Come Hear Dan Rather Speak!
Eastern Connecticut State University’s Arts and Lecture Series is celebrating its 12th season. Opening this year’s series is former “CBS News” anchor and “60 Minutes” correspondent Dan Rather, who will be speaking on “Looking Ahead to the 2012 Election” at 7 p.m. on Oct. 9 in the Francis E. Geissler Gymnasium. For more than 40 years, Rather has been reporting on the world’s leading news stories.
Rather’s reporting skills have taken him to locations as far ranging as Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, China, Russia and Cuba. He served as a correspondent during the Vietnam War, the Mujahadeen uprising against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and the first and second Iraq wars.
Rather was among the first western journalists to report on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, and interviewed Mikhail Gorbachev in Red Square and Fidel Castro in Havana.
On the domestic front, Rather has covered every presidential campaign since 1952. He was White House correspondent for “CBS News” during the administrations of Presidents Johnson and Nixon, and was the first network television journalist to report that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas, TX.
As a reporter and White House correspondent during the 1960s, Rather reported on the Civil Rights struggle in the South, covering Civil Rights demonstrations in Savannah, GA; Birmingham, AL; and multiple locales in Mississippi from 1962–64.
From 1972–74, Rather covered the Watergate scandal and the subsequent resignation of President Richard Nixon.
In the days and weeks that followed the deadly attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, he became the first journalist to report from underneath “The Pile” at Ground Zero.
Rather has written eight books, five of which are on the New York Times best-sellers list. “Rather Outspoken” is currently in stores.
Tickets for Arts and Lectures Series events are $10 for the general public and can be reserved by calling (860) 465-0036 or e-mailing tickets@easternct.edu. For more information on the 2012-2013 series, visit www.easternct.edu/artsandlecture.
Eastern Connecticut State University is the state’s public liberal arts university and serves approximately 5,600 students each year on its Willimantic campus and satellite locations.
It is the policy of Eastern Connecticut State University to ensure equal access to its events. If you are an individual with a disability and will need accommodations for this event, please contact the Office of University Relations at (860) 465-5735.