Journalist Daniel Schorr, Famous in Watergate, Other Crises, Dies
Daniel Schorr, a courageous journalist whose reporting involved a number of important civil liberties issues, died on this day.
In his long career, he worked for The New York Times, CBS Television, and National Public Radio (NPR). Schorr became of the most famous and controversial American journalist in the 1970s.
During the Watergate scandal, while reporting live on television on President Nixon’s notorious “enemies list” on June 27, 1973, Schorr discovered that his own name was on the list. (For more on the enemies list, see August 16, 1971.)
On the night of April 28, 1975, also on CBS News, he was the first news person to report that the CIA had engaged in plots to assassinate foreign leaders, including Fidel Castro of Cuba. His story touched off investigations of the CIA assassination plots and led to President Gerald Ford banning assassinations on February 18, 1976.
And when the House of Representatives voted not to release the Pike Committee report on CIA abuses, Schorr obtained and leaked a summary of the report to the Village Voice in New York City, which it published on February 16, 1976. Schorr then faced a Congressional investigation of his role in obtaining and leaking the Pike Committee report (February 19, 1976).
Daniel Schorr delivered his last commentary on July 13, 2010, ten days before his death.
Watch a tribute to Daniel Schorr: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7SMsh5S-h8
Read Daniel Schorr’s FBI File: http://vault.fbi.gov/daniel-schorr
Read Schorr’s autobiography: Daniel Schorr, Staying Tuned: A Life in Journalism (2001); and his earlier account: Clearing the Air (1977)