Dan Quite was one and the identical with CBS for 44 years — and even longer. Regardless that he left in 2006, his identify continues to be related to the community that made him a family identify. “Dan Quite, CBS Information, grew to become sorta all a part of my identify, part of my identification,” he mentioned throughout a 2024 “CBS This Morning” interview. Now in his 90s, Quite has written his identify amongst America’s journalism greats. He skilled comparable success in his private life, having been fortunate sufficient to domesticate a virtually 70-year marriage.

However not the whole lot was good — removed from it. Quite has confronted a good quantity of adversity, beginning at a younger age. The seed for his journalistic ardour was planted throughout childhood when he confronted a well being tragedy. Whereas he went on to report on a few of the twentieth century’s greatest tales, together with the JFK assassination, the Watergate scandal, and the controversial Vietnam Conflict, his work compelled him to confront his personal mortality and even his duties as a journalist.

Nonetheless, Quite’s stellar profession as a CBS reporter and information anchor got here crashing down throughout one of many twenty first century’s greatest journalism scandals. Whereas Quite left CBS amid controversy and battle, he all the time held a particular place in his coronary heart for his former employer. “I miss CBS. I’ve missed it for the reason that day I left there,” he mentioned within the CBS interview. Quite completed greater than most in his life, however the journey was no stroll within the park. 

Dan Quite grew up in a distinct world. He lived in a body home on an unpaved road in Houston, Texas, however he counted himself one of many fortunate ones. “My father had a job within the Melancholy, which was a treasured factor,” he mentioned in a 2005 CBS Information particular about himself. Healthcare was additionally extra precarious again then. When he was round 10, Quite — pictured above at age 9 — obtained sick with rheumatic fever, an inflammatory illness that may outcome from improperly handled scarlet fever or strep throat. “Whereas not as unhealthy as polio, [it] could be very unhealthy,” he instructed the Austin American-Statesman in 2020.

The illness value Quite a part of his childhood, as he struggled with its negative effects for fairly a while. “I used to be bedridden for the higher a part of two years,” he mentioned. At a really younger age, Quite grappled together with his mortality. William Ernest Henley’s poem “Invictus” helped him deal with his strengths slightly than his weaknesses. “It was very helpful in steadying myself,” he mentioned.

Rheumatic fever had long-lasting penalties in Quite’s life, however not all had been unfavourable. As a result of he spent a lot time confined to his room, Quite needed to discover methods to maintain his thoughts busy. “The radio was my escape,” he mentioned in his CBS Information particular. The assault on Pearl Harbor had simply occurred, prompting the U.S. to enter World Conflict II. Quite’s love of journalism was born then. 

Dan Quite had a modest upbringing. His dad and mom did not even end highschool, however Byrl and Dan Quite Sr. knew the worth of training and needed their son to have higher alternatives than they’d. “[She was] completely decided [that I go to college] towards all odds,” he mentioned within the CBS particular. As a result of he performed soccer in highschool, Quite believed the game may be his probability to additional his training. However he did not get a scholarship. 

However he joined Sam Houston State Lecturers School in Huntsville, Texas, anyway, because of the assistance of journalism professor Hugh Cunningham, who was impressed by his laborious work. Moreover serving to Quite land part-time jobs to pay for tuition, Cunningham additionally supplied sensible help. “At one level [he] even let me sleep on his living-room flooring,” Quite instructed the Tv Academy in 2017. “There is no approach I might have or would have made it with out his assist,” he mentioned.

When he wasn’t crashing at his instructor’s home, he was overlaying the 70 miles between Houston and Huntsville by hitchhiking to and from faculty. After falling in love with the work of radio journalists in his childhood, Quite determined what he needed to pursue. “I began to enroll, and so they say, ‘What do you wish to main in?’ I mentioned, ‘Nicely, you realize, I wish to be a reporter,'” he mentioned within the particular. He earned a level in journalism in 1953, realizing his mom’s dream.

Dan Quite witnessed the truth of struggle firsthand, however his tasks as a reporter usually blurred together with his duties as a civilian. Quite lined the Vietnam Conflict for CBS in 1965 and 1966, shortly after overlaying the India-Pakistan Conflict of 1965. That marked his introduction to struggle journalism and seeing fight together with his personal eyes. “Frankly, I will be candid about it as a result of it is true that I used to be ill-prepared to cowl in that a part of the world and to cowl fight on that scale,” he instructed Asia Society in 2012.

