Henry Loomis, Who Led Voice of America, Is Dead at 89

[Fansome]

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.