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Morley Safer, one of the best-known American television journalists of the past five decades, died Thursday at his home in Manhattan, his employer, CBS News, said.

CBS didn't provide a cause of death but said he had been in declining health, which led to his retirement last week after more than 50 years with the broadcaster. He was 84.

The Canadian-born journalist first drew wide notice in 1965 with a CBS story that showed U.S. Marines torching thatched huts in the Vietnamese hamlet of Cam Ne, an early example of the type of reporting that helped stir opposition to the war in the U.S.

In 1967, when China was firmly closed to Western reporters, Mr. Safer and a cameraman, John Peters, slipped into the country by posing as tourists studying archaeology. They used a home movie camera to show how ordinary people lived in China. The result was a show called "Morley Safer's Red China Diary."

In a journalistic career lasting more than six decades, Mr. Safer won dozens of awards. In a recent CBS program tracing his career, however, Mr. Safer said he didn't particularly enjoy being on TV. "It makes me uneasy," he said. "It is not natural to be talking to a piece of machinery. But the money is very good."

Mr. Safer was born Nov. 8, 1931, in Toronto, where his father ran an upholstery business. He later became a U.S. citizen, while retaining his Canadian citizenship. In 1998, he told Maclean's magazine he felt stateless. "I bring a different perspective, and I have no vested interests," he said.

The writing of Ernest Hemingway inspired his ambition of becoming a foreign correspondent, he once said. After attending the University of Western Ontario for a few weeks, he dropped out and found a job writing for the Sentinel-Review newspaper in Woodstock, Ontario. He later worked for the Free Press in London, Ontario, before moving to England, where he eventually was hired by Reuters in 1955. He returned to Toronto and worked at the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., for which he helped cover the Suez Crisis in 1956.

The Canadian broadcaster transferred him to London in 1961. A fluke led him to defect to CBS in 1964: One of Mr. Safer's CBC colleagues, applying for a job at CBS, provided a tape of a round-table discussion including himself and Mr. Safer. CBS editors preferred Mr. Safer and offered him a job in their London bureau.

He eventually joined the "60 Minutes" news team and helped it become a long-running hit. One of his highest-profile segments there was a 1975 interview with Betty Ford in which the first lady said she would consider it normal if her 18-year-old daughter wasn't a virgin. A 1983 segment entitled "Lenell Geter's in Jail" led to the overturning of the conviction of a black man who was serving a life sentence for armed robbery in Texas.

Mr. Safer also was known for lighter stories, such as one about a Pacific island nation whose economy relied on guano exports.

His hobbies included watercolor painting, poker and driving luxurious cars, including a Ferrari convertible and a Bentley.

Mr. Safer is survived by his wife of 48 years, Jane, a daughter, three grandchildren and a sister and brother.

Write to James R. Hagerty at bob.hagerty@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 19, 2016 15:05 ET (19:05 GMT)

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