Dan Rather - Rather Outspoken: My Life in the News

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Copyright 2012 by Martand, LLC

Afterword and This Just In copyright 2013 by Martand, LLC

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the authors intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the authors rights.

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ISBN 978-1-4555-0242-4

How do you thank a lifetime of kindness, generosity and love in the dedication to a book? Well, I dont think you can. But I want to try.

To the Princess of Pin Oak Creek, fighting heart Jeannie Grace Goebel Rathernow my wife of 55 years. To her, a good-hearted woman in love with a too often wrongheaded man, this book is owedas is just about every good and decent thing I have ever done in my adult life.

The pride of Winchester, Texas, she is both the prettiest and smartest girl ever to come out of at least that part of the state. Born at home there where the hardwood meets the pine along the banks of the Colorado River, her early school years were in a little one-room schoolhouse. She is the only woman I know who began in a one-room country school and grew up to conquer Washington, London and New Yorknot to mention Houston, Dallas and New Orleans. And she did it while being an ideal wife (far better than I deserved) and the mother of two wonderful, well-adjusted children. All the while she also determinedly pursued her childhood dream of being an accomplished artist. She became onea painter whose works have sold in galleries in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere.

She is descended from Lone Star pioneer women who helped stave off Indian raids and then beat out cabin fires with their husbands bloody shirts. She came not from wealth or privilegeher family had little land and was not of the archetypical cattle-herding sort. She learned early how to pick cotton, how to milk a cow and how to wring a chickens neck for Sunday dinner.

Jean is in some ways a walking contradiction: patent leather outside but rawhide underneath. If you want to see her eyes narrow and the veins in her neck pulse, just try threatening her children or grandchildren. Or her home and hearth in any way. (Shell give me hell in private when she thinks Ive done wrong, but doesnt take kindly to anyone treating her man unfairly.)

Gentle and kind by nature, in every storm of life she is oak and iron. Or, to paraphrase what the late Eric Sevareid once said in another context, shes the kind of woman you wouldnt be afraid to have your back on a tiger hunt. I still marvel at how lucky I am.

Come to the edge, he said.

They said: We are afraid.

Come to the edge, he said.

They came.

He pushed them and they flew.

APOLLINAIRE

I ts a Friday evening in New York in the early spring of 2006. Im in my combined 60 Minutes and 60 Minutes II office at 555 West 57th, across the street from the old renovated milk barn that has been CBS News world headquarters for many years. Out the window is a glorious view of the Hudson River, the view stretching across the river and into the trees and rocks of New Jersey.

Theres nobody else around. It is quiet as a tomb, and my mind begins to wander: a kaleidoscope of thoughts. There are smiles, worries and concerns, and flashes of the past. Ive been a professional journalist, a reporter, for 60 years, 44 of them at CBS News, 24 of them as anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening Newsthe networks flagship broadcast. They called it being the face and the voice of CBSs storied News Division. With the exception of Britains BBC, it was the best known and most honored broadcast news operation in the world.

But thats all in the past. As the face and voice of CBS News, Edward R. Murrow is long gone. So is Walter Cronkite. And so am I. This was supposed to be a new beginning for me, but it is feeling very much like the beginning of the end. At least at CBS.

I almost desperately dont want it to be. I am still hoping against hope that somehow, someway, things will work out and I can stay. In denial? Well, I dont think so. But time and the tides are running in that direction.

An old friend who, like me, grew up working in the oilfields and refineries of the Texas Gulf Coast as the son of an oilfield hand had called a short while earlier. Hes been retired for a few years and called just to touch base, tell a few jokes and in general be supportive and encouraging.

Rags, he finally said, using my fathers nickname that had been passed on to me in my youth. You dont want to face it, I know. But youre finished there. They have decided to scapegoat you, throw you to the wolves and be rid of you. Theyre doing it to save themselves. It aint fair or right, but its what is. And the sooner you recognize it and deal with it, the better off youre going to be.

He went on to say some overcomplimentary things about what a great reporter youve been best of your time and one of the best ever whos given CBS News some of the best years theyve ever had, and so on. That kind of thing. But by this time, I had tuned him pretty much out. My mind was racing and wandering.

To hell with this, I was thinking. Hes a friend, naturally hes going to say those things. He means well, and I appreciate it. More than he can know. Hes trying to be helpful. But I know my weaknesses and strengths. This includes knowing, really knowing down deep, that I had wanted since childhood to do extended great reporting, work that might stand with the best of my time, if not the best ever. And I had not achieved that. Not nearly. Not yet. This is not false humility. Its not humility of any kind. Its how I genuinely feel.

What I felt at this moment was that in the dream of doing the kind of reporting that I like best and believe I do bestbig breaking news, international stories including covering war zones and deep-digging investigative journalismCBS News was the best place to be. By far. I loved the place, loved the people and loved what CBS represented: an institutionnot just a great corporation, but an institution important to the country and to the cause of press freedom everywhere.