Morley Safer of ’60 Minutes’ dies at 84

Morley Safer, the longtime CBS News reporter, died Thursday at the age of 84, the network announced.

{mosads}Safer retired as a “60 Minutes” correspondent just last week after 46 years with the show.

“Morley was one of the most important journalists in any medium, ever,” Leslie Moonves, the network’s CEO, said in a statement. “He broke ground in war reporting and made a name that will forever be synonymous with 60 MINUTES. 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, to whom all of us at CBS offer our sincerest condolences over the loss of one of CBS’ and journalism’s greatest treasures.”

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) and Ohio Rep. Joyce Beatty (D) were among those offering their condolences on Twitter:

(2/2) I fondly remember being interviewed by Morley for this @60Minutes drones segment. He will be greatly missed. https://t.co/iuEQJHQRTc

— Sen Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) May 19, 2016

60 Minutes won’t be the same without Morley Safer. pic.twitter.com/Uu6m1rJCug

— Joyce Beatty (@RepBeatty) May 19, 2016

Safer rose to prominence with his reporting during the Vietnam War. In 1965, he showed footage of U.S. Marines burning the huts of Vietnamese villagers, angering the Johnson administration and the Pentagon, which Safer said scorned him for the rest of his life, according to the statement.

Safer was born in Toronto on Nov. 8, 1931. He later became an American citizen and held dual citizenship.

CBS hired him in 1964 in London, where he was working as a correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

He is survived by his wife, Jane, a daughter and three grandchildren.