Tom Brokaw: Former NBC anchor accused of groping and forcibly kissing woman

A woman who worked as a war correspondent for NBC News has accused one of the network’s leading anchormen Tom Brokaw of groping her and trying to forcibly kiss her twice.

Linda Vester told Variety and The Washington Post the misbehaviour from Mr Brokaw, who was the United States’ top rated TV newsman for much of his career, took place at the NBC offices in Denver and New York in the 1990s, when she was in her 20s.

Variety said Ms Vester, now 52, showed them journals from the time which corroborated the story.

Mr Brokaw, 78, denied the allegations in a statement issued by NBC News.

“I met with Linda Vester on two occasions, both at her request, 23 years ago, because she wanted advice with respect to her career at NBC,” Mr Brokaw said in the statement to the Post.

“The meetings were brief, cordial and appropriate, and despite Linda’s allegations, I made no romantic overtures towards her, at that time or any other.”

Another woman, who was not identified, made similar claims about Mr Brokaw to the Post.

Ms Vester, who had reported from the Middle East and covered the Gulf War for NBC, was 28 when she was in Colorado with Mr Brokaw to cover Pope John Paul II’s visit to the US in 1993.

“We were in the Denver bureau, and there was a conference room. I’m standing there, and Tom Brokaw enters through the door and grabs me from behind and proceeds to tickle me up and down my waist,” she told Variety.

Ms Vester said others were in the room, but no one “acted like anything wrong was happening.

“He was the most powerful man at the network, and I was the most junior person.”

She said the following year in New York, Mr Brokaw sent her suggestive computer messages in the office before later announcing on the phone he was coming to her hotel room.

She felt powerless to tell him not to come, she added.

“He grabbed me behind my neck and tried to force me to kiss him,” she told Variety. “I was shocked to feel the amount of force and his full strength on me.”

She said Mr Brokaw left when she broke away and made it clear she did not him to do it want any more.

Ms Vester left NBC in 1999 to work at Fox News, where she remained until 2006.

Mr Brokaw anchored NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. He has since served as a special correspondent.

Mr Brokaw is the most recent of many media personalities to be accused of sexual misconduct in recent months, including his former colleague Matt Lauer, who left the Today show and the network after several women came forward with allegations.

Mr Lauer has admitted he acted inappropriately, but denies any coercive or abusive behaviour.

Additional reporting by agencies