Douglas Kiker

Who was Douglas Kiker?

Douglas Kiker was an American author and newspaper and television reporter whose career spanned some three decades.

Kiker was born in Griffin, Georgia. He first gained national attention for his book The Southerner, published in 1957. Later, he became director of information for the Peace Corps, serving from 1961 until 1963. He left the government and became a reporter for the New York Herald Tribune newspaper and in his first week on the job rode in the press bus in the motorcade of President John F. Kennedy when Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. By 1966, NBC News had taken notice of his varied background and hired him as a correspondent. He would remain with that network for the rest of his life.

Kiker became distinguished for his numerous assignments over the years for NBC. Perhaps his best-known work was covering military conflicts in Southeast Asia and the Mideast; during much of that time, he served as NBC's Rome bureau chief, with a territory encompassing most of Europe and western Asia. He received the Peabody Award in 1970 for his coverage of the Black September in Jordan conflict.