Werner, Merle McDougald "Doug" (1913-2004), Interview, 2000 (C3034)
1 folder, 4 audio cassettes
INTRODUCTION
The collection contains cassettes and a transcript of an interview with a war correspondent and foreign service officer who was one of twenty journalists to land at Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944.
DONOR INFORMATION
Merle McDougald "Doug" Werner donated his interview to the State Historical Society of Missouri on November 3, 2000 (Accession No. 6056).
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Doug Werner was born January 28, 1913, in Bladen, Nebraska. He became interested in newswriting as a teenager, and he worked on his brother, Mark’s paper during summer vacations. He attended the University of Nebraska for two years, then transferred to the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Following graduation in 1934, he went to work at his brother’s paper, the Scottsbluff (Nebraska) Tribune. After a year and a half as editor of the Tribune, he had stints at the Wyoming Eagle and Omaha World Bee-News. When the latter was sold, Werner moved to Des Moines and joined United Press as a night editor. He remained there nearly four years before relocating to Washington, DC, in December 1941. He had been on the job two days when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Because of poor eyesight, he received a military deferment, and he covered war news in the nation’s capitol until moving to London in late 1942. Walter Cronkite was among his close colleagues in England reporting on the air war.
In the spring of 1944, Werner accepted an offer to accompany 9th Air Force engineers on the Allied invasion of France. Carrying his portable typewriter, he waded ashore on Utah Beach the morning of D-Day and wrote an account of the landing that night. He later covered the liberation of Paris, the American occupation of Berlin, the Potsdam Conference, and the Nüremberg trials. His posts in following years included Austria, Greece, and Czechoslovakia. He was an editor in New York during the Korean War.
Werner left United Press and went to work for the U.S. State Department in 1952. He was a foreign service officer with the United States Information Agency (USIA) in Stockholm from 1953 to 1957, and in Vienna from 1957 to 1960. He worked in Washington, DC, during most of the Kennedy administration. In subsequent years his overseas assignments took him to Manila, Taipei, and Seoul. He retired from USIA in 1970 and worked part-time for Voice Of America for more than a decade. He was active in organizations such as Overseas Press Club of America, and Diplomatic And Consular Officers, Retired (DACOR). In 1994, he and three other D-Day participants were honored by the State Department in conjunction with the fiftieth anniversary of that event. He died May 19, 2004, at his home in Falls Church, Virginia.
SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE
The interview was conducted at the Werners’ kitchen table and recorded in two parts totaling three hours, with a lunch break in between. Part one covered Doug Werner’s years with United Press, plus brief discussion of his schooling at the University of Missouri and his early newspaper jobs in Nebraska. Part two focused on his career in the foreign service. Dorothy Werner was present during the second session, and she offered her thoughts and clarified some of her husband’s statements. In August 2004, she submitted additional clarifications and information for the final transcript.
FOLDER LIST
AUDIO CASSETTES
| a.c. 1-4 | Interview cassettes |
INDEX TERMS
These index terms are the subjects, people, places, etc. under which this collection is listed in all available indexes at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection-Columbia. If you are interested in a specific index term, please contact the reference staff.
| Index Terms | Location |
| Diplomatic and consular service | f. 1; a.c. 2-4 |
| Journalists | f. 1; a.c. 1-3 |
| Normandy (France), Attack on, 1944 | f. 1; a.c. 1 |
| Reporters and reporting | f. 1; a.c. 1-3 |
| U.S. Information Agency | f. 1; a.c. 3 |
| United Press Association | f. 1; a.c. 1-3 |
| University of Missouri, School of Journalism, 1932-1934 | f. 1; a.c. 1 |
| Werner, Dorothy J. | f. 1; a.c. 1-4 |
| Werner, Merle McDougald "Doug" (1913-2004) | f. 1; a.c. 1-4 |
| World War, 1939-1945--Journalists | f. 1; a.c. 1 |