Bruce Dunning, who retired in 2004 following a 35-year career at CBS News, died this afternoon at a Manhattan hospital from injuries suffered in a fall.
Around CBS, Dunning is best remembered for his award-winning and dramatic report on March 29, 1975 aboard a World Airways jet during the rescue of refugees from the airport in Da Nang, South Vietnam.
The five-and-a-half-minute report, in the final days of the Vietnam war, was broadcast on the “CBS Evening News” Saturday edition anchored by Dan Rather.
Dunning joined CBS News in July 1969 as a reporter/assignment editor in New York after working as a freelance reporter in Paris. He was posted to the Saigon Bureau in August 1970 and moved to the Tokyo bureau in 1972 covering the Asian region. He was one the first American broadcast journalists to report from North Korea.
In 1983, Dunning was named assistant bureau manager for CBS News Miami, covering the Southeast U.S. as well as Latin America. He returned to Asia ahead of the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.
Dunning, who was 73, began his journalism career in 1963 as a reporter and entertainment editor for the St. Petersburg Times. He is survived by his life partner, the artist Tetsunori Kawana. Since retiring from CBS, Dunning had worked as a manager and agent for artists.