AWARD DATE: 1967
AWARD NAME: Best Radio Interpretation of Foreign Affairs
AWARD RECIPIENT: Welles Hangen and James Robinson
AWARD RECIPIENT AFFILIATION: NBC
AWARD HONORED WORK: “Red China: Struggle For Power”
Welles Hangen, a later comer to the Asian region, has been established in Hong Kong since August, 1966, with eyes and ears trained on the colony’s nearest neighbor. Before taking up his present assignment he spent a year at Columbia University on a fellowship from the Council on Foreign
Relations, in intensive study of the Chinese language and of Far Eastern politics. At present he has wedged himself firmly into the inner circle of knowledgeable China-watchers.
As a prelude and an aid to his grasp of Chinese affairs, he has had years in West Germany, India and the Middle East for NBC News, and earlier, others in Moscow, Turkey and Germany, for the New York
Times. His book The Muted Revolution-East Germany’s Challenge to Russia and the West, made him an OPC Award winner last year which may be why the face is familiar.
Between them, James Robinson and Welles Hangen have mustered 33 years as foreign correspondents, which helps to explain the excellence attributed to their NBC documentary on “Red
China: Struggle for Power,” adjudged best in category 6. Robinson, who came to NBC as Tokyo bureau chief in 1952, has covered the Far East from Korea to Vietnam to mainland China in pre-Communist days. Before turning to journalism, he was a teacher at Tsinghua University in Peking.
Citation for Excellence: Alexander Kendrick, CBS, for “Dimension: Alexander Kendrick.”