Samuel C.O. Holt ’58

Sam died Oct. 11, 2023, in Washington, D.C. He was 87.

He came to Princeton from Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Va. At Princeton, he majored in history, played 150-pound football, and was a member of Cottage Club. After junior year he took a year off and worked with CBS News.

After graduation, Sam was a Rhodes scholar; he received a bachelor of philosophy degree in 1960 from Oxford and completed non-thesis doctoral work in military history at Harvard. In 1967, he began teaching at Harvard and was hired by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to be project director of the Public Radio Study and principal author of the program’s 1969 report that “outlined a course of action followed by CPB in developing a national system of public radio.” When PBS was launched, Sam served as its coordinator of programming and helped develop Masterpiece Theatre, and Wall Street Week; he also hired Julia Child and Fred Rogers. He launched Morning Edition at NPR. Among many honors, Sam received the Edward R. Murrow Award (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) in 1983.

Sam is survived by his three daughters, Elliott, Elizabeth, and Katharine. The class extends its deepest sympathy to them all.