Five-time Emmy winning CBS News Correspondent
Bob Simon
Is Peace Possible in the Middle East? 

The most honored journalist in international reporting, Bob Simon has covered virtually every major foreign story for the last three decades.  He is the recipient of four Overseas Press Club Awards, a Peabody Award and a handful of Emmys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.  A regular contributor to 60 Minutes for the past decade, he was also a correspondent for 60 Minutes II for all seven seasons.

Simon has had a front-row seat in the making of history.  His assignments have covered the planet: Vietnam, Sarajevo, Tiananmen Square, Greneda, Somalia, the Falklands, Northern Ireland.  He was with Israeli troops during the Yom Kipper War and in Gaza the day the first “intifada” began.  He was named CBS News’ Chief Middle Eastern correspondent in 1987 and has come to be recognized as the premier broadcast journalist in that part of the world.

Simon was captured by Iraqi forces during the opening days of the Gulf War in January 1991, and spent 40 days in an Iraqi prison with three other members of the CBS News team.  His book, 40 Days, recounts that experience.  Two months after his release, he returned to Iraq to do an hour-long documentary, “Bob Simon: Back to Baghdad”.  One of his most notable recent stories was an exclusive interview with Shiite insurgency leader Muqtada al-Sadr. 

Bob Simon was born in the Bronx, New York, and was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of BrandeisUniversity.  He and his wife, Francoise, live outside Tel Aviv.