Between You and Me (35 page)

The two of us are from roughly the same generation (Brooks is eight years younger), and as I sat there listening to his grievance, I was struck by the contrast between the tribulations of his young manhood and my own experience. It is hardly surprising that I had

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. . . A N D O T H E R C E L E B R A T E D C H A R A C T E R S

no direct contact with anti-Semitism when I was growing up in Brookline, for in that heavily ethnic community, most of our friends and neighbors were Jewish. But I left Brookline when I was seventeen and spent the next several years in the Midwest, first as a student at the University of Michigan and then as a broadcaster at radio stations in Detroit and Chicago. After that came a two-year hitch as a naval officer in the Pacific during World War II. Neither then nor at any other time in my life did I try to conceal the fact that I was Jewish, and yet I never personally felt the sting of anti-Semitism.

This is not to suggest that I lived in some kind of Pollyanna bubble. I was fully aware that there were some Americans (no doubt more than I cared to admit) who disdained Jews and wanted little to do with us. If there were occasional slights and sneers, they were so inconsequential that I just shrugged them off. I can say for certain that I was never the target of the kind of ugly insults that Brooks had to deal with when he was in the army.

Toward the end of our interview, I observed that the long ride on his blazing saddle was nearing an end, and he had to face the prospect of being put out to pasture.

W A L L A C E : You realize that The Producers on Broadway is the capstone of your career. You’re seventy-five.

B R O O K S : Stop already with the—

W A L L A C E : Wait, wait, wait, wait.

B R O O K S : I—I don’t want to hear that anymore.

W A L L A C E : It’s all—

B R O O K S : Stop. Don’t remind me. I don’t look in the mirror and I don’t look in the calendar.

W A L L A C E : It’s all downhill from now on.

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B E T W E E N Y O U A N D M E

I later learned from a mutual friend that Brooks was a sensitive septuagenarian who was furious at me for suggesting that his best years were behind him. “He hated that,” I was told, “he hated what you said about it being ‘all downhill from now on.’ ”

At the time, I thought it was obvious that I was merely being playful, one geezer teasing a fellow graybeard, and a younger one at that.

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E P I L O G U E

AND NOW A FINAL WORD from the old geezer. As I write this in the spring of 2005, I realize some people are wondering when I’m going to retire. But for the moment I continue working because I wouldn’t know what to do if I didn’t. And I continue to be given opportunities I can’t turn down.

Example? In March of this year, 2005, I got an unexpected call from Beth Knobel, CBS News bureau chief in Moscow, to tell me that she’d received a surprise invitation from the Kremlin: They wanted me to come to Moscow in early May for an interview with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

What in the world? I wondered.

It turned out Putin was planning a huge celebration for May 9, B E T W E E N Y O U A N D M E

the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II. Leaders from the United States, Germany, and France were coming, along with others from around the world. But President Putin, of course, had no idea what a gift he was giving me with his invitation, because May 9, 2005, was also my eighty-seventh birthday.

The ground rules for our unexpected sit-down, set by his worka-holic press secretary Alexei Gromov? Forty-five minutes with Putin, at least half of which had to be about the sixtieth anniversary celebration . . . and half about other questions involving him and Russia.

When Gromov showed up for a pre-interview meeting, I launched into a spiel about how important it is, in order to get a nuanced and fully realized portrait of a world figure like Putin, to have sufficient time with him. Well, we drank a little vodka while Gromov ate and chain-smoked and worked his cell phone. And he wound up doubling my time with Putin.

Putin and I, it turned out, were quite comfortable with each other. He spoke Russian on camera and idiomatic fluent English off camera. He was amiable, savvy, talkative. And neither he nor Gromov asked for my questions ahead of time.

His “democracy,” of which he’s very proud, is not our democracy by any means, but he’s made it clear it’s a long way from the old Soviet system. Fact is, there’s a remarkably free, free press in Russia today—lots of newspapers and magazines and cable shows, with opposition coming from many of them—and opposition on the streets, too. But the Kremlin still controls the news that’s seen across Russia on the three major television networks, one of which nightly covers the comings and goings of the president.

