TV & VIDEO - May 30, 1988

Max Robinson, the country’s first black network television anchor, says he knows that people think his recent life-threatening illness might be AIDS, but he refuses to discuss it. “I take the position that my health is a private matter,” he told the Washington Post recently during an interview at his home in Chicago. Robinson, 49, rose to TV prominence in 1969, when he became an anchorman in Washington. He moved to ABC in 1978, co-anchoring “World News Tonight,” with Frank Reynolds and Peter Jennings. His relations with ABC were sometimes stormy and Robinson once accused the network of racism. He left ABC in 1984 and hasn’t worked much since. Robinson was hospitalized on Dec. 4 last year in critical condition and complaining about weight loss. When he was released nearly two months later, officials refused to discuss his illness. But the Post reported that Robinson was isolated while in intensive care and “a warning was posted outside his room to medical personnel to gown and glove before performing certain tasks in caring for him.” Asked if he was terminally ill, Robinson replied, “We all are.”