William K. McClure, 81; Prolific Producer for CBS TV News

William K. McClure, 81, whose long career in CBS television news spanned Edward R. Murrow’s “See It Now” in 1952 through a 30-year run with “60 Minutes,” died July 2 of a heart ailment on the Italian island of Sardinia.

A Knoxville native who was educated at the University of Tennessee, McClure learned his craft as a newsreel cameraman with the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War II.

In addition to “See It Now,” McClure worked with Murrow on “Small World” and became a prolific producer of “CBS Reports,” including the 1964 “D-day Plus 20” with Walter Cronkite, in which Dwight D. Eisenhower, the general who became president, returned to the beaches of Normandy. McClure won the first of his four Emmys for a 1968 news documentary on aging.

McClure was already a global television news legend when he was chosen that year as one of six producers for the debut of “60 Minutes.” McClure was the show’s original European producer and won three more Emmys for segments on heroin production in Turkey (1972), on the Mafia in Sicily (1981) and the first American look into Chernobyl (1990).