name	Yuri AndropovЮрий Андропов
nationality	Soviet
ethnicity	Russian
office	General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
term start	12 November 1982
term end	9 February 1984
predecessor	Leonid Brezhnev
successor	Konstantin Chernenko
office2	Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union
term start2	16 June 1983
term end2	9 February 1984
predecessor2	Vasili Kuznetsov (acting)
successor2	Vasili Kuznetsov (acting)
office3	Chairman of the Defense Council of the Soviet Union
term start3	May 1983
term end3	9 February 1984
predecessor3	Leonid Brezhnev
successor3	Konstantin Chernenko
office4	Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
1blankname4	General Secretary
1namedata4	Leonid Brezhnev
term start4	January 1982
term end4	12 November 1982
predecessor4	Mikhail Suslov
successor4	Konstantin Chernenko
office5	4th Chairman of the State Committee for State Security
term start5	18 May 1967
term end5	26 May 1982
premier5	Alexei KosyginNikolai Tikhonov
predecessor5	Vladimir Semichastny
successor5	Vitaly Fedorchuk
birth date	June 15, 1914
birth place	Stanitsa Nagutskaya, Stavropol Governorate, Russian Empire
death date	February 09, 1984
death place	Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
party	Communist Party of the Soviet Union
spouse	Tatyana Andropova (died November 1991)
children	Igor Andropov
residence	Kutuzovsky Prospekt
signature	Yuri Andropov Signature 2.svg }}

Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (, ''Yury Vladimirovich Andropov'';  – 9 February 1984) was a Soviet politician and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 12 November 1982 until his death fifteen months later.

Early life

Andropov was the son of a railway official Vladimir Konstantinovich Andropov, who was a member of a Don Cossack noble family. His mother was Yevgenia Karlovna Fleckenstein, a daughter of a wealthy Moscow businessman, Karl Franzovich Fleckenstein, a German Russian from Vyborg. He was educated at the Rybinsk Water Transport Technical College before he joined Komsomol in 1930. He became a member of the Communist Party in 1939 and was First Secretary of the Central Committee of Komsomol in the Soviet Karelo-Finnish Republic from 1940 to 1944. During World War II, Andropov took part of partisan guerrilla activities in Finland. From 1944 onwards, he left Komsomol for party work. In 1947 he was elected Second Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Karelo-Finnish SSR. He moved to Moscow in 1951 and joined the party secretariat. In 1954, he became the Soviet ambassador to Hungary.

Suppression of the Hungarian Revolution

In 1954, Andropov became the Soviet Ambassador in Hungary and held this position during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. After these events, Andropov suffered from a "Hungarian complex", according to historian Christopher Andrew: "he had watched in horror from the windows of his embassy as officers of the hated Hungarian security service were strung up from lampposts. Andropov remained haunted for the rest of his life by the speed with which an apparently all-powerful Communist one-party state had begun to topple. When other Communist regimes later seemed at risk - in Prague in 1968, in Kabul in 1979, in Warsaw in 1981, he was convinced that, as in Budapest in 1956, only armed force could ensure their survival".

Andropov played a key role in crushing the Hungarian Revolution. He convinced a reluctant Nikita Khrushchev that military intervention was necessary. He deceived Imre Nagy and other Hungarian leaders that the Soviet government did not order an attack on Hungary at the very moment of this attack. The Hungarian leaders were arrested and Nagy executed.

Chairman of the KGB

Andropov returned to Moscow to head the Department for Liaison with Communist and Workers' Parties in Socialist Countries (1957–1967). In 1961, he was elected full member of the CPSU Central Committee and was promoted to the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee in 1962. In 1967, he was relieved of his work in the Central Committee apparatus and appointed head of the KGB on recommendation of Mikhail Suslov. He gained additional powers in 1973, when he was promoted to full member of the Politburo.

