Looking for My Country: Finding Myself in America

by Robert MacNeil

Respected journalist Robert MacNeil did not receive a personal response from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he wrote to him in 1942 as an eleven-year-old boy living in Nova Scotia. He did, however, receive a personal letter and a large gift from the American consul. This gesture of generosity is the departure point for MacNeil's exploration of nationality, loyalty, and one of the reasons he eventually became an American citizen in 1997. Born in Canada and witness to many pivotal moments in history as a journalist in England and America, MacNeil's memoir integrates historical events from the past seventy years with his own personal story to provide an intimate glance at one man who became inseparably connected with America and her people. With a reporter's sharp analysis and an autobiographer's introspection, Looking for My Country delivers a story that is both touching and thought-provoking.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography

224 pages, Paperback

First published May 6, 2003

About the author

Robert Breckenridge Ware MacNeil, OC, was a novelist and former television news anchor and journalist who paired with Jim Lehrer to create The MacNeil/Lehrer Report in 1975. MacNeil wrote several books, many about his career as a journalist, but, since his retirement from NewsHour, MacNeil dabbled in writing novels.

He attended Dalhousie University and later graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa in 1955. He began working in the news field at ITV in London, then for Reuters and then for NBC News as a correspondent in Washington, D.C. and New York City.

On November 22, 1963, MacNeil was covering President Kennedy's visit to Dallas for NBC News. After shots rang out in Dealey Plaza MacNeil, who was with the presidential motorcade, followed crowds running onto the Grassy Knoll (he appears in a photo taken just moments after the assassination). He then headed towards the nearest building and encountered a man leaving the Texas School Book Depository. He asked the man where the nearest telephone was and the man pointed and went on his way. MacNeil later learned the man he encountered at about 12:33 p.m. CST may have been Lee Harvey Oswald. This conclusion was made by historian William Manchester in his book The Death of a President (1967), who believed that Oswald, recounting the day's events to the Dallas police, mistook MacNeil as a Secret Service agent because of his suit, blond crew cut, and press badge (which Oswald apparently mistook for government identification). For his part, MacNeil says "it was possible, but I had no way of confirming that either of the young men I had spoken to was Oswald."

Beginning in 1967, MacNeil covered American and European politics for the BBC and has served as the host for the news discussion show Washington Week in Review. MacNeil rose to fame during his coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings for PBS, which led to an Emmy Award. This helped lead to his most famous news role, where he worked with Jim Lehrer to create The Robert MacNeil Report in 1975. This was later renamed The MacNeil/Lehrer Report and then The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. MacNeil retired on October 20, 1995.

On September 11, 2001, after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, he called PBS, asking if he could help them with their coverage of the attacks, as he recalled in his autobiography, Looking for My Country: Finding Myself in America. He helped PBS in its coverage of the attacks and the aftermath, interviewing reporters, and giving his thoughts on the attacks. He hosted the PBS television show America at a Crossroads, which ran from April 15-20, 2007.

In the late 1990s, he discussed openly his son's homosexuality, saying it could help other fathers to know how he dealt with the fact in a positive way.

Reviews

[Janis]

The contents of the book I found entertaining if just a little pretension but I have very mixed feelings about MacNeil himself. It is not a matter of disputing his feelings, reactions, motivations, etc. for this I can not, nor would I do.
I find he has a tendency to gloss over the negative results that his quest to find himself and the power of his vocation that allows him to "find himself" has on the people around him. Namely, his two divorced wives and his four children (two each by his first two wives). MacNeil comes across as living through a "stranger in a strange land" odyssey, often seeking for the sake of seeking. Meanwhile, he needs/desires the trappings of conventionality or maybe just a portable support system and so he marries and has children, leaving the first two wives and their collective children as collateral damage as he spends both most of time and money on pursuing his career. In the end, finding himself acclaimed in his career, finding wealthy and finding his identity, he can literally sail off into the sunset with wife number three, finally free of angst with plenty of time on his hands and apparently without any regret.

[Sharon]

This is the story of what brought Robert MacNeil, after many years of living in the United States, to the decision to become a citizen of the country. Much more interesting however, are the events that he experienced on this long journey to citizenship both in and out of his job as a reporter and news personality.

[Arlene Richards]

I found this book to be quite interesting even though the country he found was the United States and not Canada, his birth country. His story takes you right from his birth in the 30s up to 9/11. As a journalist he had a very different take and knowledge on world events that he covered.

[B]

921 MacNeil The journalist's life and why he chose to switch his citizenship from Canada to United States.
Pretty interesting if you know who he is.

[Toesnorth's mom]

interesting

[Rosella]

Great comparisons of three cultures: Canadian, American, and British.