Howard Kingsbury Smith (May 12, 1914 – February 15, 2002) was an American journalist, radio reporter, television anchorman, political commentator, and film actor.

[3] Reporting on civil-rights riots in Birmingham in the early 1960s, Smith revealed the conspiracy that existed between police commissioner Bull Connor and the KKK to beat up black people and Freedom Riders.

As the closing credits for the special were airing, word came that United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York had been shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

ABC simply showed a wide shot of the chaotic newsroom for several minutes until Smith was able to confirm the initial story and go back on the air with a special report.

[7] In the summer of 1968, Smith moderated a series of debates on ABC between conservative journalist William F. Buckley Jr. and liberal author Gore Vidal.

[10] These commentaries endeared him to President Nixon, who rewarded him with a rare, hour-long, one-on-one interview in 1971, at the height of the administration's animus against major newspapers, CBS, and NBC, despite Smith's having broadcast his "political obituary" only nine years earlier.

Senator George S. McGovern of South Dakota for re-election), Smith became the first national television commentator to call for Nixon's resignation over Watergate.

Smith continued as an analyst until 1979; he left the network nearing full retirement, and as the Roone Arledge era was beginning at ABC News.

Sources say that Smith was embittered over the reduction in time allowed for his commentaries and hence resigned after he criticized the revamped World News Tonight format as a "Punch and Judy show.

[12] Smith also appeared in a number of films, often as himself; The Best Man (1964), The Candidate (1972),[citation needed] The President's Plane Is Missing (1973, a made-for-television production of the Robert J. Serling novel of the same name), Nashville (1975), Network (1976), The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper (1981), The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), "The Odd Candidate" (1974) episode of the television series The Odd Couple (playing himself), the "Kill Oscar" episode (1976) of The Bionic Woman (playing himself anchoring an ABC newscast), and both V (1983) and the subsequent 1984 television series.