Crushing the Prague Spring

During the Prague Spring events in Czechoslovakia, Andropov was the main proponent of the "extreme measures". He ordered the fabrication of false intelligence not only for public consumption, but also for the Soviet Politburo. "The KGB whipped up the fear that Czechoslovakia could fall victim to NATO aggression or to a coup". At this time, agent Oleg Kalugin reported from Washington that he gained access to "absolutely reliable documents proving that neither the CIA nor any other agency was manipulating the Czechoslovak reform movement". However his message was destroyed because it contradicted the conspiracy theory fabricated by Andropov. Andropov ordered a number of active measures, collectively known as operation PROGRESS, against Czechoslovak reformers.

Suppression of the Soviet dissident movement

Andropov aimed to achieve "the destruction of dissent in all its forms" and always insisted that "the struggle for human rights was a part of a wide-ranging imperialist plot to undermine the foundation of the Soviet state". On 3 July 1967, he made a proposal to establish for dealing with the political opposition the KGB’s Fifth Directorate (ideological counterintelligence). At the end of July, the directorate was established and entered in its files cases of all Soviet dissidents including Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. In 1968, Andropov as the KGB Chairman issued his order “On the tasks of State security agencies in combating the ideological sabotage by the adversary”, calling for struggle against dissidents and their imperialist masters. On 29 April 1969, he submitted to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union an elaborated plan for creating a network of psychiatric hospitals to defend the “Soviet Government and socialist order” from dissidents. The proposal by Andropov to use psychiatry for struggle against dissidents was implemented.

The repression of dissidents included plans to maim the dancer Rudolf Nureyev, who had defected in 1961. There are some who believe that Andropov was behind the deaths of Fyodor Kulakov and Pyotr Masherov, the two youngest members of the Soviet leadership.

Role in the invasion of Afghanistan

Andropov played the dominant role in the decision to invade Afghanistan in 1979. He insisted on the invasion, although he expected that the international community would blame the USSR for this action; the decision led to the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979–1988).

Andropov was the longest-serving KGB chairman and did not resign as head of the KGB until May 1982, when he was again promoted to the Secretariat to succeed the late Mikhail Suslov as secretary responsible for ideological affairs.

Leader of the Soviet Union

Two days after Leonid Brezhnev's death, on 12 November 1982, Andropov was elected General Secretary of the CPSU, the first former head of the KGB to become General Secretary. His appointment was received in the West with apprehension, in view of his roles in the KGB and in Hungary. At the time his personal background was a mystery in the West, with major newspapers printing detailed profiles of him that were inconsistent and in many cases fabricated.

During his rule, Andropov attempted to improve the economy by raising management effectiveness without changing the principles of socialist economy. In contrast to Brezhnev's policy of avoiding conflicts and dismissals, he began to fight violations of party, state and labour discipline, which led to significant personnel changes. During 15 months in office, Andropov dismissed 18 ministers, 37 first secretaries of obkoms, kraikoms and Central Committees of Communist Parties of Soviet Republics; criminal cases on highest party and state officials were started. For the first time, the facts about economic stagnation and obstacles to scientific progress were made available to the public and criticised.

In foreign policy, the war continued in Afghanistan, although Andropov - who felt the invasion may have been a mistake - did half-heartedly explore options for a negotiated withdrawal. Andropov's rule was also marked by deterioration of relations with the United States. U.S. plans to deploy Pershing missiles in Western Europe in response to the Soviet SS-20 missiles were contentious. But when Paul Nitze, the American negotiator, suggested a compromise plan for nuclear missiles in Europe in the celebrated “walk in the woods” with Soviet negotiator Yuli Kvitsinsky, the Soviets never responded. Kvitsinsky would later write that, despite his own efforts, the Soviet side was not interested in compromise, instead calculating that peace movements in the West would force the Americans to capitulate. On 8 March 1983, during Andropov's reign as General Secretary, U.S. President Ronald Reagan famously labeled the Soviet Union an "evil empire."

