by David Blum
After Heyward and Hewitt left Gabriel’s, they walked back to CBS together. Along the way, Hewitt told Heyward an amusing anecdote about Henry Kissinger and Walter Isaacson, Kissinger’s biographer and former president of CNN.
“Isaacson got a phone call from Dr. Kissinger’s assistant saying that he’d like him to come to Thanksgiving at his apartment,” Hewitt said. “Isaacson was kind of amazed. He said, ‘Let me talk to my wife.’ He was very flattered. Meanwhile Kissinger comes back from lunch. The secretary tells him that Isaacson would be getting back to them about Thanksgiving. ‘I didn’t say Isaacson!’ Kissinger said. ‘I said Isaac Stern!’” The two chortled over that all the way back to the office, almost as though they hadn’t just battled over Hewitt’s future in a way that did neither of them proud.
On the morning of January 28, 2003, readers of the New York Times got the news of Hewitt’s new contract from a story in the bottom right-hand corner of the newspaper’s front page—stunningly prominent placement for a story reporting on the transfer of power at a single network television show.
“Man Who Made 60 Minutes to Make Way for New Blood,” read the headline on the story by Jim Rutenberg, the same reporter Hewitt had enlisted in his campaign against CBS two months earlier. Rutenberg’s story reiterated Hewitt’s earlier hard-line position against leaving 60 Minutes and attributed the quick turnaround to, among other things, the CBS birthday dinner.
“A lot changed at that party,” Hewitt told Rutenberg. “I could feel a warmth in the room.”
The story represented Hewitt’s decision to relinquish power as a “compromise,” and incorporated anonymous praise for Heyward’s “deftly handling a potentially explosive situation.” Choosing his words with obvious care, Rutenberg avoided stating what was obvious from the events themselves—that Hewitt had, at last, been removed from the helm at 60 Minutes—but he did note Hewitt’s unexpected shift in position. “Still, the deal that Mr. Hewitt has accepted is similar to the one that he would not accept earlier,” Rutenberg wrote. “It surprised those on the staff who believed that by going public with his desire to keep his job, Mr. Hewitt had painted CBS into a corner. ‘Two weeks ago, I was telling people, he beat those bastards—they can’t find it in their hearts to make him go,’ Mr. Rooney said.”
CBS successfully put a happy face on the events. But within the news division—and particularly inside 60 Minutes—it was obvious that Hewitt has been forced to leave the very job he’d loudly declared to all concerned, barely one month earlier, that he would never, ever quit.
Buoyed by his own spin—“How many 80-year-olds do you know who just signed a ten-year contract?” he was fond of asking people—Hewitt snapped back into action.
Within weeks of the announcement, he was back in the newspaper with the announcement of his latest media stunt; this time, it was the return of the “Point-Counterpoint” format, with former President Bill Clinton and former Senator Bob Dole agreeing to 10 weekly debates on 60 Minutes for the bargain price of $1 million apiece. The news stunned everyone, including the correspondents and producers at 60 Minutes, who’d been hearing about cost-cutting for years and were shocked at the price tag for something with such limited potential. Mike Wallace moaned about the money—he’d been cut back like everyone else—and the dubiousness of the idea, which he’d heard about only the night before the announcement.
Nevertheless, the media were immediately enraptured with the notion of Clinton and Dole squaring off. After two years of speculation about a possible Clinton TV career, it seemed incredible that the telegenic former president could have been convinced to become an ensemble player on Hewitt’s show rather than the star of his own. Rather than call it “Point-Counterpoint,” Hewitt planned to call it “Clinton-Dole” or “Dole-Clinton,” depending on who spoke first each week. “When you’ve got a name like that, you don’t waste it,” Hewitt told a reporter. Media observers speculated in print that the addition of Clinton and Dole could spark the show’s ratings. And it did—for exactly one week, which is how long it took for most viewers to realize that the idea wasn’t going to work. Due to the constraints of schedules, Clinton and Dole didn’t appear together on camera; they filmed their segments separately and faxed opening statements to each other for reply. There wasn’t a nanosecond of spontaneity in either man’s performance; in their two-minute debate about President Bush’s proposed tax cuts, neither managed to engage the other—or the audience.
