Ex-CBS chief: Simon a correspondent "from the golden age"

Sir Howard Stringer, who led CBS when "60 Minutes" correspondent Bob Simon was held prisoner at the beginning of the Persian Gulf War in 1991, said Thursday that Simon "was every inch the network correspondent from the golden age."

Simon was killed in a car crash in New York City Wednesday night. He was 73.

Stringer, who was president of CBS News from 1986 to 1988 before leading the entire network until 1995, said that although the award-winning correspondent didn't start at "60 Minutes," "the broadcast could have been invented for him."

"In 1940, Alfred Hitchcock directed an Oscar-nominated film called 'Foreign Correspondent.' If the timeline had not been so premature, Hitchcock might have been thinking of Bob Simon instead of Joel McCrea," Stringer said in a statement. "Smart and versatile, and of course dashing and dynamic, Bob was every inch the network correspondent from the golden age."

Speaking about the 40 days Simon was imprisoned in 1991, Stringer said on CBSN that he and other network officials were confident that Simon would be freed.

"These are not the times today where if it's a hostage of ISIS you'd throw up your hands in despair," Stringer said, referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. "We thought we would get him back. We just wanted to get him back soon before it damaged him. Too much time in prison, obviously, is not a ... situation you want to leave somebody exposed to for very long."

During Simon's 47 year career at CBS News, he reported most of his stories from overseas, ranging from reporting on the Vietnam War in Saigon and Cambodia in the 1970s to reporting on polar bears in the Arctic Circle in 2011 and from radioactive towns in Japan last year.

"He went willingly to all the sharp ends of a compass," Stringer said. "He wrote as well as he reported with flair and finesse, livened by wit as well as wisdom."

Responding to a question on CBSN about whether Simon was ever afraid in the field, Stringer recalled working with him in Northern Ireland in the '70s during a confrontation between the British army and the Irish Republican Army.

"There was no sense of this being anything but another day in the life, and I don't think he ever thought about it very much," Stringer said. "I never was aware of him being afraid of anything. I mean, he volunteered for everything."

Stringer said the loss of Simon would be felt throughout the profession of journalism.

"The wizards of technology are busily demonstrating the advantages of 3-D printing," Stringer said. "Would that they could print another Bob Simon, he would be welcomed back by all who care about real journalism. He is really going to be missed."