John Holliman; Correspondent for CNN

John Holliman, a Cable News Network correspondent known for his coverage of the Gulf War from Baghdad, died Saturday in a car crash in suburban Atlanta. He was 49.

“This is a real loss to the CNN family,” said fellow CNN correspondent Peter Arnett, who was with Holliman and Bernard Shaw in Baghdad for the start of the war in 1991. “He’s the one who made that first broadcast possible. He had a real knowledge of broadcasting.”

Holliman was driving near his Snellville, Ga., home when he tried to pass another car in a no-passing zone. He ran head-on into an oncoming pickup truck, Gwinnett County Police Sgt. Jeff Sligar said.

Holliman died instantly, Sligar said. The driver of the truck, Richard Wesner, was treated and released at a hospital, and his son, Eric Wesner, was treated for broken bones, Sligar said.

There was no indication that alcohol use or excessive speed was involved in the accident, Sligar said.

Before joining CNN in 1980 as part of the network’s original broadcast team, Holliman was an agricultural editor for Associated Press in Washington, where he also covered the White House.

He was best known for his coverage of the Gulf War for CNN. He teamed with Arnett and Shaw as the only three journalists in Iraq’s capital city when United Nations forces began bombing.

“When the bombing started, we immediately lost power, so we thought we wouldn’t be able to broadcast,” Arnett said. “But then Holliman went to our equipment and just switched out the batteries, and we were able to communicate for several days like that with the hounds of hell falling on our heads.”

In June 1989, Holliman covered the student uprising in China’s Tiananmen Square and subsequent government crackdowns. He also covered Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and was slated to co-anchor CNN’s coverage of John Glenn’s return to space.

Brad Kalbfeld, deputy director and managing editor for AP Broadcast, said Holliman had an ability to connect to listeners, and he translated that to viewers when he made the jump to television.

“He loved to put himself in the position of the audience,” said Kalbfeld, who worked with Holliman for AP in Washington. “He was one of those people who could write pieces and collect tape about what listeners cared about.”

While working as a member of AP’s original broadcast team, Holliman received the 1976 Peabody Award for his documentary “The Garden Plot--Food as a Weapon in International Diplomacy.” It is the only Peabody that AP Broadcast has won.

Holliman, a native of Thomaston, Ga., earned a degree in journalism from the University of Georgia. He was news director for WGAU-AM in Athens, Ga., and also worked for WRFC-AM in Athens and WSB-AM in Atlanta before moving to Washington.

Holliman is survived by his wife Diane, a son, mother Arva Tolbert Holliman, and brother Max Tolbert Holliman.

No funeral plans were released.