ALBANY, N.Y. — A political pollster and longtime journalist who was just feet away from Jack Ruby when he shot Lee Harvey Oswald has died. Maurice Carroll was 86. Carroll’s death from colon cancer Wednesday was announced by Quinnipiac University.
Carroll, who went by Mickey, was raised in New Jersey and spent four decades as a journalist with The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Newark Star-Ledger and others.
He covered the aftermath of President John F. Kennedy‘s assassination for the Herald Tribune and was standing near Oswald in the Dallas police headquarters basement when Oswald was gunned down by Ruby.
Carroll taught journalism and was most recently a Quinnipiac pollster.
Quinnipiac President John Lahey praised Carroll as a reporter in the finest tradition of American journalism.
![Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, discusses a poll on what New York City voters thought about the handling of Superstorm Sandy in 2012.](https://cbsnews2.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2017/12/06/58e353c0-e06b-4b03-846a-98983826a148/crop/1280x719+0+0/resize/620xg3/35a8ed9305ad6916300cda88a6091daf/mickey-carroll-hq720.jpg#)
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Maurice “Mickey” Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, in 2012.
Quinnipiac University
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