Coins and Historical Medals

USA, University of Missouri, School of Journalism, Honor Award, 1975, a light bronze medal by T.H. Jones for Medallic Art Co., named (Edwin Newman), 62mm; The Christopher Award, 1980, a light bronze award medal, unsigned, for Medallic Art Co., named (Edwin Newman, 1983); FRANCE, Légion d’Honneur, Chevalier’s badge by Arthus-Bertrand [awarded 31 December 1971] [3]. Extremely fine, first with loop for suspension; first and last in cases of issue, the badge with award certificate addressed to Mr Edwin Newman, N.B.C. Room 520, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York £300-£400

Edwin Harold Newman (1919-2010), b. New York; educ. George Washington High School and University of Wisconsin, graduating in political science, 1940; began his career as a copy boy for International News Service; served as a signal officer in the US Navy, 1942-5; reporter for United Press, 1945-6; moved as a freelancer to CBS News, 1947, then full-time from 1952 based in Europe, covering the funeral of George VI from the battlements of Windsor Castle, the Suez crisis of 1956 and the accession of Charles de Gaulle in 1958; returned to the US in 1961 as a regular on the Today show; made the first announcement on NBC of President Kennedy’s death and anchored the television coverage of the Six-Day war in 1967, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the 1973 Vietnam ceasefire and the aftermath of the attempt on President Ronald Reagan’s life in 1981. A prolific interviewer, his subjects included Emperor Hirohito, Ingmar Bergman, Muhammad Ali, David Ben-Gurion and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, while he also moderated numerous political debates between the likes of Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale. Leaving NBC in January 1984, he briefly hosted Saturday Night Live, remained in demand as a political interviewer for other broadcasters and cable networks, and played himself in four films, including The Pelican Brief (1993). After moving to England in 2007 to be near his daughter, he died of pneumonia in Oxford on 13 August 2010.