(UnitedVoice.com) – Thomas Trail Fenton was a veteran CBS News reporter. He spent decades in the news business before retiring in 2004. On July 16, Fenton’s son, Tom Fenton Jr., contacted CBS News and informed them that his dad died in Novato, California. He said that his dad “spent 34 cherished years at CBS, a time he truly loved.”
Fenton was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1930. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1952 with a bachelor’s degree in English. He joined the US Navy the year he graduated college and served until 1961. In 1952, he served in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in 1958, he was in the Mediterranean Sea during the Lebanon Crisis.
After he left the military, Fenton took a job as a domestic and foreign news correspondent at the Baltimore Sun. He worked at the newspaper from 1961 to 1969. In 1968, he won an award from the Overseas Press Club. In 1970, he joined CBS News and worked as a Rome-based correspondent. He was the first journalist to interview hostages taken by the Palestine Liberation Organization that year. Later, he reported on the India-Pakistan War of 1971, the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and Türkiye’s invasion of Cyprus in 1974. Fenton was also the first journalist to interview Iran’s new leader in 1979 when Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the Shah of Iran.
The former journalist also covered the first Gulf War, the fall of the USSR, wars in the Balkans, and violence in Africa and the Middle East. In 1997, he was part of the award-winning team that covered Princess Diana’s death.
Fenton served as the CBS bureau chief in multiple countries:
- Rome, Ital from 1970 to 1973
- Tel Aviv, Israel from 1973 to 1977
- Paris, France from 1977 to 1979
- London, England, from 1979 to 1994, then from 1996 to 2004
- Moscow, Russia from 1994 to 1996
The late journalist was so accomplished that he was known as the “dean of American foreign correspondents,” according to CBS. He was 94.
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