In August 1983 Andropov made a sensational announcement that the country was stopping all work on space-based weapons. One of his most notable acts during his short time as leader of the Soviet Union was in response to a letter from an American child from Maine named Samantha Smith, inviting her to the Soviet Union. Some people think he used Smith to make the Soviet Union less corrupt. Smith made friends with children in Moscow. This resulted in Smith becoming a well-known peace activist. Meanwhile, Soviet-U.S. arms control talks on intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe were suspended by the Soviet Union in November 1983 and by the end of 1983, the Soviets had broken off all arms control negotiations.

Cold War tensions were exacerbated by the downing near Moneron Island by Soviet fighters of a civilian jet liner, Korean Air Flight KAL-007 with a complement of 269 passengers and crew, including a congressman from Georgia, Larry McDonald. KAL 007 had strayed over the Soviet Union on 1 September 1983 on its way from Anchorage, Alaska, to Seoul, South Korea. Andropov was advised by his Defence Minister Dmitriy Ustinov and by the head of the KGB Victor Chebrikov to keep secret the fact that the Soviet Union held in its possession the sought-after "black box" from KAL 007. Andropov was encouraged to state that the Soviet Union engage in the deception that they too were looking for KAL 007 and the black box. Andropov agreed to this and the ruse continued until Boris Yeltsin disclosed the secret in 1992.

When he could no longer work in the Kremlin or attend the Politburo meetings, from September 1983, he adopted an original way of governing: he would suggest ideas to his assistants and speech writers, who would then prepare analytical "notes" for the Politburo.

On a Saturday preceding a Tuesday plenum of the Central Committee, Arkady Volsky, an aide to Andropov, came to Andropov's room at the Central Clinical Hospital in Kuntsevo to help him draft a speech. Andropov was in no shape to attend the plenum and he would have one of his men in the Politburo deliver the speech in his name. The last lines in the speech said that Central Committee staff members should be exemplary in their behavior, uncorrupted, responsible for the life of the country. Then Andropov gave Volsky a folder with the final draft and said, "The material looks good. Make sure you pay attention to the agenda I've written." Since the doctor walked him to the car, he did not have time to look right away at what he had written. Later, he got a chance to read it and saw that at the bottom of the last page Andropov had added in ink, in a somewhat unsteady handwriting, a new paragraph. It went like this: "Members of the Central Committee know that due to certain reasons, I am unable to come to the plenum. I can neither attend the meetings of the Politburo nor the secretariat. Therefore, I believe Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev should be assigned to preside over the meetings of the Politburo and the secretariat (of the Central Committee)." Andropov was recommending that Gorbachev be his inheritor. Volsky made a photocopy of the document and put the copy in his safe. He delivered the original to the Party leadership and assumed that it would be read out at the plenum. But at the meeting neither Konstantin Chernenko, Viktor Grishin, Nikolai Tikhonov, Dmitriy Ustinov nor any of the other politburo members made mention of Andropov's stated wishes. Volsky thought there must have been some mistake: "I went up to Chernenko and said, 'There was an addendum in the text.' He said, 'Think nothing of any addendum.' Then I saw his aide Bogolyubov and said, 'Klavdy Mikhailovich, there was a paragraph from Andropov's speech....' He led me off to the side, and said, 'Who do you think you are, a wise guy? Do you think your life ends with this?' I said, 'In that case, I'll have to phone Andropov.' And he replied, 'Then that will be your last phone call'". Andropov was furious when he heard what had happened at the plenum, but there was little he could do.

In his memoirs, Mikhail Gorbachev recalled that when Andropov was the leader, he and Nikolai Ryzhkov, the chairman of Gosplan, asked Andropov for access to real budget figures. "You are asking too much," he responded. "The budget is off limits to you."

Death and funeral

In February 1983, Andropov suffered total renal failure. In August 1983, he entered the Central Clinical Hospital in western Moscow on a permanent basis, where he would spend the remainder of his life. His aides would take turns visiting him in the hospital with important matters and paperwork.

Shortly before he was due to leave for the Crimea, Andropov's health severely deteriorated. The lightly dressed Andropov had become tired, and had taken a rest on a granite bench in the shade; his body became thoroughly chilled, and he soon began shivering uncontrollably.