The reviews were terrible. Instead of bolstering Hewitt’s status, the idea seemed to have backfired in his face. “Bill Clinton wore a dark red tie,” wrote Tom Shales in the Washington Post. “Bob Dole wore a bright red tie. And that was about as striking as the contrast got last night when the two preening politicos made their debut as a debating team on 60 Minutes.” Shales called it a “bore” and noted the amusing irony of Andy Rooney’s commentary that night—about the shrinking content of everything, including 60 Minutes, which according to Rooney now included only 42 minutes of programming and 18 minutes of commercials. “Don Hewitt can’t even produce good TV with Bill Clinton and Bob Dole,” Democratic political consultant James Carville sniped to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “That’s the real crime against television.”
The shows that followed grew even worse; one week, the two politicians actually announced that they agreed with each other. By May, rumblings in the press predicted cancellation—and Hewitt started to ruminate publicly about the segment’s faults. “It could have been livelier if they had been in a position to talk about issues that separate right and left,” Hewitt admitted, instead of devoting so many weeks to deadly discussions about Iraq and foreign policy that offered nothing new. But in fact it illustrated nothing so much as Hewitt’s desperate efforts to catch lightning in a bottle yet again, as he had so often before in his long career.
One afternoon in June 2003, Don Hewitt showed up in Jeff Fager’s doorway for a surprise visit. He’d never been prone to strolling all the way across the ninth floor to say hello—but that was before Fager had been given Hewitt’s job.
“Hey Jeff, how are you,” Hewitt said. “I just thought I’d—”
“Hi, Don!” Fager said. He got up to shake hands with Hewitt. “We’re just watching a Steve Hartman piece. Want to see it?”
“Sure,” Hewitt responded. Hartman was the CBS News correspondent and humorist hired by Fager to fill the spot at the end of 60 Minutes II once held by Charles Grodin. Fager had been struggling to find the right voice for the segment; Hartman had lately been alternating with Bill Geist, a reporter for CBS’s Sunday Morning. Rumor had it Fager had been turned down by both Jerry Seinfeld and Jon Stewart. The piece he was watching showed Hartman going to a high school reunion—not his own—to see whether people would act as though they remembered him.
Hewitt and Fager sat and watched that short segment on Fager’s office TV. When it ended, Hewitt turned to Fager and asked, “Who was that?”
“Steve Hartman,” Fager said.
“Hartman,” Hewitt repeated. “Hartman?”
“Hartman,” Fager said. “Steve Hartman.”
“I don’t know anyone’s name,” Hewitt said, and then added: “He gives it away.” Hewitt meant that Hartman gave away too early in the piece the fact that he didn’t really go to the school whose reunion he attended. “I wouldn’t give it away,” he went on. “I would start with—”
“It’s good, though,” Fager said, cutting him off. “He’s good, isn’t he? What do you think of him?”
Hewitt shook his head, unimpressed.
“You’re not sure about him,” Fager said. “He’s a talented guy.”
“You don’t know with these things,” Hewitt said. “With Rooney you didn’t know. Rooney was writing for Reasoner. And I said, ‘You know what? What if we took a news person and make a little cartoon character, looked like Andy Capp.’” Hewitt was referring to an animated character that Rooney helped create in the early days of 60 Minutes. It was a typical conversational refe
rence for Hewitt; he was often more likely to mention what happened 30 years ago on 60 Minutes than on last night’s show. “Rooney was thoughtful,” Hewitt went on. “You have to be thoughtful.”
“He’s pretty thoughtful,” responded Fager, a little testily—speaking of Hartman, not Rooney. “This is sort of a funny one. But he’s a pretty thoughtful character. It’s tough to be like Andy. You have to be able to have that kind of body of work behind you to just say things.”
Hewitt nodded. “You don’t go out looking for an Andy Rooney,” Hewitt said. “You have an Andy Rooney. You look for a guy. I think that’s the problem. You have to start with the guy and say this is my guy, now what do I do with him?”
“Good point,” Fager said, not looking much like he thought so. Hewitt headed toward the door.
“Grodin worked really well,” Fager cracked. He knew that Hewitt hadn’t thought much of Grodin, either.
