Larry LeSueur

Larry LeSueur was born in 1909 in New York City, growing up there and in Chicago. His father had been a foreign correspondent for the New York Tribune; his grandfather had also been a journalist. Desiring to follow in their footsteps, LeSueur began writing at an early age. He worked his way through N.Y.U., graduating with a degree in English.

Unable to find a newspaper job in Depression-torn America, LeSueur worked as an assistant to a private detective and a floorwalker at Macy's, before finally being hired by Women's Wear Daily. Less than a year, later he went to the U.P. as a wire service reporter. He supplemented his income by furnishing and interpreting actual news to controversial CBS commentator Boake Carter. Carter seldom left his Bucks County Estate and was known for his ultra-right-wing opinions and informationally-challenged accounts of the day's news.

By 1939, LeSueur had had enough of Carter and left for England to try to find work covering the European situation. He approached Edward R. Murrow about a job. When a position opened a few weeks later, he was hired by CBS and stationed in France. Following the French surrender, LeSueur spent time in London covering the Blitz alongside Murrow and Eric Sevareid, before being assigned to cover the war in Russia. He spent a year there, often laboring under harrowing conditions, covering the story of the fighting on the Eastern Front.

On June 6, 1944, LeSueur landed with American troops at Normandy on Utah Beach. He became the first reporter to broadcast from the American beachhead and the first to report the liberation of Paris. After the war, he was appointed by CBS as its chief Washington correspondent. Later he was assigned to cover the United Nations where his reportUnited Nations in Action earned him a Peabody Award in 1949.

LeSueur continued his work with Murrow on the See It Now television program and was the host of CBS Sunday Morning. In 1960, CBS attempted to send him back to Russia as its Moscow correspondent, but he was refused entry by the Soviet government. When asked the reason, the authorities told him. "We know who you are, Mr. LeSueur. You've been here before."

Always considered the "forgotten" Murrow's Boy, LeSueur fell out of the public eye after leaving CBS in 1963. He joined the Voice of America, once again connecting him with Murrow. VOA was operated by the (now defunct) United States Information Agency which was headed by Edward R. Murrow when LeSueur joined. Murrow left the agency in 1964 as his health declined. LeSueur, however, stayed on at VOA where he spent twenty years as an analyst and White House correspondent.

He died at his home in Washington in 2003 after a long battle with Parkinson's disease. His wife, Dorothy, told CBS News that, on his passing, he was listening to former Secretary of State Colin Powell address the UN on the evidence surrounding Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction stockpiles in the run-up to the Iraq War.

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