PASSINGS

Joseph Nelson Benton Jr., CBS Reporter and Anchorman

Joseph Nelson Benton Jr., 63, a veteran CBS anchorman who covered the Vietnam War, civil rights, the space program and the White House. He began his CBS career writing news in New York City in 1960. Three years later he became correspondent and bureau chief in New Orleans, then moved to Chicago as a correspondent. From 1967 to 1968, he covered the Vietnam War for the network and then moved to Washington as a correspondent until 1982. In the early 1970s, he was an anchor on the “CBS Morning News.” He left CBS in 1982 and spent two years as an anchor for WMAR-TV in Baltimore and did free-lance work. In Washington on Saturday of a heart attack.