CBS correspondent Robert Charles Pierpoint was born in Redondo Beach, California, on May 16, 1925. After graduating from Pomona High School in 1943, he joined the United States Naval Reserve and spent four semesters as a Navy V-12 student at the California Institute of Technology studying electrical engineering. Pierpoint was discharged from the military in November 1945. In 1947 he received a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in economics and a minor in political science from the University of Redlands, Redlands, California. In August 1947, Pierpoint entered the University of Stockholm where he spent one year studying the Swedish language, as well as the history and culture of Scandinavia. He also spent several weeks at the Summer School of International Studies at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.
In 1948 Pierpoint went to work as a program producer and broadcaster in the short-wave division of the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation, where he was featured in a series of daily English-language news programs beamed to listeners in the United States. He also worked as a free-lance writer and editor for the Swedish Institute, Swedish Railways, and the Sandrew-Bauman Film Corporation.
In 1949 Pierpoint learned through underground sources of plans for a communist-inspired coup in Finland. He alerted CBS News, offering to cover it for them and was hired by the network as a “stringer.” Two year later he accepted a staff position with CBS to cover the Korean War. He reported on the fighting there (often from the front lines) from April 1951, until the armistice in July 1953. In October of that year CBS appointed him Far East bureau chief. Although Pierpoint was headquartered in Tokyo he reported throughout the region and on several occasions went to the Middle East, as well, to report on crises there.
Pierpoint remained Far East bureau chief until September 1957, when he was transferred to the White House beat in Washington, D.C. There he was responsible for covering the activities of the President, his staff, and the first family. Except for brief periods in 1961 (when he covered Congress) and 1964 (when he was assigned to Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign), Pierpoint remained at the White House for the next 23 years.
In 1980 Pierpoint was named diplomatic correspondent for CBS, succeeding Marvin Kalb. His new duties included coverage of the National Security Council, as well as other matters related to foreign affairs. In 1982 Pierpoint was made national security correspondent for CBS.
In 1975 Pierpoint was elected to the executive committee of the White House Correspondents Association; from May 1980 to May 1981 he was its president. Pierpoint has been twice honored with awards, one for his part in investigation of the bank connections of Charles “Bebe” Rebozo, the second as
a member of the team which reported on the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew. Pierpoint and CBS newsman Edward Fouhy also received an honorable mention from the Drew Pearson Foundation for their investigative work on the Rebozo matter. Pierpoint has also been active on the lecture circuit (particularly on college and university campuses) as a speaker on the presidency and the press and as a commentator on current events. In 1981 he published At the White House: Assignment to Six Presidents, which described his experiences as a White House correspondent. In 1983 Pierpoint became a fulltime correspondent for Sunday Morning, for which he did one cover story and one feature per month.
