Lisa Howard (née Dorothy Jean Guggenheim, April 24, 1926 – July 4, 1965) was an American journalist, writer, and television news anchor who previously had a career as an off-Broadway and soap opera actress.

She also played roles on the 1950s Saturday morning science fiction show Space Patrol, The Edge of Night, As the World Turns and Guiding Light for CBS Television in the 1950s.

Due to the widespread attention generated by that interview, in 1961 she was hired by ABC News as their first female correspondent to cover the Vienna summit between Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy.

[5] As part of the broadcast, she interviewed famous and influential world personalities, among them the Shah of Iran, Eleanor Roosevelt, Barry Goldwater, and Nelson Rockefeller.

[6] During his filmed interview, as well as in private conversation with Howard, Castro made it clear that Cuba was interested in improved relations with Washington.

"[7] Subsequently, Howard used her Upper East Side apartment for the first meeting between a U.S. and Cuban diplomat, and for phone communications between Castro and the Kennedy administration.

In an article for Politico detailing their relationship, Peter Kornbluh describes Howard's role as a liaison between the United States and Cuba as "intimate diplomacy", explaining that "her role as peacemaker was built on a complex, little-understood rapport she managed to forge with Castro himself – a relationship that was political and personal, intellectual and intimate.

"[3] In order to continue the reconciliation agenda, she set up a meeting between UN diplomat William Attwood and Cuba's UN representative Carlos Lechuga on September 23, 1963, at her Upper East Side New York apartment, under the cover of a cocktail party.

Howard continued to work toward better relations, returning to Cuba to do another ABC special with Castro in February 1964 and becoming a go-between for communications between Washington and Havana.