Betty Cole Dukert, who began her D.C. career as a secretary and later became producer of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” dies at 96

Betty Cole Dukert, who began her career in Washington as a secretary in the 1950s and later became the top producer of the weekly NBC News public affairs program “Meet the Press,” died on March 16 at her home in Bethesda, Maryland. She was 96, reports The New York Times.

Her late husband’s niece Barbara Dukert Smith said the cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease.

In her 41 years at “Meet the Press,” a Sunday-morning fixture on the NBC schedule, Dukert booked politicians, diplomats, foreign dignitaries, cultural figures and heart surgeons to be interviewed by a moderator and a panel of journalists; sought out the most capable reporters for the panel; and researched the subjects to be discussed, states The Times.

According to an NBC post, she “retired with the title of executive producer in 1997 after Meet the Press celebrated its 50th anniversary on the air. Betty had been with the program for almost all of the history-making interviews and she remembered most of them in great detail — not just what was said on the air but the behind-the-scenes negotiations and any corresponding drama. Fidel Castro, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, Robert Frost, Golda Meir, Eleanor Roosevelt — nearly every important political figure in modern history. After the program, each guest received a handwritten thank you note along with a professionally printed copy of the transcript from Betty in the mail.”

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IMAGE: NBC