An insider's view of the most successful show in the history of TV, 60 Minutes.The most popular TV show in America isn't American Idol, and it's not Survivor. Month in, month out, the mostwatched program in America is 60 Minutes, drawing a staggering 25 million viewers in an average week.For its entire 34year history, 60 Minutes was the brainchild (and personal fiefdom) of Don Hewitt, the takenoprisoners visionary who hustled the show into being and kept it afloat with a mixture of chutzpah, tough talk, scheming, and journalistic savvy. But now that Hewitt is 80 and grudgingly considering retirement, the show's direction is increasingly up for grabs, and the transition will surely be marked by some serious fireworks.As author David Blum provides a flyonthewall perspective on the show's upheavals, he'll also trace its past; although the show has aired some 5,000 pieces and has made household names of Mike Wallace, Ed Bradley, Leslie Stahl, and Morley Safer, much of the backstage storythe passionate pursuit of stories, the behindthescenes wrangling, and the stars' prima donnish behaviorhas gone untold. With full access to the producers, stars, and executives, Blum will give readers an unprecedented view of the personalities and events that have shaped 60 Minutes and a new perspective on how current events become news.

David Blum has written regularly for New York Magazine, Esquire, and the New York Times Magazine. He is the television critic for the New York Sun and teaches at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He lives with his wife and children in New York City

Prologue

1

(6)

What-a-Vision

7

(8)

You Son of a Bitch!

15

(11)

Did You Ever Think About Two Guys?

26

(10)

The Symphony of the Real World

36

(14)

Mr. Hewitt's War

50

(12)

Is There a Question in There Somewhere?

62

(11)

Actually, It Was Oscar Katz's Idea

73

(12)

In the Line of Fire

85

(12)

The Thousand-Pound Pencil

97

(10)

Too Much Profit

107

(11)

Did You See That Great Piece on 60 Minutes?

118

(11)

I Never Saw the Knife

129

(12)

Watermelon and Tacos

141

(10)

See You on Television!

151

(12)

A Whim of Iron

163

(11)

Getting On

174

(10)

Never a Noble Moment

184

(9)

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!

193

(12)

Reporting, Not Crusading

205

(11)

The Tin Eye

216

(13)

This Is Wrong!

229

(5)

Across the Road

234

(6)

All Due Respect

240

(13)

None of These Men Can Speak at My Funeral

253

(8)

Still Climbing

261

(8)

It's Not Who You Know

269

(11)

Bending the Rules

280

(10)

Epilogue

290

(3)

Afterword

293

(15)

Note on Sources

308

(5)

Acknowledgments

313

(2)

Index

315

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The Long Life and Turbulent Times of 60 Minutes

Chapter One

What-a-Vision

It was a Saturday afternoon in March 1931, and an 8-year-old boynamed Donald Shepard Hewitt had taken the profits from his part-timejob selling magazines in the tree-trimmed New York suburb of NewRochelle and bought himself a frozen Milky Way bar and a trolley carticket to the neighborhood movie house. That day's feature was TheFront Page, which had opened to rave reviews -- an adaptation of theBen Hecht–Charles McArthur play about a big-city newspaper andthe people who worked there. The Front Page had had a great run onBroadway in 1928 and done plenty to glamorize the journalism professioninto which young Don had been born. Don's dad wasn't a reporter,exactly; he sold classified advertising, and not even for a NewYork newspaper, and these days he was selling ad circulars. But thatwas the black-and-white real world; in the wide-screen, Technicolorworld inside young Don's head -- where even the best story couldstand a little exaggeration -- Ely Hewitt might as well have been theeditor of the New York Herald Tribune. Plus the kid loved the movies,and a comedy about the newspaper business was one he did not intendto miss.

The Front Page introduced the world to one of the great archetypesin the short history of the movies: Hildy Johnson, the freewheeling,rule-breaking Chicago newspaper reporter preparing to leave thechaotic news business for marriage and a more respectable career inadvertising. His last day on the courthouse beat, hell-bent on breakingone last story, Johnson spends every penny of his $260 in honeymoonbooty to buy an exclusive on the prison escape of convictedmurderer Earle Williams. With his crusty but benign editor WalterBurns—another archetype built to last -- he manages to grab Williamsand stash him inside a rolltop desk in the courthouse press room untiltheir scoop is assured.

