Letter, Edward R. Murrow to Eric Sevareid offering Sevareid a job with Columbia Broadcasting System's (CBS) European office on the eve of World War II, 16 August 1939

Reproduction number: A76 (color slide)
Over his long career with the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), first in radio and then television, Eric Sevareid (1912-1992) proved himself to be one of the most talented, thoughtful, and respected broadcast journalists of his day, with a career at CBS that stretched from 1939 to 1977. As this letter shows, Sevareid also had superb timing. In 1939 he was a young print reporter working for United Press International's wire service in Paris, France. In August, Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965), head of CBS radio operations in Europe, offered Sevareid a position with the company's Paris office. Sevareid accepted, and less than three weeks later World War II began and Paris became one of the premier locations for reporting the war's early years. Audiences for Sevareid's radio broadcasts ballooned, and the war provided a never-ending supply of newsworthy stories. Luck and good timing may have gotten him the job, but Sevareid's talent took him the rest of the way.