The only ones who saw him on a regular basis were Politburo members Dmitriy Ustinov, Andrei Gromyko, Konstantin Chernenko and Viktor Chebrikov.

For the last two months of his life Andropov did not get out of bed, except when he was lifted onto a couch while his sheets were changed. He was physically finished but his mind was clear. Throughout his last days Andropov still worked, even if it meant little more than signing papers or giving his assent to his aides' proposals.

On 31 December 1983 Andropov celebrated the New Year for the last time. Vladimir Kryuchkov together with other friends visited Andropov. He was very thankful that his doctors let him drink a glass of champagne. They remained with him for about an hour and a half. After they had gone, Andropov remained alone with Kryuchkov and told him that he wished health and success to all the friends. At that moment, Kryuchkov understood that Andropov was going to die. In January, the future prime minister Nikolai Ryzhkov visited Andropov. Andropov kissed him and told him to go.

In late January 1984 the gradual decline in his health that characterized his tenure suddenly intensified due to growing intoxication in his blood, as a result of which he had periods of failing consciousness. On 9 February 1984, Andropov's last day, the nurse came to Boris Klukov, one of his many bodyguards, and said that he did not want to eat. She asked him to try to convince Andropov to eat. Klukov came up to Andropov and convinced him that he must eat. Andropov finally agreed to eat and they ate together. Then, Boris Klukov left the room for some time. And after half an hour there was a sudden commotion. Doctors ran to Andropov's room and the assistant of the security director also went there. Klukov called the assistants. He came up to Andropov's room, looked at the display and observed his slowing pulse. Andropov died on that day at 16:50 in his hospital room. Few of the top people, not even all the Politburo members, learned of the fact on the same day. According to the Soviet medical report, Andropov suffered from several medical conditions: interstitial nephritis, nephrosclerosis, residual hypertension and diabetes, which were worsened by chronic kidney deficiency.

A four-day period of nationwide mourning was announced. Inside the House of the Unions, mourners shuffled up a marble staircase beneath chandeliers draped in black gauze. On the stage at the left side of the Hall of Pillars, amid a veritable garden of flowers, a complete symphony orchestra in black tailcoats played classical music. Andropov's embalmed body, dressed in a black suit, white shirt and black-and-red tie, lay in an open coffin banked with carnations, red roses and tulips, faced the long queue of mourners. At the right side of the hall, in the front row of seats reserved for the dead leader's family, his wife Tatyana Filipovna with her red hair held in place with a hairclip, sat alongside with their two children, Igor and Irina.

On 14 February, the funeral parade began. Two officers led the funeral parade, carrying a large portrait of him followed by numerous red floral wreaths. Then general officers in tall Astrakhan hats appeared, carrying the late leader's 21 decorations and medals on small red cushions. Behind them, the coffin rested atop a gun carriage drawn by an olive-green military scout vehicle. Walking immediately behind were the members of Andropov's family. The Politburo leaders, almost indistinguishable from one another in their fur hats and look-alike overcoats with red armbands, led the last group of official mourners. As the coffin reached the middle of the Red Square, it was taken out of the carriage and placed on a red-draped bier facing the Lenin Mausoleum, with its lid removed. After a series of speeches, delivered by military and political leaders from the balcony of the Lenin Mausoleum, Andropov's coffin was carried to the Kremlin Wall Necropolis just behind it. At exactly 12:45 p.m. Tuesday, Andropov's coffin was lowered into the ground as foghorns blared, joining with sirens, wheezing factory whistles and rolling gunfire in a mournful cacophony.

He was succeeded in office by Konstantin Chernenko.