He hadn’t been in Vietnam lengthy in any respect when he witnessed a Marine get wounded in crossfire in Tam Ky. Proper then and there, he needed to resolve whether or not to behave on his human instincts or sit again and chorus from interfering as journalists are instructed to do. “This younger Marine was hit — hit very badly. They wanted assist getting him out, and naturally, I helped,” he mentioned within the CBS particular. A younger man’s life was on the road, and he could not simply watch.

“If you’re there, when you let your feelings for a second out of you, then you definately’re not going to have the ability to do what you’ll want to do,” he mentioned. The Vietnam expertise modified Quite and taught him essential classes. “I had by no means seen this type of loss of life and destruction, this type of fixed savagery — on each side, on all sides,” he instructed Asia Society.

Jean Quite’s well being had been in decline for some time, however Dan Quite was nonetheless unprepared to lose his spouse when she died from most cancers on November 26, 2024. She was 89. “In the present day is the saddest of days for Dan and the prolonged Quite household,” his associates wrote in an announcement put up shared on Dan’s Fb web page. Jean had been receiving hospice care, which meant she was terminally in poor health. She died at residence in Austin, Texas. “Jean lived a full life as an unimaginable spouse, mom, pal, and artist — and a real Texan,” the put up learn.

Married for 67 years, the Rathers shared a son and a daughter, Danjack and Robin. They met whereas working at a radio station in Houston within the ’50s. “She was additionally the form of spouse who might meet presidents, kings and queens, draft dodgers, criminals, and company fits each day with equal ease and a surprising smile,” the obituary hooked up to the put up learn. And she or he did all of it whereas advancing her profession as an artist. Jean had an important position within the making of Dan’s profession.

His stint in Vietnam, which took his profession to the following stage, won’t have occurred with out her. Again then, CBS did not ship journalists with households on international assignments. However Dan needed to go, and Jean inspired him — though they’d younger kids. “Jean mentioned, ‘You understand, go as a result of you have to go,'” Dan recalled within the CBS particular.

Dan Quite’s decades-long profession at CBS got here to a stunning finish in 2006, however his undoing started a number of months earlier than when Quite participated within the 2004 investigation into the army profession of then-President George W. Bush, who was in search of reelection amid his administration’s controversial invasion of Iraq. Dubbed “For the Report,” the “60 Minutes” exposé relied on army paperwork that claimed Bush obtained preferential remedy throughout his stint within the Texas Air Nationwide Guard.

Within the section, Quite vouched for the authenticity of the paperwork, saying, “We consulted a handwriting analyst and doc skilled who believes the fabric is genuine.” However their authenticity might finally not be verified. The story grew to become laborious to defend when their supply, retired Lieutenant Colonel Invoice Burkett, admitted he wasn’t forthcoming about the place he obtained the paperwork. Quite apologized on behalf of the community. “We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I’m sorry,” he mentioned, in keeping with NBC Information.

CBS fired a number of workers over the so-called Killian paperwork controversy. Whereas Quite stepped down as anchor of “CBS Night Information” in November 2004, CBS retained him as an worker till his contract ran out somewhat over a yr later. Regardless of the sourcing blunder, Quite nonetheless believes the report was correct. “We reported a real story,” he instructed The Hollywood Reporter in 2015. “There wasn’t any doubt then, and there’s no doubt in any cheap particular person’s thoughts now, the story was true.” 

A yr after leaving the community, Quite accused CBS of singling him out for the errors of many in a 2007 lawsuit to stay in good standing with the White Home. “CBS deliberately prompted the general public and the media to attribute CBS’ alleged bungling of the episode to Mr. Quite,” he contended, arguing the technique grew to become evident when a few of the media dubbed the scandal “Rathergate,” Fox Information reported.

Quite denied duty for any doable errors whereas sustaining he believed their reporting was stable. “As defendants properly knew, even when any side of the printed had not been correct, which has by no means been established, Mr. Quite was not answerable for any such errors,” the swimsuit argued. He was in search of $70 million in compensatory and punitive damages. The swimsuit was dismissed in 2009 –however Quite does not remorse taking CBS to courtroom. “Some issues are price combating for, even when you lose,” he mentioned in The Hollywood Reporter interview.

Quite is not alone in his perception that the community used him as a scapegoat. “I believe Dan’s biggest crime in all of this was that he was intensely loyal to his folks,” former CBS Information Night producer Tom Bettag mentioned on PBS’ “Frontline.” Whereas Quite believes he should not have taken all of the blame for the scandal, he is aware of he wasn’t good. “I’ve made a whole lot of errors. I’ve a whole lot of wounds, a few of them self-inflicted, a few of them nonetheless partially open,” he admitted.