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Evening with a conversation with morley safer, jeff fager and steve craw talking about mike wallace. We were all in the trenches but mike was particularly diligent about that. He would find one kernel in the research that he knew would find the core of the story. Rose an appreciation of morley safer for the hour. Next. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose morley safer, a friend and longtime correspondent for cbs news and 60 minutes died in his home thursday in manhattan, cause of death knew moan. I cant he was 84. He was the longest serving correspondent in 60 minutes history. Over five decades he produced 919 reports. Often he traveled over 200,000 miles a year for stories. He exposed frauds, investigated crimes, profiled politicians and editors, Opera Singers and writers and chronicled a time of change in america. It was in his coverage of the vietnam war as a young cbs correspondent that he first made a name for himself in. 1965 he edit a report showing a u. S. Marine in vietnam sitting a hut on fire with a cigarette lighter. The broadcast almost singlehandedly ushered in the era known as the living room wars. If there were vietcong in the hamlets, they were long gone alerted by the roar of the amphibious tractors and the heavy barrage of rocket fire laid down before troops moved in. The women and old men who remain whether never forget that august afternoon. Todays operation is the frustration of vietnam in miniature. There is little doubt that american fire power can win a military victory here, but to a vietnamese peasant whose home means a lifetime of backbreaking labor, it will take more than president ial promises to convince him that we are on his side. Rose president Lyndon Johnson tried to have cbs censor him. In his mid 20s he joined the cbc as a Television Correspondent and moved to cbs where he achieved his dream of becoming a foreign important. He was first based in london, most quickly reassigned to saigon where he covered the vietnam war. After reporting in vietnam, china, elsewhere, he returned to london in 1968, this time as cbs bureau chief. Two years later, he joined the newlycreated news magazine 60 minutes. It was on 60 minutes that he reported on lynne lanelle jeter. All the things youve done, where do you stack this up, because you clearly had the most important impact you had on a mans life. For that very reason, the lanelle jeter story is the most important story. Rose he got out of prison. The woman who produced that was suzanne st. Pierre. The associate producer researcher was marty palmer. We decided at the beginning, i was not convinced that lanelle jeter was incident because the court said he was guilty which is a good reason. There was a lot of funny stuff in the trial and questionable evidence, and i said to the other two, i said, look, lets assume hes guilty. Lets go out on this story assuming justice happened to the extent he was found guilty but an injunctionties was done because you dont give a man a life sentence for a 25buck robbery or Something Like that. And it was absolutely the way to go on the story because, as we peeled the layers off this onion, we became more and more convinced, as time went on it took six, seven months to do the story because, in the end, what suzanne and marty did, we came up with more evidence, suppressed evidence and phony evidence. Rose the most important story of his career aired in 1983, the piece concerning lanelle jeter a young engineer in texas sentenced to life in prison for armed robbery. Safers investigation eventually absolved the man of wrongdoing and got him off death row. In addition to his reporting that won him 12 emmys, 3 3 peabodys, he reported on the orient express. If youre lining me, youre traveling and would be cast back to 1925 where traveling was not getting from a to b, it was an adventure. Suppose you had a few dollars to get from paris to istanbul. This is how you would go, first class on the orient express. Rose morley safer retired may 11, 2016, only eight days before his death. Near the end of his life he made a peculiar admission. He said i dont like being on television i find it intimidating, discomforting, makes me uneasy. He was a complex man to tend, he is dearly missed. Jeff fager joins me, my friend, also the executive producer of 60 minutes. He was very close to morley and moded iproduced many of his sto. Welcome. Thanks, charlie. Rose you knew him and worked with him. When did you first met him . In the London Bureau, which was always a special place for him and me, too. I was based there in the middle 80s and morley would come through and work with his brother john tiffen. Those two did so much together and traveled the world together. Tiffen really was his brother. Rose his producer . He wasnt his blood brother but they spent so much time together and they were a Brilliant Team so morley would come through london. He loved it. , to points further on across the globe. I thought, oh, my gosh, wouldnt it be amazing to some day work with morley safer . I got to 60 minutes at the end of the 80s. Steve kroft and i joined together and a couple years later i was fortunate to get on his team. It was a dream. Rose much has been said about his capacity to put words to picture. Its true. Its funny. The tradition at cbs news which starts with fred friendly and ed murrow is just the opposite, its words for the ear and writing for the ear and thats what we were taught by don hewitt. Morley wrote in the spoken word, the broadcast language, worked hard at it. He was naturally gifted as a writer, incredible command of the language, but he, i think, took it to another place on 60 minutes. He really did. Writing for the ear, also to the picture, and that was a magical combination. In 60 minutes, he created that genre, the piece, kind of whimsical adventures, you know, in his voice, which was so unique. Rose what about the combination, when harr harry rer went to abc and morley came to join he and mike, the two of them. That was tough for morley. Rose two different men with different kinds of experiences and mindsets. So different. Thats where don hewletts experience comes in because he knew the mix would be great for the magazine. I dont think don predicted the feistiness that would follow. From the getgo, theyd both want to do the story and the next thing morley knew, mike would be out doing it. Rose how did mike do that . Morley once asked mike on a tribute we did to mike, you know, were you threatened by me when i got there . And make said, no you were nothing compared to me laughter and, you know, morley admitted to me that it took him literally two to three years to figure out how to deal with this guy because mike was so tough, he