John died May 16, 2002. He prepared at Loomis School. At Princeton he majored in history. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year. He did graduate study abroad at Cambridge.
He began his career as a newspaper reporter for the Wahington Post, then went to the former New York Herald Tribune as a White House correspondent and, later, overseas to cover WWII. He devoted his last 30 years to teaching the value of good writing to improve communications. He was an
avid traveler and explorer throughout his life.
John wrote two nonfiction books: Alger Hiss: The True Story and The Children of Master O'Rourke: An Irish Family Saga.
He was devoted to his late wife, the former Betty McCarthy, whom he married in 1940. They had a daughter, Betsy, and a son, Michael '65. John is survived by brother Philip '32, son Michael, two grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Michael, in his touching funeral eulogy to his father, closed with these words: "John Chabot Smith was a man who never lost his spiritual center, his gentle sense of decency, and his intellectual curiosity, as best he could muster, even when he saw his faculties receding in his final months."
The Class of 1936