MANAGEMENT TEAM TO RUN CPB ON TEMPORARY BASIS

A management team of top Corporation for Public Broadcasting staff members will operate the CPB while an executive search firm seeks candidates to replace Edward J. Pfister, who resigned as president on May 16. David J. Brugger, vice president for telecommunications, will chair the management team, which also includes Donald Ledwig, vice president and treasurer, and Paul Symczak, secretary and acting general counsel.

The decision was made by the CPB board of directors in a special meeting here Friday.

“A board committee will work with an executive search firm that hasn’t been named yet to select a new president and general counsel,” said Eleanor Miller of CPB’s communications office.

The board took the action after David O. Ives, former president of WGBH-TV in Boston declined an offer to serve as interim president.

Pfister, who had been president since September, 1981, resigned unexpectedly in San Francisco after the board of directors voted 6 to 4 to withdraw its support of a visit by public-TV representatives to the Soviet Union in September. Pfister was slated to participate along with David Stewart, CPB director of international activities.

Pfister cited a “fundamental difference” between himself and six of the 10 board members and expressed concern about the direction of CPB and political interference under the current board headed by its Republican chairman Sonia Landau. Pfister tendered his resignation effective Dec. 31, but the board asked him to leave by June 15. He is on administrative leave and already has cleared out his office.

On May 19, the corporation’s general counsel, Linda C. Dorian, resigned. She is being replaced temporarily by Symczak, who has been deputy general counsel.