ABSTRACT
Douglass Daniel began work on a biography of the late Harry Reasoner bysearching for primary documents. He quickly learned that the late television-news anchorman’s papers had already been placed at the Center for American History at the University of Texas. Nevertheless, Daniel was not shy about asking Reasoner’s friends and relatives if they had any additional correspondence related to his subject. Daniel’s queries paid off when one of Reasoner’s daughters asked if he would be interested in seeing some letters that her father had written while he was in the army. Some letters turned out to be nearly 300, Daniel remembered. The letters were still in envelopes and even in chronological order. The letters provided Daniel with a sense of Reasoner’s voice and outlook as a 19-year-old draftee contemplating a trip to the battlefields of Europe. The serendipitous find encouraged Daniel to ask other sources for materials, leading him to acquire such things as high-school commencement programs, even a letter Reasoner’s ex-wife had written about the couple’s failed marriage. The materials provided valuable insight into Reasoner, enabling Daniel to evoke the late broadcaster’s personality and character in a way that the already archived materials could not.1
