Chapman describes his career encounters with Truman, Kennedy, Reagan, Hirohito

Irv Chapman, a National Press Club member since October 1961, entertained the Club's Broadcast Committee members earlier this month with tales of his "most memorable" characters during his time as a broadcast journalist.

His Club biography details the stops along the way: Irv Chapman's first assignment in Washington was to open a bureau for a startup, Radio Press International, and to cover President John F. Kennedy as White House correspondent. Moving to ABC News, Irv was ABC’s Bureau Chief in Moscow and Tokyo; he also worked in the Saigon, Los Angeles and New York bureaus. He covered presidential conventions and campaigns and Capitol Hill. Chapman later joined Cable News Network as Washington correspondent for CNN Business News. He joined Bloomberg 19 years ago as television and radio correspondent. In academia, he taught at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.

Even though JFK was the first sitting president he covered, he remembered tagging along with Harry S. Truman when the former president came to Washington or New York and invited reporters to walk with him on his daily "morning constitutional." The wire service daybooks would list his hotel and reporters gathered there at 7:55 a.m. for the walk that began at 8 sharp. Truman was "always respectful. Security, if there was any, was unobtrusive." The TV cameramen, of course, had to walk backwards, and Truman and the journalists would watch them closely "to keep them from walking into lamp posts and fire hydrants."

Chapman recalled covering Ronald Reagan as a presidential candidate and asked the California governor aboard his campaign plane where he would go to seek additional information if a problem caught his eye. As was his practice, Reagan answered with an anecdote, describing how he evaluated student demonstrations at the University of California at Berkeley. The future president said he had a university officer take him to a rooftop overlooking the central quad where he could look down at the situation. Spotting operatives with walkie-talkies mixed in with the students Reagan assured himself that the demonstrations were being orchestrated by "outside agitators." That evening at dinner Chapman told the story to an ABC producer, who responded with laughter. "Those were us producers, he said, "giving instructions to our cameramen on the roof of other nearby buildings."

Chapman described the impossibility of getting any sort of World War II apology out of Japanese Emperor Hirohito. Tokyo correspondents were invited to a rare news conference by the emperor in advance of his landmark visit to the United States. Chapman noted that the "Today" Show had sent Edwin Newman to do a 30-minute special based on an exclusive interview with Hirohito. All Newman got from the emperor was what Chapman called "the same mealy mouth answer about 'some regrets.'" Chapman and his CBS opposite number lodged complaints about NBC getting an exclusive, and the Imperial Palace reluctantly agreed to grant one-on-ones to the other two American networks. The same question, of course, elicited the same answer. "At least I only had a minute 40 seconds to fill," Chapman said, "Newman had to do a 30-minute travelogue."

Members of the Club's broadcast committee are taking monthly turns describing their memorable career moments. The group meets on the first Thursday of the month at noon, usually in the McClendon Room. All members of the Club are invited to join the committee and can contact Chairman Mark Hamrick at [email protected] to be added to the roster.