Legacy

Andropov's legacy remains the subject of much debate in Russia and elsewhere, both among scholars and in the popular media. He remains the focus of television documentaries and popular non-fiction, particularly around important anniversaries. As KGB head, Andropov was ruthless against dissent, and author David Remnick, who covered the Soviet Union for the ''Washington Post'' in the 1980s, called Andropov "profoundly corrupt, a beast". Alexander Yakovlev, later an advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev and the ideologist of perestroika, said "In a way I always thought Andropov was the most dangerous of all of them, simply because he was smarter than the rest." However, it was Andropov himself who recalled Yakovlev back to high office in Moscow in 1983 after a ten year ''de facto'' exile as ambassador to Canada after attacking Russian chauvinism. Yakovlev was also a close colleague of Andropov associate KGB General Yevgeny Primakov, later Prime Minister of Russia.

According to his former subordinate Securitate general Ion Mihai Pacepa, :"In the West, if Andropov is remembered at all, it is for his brutal suppression of political dissidence at home and for his role in planning the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. By contrast, the leaders of the former Warsaw Pact intelligence community, when I was one of them, looked up to Andropov as the man who substituted the KGB for the Communist party in governing the Soviet Union, and who was the godfather of Russia's new era of deception operations aimed at improving the badly damaged image of Soviet rulers in the West." Despite Andropov's hard-line stance in Hungary and the numerous banishments and intrigues for which he was responsible during his long tenure as head of the KGB, he has become widely regarded by many commentators as a humane reformer, especially in comparison with the stagnation and corruption during the later years of his predecessor, Leonid Brezhnev. Andropov, "a throwback to a tradition of Leninist asceticism", was appalled by the corruption during Brezhnev's regime, and ordered investigations and arrests of the most flagrant abusers. The investigations were so frightening that several members of Brezhnev's circle "shot, gassed or otherwise did away with themselves." He was certainly generally regarded as inclined to more gradual and constructive reform than was Gorbachev; most of the speculation centres around whether Andropov would have reformed the USSR in a manner which did not result in its eventual dissolution.

The Western media favored Andropov because of his supposed passion for Western music and scotch. However, these were unproven rumours. It is also questionable whether Andropov spoke any English at all. *

The short time he spent as leader, much of it in a state of extreme ill health, leaves debaters few concrete indications as to the nature of any hypothetical extended rule. As with the shortened rule of Lenin, speculators have much room to advocate their favourite theories and to develop the minor cult of personality which has formed around him.

Andropov lived in 26 Kutuzovski prospekt, the same building that Suslov and Brezhnev also lived in. He was first married to Nina Ivanovna. She bore him a son who died in mysterious circumstances in the late 1970s. In 1983 she was diagnosed with cancer and underwent a successful operation. He met his second wife, Tatyana Filipovna, during WW2 in the Karelian Front when she was Komsomol secretary. She had suffered a nervous breakdown during the Hungarian revolution. Andropov's chief guard informed Tatyana about the death of her husband. She was too grief-stricken to join in the procession and during the funeral her relatives helped her to walk. Before the lid could be closed on Andropov's coffin, she bent to kiss him. She touched his hair and then kissed him again. In 1985, a respectful 75-minute film was broadcast in which Tatyana (not even seen in public until Andropov's funeral) reads love poems written by her husband. Tatyana became ill and died in November 1991. Andropov had also a son, Igor (died June 2006), and a daughter, Irina (born 1946).

References

Further reading

''Yuri Andropov: A Secret Passage into the Kremlin'', Vladimir & Klepikova, Elena Solovyov, MacMillan Publishing Company, 1983, 302 pages, ISBN 0-02-612290-1.

''The Andropov File: The Life and Ideas of Yuri V. Andropov, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union'', Martin Ebon, McGraw-Hill Companies, 1983, 284 pages, ISBN 0-07-018861-0.

Johanna Granville, ''The First Domino: International Decision Making During the Hungarian Crisis of 1956'', Texas A & M University Press, 2004. ISBN 1-58544-298-4.

Primary sources

Johanna Granville, trans., "Soviet Archival Documents on the Hungarian Revolution, 24 October - 4 November 1956",

''Cold War International History Project Bulletin'', no. 5 (Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Washington, DC), Spring, 1995, pp. 22–23, 29-34.

