One of the leading correspondents for CBS News for more than half a century, Bill Plante, died at his home in Washington on Wednesday. The man was 84.
His wife said that he had respiratory failure.
Mr. Plante covered the White House for CBS News. He reported from the State Department.
Mr. Plante was known for his questions to presidents and their press secretaries.
Robert Gibbs, President Obama's first press secretary, wrote in an email last year that he remembers Bill as fearless in how he asked questions, unafraid to ask the president or his staff to defend their decisions.
Mr. Plante had a clear idea of what it meant to be a correspondent.
He said on CBS News.com that it was always interesting and that it was the same every time. They make the same mistakes and get into the same jams. You say that you have seen this before.
He shouted his questions when he wasasperating with presidents who didn't answer pertinent questions. Bush's senior political adviser stepped down in 2007, nine months after Democrats took control of both houses of Congress
Mr. Plante wanted to know why Congress lost. Mr. Bush didn't reply
If reporters didn't shout questions, they'd be walking away from their First Amendment role.
Mr. Plante was a White House correspondent when the United States was about to invade the Caribbean island of Grenada. He asked Larry Speakes, Reagan's acting press secretary, to confirm his information before he went on the air.
Mr Speakes denied it.
"Larry asked, 'Preposterous - where did you get that?'" Last year, a fellow White House correspondent for CBS News said in a phone interview that he was going to write an obituary. There was an invasion that night. Bill was angry and accused Larry Speakes of misleading him at the next briefing.
William Madden Plante was born in Chicago in January of 1939. His parents both worked for a heating and cooling business.
Bill Plante used to deliver the news at a radio station. He was hired as an assistant news director in Milwaukee after graduating from business and humanities school. He went to Columbia University to study political science after four years there.
When he joined CBS News in 1964, he was immediately sent to Vietnam, where he reported from there for four years.
He was sent to Mississippi and Alabama to cover the civil rights movement. He said it was the most important story in his career because it marked a change in American life.
He told King that he saw something that opened his eyes after John Lewis died. The Black people there tried to register to vote and were beaten back by the local sheriff.
The Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama was attacked by state troopers with tear gas, bullwhips and rubber tubing in 1965, known as "Bloody Sunday." Mr. Plante was in Alabama on March 7, 1965, when the Edmund Pettus Bridge was attacked by state troopers with tear gas, bull He went back later that month to interview Martin Luther King on his way to Montgomery.
Dr. King told Mr. Plante that it was a demonstration of progress that the people were able to march by this spot.
The 50th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" saw Mr. Plante interview President Obama.
In 1972 he won for a series on the air war in Vietnam and in 1997 for coverage of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. His coverage of President Reagan's re- election in 1984 and the Reagan summit with the Soviet leader in 1986 earned him an additional Emmy.
Mr. Plante's family includes his wife, a documentarian and former network news producer, as well as his sons, Dan, Chris, Brian, and David, his brothers, Richard, James, and John, and one great-granddaughter. He and Barbara Barnes Orteig divorced. His son was killed in a car wreck.
Mr. Plante was most impressed with Mr. Lewis, whose skull was fractured when he was attacked on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Mr. Plante said that Mr. Lewis was the real deal. He is the only person in public life who has practiced what he preaches. That cannot be said about anyone else. I can't.
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