By Patricia Sullivan Washington Post

George Herman, 85, a CBS correspondent from 1944 to 1987 and the longest-serving moderator of its Sunday morning show "Face the Nation," died of congestive heart failure Feb. 8 at his Washington home.

Mr. Herman's long career as a newsman stretched from the political conventions of 1948 through 1980. He was a Korean War correspondent who provided CBS with its sound-and-film TV segments from abroad. He was White House correspondent during the Kennedy administration and co-anchored coverage of the Senate hearings on Watergate.

After his 14 years on "Face the Nation" ended in 1983, Mr. Herman remained a correspondent, making appearances on "Sunday Morning," on "Newsbreak," the network's one-minute news segments, and on CBS Radio. His family said he was forced to retire in 1987.

"George Herman was a terrific reporter and an even better person," Bob Schieffer, the current moderator of "Face the Nation," said in a statement released by CBS. "He was the epitome of what a CBS News correspondent should be -- smart, thoughtful, fair and courageous."

Mr. Herman was also a wordsmith. For a 1974 CBS radio report, later reprinted in The Washington Post and other newspapers, he mused about the introduction of the word "disinformation" into the language.

"In time, not knowing about disinformation will surely be a grammatical disdemeanor. And woe to the discreant who has the disfortune to labor under the disapprehension that there is no such word," he wrote. "It may not exist in the English language, but in Washington-ese, I predict a mistinctly brilliant future for it. There is no end to the malicious dischief and endless disconduct that may not spring up as a result of this marvelous distake. . . . It's a new world where disinformation is officially mispensed and the gullible are disled."

He was born in New York City and graduated from Dartmouth College with a mathematics degree in 1941. He received a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University in 1942.

Classified 4-F by his draft board because of poor eyesight, ulcers, flat feet and other medical maladies, he went to work for WQXR radio in New York and joined CBS News as a radio news writer in 1944. He was deemed unqualified to be a broadcaster, but he made his on-air radio debut while a night news editor with news of the Japanese offer to surrender, ad-libbing for 20 minutes until correspondent Robert Trout arrived to take over.

His first appearance on television came in 1948 when he was, almost literally, shoved on to the air with a dime-store writing pad to report on the vote tallies at the Democratic National Convention. He was the only one there who had worked the numbers.

But he still had trouble breaking on to the air on a regular basis. So he made a deal with CBS -- he would get himself to the Far East if they would buy his reports. With that agreement, a 16mm camera and an audio recording machine, he took off for Guam, Vietnam, India and Pakistan. He returned after a year, and when the Korean War broke out, he got the job. He landed with United Nations troops at Inchon and reported there until the fighting ended in 1953.

His son Douglas, who interviewed his father, said those days gave Mr. Herman his best memories.

"He enjoyed the news business so much and especially back then, when it was a seat-of-the-pants sort of thing," he said. "He loved camaraderie of troops and press in Korea."

After his return, he was White House correspondent during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations and was one of the reporters designated to accompany President John F. Kennedy into seclusion if necessary during the Cuban Missile Crisis, said his friend Sid Davis, former Washington bureau chief and vice president of NBC News.

He was the CBS reporter during the historic three-network interview with Kennedy in December 1962, and after Kennedy's assassination, he stood in front of the White House for 20 hours, much of the time in the rain, reporting on the aftermath. Coverage of many political campaigns and conventions followed.

In 1971, he and his wife had their house on O Street NW in Georgetown painted a bright, polychromatic pattern with a four-foot-high, sinuous daisy, and a posy of baby daisies between the windows.

The house, which prompted much mirth as well as mortification among other Georgetown residents, retained its multicolored expression of joy for 10 years before it was repainted in a more moderate style.

Mr. Herman started hosting "Face the Nation" in 1969. He was the first to broadcast news about the break-in at the Democratic national headquarters in the Watergate in 1972.

After leaving CBS, Mr. Herman moved with his wife to New Hampshire for several years. They returned to Washington in 1992.

In the past few years, Mr. Herman conducted popular and newsy "month-in-review" seminars with two other retired broadcasters for members of the intellectually and culturally elite Cosmos Club.

Survivors include his wife of 50 years, Patricia Herman of Washington; three sons, Charles Herman of Glenview, Ill., Scott Herman of Bethesda and Douglas Herman of Baltimore; and six grandchildren.

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