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 Safer, who retired in what CBS described as declining health,
died at his home in Manhattan.
"60 Minutes" had paid tribute to his work on Sunday's show. In a
final posting on Twitter on Sunday Safer wrote, "It’s been a
wonderful run, and I want to thank the millions of people who
have been loyal to our @60Minutes broadcast. Thank you!"
Safer, who spent 61 years in television news, brought an
authoritative, urbane style to "60 Minutes," CBS's
ground-breaking news program, and his work was a mix of hard and
soft news. The part-time painter often reported on art and his
disdain for contemporary works often set the art world atwitter.
CBS said Safer changed war reporting forever with his work in
Vietnam before becoming an "iconic" correspondent who was one of
U.S. television's most enduring stars.
"Morley was one of the most important journalists in any medium,
ever," CBS chairman and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves
said in a statement.
"He was also a gentleman, a scholar, a great raconteur - all of
those things and much more to generations of colleagues, his
legion of friends, and his family."
Although he interviewed many artists, actors and musicians,
Safer never cared much for celebrities, saying, "I really don't
care what movie stars have to say about life." Still, he listed
country singer Dolly Parton among his favorite interview
subjects.
"If I could interview Dolly every week, I would," Safer told the
New York Post in 2009.
Safer also delivered deep investigative pieces on injustice,
corporate malfeasance and trade in human body parts among a raft
of other subjects.
"Some people, you have to grit your teeth in order to stay in
the same room as them but you get on and ask the questions you
assume most of the people watching want to ask," he once said.
Jeff Fager, a former chairman of CBS News and the current
executive producer of "60 Minutes," wrote on Twitter that Safer
was a "masterful storyteller, inspiration to many of us and a
wonderful friend."
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WAR REPORTING
The late Don Hewitt, the creator of "60 Minutes," often cited a
Safer story as one of the show's greatest moments. In that
award-winning 1983 story, Safer reported on new evidence that freed
an innocent man who had been sentenced to life in prison for armed
robbery in Texas.
Safer's long tenure at "60 Minutes" followed years of war reporting
for CBS News, particularly from Vietnam. In a 1966 report he showed
shocking images of U.S. Marines burning the village of Cam Ne that
infuriated President Lyndon B. Johnson so much that he called CBS
executives to complain. That report was widely seen as one of the
first to turn public opinion against the Vietnam War.
Safer, a Canadian, joined CBS News in London in 1964 and opened the
network's Saigon bureau. He later returned to London to be bureau
chief.
"After four or five different wars, I grew weary of that work,
partly because in an open war, open to coverage, as Vietnam was,
it's not that difficult, really," he said.
He joined "60 Minutes" in December 1970 in the show's third season.
Safer told a CNN interviewer that he and prickly colleague Mike
Wallace, who died in April 2012, were sometimes "like scorpions in a
bottle" before their relationship mellowed.
In 1968 Safer married anthropology student Jane Fearer, shortly
after surviving an attack by Biafran soldiers who had killed a
photographer friend and made him aware of his own mortality. The
couple had a daughter, Sarah.
(Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Writing by Bill Trott;
Editing by Toni Reinhold)
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