Excerpt from Dateline 1965
Best Radio or TV Reporting From Abroad
Best television reporting from abroad
Frank Bourgholtzer, chief of the NBC News Moscow bureau, left Moscow in the winter of 1963 when the Soviet government, angered by NBC specials on Stalin and Khrushchev, closed the bureau. Early this year, the bureau reopened, and Bourgholtzer returned as chief. While away from Moscow, he worked out of Paris on a variety of assignments- the Yemeni war among them.
From his filmed account of the struggle by the Yemeni Royalists against Nasser’s United Arab Republic, Bourgholtzer receives this year’s OPC Award for best television reporting. Said the judges: ” Bourgholtzer’s series of film reports, highlighted with memorable narration which captured all phases of a small but ugly war, represent the highest standards of the foreign correspondent.”
For tall, soft-spoken Bourgholtzer, whose 19 years as an NBC News correspondent have been spent largely among the civilities of Washington, Paris, Bonn, Vienna, and Moscow, his award- winning assignment was something of a departure. For 23 days, he and his carmera crew lived with tribal fighters in caves, traversed the Yemen sands more often on camels and donkeys than on wheels, frequently dodged bullets and Arab bombs.
Born in New York 45 years ago, schooled at Indiana University, Bourgholtzer joined NBC News in 1946 after three years with the Wall Street Journal. He was assigned to the network’s Washington staff, shortly became its White House correspondent. Most memorable event in that period of his career came when he persuaded President Truman, the pianist, to play the gold piano in the East Room for his TV audience.