Today we learned that a remarkable journalist has died. I was actually at "60 Minutes" in the middle of a screening when they got the call that Ed Bradley had died from leukemia.
I didn't know Ed personally. We'd only met once in passing, but I think all of us who watched him on "60 Minutes" feel like we knew him.
He was a trailblazer who started working for CBS in Paris in 1971. He then went to Vietnam and also covered the war in Cambodia. I remember watching some of his old reports when CBS re-aired them on their short-lived cable channel. He always got close to the action and, in fact, was wounded in Cambodia by a mortar round.
Ed Bradley had been at "60 Minutes" for 25 years, and it's hard to imagine the program without him. He was a scrupulously honest reporter, and always seemed to be a truly decent man.
He listened to those he interviewed, and the conversations were real. I recently saw the piece he did with producer John Hamlin profiling Muhammad Ali. There is a great moment when Ali pretends to fall asleep at a meal and then surprises Ed. The whole table breaks out laughing, and watching at home it was hard not to laugh along with them.
It is hard to believe Ed Bradley is gone.