Last Updated: May 20, 1999
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ASNE portrait
Legal counsel Dick Schmidt has represented ASNE — and
the First Amendment — since 1968
Until 1983, Dick Schmidt thought the First Amendment was the one about
guns. Or maybe the one about coveting thy neighbor’s goods.
(It’s OK to say that. Dick Schmidt has taught an army of editors
that satire is defensible under the First Amendment. Even stupid satire.)
At ASNE conventions, Dick Schmidt — nearing 75 years old — spends
most of his time handing out his cards on street corners and following
ambulances.
(It’s OK to say that. Dick Schmidt has taught us that well-known
people are public figures and that you have to have reckless disregard
for the truth to libel a public figure. Surely Dick Schmidt is a public
figure — partner in a Washington law firm, former general counsel to the
United States Information Agency and the Voice of America, big deal in
the American Bar Association, lifetime trustee of his alma mater, the University
of Denver, pal of politicians and defender and pal of journalists. And
surely no one who has been schooled by Dick Schmidt would ever recklessly
disregard the truth about him — he wouldn’t stand for it. Therefore, it
must be true that he stands around handing out his cards. And knowing what
ASNE pays him, it’s clear why he has to seek other clients.)
On those countless evenings when the Schmidts have editors and politicians
over to their house, Ann Downing Schmidt is a spectacular hostess but Richard
Marten Schmidt Jr. (that’s Dick) adds little to the gathering except for
providing directions to the bar in his curmudgeonly way.
(It’s OK to say that. Dick Schmidt has taught us that there’s no
such thing as a false opinion. He’d suggest, in his lawyerly fashion, that
the preceding paragraph say "but in my opinion Richard Marten Schmidt,
etc.," but you could reply that "of course it’s my opinion, since it’s
my article," and he’d sigh and say, "OK, my friend, have it your way."
And he’d be quick to agree that Ann Schmidt is a great hostess.)
Among the nation’s editors, Dick Schmidt is a hero.
(It’s OK to say that. Dick Schmidt would disagree, but he has taught
us over the years that truth is a defense.)
Dick Schmidt — nearing 30 years now as general counsel to the American
Society of Newspaper Editors — is our hero, our savior, our counselor,
our defender, our friend.
And that’s not bad for a broadcaster.
That’s what Dick Schmidt was early in life, and that’s what he hoped
to be all his life. In 1943, as a college student in Denver, he got a summer
job on station KOA working on a program called "Heroes of the Navy." He
then worked his way through college and law school at station KMYR, handling
music, news and sports and working with everyone from Lionel Hampton to
S.I. Hayakawa, then a jazz critic as well as a semanticist. (A bout with
polio kept Schmidt out of the service. When his Kansas draft board sent
him a notice to report for a physical, he couldn’t; he was at the Mayo
Clinic having a spinal fusion, and he spent the next year in a body cast.)
He never intended to practice law. He went to law school simply because
his father thought it would be good training for whatever Dick ended up
doing, and he took his first job in the law because an adjunct professor
lured him to the district attorney’s office. So for two years, in 1949
and 1950, he was deputy district attorney for the city and county of Denver.
There, he had a good time, met great friends, went up against fine lawyers
including future Supreme Court Justice Byron White, and further developed
that grand sense of right and wrong and that equally grand sense of patriotism
and love of democracy.
It was wonderful training — legal and political — for a man who was
going to end up inoculating generations of editors with the wonder of freedom
and lobbying generations of politicians to keep that freedom safe.
Once in the law, Dick couldn’t leave. He went into private practice
in Denver in 1950, was lured to Washington for that USIA job in 1965, and
signed on in the capital for good in 1968 when he joined the firm of Cohn
and Marks. In 1969, he took on ASNE as a client — a client that pays little
but demands much — and he has been our general counsel ever since.
Thank heavens. He has marched us and marshaled us to defend free speech
and a free press. He has taught us and tutored us about the glories of
freedom — even the freedom to burn our flag. He has aided us and armed
us as we did battle to keep governments and records and meetings open to
one and all. He has nagged us and nurtured us as we fought for the right
to stick our nose in the government’s business but to keep the government’s
nose out of our business.
And, afterwards, he brings us over to the house for a meal and a drink.
That’s where Ann comes in. Ann Downing, the daughter and granddaughter
of well-known Colorado lawyers, married Dick Schmidt more than 50 years
ago, in January 1948, and she has been at his side ever since. Washington
correspondent for Denver newspapers, mother of four children, and hostess
to hundreds of editors and their spouses, Ann is the perfect hostess —
serving up good food and great stories in equal portions.
You always know where she stands. Dick, especially, knows. In 1959,
when he was asked to take on a special assignment in Washington, he called
Ann, who was spending the summer at her family’s place in the Colorado
mountains, joined by Dick on the weekends. "How would you like to move
to Washington for a year?" he asked. "How would you like to go to
hell?" she responded. "You took the car keys, and I’m stuck up here with
four kids and a station wagon with no keys."
The Schmidts have stood up to tragedy — Dick’s polio early in life,
an awful and freakish auto accident that severely hurt Ann late in life,
and, horribly, the death of their son Rolf — but it is you they always
seem concerned about. How is your family? How is your job? How is your
paper? She is humorously self-depreciating and he is warmly self-effacing,
and no two people in Washington can make you feel as comfortable as they
can.
In the last 30 years, Dick has made the nation a little more free, and
Dick and Ann have made the nation’s editors a lot more joyous.
They would argue with that, but you needn’t listen.
For, as Dick has taught us time and again, truth is the best policy
— as well as the best defense.
Gartner, a former ASNE president, is editor and co-owner of The Tribune,
Ames, Iowa.
