Was that the reason? I remember I enjoyed the show when it was still the M-H Newshour, one of the few things I liked about PBS (Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser, The American Experience, Mystery! and Masterpiece Theatre, plus some of the BBC offerings, were the others).
As far as I know, he never actually said, but that was the rumor going around.
He was a nice guy, quite intelligent, fairly conservative and a Canadian, and Jim Lehrer is a fairly dominant and driven American with what is reputed to be a hard-*ss type-A personality, so they weren’t getting along.
Or, anyway, that’s the way I heard it.
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.