Richard Austin Smith of Noank, a prize winning author and journalist, died January 19, 2003 after a brief illness. He was 91.
Mr. Smith wrote for Time and Fortune Magazine for 20 years, rising from financial correspondent at Time to the Senior Board of Editors of its sister publication, Fortune, where he spent the bulk of his career as a journalist.
In 1962 he won the prestigious Loeb Award for "Distingished Reporting of Business and Financial News" , specifically for an indepth series of articles in Fortune on a huge conspiracy to fix prices of electrical equipment and the subsequent anti-trust prosecution of some of the largest corporations in the U.S. Despite the fact that the price fixing scheme was a major news event covered continuously by the press, Mr. Smith managed to piece together such a complete and compeling analysis of the economic, corporate, political, and personal causes of the conspiracy that his article was made a part of the record of the Kefauver committee investigation.
Other credits include a novel, "The Sun Dial", that won the 1942 Knofp Literary Fellowship Award, a 1963 book, "Corporations in Crisis" that became required reading at many business schools, and the book, "Alaska and Hawaii: the Frontier States" published in 1968. Mr. Smith served as editor of the U.S. Aviation Advisory Report to the President in 1972, as a Trustee for both Salem College in West Virginia and the Gunston School in Maryland, and as a Ferris Guest Lecturer at Trinity College in Connecticut.
Mr. Smith was married for 62 years to Kathleen Knox, grand daughter of Secretary of State Philander Chase Knox. He is survived by two sons: Richard Austin Smith, Jr., a retired diplomat, and Roderick Sheldon Smith, a retired environmental scientist.
Mr. Smith was a member of the National Press Club, the Army Navy Club, the Sons of the American Revolution and the Princeton Club.
The funeral service and interment will be conducted on Saturday at 11am at Elm Grove Cemetery, Rte. 27, Mystic. There are no visiting hours. Donations in his memory may be made to any local charity.