The movie made a fortune at the box office and resulted in multipleremakes (including Howard Hawks's classic 1940 comedy, His GirlFriday) and contributed an enduring stereotype to the culture: HildyJohnson defined the hard-drinking, intrepid newshound in his broadbrimmedfedora, feet up on the pressroom desk, wisecracking aboutdames, pols, and the latest big story. He would stand for decades asHollywood's ultimate reporter -- a little shady around the edges, noholds barred -- at least until Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman camealong and sanctified journalism as a serious business for ethical, hardworkingprofessionals who never stretched the truth.

From the moment young Don stepped out of the theater into theMarch sunlight, he knew exactly what he wanted to do when he grewup -- to get the story, no matter what it took.

It didn't take Hewitt long to find a way to turn his Hildy obsession intocoin. In the seventh grade, while his pals were playing baseball andchasing girls, the opinionated and boisterous teenager won a JuniorScholastic Magazine contest for "best editorial" with a piece he'd titled,"Press Drives Lindbergh to Self-Exile." He put his moviegoer'ssense of story and drama to use in the student paper at New RochelleHigh School, in a sports column with the somewhat catchier title of"Athlete's Footnotes." After that he set his media obsession aside just long enough to join the track team and earn an athletic scholarship toNew York University.

At 19, Hewitt's already well-developed short attention span got thebest of him; he dropped out of NYU and found what looked like hisdream job—night copyboy at the fabled New York Herald Tribune. Butsharpening pencils for other Hildy Johnsons wasn't quite the fulfillingexperience Hewitt had dreamed of back in the movie house. Afterseveral months racing around the newsroom in the service of otherreporters' stories, Hewitt found a ticket to bigger and more excitingopportunities: World War II. He enrolled at the Merchant MarineAcademy in Kings Point, New York, in 1943, and by the next year hewas working public relations for the Merchant Marine in London.There he finally got the chance to work with real reporters—amongthem two young journalists named Andy Rooney and Walter Cronkite.

"He was a young fellow, as we all were, much younger than we arenow, anyway," Cronkite remembers. "It seemed that he was enjoyinghanging out with the news people more than he was busy ... I thinkmany of us questioned whether he was busy doing anything, exceptkind of enjoying the war." Andy Rooney's recollections were a bit morespecific: "He used to come into the Stars and Stripes office all thetime ... He was very good, he did good pieces for us. He submittedpieces about the Merchant Marine, and we often ran them."

One night near the end of the war, in his capacity as a MerchantMarine correspondent, Hewitt was a passenger in a supply convoy inthe Atlantic Ocean taking heavy enemy fire. All around him, ships weresinking; as the night wore on and the battle raged, Hewitt watchedhelplessly as one ship after another disappeared beneath the ocean surface.By dawn, according to Hewitt's own highly theatrical account,his was the only boat still afloat, the only one to escape enemy fire.Then came two Royal Air Force planes out of Scotland -- and the realizationthat rescue was near.

"Where's the music?" Hewitt said to himself as he watched theplanes head toward them. "This can't be happening unless Dimitri Tiomkin writes the score." Even in the middle of a war, Hewitt figuredthe action could be more thrilling with just a few small improvements.

Hewitt may not have quite realized it that night, but despite all hisfantasies of a career as a dashing correspondent, he seemed to be missingthe basic reporter gene. He had the flamboyant personality and thewild ideas, and he liked being near the action. But he appeared to shyaway from the hard, gritty work that came with the job description.While his pals Rooney and Cronkite -- and other future TV stars likeEdward R. Murrow and Eric Sevareid -- tore up the continent withtheir confidence and tenacity, Hewitt hurried back to the United Statesand got himself a job as the night editor of the Associated Press bureauin Memphis, Tennessee.

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The Long Life and Turbulent Times of 60 Minutes. Copyright © by David Blum. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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