Tom Brokaw, anchor of NBC Nightly News, has been selected as the 2001 Cushing Orator. The oration will be given on April 24 at the AANS Annual Meeting in Toronto, Canada. The anchor of NBC Nightly News since 1982, Brokaw has been on the scene of the events that shook the world during the last two decades. He covered the release of Mandela in South Africa, the fall of Marcos in the Philippines and the NATO airstrikes in Yugoslavia. He was the only correspondent reporting live from Berlin the night the wall toppled. He was the first journalist to gain an exclusive one-on-one interview with Mikhail Gorbachev and the first anchor in Tianamen Square following the crackdown.
In 1998, Brokaw wrote his first book, The Greatest Generation, which was a
No. 1 bestseller. The exquisitely written book profiles the generation of Americans who came of age during the Great Depression, fought in the Second World War and went on to build modern America.
The book grew out of his trip to France to make a documentary marking the 40th anniversary of D-day in 1984. Though thoroughly briefed on the historical background of the invasion, Brokaw says he was totally unprepared for how it affected him emotionally. Flooded with childhood memories of World War II, Brokaw began asking veterans at the ceremony to revisit their past and talk about what happened, triggering a chain reaction of war-torn recollections. Brokaw resolved to capture their experiences in what he terms “the permanence a book would represent.”
“This generation helped saved the world from fascism, returned home to marry and go to college in record numbers, rebuild their former enemies, stand fast against communism, give us great art, science, the interstate highway system, Medicare-and the greatest economy the world has ever known,” he told At Random magazine. “They never whined or whimpered. I am in awe of them.”
Brokaw made his national reputation as the NBC White House correspondent at the height of Watergate and stayed in that post through the resignation of Richard Nixon and the ascension of Gerald Ford. He left Washington in 1976 to host the Today show, where he also worked as a correspondent. His assignments included Anwar Sadat’s assassination, the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II and the marriage of Prince Charles and Diana.
A working reporter for more than 35 years, Brokaw began his career in the Midwest and then the South during the civil rights era. He joined NBC at the age of 26 just in time to cover Ronald Reagan’s first run for the governor of California. His other assignments from that period included the unrest in Watts, the assassination of Robert Kennedy and the tumultuous ’68 Democratic Convention.
He has won every prestigious award in broadcast journalism, including Emmys, two Du Ponts, a George Foster Peabody award, the Overseas Press Club Award, the Lowell Thomas Award and the Fred Friendly Award. Brokaw and his wife, Meredith, live in Manhattan and spend much of their spare time pursuing their interests in Third World adventures, global environmental issues, fly fishing and horseback riding.
About the Cushing Oration The AANS has sponsored the Annual Cushing Oration since 1964. The talk is named for Harvey Cushing, MD, the father of modern neurosurgery. Previous Cushing Orators include Wernher von Braun, Jimmy Carter, H. Ross Perot, General Colin L. Powell and George Bush.
2001 Annual Meeting Fast Facts
- Dates: April 21-26, 2001
- Location: The Metro Toronto Convention Center in Toronto
- Registration: Registration materials will be mailed in December
Details: In the next issue of the Bulletin and at www.neurosurgery.org.