A loser in the Cronkite sweepstakes, unjolly Roger jumps ship
Roger Mudd learned the news only moments before it was officially announced last February: Dan Rather, the handsome, rat-a-tat-tat 60 Minutes correspondent, had been chosen to succeed Walter Cronkite as anchorman on the CBS Evening News. Until that instant, Mudd, 52, had been sure that the job would eventually be his. He had, after all, been filling in for Cronkite on weekends and vacations since the late '60s. Stunned and humiliated, Mudd took a paid leave of absence and in June began talking to rival networks ABC and NBC. "I have regarded...