“Grodin . . . Grodin was worse,” Hewitt said at the door.
“You’re right,” Fager said as Hewitt left, “I can’t fuck up again.”
Chapter 24
None of These Men Can Speak at My Funeral
On the afternoon of Tuesday, June 5, 2003—precisely two hours after Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd delivered their bombshell resignations in the New York Times newsroom only 17 blocks away—the entire 125-person staff of 60 Minutes was getting smashed at Gabriel’s, the site of Hewitt’s final negotiation last winter with Heyward. They’d only been here 20 minutes and already they were behaving like a bunch of rowdy teenagers on vacation, the wine pouring freely throughout the cavernous dining room. Today, for the first time in anyone’s memory (and the guest list included people who remember the Hoover administration), every single member of the 60 Minutes team was gathering for lunch. Andrew Heyward had invited the staff to lunch on the network’s nickel, to celebrate the retirement of Phil Scheffler.
Now that management had achieved its goal of removing Scheffler from his full-time job, 60 Minutes insiders worried how life with Hewitt would continue without him. The whispering at Gabriel’s today revolved almost exclusively around this topic. How many days a week would Scheffler be coming in? What would it be like with Scheffler not there to stop Hewitt from going wild? Why would anyone want Scheffler to leave before Hewitt’s own retirement a year from now? These confusing questions fueled a current of anxiety in the room; it was hard to say who was celebrating and who was drowning their tears. After lunch, a series of toasts from the correspondents added to the odd, disquieting nature of this boozy event.
“You never wanted to go into a screening without Phil Scheffler there,” Steve Kroft said to the crowd at Gabriel’s. “That sort of became the rule for the last three, four, five years that I’ve been here. Because he always understood as a producer what you wanted to do. So if Don sometimes thought maybe there wasn’t a story there, Phil always understood the amount of work that went into it, and had good ideas, and always meaningful suggestions on how to complete it. He’s the only one who could talk Don off the ledge. Even though you sometimes didn’t always agree with what he said, you were willing to put up with the occasional disagreement for the wisdom that he brought into the room every day.”
Kroft paused and looked around the room. He was ready to deliver his final valedictory, every word chosen with considerable care.
“The fact is that the show has been able to maintain its standards over thirty-five years when there is so much going on in television news that does not,” Kroft said. “And the person who I think is singularly responsible is Phil Scheffler. I don’t think there’s any doubt about it. He always kept his eye on the ball, he’s always kept us in line, and it’s the biggest loss to the show since Harry Reasoner left. And it’s a challenge to everybody to make sure those standards are still here when Phil’s not there.”
Kroft looked down at Scheffler, seated at a table only a few feet away, and began to cry. And as Kroft wiped the tears off his normally stoic, butcher-block face, others in the room marveled to themselves how bold and direct his comments were—how pointed and unmistakable his reference was to Scheffler’s singular contributions.
Wallace’s testimonial to Scheffler echoed Kroft. “Phil was the only man who could disagree with Hewitt in a screening,” he said, “and make it stick.”
Safer also agreed. “At 60 Minutes,” he said a few minutes later, “we have ‘bad cop, worse cop,’” referring to the Scheffler-Hewitt team. He failed to specify who was who in that formation, but it wasn’t a big mental leap for his audience to make the division. Soon after finishing his remarks, Safer headed outside for a smoke.
Then came Stahl, who followed the men. She appeared to have come directly from the airport, wheeling a suitcase behind her as she walked into the restaurant at 12:45, a little late.
“None of these men can speak at my funeral,” the 61-year-old correspondent declared, which earned her the biggest laugh of the lunch. She then went on to emphasize Scheffler’s unique importance to the show; she implied that Hewitt’s style was to personalize the battles that were a routine part of the show’s backstage drama, whereas Scheffler kept things steady.
“We have the drama . . . we have the Jewish hysterics . . . but whatever we’ve gone through, my impression is that Phil maintains his sanity and keeps us on an even keel,” Stahl said. “I can’t remember a time where it ever got personal. It was always about the story.”
