The man that hired Diane Sawyer, Connie Chung, Lesley Stahl has died.

Longtime news executive Bill Small, who served as the Washington bureau chief of CBS News and president of NBC News, died on Sunday following a brief illness.

Small led CBS News’ political coverage from 1962-1974, covering such major events as Watergate, Vietnam and the Civil Rights Movement.

He pulled together a team of reporters from within CBS that included Dan Rather, Marvin Kalb, Dan Schorr, Harry Reasoner and Eric Sevareid, and made new hires including Bob Schieffer, Ed Bradley, Bernard Shaw, Bernard Kalb and Bill Moyers.

Small also championed a number of women in his time as Washington bureau chief, hiring Diane Sawyer, Connie Chung, Lesley Stahl, Martha Teichner, Rita Braver and Susan Spencer.

“Bill Small was a hero to journalism,” CBS News president Susan Zirinsky said in a statement. “He hired me as a 20-year-old college student to work the weekend desk in the Washington bureau two weeks after the Watergate break-in. He was tough as nails when it came to defending freedom of the press. He was strict, strong and full of conviction. But the man had a heart of gold — which he only revealed one-third of the time.”

He was 93 years old.

H/T Variety