Putin, the inscrutable former KGB agent, the tough-guy president labeled by some a dictator but who calls himself a democrat, had been anointed by Boris Yeltsin as his successor in dealing with

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E P I L O G U E

the greedy oligarchs who had made themselves billionaires by buying up Russia’s natural resources—its oil, its energy, its state-owned industries—at bargain basement prices, with Yeltsin looking on.

Putin surprised me by his willingness to talk about things like the clout of those oligarchs, most of whom are Jewish, and he spoke candidly about the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Russia, which he deplored.

He’s now in his second and—according to the Russian constitution—last term as president. In 2008, he’ll be out of a job, fifty-five years old and still in the prime of life. What will he do? He says he won’t try to amend the constitution in order to stay on. Almost as a joke, I asked him: “What about journalism?” No age limit, the money’s good, and he’d get a chance, perhaps, to interview the next president of the United States for Russian television.

I didn’t tell him that I myself have never gotten a chance to interview the current president of the United States. Karl Rove wouldn’t let me talk to him even when he was merely governor of Texas. So . . .

I’ve interviewed just about every president since Abe Lincoln, including Bush the elder, number 41, but never George W., number 43.

So how about it, Mr. President, isn’t it time you gave this old man a break?

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A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

TELEVISION JOURNALISM IS PERFORCE A collaborative undertaking—reporters, producers, researchers, cameramen and

-women, sound technicians, film and tape editors spending days and nights traveling, bird-dogging in pursuit of something they (we) believe is useful, important, and, ultimately, satisfying.

If you’ve watched 60 Minutes with any regularity, you’ve seen their names roll by too fast on the credits at the end of each broadcast.

There’s no way to adequately recognize them here. Many of them are not simply coworkers, they’re my friends, and I am in their debt.

I N D E X

A&E,
20th Century
series, 85

Elijah Muhammad, 87–88, 89–90

Abbas, Mahmoud, 121

Emancipation Proclamation, 79–80

ABC Television

Farrakhan, 93–98

executive decisions in, 10–11, 78, 164

Faubus interview, 74–75, 166

Mike Wallace Interview
on, 5–6, 68, 78,

“I Have a Dream,” 80

159, 164–67

and integration, 72–73, 80, 81

Actors Studio, 258

Jim Crow laws, 68, 76

Aesop’s fables, 32

King, 76–85, 91–92

Afghanistan, Soviet invasion of, 131

King assassination, 84, 91

African-Americans

King interviews, 78, 79–80, 82–84

in Birmingham, 80

Ku Klux Klan vs., 68–70

Black Muslims, 86–91, 93, 98

and legislation, 79

black power, 82

in Little Rock, 73–75

black separatism, 88

Malcolm X, 87–92, 93–96

“by any means necessary,” 88, 92

militant activists, 81–82, 85–92

Civil Rights Act, 81

Million Man March, 96

de facto segregation in the north, 81

Montgomery boycott, 76–77, 84

Eastland interview, 70–72

nonviolent protest, 77, 78, 80, 83, 84

economic plight of, 83–84

Organization of Afro-American Unity, 89

Edwards interview, 68–70, 80

Parks, Rosa, 76

I N D E X

African-Americans (continued)

