AP's Chief in Germany to Retire

NEW YORK (AP) — Steve Miller, who served The Associated Press as chief of bureau in Germany during the tumultuous years of the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Balkan wars and Germany's reunification, will retire in June, Jim Donna, senior vice president and director of human resources announced Tuesday.

Miller headed AP's operations in Germany for 17 years, longer than any other bureau chief, overseeing AP's biggest news operation outside the United States with administrative responsibility for Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Eastern Europe.

As chief of bureau, Miller, 62, was also Managing Director of The Associated Press GmbH, AP's German subsidiary, which distributes German-language news services, photos and other products to the media and other subscribers throughout Germany, Europe's largest single media market, as well as Switzerland, Austria and Luxembourg.

"Steve has enjoyed a distinguished career and done a superb job leading AP's German and East European operations into the 21st Century," said Tom Curley, president and chief executive officer.

Miller first served in Germany as a correspondent in Berlin in 1977 and, after holding a variety of other senior positions in Europe, returned in 1986 as chief of bureau in Frankfurt, the company's headquarters since the end of World War II. Miller moved his position to Berlin in 2001.

During his tenure, Miller upgraded distribution of AP's German-language services from landline to satellite delivery, expanded domestic news coverage in Germany and Switzerland, and introduced online news services via the internet. He also led AP's expansion into formerly communist East Germany and Eastern Europe.

He joined AP in 1966 in Columbus, Ohio, his birthplace, after working briefly for United Press International in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and, earlier, for the Logan, Ohio, Daily News, where his father, William S. Miller, served as editor.

In 1968, Miller was appointed correspondent in Cleveland, Ohio, where he covered the story of the polluted Cuyahoga River catching on fire in 1969 and the fatal shootings of four student protesters by Ohio National Guardsmen at Kent State University the following year. He was transferred in 1971 to AP's headquarters in New York, where he was soon promoted to the position of Business News Editor.

He was named correspondent in Berlin in 1977 after a brief stint at the Foreign Desk in New York where his supervisor, Foreign Editor Nate Polowetzky, adjudged: "He is fast, careful and has a good touch on a feature."

"I had joined the AP to be a foreign correspondent," Miller said. "So one day I just took all my chips upstairs to (then AP President) Keith Fuller, cashed them in and was lucky enough to get Berlin," Miller said of his move to international reporting.

He was appointed East European correspondent based in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, now Serbia, in 1978, and then chief of bureau in Vienna, Austria, in 1979, covering the early years of Polish Pope John Paul II, the Solidarity labor movement in Poland and the death of Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito in 1980.

In 1982 he was named Deputy Marketing and Business Director for AP-Dow Jones in Europe and the Middle East based in London. He moved to Denmark in 1985 as chief of Scandinavian Services. His time there included the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. He was reassigned to Germany in 1986.

"For a journalist, it was, for once, perfect timing," Miller said. "The fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of communism in the east, war after war in Yugoslavia, German reunification, the German government's return to Berlin. I was here for things I never expected to see in my lifetime."

Miller is a graduate of Earlham College of Richmond, Indiana, and attended a graduate program in journalism at Ohio State University. He and his wife, Eve, formerly editor of the syndication sales department of the New York Times, intend to retire in Ohio.