Richard Threlkeld

News correspondent, Moscow

Richard Threlkeld has been CBS News' Moscow correspondent since November 1996. Threlkeld had been based in New York for CBS News since August 1989, when he returned to the Network. One of broadcast journalism's most accomplished writers and reporters, he has been a regular contributor to most CBS News broadcasts, especially the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and CBS News Sunday Morning.

Prior to a stint with ABC News (1982-89), Threlkeld served as a CBS News correspondent, anchor and bureau chief for 15 years. During that time, he contributed regularly to CBS News Sunday Morning and was a correspondent on the landmark CBS Reports documentary series, "The Defense of the United States."

Threlkeld is one of the most experienced combat correspondents in broadcast journalism. He covered the Persian Gulf war for CBS News and was one of the first journalists to report live from the front during the ground war along the Kuwait-Iraq border and from Kuwait City immediately after it was liberated. Threlkeld reported extensively on the Vietnam War and, in 1975, was among the last journalists evacuated from Phnom Penh and Saigon when those cities fell to the Communists. He also covered the U.S. invasions of Panama and Grenada.

Earlier, Threlkeld served as co-anchor of the CBS Morning News (1977-79) and as a general assignment correspondent based in domestic and overseas bureaus (1966-70). He covered such major domestic stories as the Patty Hearst kidnapping and trial, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and the execution of Gary Gilmore. On the political scene, Threlkeld reported on the campaigns of Bill Clinton, George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon B. Johnson, Walter Mondale, John Anderson, Robert Kennedy, George McGovern, Barry Goldwater, Nelson Rockefeller and Edmund Muskie.

As a CBS News overseas correspondent, he covered the Middle East peace process and Rhodesia's transformation to Zimbabwe in 1980. While based in Rome in 1977, Threlkeld reported from Italy, West Germany, Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Spain, France, Switzerland, Denmark and Greece. In 1976, he covered the war in Lebanon - the battle for Beirut and the Syrian invasion.

As the fall of Communism swept through Eastern Europe in 1989, Threlkeld was on the scene in Prague to provide reports on the landmark events there. In 1990, he was in Moscow to report on the Soviet revolution. He also traveled to Beijing to provide analysis of the summit between Mikhail Gorbachev and Deng Xiaoping and to cover the historic student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.

Threlkeld originally joined CBS News in 1966 as a producer-editor based in New York. Shortly afterwards, he moved to the CBS News bureau in Los Angeles as a producer-correspondent and then to San Francisco as a correspondent and bureau chief (1970-77).

Prior to joining CBS News, Threleld was a reporter for WMT-TV Cedar Rapids, Iowa (1961-65). He began his career in broadcast journalism in 1961 at WHAS-TV Louisville, Kentucky.

Throughout his career, Threlkeld has been honored with many of the most distinguished awards in broadcasting. Among them: several Emmy and Overseas Press Club Awards, an Alfred I. du Pont-Columbia University Award and a New York State Bar Association Award.

He is a member of the Radio and Television News Directors Association, Sigma Delta Chi and Phi Beta Kappa.

Threlkeld was born on Nov. 30, 1937, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and was raised in Barrington, Illinois. He was graduated from Ripon (Wisconsin) College in 1960 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and history and from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in 1961 with a Master's of Science degree in Journalism. He also attended the Columbia University School of International Affairs in 1965. Threlkeld received a Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Ripon College in 1989.

Threlkeld is married to Betsy Aaron, a former CBS News correspondent. He has two children.