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TV journalist Sander Vanocur, who became familiar with US viewers as a White House correspondent under the Kennedy regime and as a questioner in presidential debates, died Monday night at a hospice in Santa Barbara, California. He was 91 years old.
His son Christopher said that the cause was complications of dementia. Mr. Vanocur lived in Montecito, not far from there.
Vanocur (pronounced van-OH-kur) was the last surviving journalist of the four who interviewed Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon during the first televised Presidential Debate in the United States on September 26. , 1960. (Others were Robert H. Fleming of ABC, Stuart Novins of CBS and Charles Warren of Mutual Broadcasting, Howard K. Smith, then of CBS, was the moderator.)
In a memorable moment, Mr. Vanocur questioned Nixon about a damaging remark that President Dwight D. Eisenhower had made about his vice president – that he could not remember a single idea of Nixon that had been passed .
Nixon replied that it was "probably a facetious remark". But in his 1962 book, "Six Crises," Nixon admitted that Mr. Vanocur's question had hurt.
"I'm sure," he wrote, "for millions of viewerc, this question allowed them to doubt one of my strongest themes and campaign assets: my experience as vice president. "
Mr. Vanocur also asked Kennedy a difficult question: how could he keep his promise to pass laws through Congress when he failed to do so as a member of Parliament and then in the Senate? (Kennedy skilfully blamed the Republicans, claiming that the main reason for his meager legislative summary was the threat of a Republican presidential veto suspending legislation proposed by the Democrats – a situation to which it will be remedied by the government. election of a democratic president.)
Mr. Vanocur then covered the Kennedy White House, becoming a regular presence at the president's frequent television news conferences. He was granted the first televised interview with Jacqueline Kennedy, the first lady, which prompted some competitors to consider his access as evidence of a dubious proximity to the Kennedys.
Mr. Vanocur was the first journalist to question Kennedy on the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion by a Cuban paramilitary group sponsored by the CIA in 1961. This issue sparked one of the Most memorable quotes from the president: "The episode," he said. , recalled "an old adage that the victory has one hundred fathers and the defeat an orphan".
Mr. Vanocur covered the NBC's politics from 1957 to 1971, leading at the same time one of Senator Robert F. Kennedy's latest interviews prior to his assassination in Los Angeles in 1968.
After a brief interlude with the Public Broadcasting System in the early 1970s, he was a TV columnist for the Washington Post in the mid-1970s. He then returned to the political press for ABC News, where he was also vice-president.
As ABC's principal correspondent in 1984, he led the debate on the vice-presidency of the outgoing president, George H. W. Bush and Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York. In 1992, as an independent correspondent, he participated in a presidential debate between Mr. Bush, Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas and Texas business mogul Ross Perot.
In his 1991 book, "Out of Thin Air: The Wonderful Life of Network News Brief," Reuven Frank, a pioneering news producer for NBC, called Mr. Vanocur "the best political journalist with whom I am". have never worked. "
For a time, NBC prepared him for more visible roles, making him his presenter for the weekend of the first half of the 1960s and, in 1969, hosting a new monthly news magazine, "First Tuesday ", To partly compete with the weekly" 60 minutes "on CBS. The "first Tuesday" lasted until August 1973.
Mr. Vanocur was also Washington correspondent for the "Today" show. Hoping to be promoted to NBC's anchor position in 1971, Mr. Vanocur, disappointed, left the network to join PBS when Mr. Chancellor was appointed to the position.
Mr. Vanocur had a tense relationship with President Nixon. Patrick J. Buchanan, a Nixon contributor, told reporters that Vanocur was "a notorious Kennedy sycophant".
The book reports that after Nixon staff found Mr. Vanocur and Mr. MacNeil ($ 85,000 and $ 65,000 respectively, the equivalent of about $ 530,000 and $ 405,000 today. The White House encouraged caricaturists and columnists to criticize their remuneration as excessive.
Under pressure from the White House, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting voted against the funding of news, analysis of information and political commentary on PBS, which actually killed the election platform before it was broadcast. Mr. Vanocur left PBS.
"I could not work on television for a long time," he said.. "Richard Nixon has driven me out of public broadcasting."
After a two-year stint at the Washington Post, Mr. Vanocur was hired by Roone Arledge, president of ABC News and Sports, will set up a special political reporting and investigative unit in Washington. He became a member of a team of journalists who pushed ABC's evening news to the top of the hearings in the 1970s.
He was born January 8, 1928 in Cleveland, Sander Vinocur, Louis and Rose (Millman) Vinocur. His father was a lawyer. After her parents' divorce in 1941, her mother took Sander and her sister, Roberta, to live in Illinois, and changed the spelling of their family name to Vanocur because she "was angry with the old man, "Vanocur told The Evening Independent of St. Petersburg, Florida
He graduated from the Western Military Academy in Alton, Illinois, now closed, in 1946, and then from Northwestern University with a degree in Political Science. He studied at the London School of Economics in 1951 and 1952.
After spending two years in the German and Austrian army, he was dismissed from his first lieutenant duties and returned to England to be a reporter at the Manchester Guardian (now The Guardian). He has also worked freelance for CBS News. ("What other work can you drink beer and read newspapers all day while getting paid?" He told The Evening Independent.)
Still in his mid-20s, he was hired by the New York Times in 1955 after a series of well-placed journalists led the way with their endorsement: the head of the London newspaper's office, Drew Middleton; columnist James Reston of Washington; and CBS commentator Eric Sevareid.
In his 1966 book on the Times, "The Kingdom and the Power," Gay Talese described Mr. Vanocur as appearing in front of the editor's office, Turner Catledge, for an interview.
"He was tall, hoarse, black-haired, and pretty handsome," Mr. Talese writes, "and he wore a well-fitting suit and British brown suede shoes. Catledge was impressed.
His time at the Times, as a reporter for the New York Metropolitan Staff, was relatively short. He joined NBC News in Washington in 1957 and was sent to Chicago the following year to cover the Midwest. He met John Kennedy and his family when the latter, then Senator from Massachusetts, went to Wisconsin to attend the presidential primary of the country in 1960.
In response to critics who claimed that he and the Kennedy had abused their relationship, Mr. Vanocur said that complaining about the family would have been counterproductive. "They would know that they belong to you and have nothing to give you," said Mr. Frank, quoted by Mr. Vanocur.
Over the years, Mr. Vanocur has taught at Duke University, consulted for the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, and organized "Movies in Time" and "History's Business" on History Channel. He also occasionally appeared in newspapers, notably in "The Group That Could not Straight Out" (1971), "Raise the Titanic" (1980) and "Dave" (1983).
Mr. Vanocur remained a regular commentator on journalism, stating that he preferred the days before the media to behave like "vengeful angels".
"I am a staunch supporter of press freedom," he said in a speech delivered before Stanford University's Hoover Institution in 2004, as long as they have something to say . "
Daniel E. Slotnik contributed to the report.
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