He's Always In The Big Picture - Even If It's Only Postcards

The other day I drove down to Tacoma to visit with Kyle Smith, who can be described in almost absolute terms.

Kyle, a pleasant man in his 70s, is the absolute No. 1, no-kidding, total tycoon of the Northwest postcard business. He sells postcards by the zillions.

Any time you, or a tourist, send off a color postcard of the Space Needle, Seattle's skyline, Mount Rainier or any of Seattle's several bridges, there is a 98 percent chance you have bought Mr. Smith's product.

He is chief honcho, as in CEO, of Smith-Western Inc., on Broadway in downtown Tacoma. His son, Kyle "Skip" Smith, is president of the company, which has a branch in Portland and a sister corporation in Phoenix.

Kyle started out selling black-and-white postcards for a penny out of a station wagon after World War II. He took the pictures himself.

Today he sells more than 24 million cards annually, as well as tons of knick-knacks, T-shirts, souvenirs, trinkets, you name it, from this part of the country.

His cards are printed in Italy, Ireland, Hong Kong and Australia, and, as I say, Kyle is to Seattle-Tacoma what Hallmark is to Kansas City.

However, this department is getting too long in the tooth to drive clear to Tacoma just to look at Kyle Smith's postcards. It was his old-time photography - specifically, one picture - that I wanted to hear about.

You see the picture right here - one of the world's most famous World War II depictions of the downfall of Italian fascism. The picture shows, as you can see, the very obsolete dictator of Italy, Benito Mussolini, hanging by his heels. Beside him is his mistress, Clara Petacci.

This picture, perhaps even more than Joe Rosenthal's famous shot of the American flag-raising on Iwo Jima, symbolized that America's good guys were going to win out over Nazism and fascism.

Kyle Smith is a graduate of Kent State University. Before World War II erupted, he was drafted for a year's service and shipped to Fort Lewis near Tacoma.

When Pearl Harbor happened, he got another invitation from Uncle Fed that said, in effect, "Your stay in the army is extended for the duration."

"I was in the 7th Infantry Regiment, which was part of the 3rd Division," Kyle said. "We spent a lot of time in North Africa chasing Rommel and the Germans. Then I ended up with Gen. Patton's 7th Army in Sicily. By now I was a technical sergeant."

Kyle chuckled at the memory. "Then I ran into a fraternity brother of mine from Kent State. He helped me get a transfer to the 5th Army Special Services under Gen. Mark Clark."

This got him on Stars and Stripes, the Army newspaper. Gen. Clark ordered that all copies of Stars and Stripes be delivered to all American troops in Italy.

"Actually, I didn't do any writing or any photography for Stars and Stripes," Kyle said. "But there were a lot of famous guys around, people like Ernie Pyle and Bill Mauldin, the great cartoonist."

Even while he was in the Army, Mauldin was internationally famous through his syndication of the prototypical GIs, Willie and Joe. Anyway, Kyle was stationed in Bologna.

So one morning in April 1945, Kyle and Mauldin, loaded down with copies of Stars and Stripes in a Jeep, headed toward the city of Milan, about 50 miles away. Milan, as it happened, was off limits to American troops.

There were many rumors about Milan, one of which was that Benito Mussolini was there for the taking. Because of wartime politics, the Americans didn't want anything to do with the Italian dictator - not with many fascists still loyal to Il Duce.

In other words, the Americans wanted Mussolini dead, but they encouraged the Italian partisans to make him so.

The partisans were up to the job. About 5 a.m., the partisans captured and shot Mussolini and his mistress.

"Mauldin and I got there about 11 that morning," Kyle said, "and there they were, hanging . . .

"We weren't supposed to be there, of course, but I had this camera with me. It was a little camera, a thing called a Bantam 828, made by Kodak, so I took this picture of Mussolini and his mistress. The partisans had tied a rope around her legs so her skirt wouldn't come down and expose her."

After taking a few more pictures, Kyle and Mauldin drove back to Bologna. The next morning the commanding officer of Stars and Stripes - Kyle can't remember the officer's name - accosted him.

"Where were you guys yesterday?" he demanded.

"We were out delivering Stars and Stripes."

"You're a liar," said the commanding officer. "You went into Milan, that's what you did."

At which point, his attention centered on Kyle's Bantam 828. "Gimme that camera!" he snapped.

And that, for all practical purposes, is the end of the story.

The Mussolini picture, as related, became world famous. It appeared, without credit to Kyle Smith, in virtually every newspaper in the world.

Kyle doesn't even have a copy of the picture.

But he doesn't care much from a distance of 47 years. Meanwhile, however, he has a zillion postcards for sale.