Richard Threlkeld | TV news reporter, 74

Richard Threlkeld, 74, a far-ranging and award-winning correspondent who worked for both CBS and ABC News during a long career, died Friday in a car crash on New York's Long Island.

Mr. Threlkeld's Mini Cooper collided with a propane tanker in Amagansett, N.Y. He was pronounced dead at Southampton Hospital, according to the East Hampton, N.Y., Police Department. He lived in nearby East Hampton.

The driver of the tanker, Earl Fryberger Jr. of Coatesville, was not injured, said police, who were investigating the accident.

Mr. Threlkeld spent more than 25 years at CBS News before retiring in 1998. He was a reporter, anchor and bureau chief who covered the Persian Gulf War and the Vietnam War, the Patty Hearst kidnapping and trial, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, and the execution of Gary Gilmore.

Mr. Threlkeld covered the presidential campaigns of candidates ranging from Barry Goldwater and Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s to Bill Clinton in the 1990s. He worked alongside Lesley Stahl as coanchor of The CBS Morning News from 1977-79, and reported for CBS Sunday Morning from its inception in 1979, as well as for The CBS Evening News With Dan Rather.

In 1981, he decided to jump to up-and-coming ABC News without fanfare and without telling CBS.

He described CBS as "the Rolls-Royce of TV news - traditional, utterly dependable and very predictable," while ABC "is like a Ferrari - real fast, not always predictable, but a lot of fun.

"At this stage of my life," said Mr. Threlkeld, then 43, "I'm in a Ferrari mood."

At ABC News, he reported for World News Tonight in a role he tailored for himself as a sort of roving news analyst.

Mr. Threlkeld returned to CBS News in 1989. His final assignment at CBS was as Moscow correspondent. From that experience, he wrote a book, Dispatches from the Former Evil Empire, which was published in 2001.

Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he was raised in Barrington, Ill. He graduated from Ripon (Wis.) College and earned a master's degree from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

During his career, he won several Emmy and Overseas Press Club awards and an Alfred I. du Pont-Columbia University Award.

He is survived by his wife of 28 years, Betsy Aaron, a former CBS and CNN correspondent; two children, and two grandchildren. - AP