Re: [Swprograms] VOA's Henry Loomis Passes

[Joe Buch <josephbuch@xxxxxxxxx>]

Many credit the invention of wireless signaling (radio) to Mahlon Loomis who demonstrated signaling over a 14 mile path to members of the US Congress in 1868.  I wonder if Henry Loomis was a descendant?

<http://www.smecc.org/mhlon_loomis.htm>

Joe Buch

--- On Fri, 11/14/08, John Figliozzi <jfiglio1@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> From: John Figliozzi <jfiglio1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Swprograms] VOA's Henry Loomis Passes
> To: dxld@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Shortwave programming discussion" <swprograms@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, dxplorer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Friday, November 14, 2008, 6:21 AM
> My Comment:  "Extended the reach and defended the
> independence of the VOA."  His more recent successors
> have done the opposite...diligently.  Rest in peace,
> Director Loomis.
> 
> John Figliozzi
> Halfmoon, NY
> ---------------------------------
> 
> 
> From The New York Times:
> November 14, 2008
> 
> Henry Loomis, Who Led Voice of America, Is Dead at 89
> 
> By WILLIAM GRIMES
> Henry Loomis, who extended the reach and defended the
> independence of the Voice of America as its director in the
> late 1950s and early 1960s before resigning in a clash with
> President Lyndon B. Johnson, died on Nov. 2 in Jacksonville,
> Fla., where he lived. He was 89.
> 
> The cause was complications of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s
> and Pick’s diseases, said his wife, Jacqueline.
> 
> Mr. Loomis was also president of the Corporation for Public
> Broadcasting in the 1970s.
> 
> A physicist by training, Mr. Loomis became director of the
> Voice of America in 1958, under President Dwight D.
> Eisenhower. Determined to expand its operations, he
> increased the Voice of America’s broadcasting power and
> set up transmitters in previously unserved countries like
> Liberia and the Philippines.
> 
> Convinced that English was becoming the pre-eminent
> international language, he began broadcasting programs for
> less-than-fluent foreign listeners in Special English, a
> simplified language that relied on a core vocabulary of
> 1,500 words. Scripts were read at a deliberate pace of nine
> lines a minute.
> 
> Mr. Loomis was still in the post in 1965 when the Voice of
> America came under increasing pressure from the White House
> not to report awkward foreign-policy news, notably the
> growing military involvement of the United States in
> Southeast Asia. Mr. Loomis resigned, and in an accusatory
> farewell speech said, “The Voice of America is not the
> voice of the administration.”
> 
> Henry Loomis was born in Tuxedo Park, N.Y. His father,
> Alfred, amassed a vast fortune financing public utilities.
> After the Wall Street crash of 1929, which left him
> untouched, Alfred Loomis indulged his fascination with
> science by setting up a physics laboratory in an old mansion
> in Tuxedo Park. Henry worked with his father on brain-wave
> research while still a teenager, and later took part in the
> laboratory’s pioneering research on radar.
> 
> Mr. Loomis left Harvard in his senior year to join the
> Navy, which assigned him to the staff of the commander in
> chief of the Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor. He created radar
> training schools and accompanied airplane pilots and
> ships’ officers to demonstrate how to use the new
> technology, which was initially regarded with some
> suspicion.
> 
> After leaving the Navy with the rank of lieutenant
> commander and a Bronze Star, Mr. Loomis did graduate work in
> physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and spent
> four years as assistant to the president of the
> Massachusetts Institute of Technology before taking a series
> of government jobs relating to science and technology.
> 
> In 1972 President Richard M. Nixon appointed Mr. Loomis to
> be president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the
> nonprofit organization created by Congress to be responsible
> for channeling money to public television stations. In an
> effort to decentralize public television, he set about
> wresting control over programming and production from the
> Public Broadcasting Service, the network that distributes
> programs to local stations. He also redirected money to
> local stations rather than national programming.
> 
> Friction between the two bodies was never resolved. Mr.
> Loomis left the job in 1978, as the Carter administration
> began restoring power to PBS. He returned to private life,
> indulging his outdoor passions: sailing, hunting and riding
> to the hounds.
> 
> In 1946 he married Mary Paul MacLeod. The marriage ended in
> divorce, and in 1974 he married Jacqueline Chalmers.
> 
> In addition to his wife, he is survived by the children
> from his first marriage, Henry S. Loomis of Denver; Mary P.
> Loomis of Hyde Park, Vt.; Lucy F. Loomis of Aiken, S.C.; and
> Gordon M. Loomis of Waxahachie, Tex., as well as four
> stepchildren, Charles J. Williams IV of Orlando, Fla.; John
> C. Williams and David F. Williams, both of Jacksonville;
> Robert W. Williams of Cary, N.C.; 17 grandchildren and two
> great-grandchildren.
> 
> 
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