Nancy Dickerson; Trailblazing Reporter

NEW YORK â€”  Award-winning journalist and author Nancy Dickerson, whose 1960 breakthrough as CBS News’ first female correspondent helped pave the way for a generation of women, died Saturday after a long illness. She was 70.

Dickerson, who died at New York Hospital, never recovered from a stroke suffered in January 1996, according to her son, John.

In 1960, she became the first female television reporter on the floor of a national political convention and later was the first woman to have a daily network television news show.

She earned a Peabody Award in 1982 for her acclaimed documentary, “784 Days That Changed America--From Watergate to Resignation,� an in-depth look at the Nixon White House.

“It would be a great thing if this program could be shown in every high school and college in the country,� said U.S. District Judge John Sirica, who presided over the main Watergate cases, after watching the program.

Dickerson’s high-profile Washington assignments also included the inaugurations of Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon, Kennedy’s funeral and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream� speech.

She eventually left Washington and reported from Europe, the Middle East and the Far East. For a 1980 PBS special, “Nancy Dickerson, Special Assignment: The Middle East,� she scored interviews with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

The Wauwatosa, Wis., native went to Washington after two years as a Milwaukee schoolteacher, joining the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

She also wrote a 1976 book, “Among Those Present,� detailing the Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Gerald Ford administrations.

A New York resident, Dickerson is survived by her husband, former Deputy Secretary of State John C. Whitehead, nine children and 11 grandchildren. Funeral arrangements were incomplete Saturday.