Dan Departs: He’s Retreating To The Catskills, Then Heading To Alaska To Fish

Is Tom Shales the only writer who talked to Dan Rather on Tuesday? “Reached at his home in New York, Rather did not sound rattled,” the Washington Post columnist writes. “It is unlikely he will make an appearance at the fly-infested CBS News building on New York’s West 57th Street this week; the contents of his office — including the family Bible that was always opened to a different verse — have been removed and will be sent to him. As of Friday, officially, Dan Rather and CBS News will no longer be one.

Now that the smoke has cleared from a final skirmish, Rather says he and his wife, Jean, and one or two of their children are headed for a retreat in the Catskills that has been in the family for decades. Then the couple will head to Alaska because Dan loves to fish there, and because the air is so clean. Especially when compared with the air on the Upper West Side…”