BRINKLEY STEPS BACK : NEWSMAN'S TRADEMARK SKEPTICISM DEFINED LONG CAREER IN WASHINGTON.

Byline: Warren Berger The New York Times

On a recent morning at his quiet office in the Washington bureau of ABC News, David Brinkley looked and sounded - as he often does on his Sunday-morning program, ``This Week With David Brinkley'' - like a man who had been awakened too early.

With his heavy-lidded eyes and laconic, halting manner of speaking, which distinguished him when he was a co-host of the groundbreaking ``Huntley-Brinkley Report'' in the 1950s and 1960s, Brinkley has always seemed unusually sedate for a television newsman.

Now, at the age of 76, he seems more so: His shoulders slouch a bit, his soft-featured face is smaller and more drawn, and his voice, no doubt affected by lung surgery last year, is sometimes weak.

But given an opportunity, Brinkley can still rail against Washington with considerable vigor. Asked about today's presidential election, he quickly launched into an assault on the process of nominating candidates: ``It has completely broken down,'' he said.

Though Brinkley can seem like a bit of a curmudgeon these days, his trademark skepticism and succinct candor have long been appreciated, and will assuredly be missed, by viewers who have been watching him for the last 40 years, first on ``Huntley-Brinkley,'' then as an ``NBC Nightly News'' anchor with John Chancellor and finally as host of ``This Week,'' which he helped begin in 1981.

After next week's program, which will include the interview with the president, Brinkley will relinquish the role of host to two of the program's longtime panelists, Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts. Although he will continue to contribute commentary, the title of the program is expected to become simply ``This Week.''

With Brinkley at the helm, the program's blend of political news, commentary and sometimes quarrelsome debate established it as both a ratings leader and a trend setter on Sunday mornings, inspiring a wave of similar pundit chat programs over the years.

Tim Russert, the host of NBC's ``Meet the Press,'' which has recently been challenging the ratings supremacy of ``This Week,'' said of his competitor, ``David Brinkley redefined Sunday-morning TV.''

Almost everyone involved with Sunday-morning television is wondering how its competitive landscape will change after Brinkley's semiretirement. ``I think we can have a successful show without David, but at the same time there's no doubt that we're losing the linchpin,'' said Donaldson. ``I've always maintained that David Brinkley is the principal draw of the broadcast, because viewers trust him and feel comfortable with him.''

The president of ABC News, Roone Arledge, acknowledges that ``there is the possibility that we'll lose viewers.'' But he hopes that he can soften the blow by keeping Brinkley at least partly involved in the program. ``I was determined that we not do what CBS did with Walter Cronkite, which was to have him just suddenly go away,'' he said.

In any case, Arledge, who lured Brinkley away from NBC 15 years ago by offering him the host slot on ``This Week,'' insists that a change in Brinkley's status was inevitable.

Brinkley had been talking about scaling back his involvement in the program, indicating that he wanted that to happen sometime after the 1996 election. At the same time, Arledge felt that the program, which was his creation, needed to be ``freshened up,'' he said.

But Arledge asserts that the decision to change hosts was not influenced by the ratings pressures. ``If we were worried about ratings, we would have tried to keep David here longer,'' he said. Rather, he said, the move was made in response to Brinkley's wishes and also grew out of Arledge's concern about Brinkley's health.

Though Brinkley returned to the program soon after his operation, he has seemed at times to be moving a step slower than his feisty round-table partners. ``David had a serious operation, and while I think he was able to come back, I've noticed an energy level drop-off,'' Donaldson said.

For his part, Brinkley insists that he is feeling quite well these days, his frail appearance notwithstanding. ``I probably can't run as fast or lift as much as I used to, but this job requires no heavy lifting,'' he said.

Of the decision to scale back his role on ``This Week,'' Brinkley said: ``I've done this for a long time, and now I want to do something different. That's all.'' Brinkley is interested in producing documentaries about history and culture, and ABC News has already signed him up to do a couple.

As for his skepticism about politics, and any crankiness thereof, Brinkley said: ``As long as I've known anything about politics, I've been skeptical. And it has evolved. The more I saw, the more skeptical I became.''

As he wrote last year in his best-selling memoir ``David Brinkley,'' he became immersed in politics early in his career, when he left his home state, North Carolina, to take a job as White House correspondent with NBC News.

In 1956, he and Chet Huntley began doing their influential nightly news broadcast, which ran for 14 years, with Brinkley reporting from Washington and Huntley from New York.

By 1964, the program's coverage of the Democratic convention drew a remarkable 84 percent share of the viewers. President Clinton has said that the Huntley-Brinkley coverage of the conventions piqued his early interest in politics.

Donaldson said Brinkley was also ``able to cut through the fog and explain the essence of an issue in a way that everybody could understand.'' And Brinkley's unusual, low-key manner of speaking also sets him apart from more aggressive commentators.

Aside from Winston Churchill, whom he admired greatly, Brinkley seems to have few fond memories of the politicians he has known. He was regarded as an enemy by President Nixon, though Brinkley says he is not sure why.

``I think he figured, wrongly, that I was part of the Washington liberal establishment,'' he said. The presidential campaign of Sen. Barry Goldwater in 1964 also viewed him as a foe, he says. ``The Goldwater people were constantly following me into elevators and threatening me with bodily harm,'' Brinkley recalled, with a smile.

Brinkley is not given to nostalgia. Speaking of Huntley, who died in 1974, Brinkley said: ``We weren't really close. He was always in New York, and I was always in Washington.''

And Brinkley explained the enormous success of ``The Huntley-Brinkley Report'' - which, according to one 1960s survey, made its anchors more famous than the Beatles - in this way: ``I wrote pretty well, and Huntley looked good and had a great voice.''

While many Americans who watched television in the 1950s and '60s fondly recall the way he and Huntley used to personally bid each other good night on the air, Brinkley has always thought the famous nightly sign-off, which was the idea of network producers, was ``silly and inappropriate.''

Not surprising, Brinkley is expected to do nothing very sentimental next Sunday on his final broadcast as host of ``This Week.'' And though Tuesday's election will probably be the last he covers as full-time network newsman - he'll provide commentary during the evening - he seems, like many Americans, a little bored by this particular contest.

``I like surprises, and so far there haven't been many this time,'' he said, contrasting this election to the one in 1960 that kept Brinkley and Huntley on the air awaiting a winner all night and halfway into the following day. ``This one seems to be cut and dried,'' he said. ``This is a pretty quiet time in American history, with no wars, no recession, no divisive bloodthirsty issues. That's good, but it doesn't make for very exciting politics.''

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2 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) Goodnight, David

Newsman Brinkley steps down from `This Week' next week, following a long, respected career

(2) ABC News president Roone Arledge lured David Brinkley to the network by offering him the host slot on ``This Week'' in 1981.