Henry Loomis

The physicist who led the VOA and Public Broadcasting

Henry Loomis

1919–2008

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Henry Loomis was a physicist and the son of one of the most intriguing Americans of the early 20th century. But he is best remembered as the man who greatly expanded the reach of the Voice of America, before resigning to protest President Lyndon Johnson’s demand that the network not report on American planes flying over Laos during the Vietnam War. He died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.

Henry’s father, Alfred, was “a fabulously wealthy Wall Street tycoon” who survived the stock market crash in high style, said The Washington Post. Devoting himself to science, he built a “magnificent private laboratory” in his massive stone mansion in the exclusive enclave of Tuxedo Park, N.Y., 40 miles northwest of Manhattan. He also gave Henry a check for $1 million for his own personal scientific experiments. Father and son worked together researching radar and brain waves. Visitors to the home included Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, and Niels Bohr. With World War II approaching, young Henry dropped out of Harvard to enlist in the Navy. Assigned to the Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor, Loomis helped to establish radar training schools. He also accompanied pilots and ships’ officers to demonstrate the new technology, “which was initially regarded with some suspicion.” He later obtained a graduate degree in physics at the University of California, Berkeley.

In 1958 President Eisenhower appointed Loomis director of the Voice of America with a mandate to expand its operations, said The New York Times. Loomis increased the VOA’s broadcasting power, established transmitters “in previously unserved countries like Liberia and the Philippines,” and helped create a 1,500-word vocabulary called Special English to spread English as an international language. But his tenure ended under LBJ. “Under increasing pressure from the White House not to report awkward foreign-policy news” during the Vietnam War, Loomis resigned in protest. In 1972, President Nixon named him president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, where he generated controversy for his efforts to give local stations more control over programming. He resigned that post in 1978 and returned to private life, “indulging his outdoor passions: sailing, hunting, and riding to the hounds.”