CBS News producer J. Wershba dies at 90

Joseph Wershba, one of the pioneering producers of network television news whose work with Edward R. Murrow hastened the end of the Communist witchhunts of the 1950s, has died. He was 90.

Wershba, a resident of Manhasset Hills for 47 years, died Saturday following complications from pneumonia, according to a CBS News statement.

Wershba had been Murrow's cameraman and producer for a 1953 "See it Now" story on an Air Force officer, Milo Radulovich, who had been discharged from the Reserves because his sister and father, a Yugoslav immigrant, had reputed ties to Communism. Until Radulovich, Murrow had been -- at least on the air -- uncritical of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, and the witchhunts for Communists or Communist sympathizers in the government and armed services.

But this story was the opening salvo. The Oct. 20, 1953, "See it Now" piece helped Radulovich earn reinstatement, while setting the stage for Murrow's later confrontations with McCarthy. In the 2005 movie, "Good Night, and Good Luck," which chronicled the Murrow-McCarthy battle, Robert Downey Jr. played Wershba.

Wershba later left CBS to work for the New York Post as a reporter, returning in 1964 to work on another classic documentary series, "CBS Reports," and four years later was one of the inaugural producers on "60 Minutes." Over his 20-year career at that show, he was most closely associated with Morley Safer, winning Emmys for his 1971 report on the Gulf of Tonkin incident, "What Happened in Tonkin Gulf," and another for a Safer profile of Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek.

Jeff Fager, chairman of CBS News and executive producer of "60 Minutes," said of Wershba, "He loved this organization, and almost everything he touched became part of the foundation for CBS News, including '60 Minutes.' "

"Joe was an old-school reporter and a wonderful traveling companion," Safer said in a statement Monday. "His only hobby was collecting. He collected books and people -- especially people. In all the years we worked together, I never heard him utter a single cynical phrase. He was also a great patriot, in the best sense of that much- abused word."

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Wershba and his wife, Shirley, a journalist he met at the overnight shift at CBS News, joined Walter Cronkite's production company after leaving CBS in 1988.

Born in Manhattan on Aug. 19, 1920, Wershba pursued journalism at his Brooklyn high school, and edited the Brooklyn College newspaper. He was drafted into the Army and discharged as a first lieutenant.

He is survived by his wife of 63 years, and by a brother, Charles; a daughter, Randi; a son, Donald; and two granddaughters.

The family will hold a graveside service Tuesday at Pinelawn Memorial Park and Gardens in Farmingdale. CBS News said it will announce a memorial at a later date. With AP