Diane Sawyer Leaving CBS News to Join Rival ABC

In one of the most publicized network exits since Barbara Walters departed NBC for ABC in 1976, Diane Sawyer on Wednesday left CBS and co-star status on “60 Minutes,” also to start life anew at ABC.

Sawyer, 43, will co-anchor with Sam Donaldson a new, as-yet-unititled prime-time news series for ABC. The program will start later this year, possibly in July.

Her departure from CBS News, her home since 1978, had been rumored since Monday. ABC News President Roone Arledge reportedly had been pursuing her since last Christmas.

CBS had been anxious to keep her, with sources saying that CBS Chairman William S. Paley, CBS President Laurence A. Tisch and CBS Broadcast Group President Howard Stringer personally joined in the effort on Monday.

CBS News President David Burke gave her the network’s official farewell in a two-sentence statement, praising her “fine work and tireless efforts with us” and wishing her “the very best in the future.”

There seemed a chilly reaction to the news from CBS anchor Dan Rather, who had said previously that he came to admire her work after initially resenting her when she came to CBS after working for the Nixon White House.

Rather had no comment on her departure, a spokeswoman for him said.

Sawyer, married last year to Broadway and film director Mike Nichols, was not immediately available for comment on reasons for her move from CBS, where she had been earning $1.2 million annually.

However, sources at both networks said money never was an issue.

There had been speculation that she was weary of the grind and constant travel required by “60 Minutes,” which she joined in August, 1984, as the program’s first female correspondent.

Before that, she had co-anchored what then was called the “CBS Morning News” with Charles Kuralt and, later, Bill Kurtis. She also anchored the “CBS Early Morning News.”

She wanted prime-time exposure, and CBS, to keep her happy, had had talks with her about anchoring a possible revival of Edward R. Murrow’s old “Person to Person.” But the project never went beyond the discussion stage.

In luring Sawyer to ABC, Arledge--who in the late ‘70s touched off megabuck bidding wars by offering top dollars to correspondents of other networks and even CBS’ Rather--got his second new correspondent from a rival in recent months.

The other was Chris Wallace, NBC’s former White House correspondent, who signed with ABC in December. He will be chief political correspondent of the new series to be co-anchored by Sawyer and Donaldson.

As with Walters’ 1976 move to ABC, rumors of Sawyer’s imminent shift this week sparked a flurry of reports and speculation. Even Don Hewitt, Sawyer’s now-former “60 Minutes” boss, seemed confused about whether she was staying or going.

Hewitt was reported in a screening Wednesday afternoon and unavailable for comment.

Sawyer, born in Glasgow, Ky., the daughter of a judge and a teacher, got her start in TV in Louisville, where she worked from 1967 to 1970. In October, 1970, she joined the White House press staff of President Richard Nixon and remained there until August, 1974, when Nixon resigned in disgrace. She continued working for him until April, 1978, assisting in the writing of his memoirs.

She joined CBS News’ Washington bureau four months later.