External links

List of Andropov documents related to Andrei Sakharov and other dissidents

The KGB's 1967 Annual Report, signed by Andropov by CNN

Category:1914 births Category:1984 deaths Category:Ambassadors of the Soviet Union to Hungary Category:Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Category:Cold War leaders Category:Heads of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Category:Deaths from renal failure Category:Heads of state of the Soviet Union Category:Heroes of Socialist Labour Category:People buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis Category:People of the Soviet war in Afghanistan Category:People from Stavropol Category:Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Category:Russian atheists Category:Soviet politicians Category:KGB chairmen

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name	Ted Koppel
birthname	Edward James Koppel
birth date	February 08, 1940
birth place	Nelson, Lancashire, England, United Kingdom| age
occupation	JournalistNews anchor
years active	1963–present
spouse	Grace Anne Dorney(1963–present)
children	Andrea, Deirdre, Andrew, Tara
credits	''Nightline'' (1980–2005)
url	}}

Edward James "Ted" Koppel (born February 8, 1940) is an English-born American broadcast journalist, best known as the anchor for ''Nightline'' from the program's inception in 1980 until his retirement in late 2005. After leaving ''Nightline'', Koppel worked as managing editor for the Discovery Channel before resigning in 2008. Koppel is currently a senior news analyst for National Public Radio and contributing analyst to ''BBC World News America''.

Personal life

Koppel, an only child, was born in Nelson, Lancashire, England, after his German Jewish parents fled Germany due to the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism. Koppel, at 13, immigrated to the United States in 1953 with his family. His mother, Alice, was a singer and pianist, and his father, Edwin, was a tire factory owner. He graduated from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Science Degree and from Stanford University with a Master of Arts Degree in Mass Communications Research and Political Science. In 2007, the University of Southern California awarded Koppel an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. Koppel returns to Syracuse University regularly as a guest speaker. He was a member of the student-run WAER and keeps in touch with the student media at Syracuse. He is a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity.

In 1963, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen, and married Grace Anne Dorney.

Koppel is multilingual and speaks German, Russian, and French in addition to his native English.

Koppel is an old friend of Henry Kissinger. Both Kissinger and Koppel moved to the United States as children. Along with former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, Kissinger was the most frequent guest on ''Nightline''. In an interview, Koppel commented, "Henry Kissinger is, plain and simply, the best secretary of state we have had in 20, maybe 30 years – certainly one of the two or three great secretaries of state of our century," and added, "I’m proud to be a friend of Henry Kissinger. He is an extraordinary man. This country has lost a lot by not having him in a position of influence and authority".

Ted and Grace Anne have four children: Andrea (a former journalist), Deirdre, Andrew, and Tara. Andrew Koppel was found dead in a New York City apartment on May 31, 2010, reportedly after a day-long drinking binge.

Career

Early career

Koppel had a brief stint as a teacher before being hired as a copyboy at WMCA Radio in New York. In June 1963, he became the youngest correspondent ever hired by ABC Radio News, working on the daily Flair Reports program. In 1966, Koppel worked for ABC Television as a war correspondent during the Vietnam War. Koppel returned in 1968 to cover the campaign of Richard Nixon, before becoming Hong Kong bureau chief, and US State Department correspondent, where Koppel formed a good friendship with Henry Kissinger.

Accusations of bias

Koppel was suggested as being a conduit for the government's point of view. In the late 1980s, the progressive media criticism organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) conducted a 40-month study of 865 editions of ''Nightline'' and concluded, "On shows about international affairs, U.S. government policymakers and ex-officials dominated the ''Nightline'' guest list. American critics of foreign policy were almost invisible." In 1987, ''Newsweek'' opined, "The anchor who makes viewers feel that he is challenging the powers that be on their behalf is in fact the quintessential establishment journalist". Koppel responded to this by saying, "We are governed by the president and his cabinet and their people. And they are the ones who are responsible for our foreign policy, and they are the ones I want to talk to".

