Bill Monroe, 90, who hosted the long-running Washington political television show “Meet the Press” for nearly a decade, died Thursday at a Washington-area nursing home.
Monroe was the NBC show’s fourth moderator, from 1975 to 1984, and interviewed prominent political figures such as President Jimmy Carter and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Tim Russert, the best-known host of “Meet the Press,” assumed the host’s chair in 1991 after a series of short stints by others following Monroe’s departure.
Monroe’s daughter, Lee Monroe, said her father had taken a fall in December that put him in a nursing home and he had not been well since.
In 1961, he became NBC’s Washington bureau chief. He worked on the “Today Show,” winning the Peabody Award in 1972, and succeeded Lawrence Spivak as host of “Meet the Press” in 1975.
Marvin Kalb, who with Roger Mudd co-hosted “Meet the Press” after Monroe left, called him a “consummate interviewer” and a “gracious host.”
“I think fairness was the word that would best describe him as host,” Kalb said. The Associated Press
