Charles Collingwood (June 4, 1917 – October 3, 1985) was an American journalist and war correspondent. He was an early member of Edward R. Murrow's group of foreign correspondents that was known as the "Murrow Boys". During World War II, he covered Europe and North Africa for CBS News. Collingwood was also among the early ranks of television journalists who included Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid, and Murrow himself.

Early life

Collingwood was born in Three Rivers, Michigan. He attended Deep Springs College and graduated from Cornell University. In 1939, he received a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University.

World War II

left|thumb|170px|1943 portrait of war correspondent Charles Collingwood (Henry Carr)

Collingwood covered World War II for United Press in London and was soon recruited to CBS by Edward R. Murrow in 1941. He established himself as an urbane and spontaneously-eloquent on-air journalist.

In 1942, Collingwood was sent to cover the North African Campaign, where he proved his reporting abilities despite being considered "green" as a broadcast journalist.

On D-Day, he landed at Utah Beach hours after the first wave of soldiers had hit the beaches. Of the CBS reporters accompanying the ground invasion, he recorded a report on June 6 that made it to broadcast two days later. The other CBS correspondents on the ground, Bill Downs and Larry LeSueur, were not able to deliver reports until days later because of trouble setting up mobile transmitters. He went on to become the chief correspondent of CBS and host of its Eyewitness to History series. In 1959 he succeeded Edward R. Murrow as host of Person to Person. He was a leading figure in CBS's expansion to include international coverage, and was CBS News's first United Nations correspondent. He later served as the network's White House correspondent.

He served as substitute anchor during portions of CBS's coverage of the Kennedy assassination on November 22, 1963, relieving Walter Cronkite only minutes after Cronkite had announced the official confirmation of Kennedy's death.

Collingwood was CBS's chief foreign correspondent from 1964 to 1975, covering warfare in Southeast Asia. In 1968, he became the first US reporter allowed into North Vietnam. He received a second Peabody Award in 1955.

  • Received an award from the National Headliner's Club in 1943 for "consistently accurate and interesting accounts of the fighting in North Africa war zone." He received a second award in 1949 for "coverage of the Arizona-Colorado dispute over the division of water from the Colorado River."