Warren Rogers, 81; Reporter Covered Missile Crisis, Vietnam

Warren Rogers, 81, a veteran journalist who covered the Cuban missile crisis, the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, died Sunday at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington of complications from cancer treatments.

Rogers earned an Overseas Press Club of New York citation for best reporting from Vietnam. He was president of the National Press Club in 1972, active in the Gridiron Club and a founder of the National Press Foundation.

In addition to his extensive reporting, he wrote several books, including “When I Think of Bobby: A Personal Memoir of the Kennedy Years.”

A native of New Orleans, Rogers studied at Tulane and Louisiana State universities before joining the Marine Corps in 1942 and serving at Guadalcanal and Tulagi during World War II. After the war, he began his journalism career at the New Orleans Morning Tribune.

Rogers worked for the Associated Press from 1947 to 1959, mostly in its Washington bureau, where he covered the State Department, White House and Congress, including the Joseph McCarthy hearings.

In 1959 he transferred to the Washington bureau of the now-defunct New York Herald Tribune, specializing in military and foreign affairs. In recent years, he had worked as a freelance writer and columnist.