Hedrick Smith

Author and Documentary Filmmaker

Hedrick Smith is an author and an Emmy Award-winning producer and correspondent for PBS and Frontline.

From 1962 to 1988, Mr. Smith was a reporter for the New York Times, where he covered Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights struggle, the Vietnam War in Saigon, the Middle East conflict from Cairo, the Cold War from both Moscow and Washington, and six American presidents and their administrations.

In 1971, as chief diplomatic correspondent, he was a member of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team that produced the Pentagon Papers series. In 1974, he won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting from Russia and Eastern Europe.

He is the author of “The Russians,” which was based on his years as New York Times Moscow Bureau Chief, and “The Power Game: How Washington Works.” His latest book, “Who Stole the American Dream?,” was published by Random House in 2012.

Since 1989, Mr. Smith has created more than two dozen prime-time specials and documentary series on terrorism, Wall Street, Soviet perestroika, Wal-Mart, Enron, tax evasion, educational reform, health care, the environment, jazz greats Duke Ellington and Dave Brubeck, and Washington’s power game.

He was educated at Williams College and did graduate work at Oxford University.