John Dancy, Class of 1959

Prior to his retirement in 1996, John Dancy was the most senior correspondent at NBC News. In his thirty-year career at the network, Dancy covered every major beat in Washington, and served twice as a foreign correspondent, based in Berlin, London, and Moscow.

Upon his retirement, he began a career in academe and public service. In September 1996, Dancy was named a Fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He was the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Fellow in Media Studies at George Washington University in the fall semester of 2002.

Since his retirement from NBC News, Dancy has been appointed twice to federal advisory commissions. He was a Senior Advisor to the National Security Commission/21st Century, ("Hart-Rudman Commission") which was chartered to determine U.S. defense needs for the first part of the new century. The Commission's three-phase report was one of the first to warn (in September 1999) of America's vulnerability to terrorist attack.

During seventeen years in Washington, Dancy served as NBC News Senior White House Correspondent during the presidency of Jimmy Carter, covered Congress during the Reagan years, and was Chief Diplomatic Correspondent during the administration of George H. W. Bush. He has also served as anchor for "NBC Nightly News," as well as "NBC News at Sunrise," and "Meet the Press."

As Senior White House Correspondent, he covered the historic Camp David talks, which resulted in a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, and covered numerous summit meetings.

From 1973 to 1977, Dancy served as foreign correspondent in Berlin and London, an assignment that took him from Siberia to North Africa. During that time, he covered three wars; the 1973 Middle East war, the 1974 Cyprus war between the Greeks and Turks, and the beginning of the Lebanese civil war in 1975.

As Congressional Correspondent for NBC News, Dancy covered the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings. His disclosure of a secret but unclassified report by the Senate Intelligence Committee gave the nation its first comprehensive picture of the Iran-Contra affair. For his reporting, Dancy was awarded the Everett McKinley Dirksen Prize for 1987, the nation's most prestigious award for coverage of Congress. He was the first television correspondent so honored.

In covering the diplomatic beat during the Bush administration, Dancy traveled more than 650 thousand miles with Secretaries of State, beginning with George Shultz, and continuing with James Baker and Warren Christopher. His travels with Baker came at a momentous time in world history. Dancy covered the fall of the Berlin wall, the end of Soviet domination of eastern Europe, the reunification of Germany and the collapse of the Soviet Union. He covered the intense diplomatic activity that preceded the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Also in 1991, he made seven trips to the Middle East with Secretary of State James Baker, as the United States initiated the first Israeli-Arab-Palestinian peace talks, which he also covered.

Dancy took a brief hiatus from foreign policy in 1992 to cover one of his first loves, politics. He traveled extensively with Bill Clinton during the general election campaign. . His political experience dates to 1972, when he was assigned to the presidential campaign of George McGovern.

In 1994, Dancy was assigned to Moscow for his second tour as a foreign correspondent. Soon after being assigned there, Dancy covered his fourth war, involving Russian Army troops and Chechen rebels.

Dancy has won the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism, the Overseas Press Club's Citation for Excellence, the Dirksen Award for coverage of Congress, the Janus Award for business reporting, and four National Emmys.

Dancy graduated in 1959 from Union University in his native Jackson, Tennessee. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Union in 1989. He and his wife, Ann Lewis Dancy, have two sons and two daughters.