"That work included a groundbreaking 1965 CBS News report from Cam Ne, Vietnam, where Safer showed U.S. Marines torching villagers' huts, and a 60 Minutes story on Lenell Geter, a black man in Texas wrongly accused of armed robbery and later exonerated as a result of Safer's report.

"There were countless stories, on every imaginable topic, each tale uniquely his own. 'They were works of art almost,' ['60 Minutes' Executive Producer Jeff Fager] explains. 'What makes a story a Morley story is his original voice. And by that I mean not just the timbre, but [also] the quality of the storytelling, his writing.'

"Fager recalls working as Safer's producer and bringing him the first draft of a script. Safer would look at it, stare out the window for a few seconds, and then quickly scroll a piece of paper into his trusty typewriter and rework it to his own satisfaction."