Legendary CBS News political reporter Roger Mudd has died aged 93

Roger Mudd, the CBS reporter whose political reporting and substitute anchor on “The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite” made him a familiar and respected face to tens of millions of Americans in the 1960s and 1970s, died Tuesday of complications from kidney failure at his home in McLean, Virginia. He was 93 years old.

“Roger was a hero in the CBS News Washington office,” said Susan Zirinsky, president and senior executive producer of CBS News. “He was a journalist of enormous integrity and character. He wouldn’t budge if he believed he was right and wouldn’t compromise his ethical standards. He was an inspiration to all of us in the office. On a personal note – I sat directly across from him in the DC newsroom – Roger was tall, not just in his physical presence, but he was larger than life. “

Mudd joined CBS News as a Congressional Correspondent in 1961 and was appointed National Affairs Correspondent in 1977.

On November 4, 1979, he had perhaps his biggest political interview and one of the most famous in presidential politics when he anchored and reported “CBS REPORTS: Teddy”, an hour-long look at the Democratic candidate. in the chair, Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

Mudd, with his concise interview style, focused on a very basic question that Kennedy was caught off guard about: “Senator, why do you want to be president?” Kennedy awkwardly wandered into a public moment of weakness that halted his political momentum – he would go on to lose the Democratic nomination to Jimmy Carter.

In another singular moment with a Kennedy, Mudd was covering Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign, and was one of the last to interview him at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, minutes before the assassination of Kennedy on June 5, 1968.

Mudd has appeared in other major CBS REPORTS documentaries, none greater than the Peabody Award “The Selling of the Pentagon,” a 1971 investigation that revealed the US military’s use of taxpayer-funded public relations. to improve its image and sell the Vietnam War. . The scathing report infuriated friends of the military in Congress, which held hearings and subpoenaed the unreleased footage of the documentary.

This led to CBS President Frank Stanton’s televised appearance before Congress. He refused to produce the extracts, likening them to printing the sacrosanct notebooks of journalists. Stanton won a significant victory for freedom of the press when the chamber voted not to hold him in contempt.

The Washington office of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s was full of big names. Seventy-five percent of US televisions used tuned in to the network’s three news broadcasts each night, where tens of millions of people watched Eric Sevareid, Daniel Schorr, Marvin and Bernard Kalb, George Herman, Bob Schieffer , Lesley Stahl, Ed Bradley and Robert Pierpoint. .

But none were taller than Mudd. He had reported on and co-anchored political conventions, elections and eventually earned his place as a regular replacement for Walter Cronkite.

He cut his teeth on stories from the early 1960s In the spring of 1964, Mudd broadcast 67 days of reporting on the Senate debate on the Civil Rights Bill. Back then, journalists were paid a salary, plus honoraria for each time they appeared on the air. He later said his salary had increased from $ 400 a week to $ 2,500.

Mudd quickly began presenting his own shows. He anchored “The CBS Evening News with Roger Mudd” on Saturdays from February 1966 to July 1973 and Sundays from January 1970 to September 1971. Throughout this time he continued to report on Congress and politics and is became known as one of the “main” of Cronkite. riders. ”

Other significant events he anchored or reported on included the triple Emmy coverage of Vice President Spiro Agnew’s resignation; Emmy Award-winning cover of the set of George Wallace; Memphis following the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr .; and President Richard Nixon’s resignation speech. Mudd had co-anchored Nixon’s inaugural cover with Cronkite in 1969.

Mudd also reported on CBS News specials including “Busing” and “The Issue of Busing” in the spring of 1972, and “New Voices in the South” in 1971. He helped explain how Congress works to young people, anchoring “What is Congress talking about” in 1974 and “What is the Senate talking about?” in 1975.

In 1981, Mudd was seen as the frontrunner to replace Cronkite. But Dan Rather, Mudd’s friend and rival, got the job. Mudd left for NBC News, where his former boss, former CBS News Washington bureau chief and then NBC News chairman Bill Small, teamed him up with Tom Brokaw to co-host “NBC Nightly News” .

He left NBC in 1987 for the PBS show “The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour”, where he was a political commentator and journalist. In 1992, he began teaching at Princeton and Washington Universities and Lee while taking a job with The History Channel, from which he retired in 2004 after 10 years as a principal on-air host.

In 2008, Mudd published his memoir, “The Place to Be: Washington, CBS and the Glory Days of Television News” (Public Affairs). In a commercial interview with the Huffington Post, he was quoted as saying, “I’m a CBS man no matter how many times you’ve heard me say, ‘Roger Mudd, NBC News’.”

Roger Harrison Mudd was born on February 9, 1928 in Washington, DC. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Washington and Lee in 1950 and his MA in American History from the University of North Carolina in 1951. He was predeceased by his wife of 54 years, Emma Jeanne Spears Mudd , with whom he had four children. , who all survive him: Daniel, Maria Mudd-Ruth, Jonathan and Matthew. He is also survived by 14 grandchildren and two great grandchildren.