cover image In the Storm of the Eye

In the Storm of the Eye

Bill Leonard. Putnam Publishing Group, $18.95 (240pp) ISBN 978-0-399-13255-1

From radio reporter in 1946 to chief executive officer of CBS News when he retired in 1981, Leonard spent his career in the electronic media. He worked with some of the giants, not only executives William Paley and Frank Stanton, but also broadcasters Edward R. Murrow, Eric Sevareid, Walter Cronkite, Mike Wallace and Andy Rooney. As a vice-president of ""soft news,'' he was responsible for such documentaries as Hunger in America and The Selling of the Pentagon. The tone of the book is annoyingly self-congratulatory, however, and Leonard's belief that his selection of Dan Rather to succeed Cronkite was virtually earth-shattering may not strike a responsive chord in every reader. And there is an ungracious ``Finale,'' asserting that CBS News is on the decline. (May 25)