations troops at Inchon. Herman’s career was primarily in political journalism, and he served as a CBS White House correspondent during both the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations.

Beginning in 1969, Herman hosted the Face the Nation program, a post he held for 14 years until 1983. During this time, he interviewed high-profile political guests as well as celebrities, such as Ayatollah Khomeini, Muhammad Ali, and President John F. Kennedy. He was also heavily involved in reporting on the break-in at the Democratic national headquarters at Watergate, delivering the first broadcast report of the event in 1972. He served as CBS’s co-anchor for the duration of the Senate Watergate hearings.

Herman met Patricia Kerwin when she worked in the press office during the Eisenhower administration. The two married in 1955 and had three sons: Charles, Scott, and Douglas. Herman retired from CBS in 1987. He died of heart failure at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C., on February 8, 2005.