Baryshnikov, Mikhail, 157

and Philip Morris Company, 71

Bassett, Angela, 242

and presidential politics, 74, 78–81

Beatty, Warren, 222, 225

segregation of, 67–85

Bedell, Sally, 195

and Supreme Court, 70, 71, 72–73, 75, Beethoven, Ludwig van, 151

76, 77

Begin, Menachem

and urban riots, 81

and Camp David accords, 109–10,

voter registration, 81

112–13

white backlash, 82

and guerrilla warfare, 107, 108, 113

After the Fall
(Miller), 262

MW interviews with, 105–9, 114

Allen, Steve, 268

Nobel Peace Prize to, 113

Allen, Woody, 270

and Sadat, 109–10, 112–13

Al Qaeda, 131, 132

Belafonte, Harry, 93

American Jewish Congress, 98, 103–4, 108

Bennett, Tony, 174

American Legion, 138–39

Benny, Jack, 204, 226, 271

Anderson, Marian, 39–40

Benton, Rita, 147

Andrews, Julie, 247

Benton, Thomas Hart (artist), 144–48

Anti-Defamation League, B’nai B’rith, 69

America’s heartland reflected in work of,
Apartment, The
(film), 222

144

Apple, R. W., 189

death of, 148

Arab oil embargo (1970s), 47, 101, 122

and Martha’s Vineyard Arts Association, Arafat, Yasir, 107–8, 113–22

147–48

aging and death of, 119–20

MW interview with, 145–47

and Camp David accords, 114

reputation of, 144–45, 146, 147

and Carter, 114–15

Benton, Thomas Hart (senator), 144

courage of, 120–21

Bergen, Candice, 247

eyes of, 113–14

Bergman, Lowell, and Tobacco War, 206–9, and Middle East peace efforts, 116–19

211, 212, 214, 215–16, 218–19

MW interviews with, 114–15, 118–21

Bernstein, Carl, 176

Nobel Peace Prize to, 116

Bernstein, Leonard, 157

and Oslo Accords, 116, 117, 119

Beschloss, Michael, 23, 24

Redgrave’s support of, 229

Better Government Association (BGA),

Arendt, Hannah, 107

176–77, 184

Arkansas National Guard, 73

Betty and Bob
(radio), 52

Armies of the Night, The
(Mailer), 250

Bingham, Wade, 181

Art Students League, 144

bin Laden, Osama, 132

Asphalt Jungle, The
(film), 159

Birmingham, Alabama, 80

Assad, Hafez al, 101, 102

Black Muslims, 86–91, 93, 98

Atlanta Constitution, The,
69

Boies, David, 198, 202

Atlanta Journal, The,
69

Bonanno, Bill, 172–74

Autobiography of Malcolm X
(Malcolm X and Bonanno, Joe, MW interview with,

Haley), 91–92

171–74

Bon Soir, New York, 233

Bach, Erwin, 243–44, 245

Boston Globe, The,
60

Baker, Norma Jeane

Bostonians, The
(film), 232

and Dougherty, 257–58

Bradley, Ed, 158, 241

see also
Monroe, Marilyn

Brando, Marlon, 173

Baldwin, James, 246

Brenner, Marie, 218

Bankhead, Tallulah, 247

Brice, Fanny, 236

Barak, Ehud, 117, 118

Britt, May, 80

Barasch, Philip, 177–78

Brookline, Massachusetts, 7–9, 273

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I N D E X

Brooks, Mel

Castro, Fidel, 113, 170–71, 229

as comedian, 269–70

Catholic Church, 134–36

Jewish heart of, 271–72

CBS News

MW interview with, 269–74

documentaries, 82, 88

and
Producers,
269, 270–71, 273

Hewitt’s creativity with, 30

Brown, Edmund G. (Pat), 54

on influential people, 63, 137

Brown & Williamson, 207–12, 213, 219

in-house probe by, 195, 196–97, 203

Brown
v.
Board of Education,
72–73, 77

and Jewish lobby, 103

Buchwald, Art, 51, 147

libel suit against, 197–99, 202–3

Buckley, William F., 194

Morning News,
82, 89, 90, 188

Bullock, Annie Mae,
see
Turner, Tina MW’s assignments for, 13, 24, 100, 167, Burrows, Abe, 142

206

Burt, Dan, 197–98

news vs. corporate culture in, 211–13, Bush, George H. W., 63, 277

215, 217

Bush, George W., 131, 277

and Tobacco War, 211–15, 217

20th Century,
85

Caesar, Sid, 3, 270

and Vietnam, 199

California Pacifica University, 180–82, 184

and Westinghouse, 213, 217

Callas, Maria, 157

CBS Reports,
82

Camel News Caravan
(TV), 204

responsibility for, 196

Camery, James, 179

Westmoreland documentary on, 187,

Camino, The: A Journey of the Spirit
190–96, 202

(MacLaine), 226–27

Channel 5, New York

Camp David, and Oslo Accords, 117–18

eleven o’clock news, 1

Camp David accords, 109–10, 112–13, 114,
Night Beat,
1–3, 160

117

Channel 13, New York, MW interviews on, Canaday, John, 145–46

78, 87, 88

Capital Legal Foundation, 197–98

Charlie Rose Show, The
(TV), 217

Capone, Al, 82, 171–72

Chicago Sun-Times,
177