\n<\/p>\n
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 \u201cMeet the Press,\u201d died on March 16 at her home in Bethesda, Md. She was 96.<\/p>\n
Her late husband\u2019s niece Barbara Dukert Smith said the cause was complications of Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n
In her 41 years at \u201cMeet the Press,\u201d a Sunday-morning fixture on the NBC schedule, Mrs. 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was the main point of contact on Capitol Hill for the show,\u201d said Betsy Fischer Martin<\/a>, who started on \u201cMeet the Press\u201d as an intern and became the program\u2019s executive producer in 2002. \u201cShe worked the phones constantly. It wasn\u2019t an era when you could send off an email to book someone.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n As she rose in the \u201cMeet the Press\u201d hierarchy, Mrs. Dukert collaborated with a long list of moderators: Ned Brooks, Lawrence Spivak,<\/a> Bill Monroe<\/a>, Roger Mudd<\/a>, Marvin Kalb<\/a>, Chris Wallace<\/a>, Garrick Utley<\/a> and Tim Russert<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI have never found anyone who is nicer to work with, more intelligent, and whose judgment and tact are so superb,\u201d Mr. Spivak told the Missouri newspaper The Springfield Leader and Press in 1970.<\/p>\n For much of her time at \u201cMeet the Press,\u201d which premiered in 1947, Mrs. Dukert was a rarity: a woman in a top production job at a major network news program that did not have a permanent female moderator. (The program did not have one until Kristen Welker succeeded Chuck Todd last year.) In contrast, at \u201cFace the Nation\u201d on CBS, a competitor of \u201cMeet the Press,\u201d Lesley Stahl served as moderator from 1983 to 1991.<\/p>\n \u201cBetty was such a fine, gracious person and the \u2018keeper of the flame\u2019 for \u2018Meet the Press,\u2019\u201d Mr. Wallace, the show\u2019s moderator from 1988 to 1989, said in a statement. But, he added, \u201cbehind the gentility, Betty was fiercely competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEven after decades on the show,\u201d he said, \u201cshe would fight for a guest like a 25-year-old booker. Important Washington politicians knew that crossing Betty was perilous.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In 1976, Mrs. Dukert and a \u201cMeet the Press\u201d crew flew to Beirut, Lebanon, to record Mr. Monroe\u2019s interview with Yasir Arafat, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. She was one of two women in an apartment with about 15 men, some of them carrying rifles to protect Mr. Arafat. The other woman passed around cookies and orange juice.<\/p>\n