Departure from ''Nightline''

On November 22, 2005, Koppel stepped down from ''Nightline'' after 25 years with the program and left ABC after 42 years with the network. His final ''Nightline'' broadcast did not feature clips highlighting memorable interviews and famous moments from his tenure as host, as is typical when an anchor retires. Instead, the show replayed the highly acclaimed episode of Nightline with Koppel's 1995 interviews with retired Brandeis University sociology professor Morrie Schwartz, who was dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease). For this broadcast, Koppel interviewed sports journalist Mitch Albom, who had been a student of Schwartz. Albom talked about how the ''Nightline'' interviews led and inspired him into contacting Schwartz personally, and then visiting him weekly. These visits became the basis for the popular book ''Tuesdays with Morrie'', chronicling lessons about life learned from Schwartz.

After the show's last commercial break, Koppel made his final remarks prior to signing off:

Recent work

Following ''Nightline'' Koppel has taken on a number of roles which span various formats of news media: He signed up as an opposite editorial-contributing columnist, effective January 29, 2006, for ''New York Times''. Starting in June 2006, he has provided commentary to ''Morning Edition'', ''All Things Considered'', and ''Day to Day'' on National Public Radio, joining NPR's other two Senior News Analysts, Cokie Roberts and Daniel Schorr. As such, he participated in the annual NPR Fourth of July reading of the Declaration of Independence in 2007.

Koppel makes occasional guest appearances on ''The Daily Show'' appearing in extreme close-up as a disembodied head, acting as Jon Stewart's journalistic conscience, sometimes as the replacement for the so-called "Giant Head of Brian Williams" projected on the screen behind Stewart. Koppel has jokingly insisted that "this is the actual size of [Koppel's] head"

Koppel has worked for BBC News as a "contributing analyst" covering the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Discovery Channel

Following his departure from ''Nightline'' Koppel formed a three-year partnership with Discovery Communications as managing editor of the Discovery Channel. While at Discovery Koppel produced several lengthy documentaries on a variety of subjects including a 2008 four-hour miniseries on China, which Koppel "ranks with some of the work that [he is] most proud of over the years." The four-part documentary, called ''The People's Republic of Capitalism'', is an extensive look at the fast-changing country. It takes a look at the role of Chinese consumers in the growing -but yet communist- economy.

Koppel and Discovery Communications parted ways in November, 2008, terminating their contract six months early, prompting rumors that Koppel would be hired for NBC's Meet the Press. Koppel has stated that he is not interested in the job.

Influence

"Network news programming continues to be dominated by faces from another era. (Koppel made his reputation in the late seventies by covering the Iranian hostage crisis every night; in the eighties, he was talked about—seriously—as secretary of State.) These faces (along with Koppel, Jennings, Brokaw, Rather, Barbara Walters, Mike Wallace, Morley Safer) are the networks' brand identifiers. They all made their reputations in a three-network world. This means—drumbeat—they are more famous than anyone has ever been and more famous than anyone will ever be. They are both obsolete (all of them with an increasingly bewildered look—the Georgie Jessels of our age) and yet at the same time necessary. No one will ever be as recognizable as they are—the hum will never be so steady without them," wrote media critic, Michael Wolff, in a 2002 profile of Koppel in ''New York Magazine''.

See also

Koppel on Discovery: Iran, The most Dangerous Nation?

References

External links

Biography from ABC

Ted Koppel to Join 'NY Times' Editorial Page, Contribute to NPR, a January 2006 article from ''Editor & Publisher''

''Global National'' anchor Kevin Newman recalls Ted Koppel on his blog

ABC News' "Time Tunnel" page containing clips of numerous newscasts (including ''Nightline'') on which Koppel appeared

Category:1940 births Category:Living people Category:American people of German-Jewish descent Category:American television news anchors Category:American television reporters and correspondents Category:ABC News personalities Category:American columnists Category:English emigrants to the United States Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:People from Nelson Category:People from Potomac, Maryland Category:Stanford University alumni Category:Syracuse University alumni

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