Newsman Jennings Dead At 67

Canadian-Born Broadcaster Was Face Of ABC News For Decades

(CBS/AP)  Jennings put his personal stamp on countless news stories - anchoring every major election since 1984, interviewing newsmakers from Anwar Sadat of Egypt to the Ayatollah Khomeni in Iran and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"No one could ad lib like Peter," said longtime ABC colleague Barbara Walters. "You would think that it was all scripted, he was so poetic, but it wasn't... Sometimes he drove me crazy because he knew so many details. He just died much too young."

"He really did make us raise our sights," said Diane Sawyer, another longtime colleague at ABC.

CBS News Early Show Anchor Harry Smith said Jennings' on-camera announcement last spring that he had cancer was handled with his usual grace and dignity.

"I will continue to do the broadcast," Jennings said, his voice husky, in a taped message that night. "On good days, my voice will not always be like this."

But it was to be the last time he would ever appear on television, although he continued to contribute behind the scenes whenever his health allowed.

"He knew that it was an uphill struggle. But he faced it with realism, courage, and a firm hope that he would be one of the fortunate ones," Westin said. "In the end, he was not."

Broadcasting was the family business for Jennings. His father, Charles Jennings, was the first person to anchor a nightly national news program in Canada and later became head of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.'s news division. A picture of his father was displayed prominently in Jennings' office off ABC's newsroom.

Charles Jennings' son had a Saturday morning radio show in Ottawa at age 9. Jennings never completed high school or college, and began his career as a news reporter at a radio station in Brockton, Ontario. He quickly earned an anchor job at Canadian Television.

Sent south to cover the Democratic national convention in 1964, the handsome, dashing correspondent was noticed by ABC's news president. Jennings was offered a reporting job and left Canada for New York.

As the third-place news network, ABC figured its only chance was to go after young viewers. Jennings was picked to anchor the evening news and debuted on Feb. 1, 1965. He was 26.

"It was a little ridiculous when you think about it," Jennings told author Barbara Matusow. "A twenty-six-year-old trying to compete with Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley. I was simply unqualified." Walter Cronkite was the long-time anchor on CBS, while the team of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley co-anchored NBC's evening news program.

Critics savaged Jennings as a pretty face unfit for the promotion. Using the Canadian pronunciations for some words and once misidentifying the Marine Corps' anthem as "Anchors Aweigh," the Navy's anthem, didn't help his reputation. The experiment ended three years later.

He later described the humbling experience as an opportunity, "because I was obliged to figure out who I was and what I really wanted to be."

Assigned as a foreign correspondent, Jennings thrived. He established an ABC News bureau in Beirut, and became an expert on the Middle East. He won a Peabody Award for a 1974 profile of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

On the scene at the Munich Olympics in 1972, Jennings was perfectly placed to cover the hostage-taking of Israeli athletes by an Arab terrorist group. He and a crew hid in the athletes' quarters for a close-in view of the drama.

Jennings returned to the evening news a decade after his unceremonious departure. In 1978, ABC renamed its broadcast "World News Tonight," and instituted a three-person anchor team: Frank Reynolds based in Washington, Max Robinson from Chicago and Jennings, by then ABC's chief foreign correspondent, from London.

Following Reynolds' death from cancer, ABC abandoned the multi-anchor format and Jennings became sole anchor on Sept. 5, 1983.