In Remembrance: Philip Angell Smith ’66 Died on November 11 2023

View full image

Philip Angell Smith was a longtime Washington Post reporter and editor, former press secretary for Virginia senator John Warner, and later served in roles at Powell Tate, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the US Department of Treasury (Internal Revenue Service).

Matriculating to Yale on a full scholarship as a member of the class of 1966, Phil’s keen interest in journalism took footing the first days of college. For many at Yale, “News” meant the Yale Daily, but Phil followed a different course, beginning with a bursary job at the Yale University News Bureau, following on as a bureau regular, and then expanding and extending that as the Yale campus stringer for the New York Times and as a summer intern at the Washington Post. Along the way these offered small touches with journalism notables such as Henry Luce (Y’20), Peter Kihss, McCandlish Phillips, Jonathan Randel, Jack Devlin, and eventually encountering Peter Braestrup (Y’51) of the Washington Post. By then, as Phil said, “The hook was set.”

A full obituary appeared in the Washington Post on November 19, 2023.

—Submitted by the family.