The outpouring of love and respect for Scheffler was to be expected; after all, this was his farewell lunch, the final chance for the men and women of 60 Minutes to express their appreciation for Hewitt’s longtime deputy. It was less expected to hear these famous news stars, even in the relative privacy of Gabriel’s, use Scheffler’s departure as a moment to stick it to the boss. It is as though they wanted to remind those listening—including Hewitt—that there were two ways to manage the show, and that the departing Scheffler’s was the one they preferred.
At 1:50 P.M., the door to Gabriel’s swung open to reveal a terrifying glimpse into the show’s mortality, in the person of a pale, limping shadow of a man barely recognizable as perhaps the show’s beloved Ed Bradley.
It had been five weeks since the 61-year-old Bradley was rushed to Mount Sinai Medical Center for a quintuple heart bypass surgery on April 29, following several weeks of unexplained chest pains. While it wasn’t unusual for the seasoned correspondents at 60 Minutes to need medical help, the reality of Bradley’s condition came as a huge shock to his friends and colleagues. A health nut known to work out for hours every day and to eat little besides fruits and vegetables, no one figured Bradley for an incapacitating hospital stay anytime soon. (“We’re all quitting our gym memberships and eating donuts for breakfast,” joked then-senior producer Josh Howard a month after Bradley’s operation. “I mean, what’s the point?”) The surgery came suddenly in the final weeks of the 2002–2003 season and left pieces unfinished, interviews undone. And while no one wanted to say it, everyone at 60 Minutes was afraid that Bradley’s condition could mean an early, precipitous departure by a man who had been expected to stay and contribute to the show for at least another decade.
Which is why, when Bradley stepped gingerly into the Gabriel’s dining room, the guests jumped to their feet and cheered their colleague with sustained applause and whooping. “I’m sorry I’m late,” he said once the ovation died down, and he took a seat at a back table with his team of producers. “I’m getting more like Don, with a short attention span.”
More laughter, more applause, before Bradley offered a few remarks that bore an uncanny resemblance to what his colleagues had already said. If ever one needed evidence that the 60 Minutes correspondents never consult each other much about things, the similarities of these testimonials proved it beyond a reasonable doubt.
“I remember Phil for a lot of things,” Bradley said. “Among them that strength . . . that fortitude. He can say, ‘Don, you’re wrong.’ I can’t tell you how much I appreciated that fra
nkness. That fortitude in pointing it out so many times when he was wrong.” Bradley paused. “I’ll miss him,” Bradley said finally, placing his hand over his heart. The crowd leapt to its feet once again and cheered. Bradley sat down, and then realized he had a few more words to say.
“My heart is fine,” Bradley told the roomful of colleagues anxious for an update on his condition. “My lungs aren’t fine. I have lesions.” Bradley didn’t dwell on his health, or reminisce much more about Scheffler, save to relate one story of the two men hanging out at a dive under a highway near San Francisco. He was clearly tired, and wrapped his remarks up quickly with an odd, off-key signoff. “Lest I forget . . . for all the trips that Patricia [Blanchet, Bradley’s wife] and I have made to Italy, for all the restaurant recommendations you’ve given us, many thanks.” That oddly impersonal farewell may have been just a reflection of the correspondent’s weakened state; but it also served as yet another sign of the emotional distance and lack of intimacy among the personalities of 60 Minutes. The correspondents had formed no real friendship with one another over their decades of working together—all they shared was a commitment to their continued longevity and success.
The final testimonial of the day came from Hewitt himself. He followed the remarks of Scheffler’s successor, Josh Howard, and Betsy West, who engagingly referred to herself as “management scum.”
“I had known and admired Phil for a long time,” West said, “and for a long time I thought that he admired me, too. Then I came to work for CBS as a vice president. Phil has a bit of a thing about management. Some say he derives some perverse pleasure from thumbing his nose at any suit that dares to patrol the hallowed halls of 60 Minutes. But I have to say that despite your valiant efforts to pose as a disruptive, antimanagement, pain-in-the-ass curmudgeon, Phil, you have failed miserably.”
Howard followed up with his own recollections. “Phil Scheffler’s management rule number one. When a vice president calls to speak with you, don’t take the call. Rule number two. When Mike Wallace calls to speak to you, pretend you’re too busy because you’re on the phone with a vice president. And finally the most important sentence to remember: ‘No, Don, you can’t do that.’”