Ben Bradlee interviews MLK on "Face The Nation" in 1964

WASHINGTON (CBS News) - Legendary journalist Benjamin Bradlee, who passed away Tuesday appeared on "Face The Nation" fifty years ago, when he interviewed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The episode aired on May 10, 1964, during the peak of the civil rights era. Nearly a year had passed since the March on Washington but Congress still had not passed any major civil rights legislation.

"What difference, Dr. King, will passage or non-passage of the civil rights bill make in all your plans for the summer's demonstrations?" asked Bradlee, Newsweek's bureau chief in Washington at the time.

"I am sure we will have demonstrations, whether you get a civil rights bill passed or not," King said.

The panelists quizzed Dr. King about how a civil rights bill would be enforced in the South and whether he had plans to endorse President Lyndon Johnson's campaign for a full presidential term.

Bradlee was joined by longtime CBS News correspondents Dan Rather and Paul Niven, who hosted "Face The Nation" at the time. Bradlee went on to become executive editor of The Washington Post, where he is remembered for overseeing the newspaper's coverage of the Watergate scandal.