would steal a story from his own sornings which he did in later years, without much trouble. Rose that says something about his drive and ambition. Well, mike was amazing. He was such a fabulous character. Again, they both were. Working with don hewlett, what a trio. Its amazing to think about them. And theyre all gone. Its hard. I remember them so well and the way they mixed it up, and just full of life and larger than life. Rose how about you . You have become the keeper of the flame. Yes, thats true. Rose it really is. Youre writing a book about 60 minutes, but we go to these services yes, we do. Rose for people youve worked with. I know. Rose and you see their work there. Mmhmm. Rose and you see what 60 minutes has meant to the world, and then you see what theyre meant to 60 minutes, and then you see the character and the breadth of 60 minutes. And im saying this as someone whos fortunate to have worked there. But, you know, youre the keeping of the flame. Yeah, its interesting, charlie, i have been thinking about it we tend to have a lot of memorial services, funerals, both on and offair and i think thats a function of being around half a century. Rose it happens in longevity. Yes, we have babies being born, people dying, its the way it works. You know, morley had a very full life. This is not a sad story at all. We miss him. He had a great, brilliant life and career and he loved his life. Rose he said it on the show, i said any regrets . He said, absolutely not. Every part of it yeah, he loved it. I think its true, a part of the longevity involves maintaining even losing these stars and these big figures and largerthanlife characters, but maintaining the standards and values we all stand for, and i think thats when you say keeper of the flame, thats my role is to make sure that we dont veer off course in terms of what we stand for, what were about, what kinds of stories we cover, how we tell them, the real values that actually don hewlett taught us that he learned from, the people who built cbs news. Rose morley safer, you have a guy when he covered the burning of the hut in vietnam, and they said, we have to burn the village to save it yeah. Rose a great reporter in battle, and at the same time he came back and continued to do those kinds of hardnews stories, but also began to show us the range of his passion. Mmhmm. Rose i mean, i love the piece, and he came here to talk about it when it became controversial about art and modern art. Oh, boy. Rose and he was defending that story for years. The rest of his life, he really was. They still dont like him for that story. Rose but he loved to paint, he loved art, and the quizzical ten of that piece. I dont think the quizzical done o tone of the pi. I dont think anybody has the range in broadcast journalism like that. Look at the courage it took to report the story in vietnam. They came after him really hard. Rose the president , the pentagon. They came after him, they said, and he loved repeating it, l. B. J. Said, what, is he a communist . And they said, no, hes a canadian. laughter rose i knew there was something wrong with the guy. But it elevated his profile. People knew that took a lot of courage. Whey reported what he saw. What he remembered most is the soldier said to him, were going in to punish this village. Hed never heard that in his time in vietnam. Rose punish this village by burning this village. Mmhmm. Rose did he somehow contribute to the evolution of 60 . Because at the time he came, it was young, two years after the broadcast started. It had mike who had a very strong definition primarily as an interviewer. Yes. Rose and then morley comes with a wider range. He evolved it significantly, i think. Its funny because people forget. He was on tuesday nights at 10 00. It was up against marcus welby, m. D. Rose the number one show in the country. Yes, and on every other tuesday, swapping with cbs reports. So it was likely fragile. It got critical acclaim in the early years. The critics loved it. So i think it had some promise because of that. But morley had it written into his contract that when the show was canceled, he got to go back to london. That was in the contract. Rose sounded like something you put in your contract, too. I know, i agree. That London Bureau is still rose because he was a cosmopolitan man. Yes, he was. Rose but canadian, china, and was it shanghai . Yes, the thing about morley, he fit so well at cbs because he admired the murrow boys so much and they were really gentlemen in accordance. Rose well read, highly educated. Well read, well dressed. Rose there was an elegance about him. There was and he was always a dapper figure himself. Rose what did you learn about reporting from being his producer . I think that morley teaches as you look at the stories and when you work with him is that the power of observation, he went out in a story and he lived it and he saw things that most reporters dont see, and it was great to watch those come to life on paper, you know, after wed get back, and he really was a masterful storyteller. Rose wa was the conflict between morley and mike continuous until mike left the broadcast . They went for months without talking, they really did. Rose would not speak. For months at a time. Rose and had to bunch into each other. And their office doors were right next to each other and they would go for months without speaking and then somehow patch it up. They were big at writing notes back and forth and don would get involved and would be in a fight with one of them, too. Rose did that add to the quality of the broadcast . I think it probably did. Don thought it did, that the competitive nature, which is still there rose oh, boy. People like to compete in terms of having it rose well, everybody wants a great story. And in this day and age, we dont have that kind of competition externally that we used to have. Rose because anybody whos good enough to work at 60 minutes knows what a good story is. You can smell it, see it and feel it and you cant get your blue card in fast enough. All of a sudden, five arrive on your desk at the same time. It happens, and thats when the fighting always began. But theyd patch it up and then Something Else would come up. Ill never forget when Harry Reasoner retired and we were at his Retirement Party at the russian tea room, poor harry was probably 64 and seemed and looked older. He was a lovely guy, he really was, but i was working with morley, hand he and mike got into a fight in the middle of this Retirement Party over a story. And, i mean, the sad part is nobody really paid much attention. Rose nobody remembers the story. Nobody remembers what the story was. We all remember Harry Reasoner. The guy didnt get much attention at all for his retirement. Rose ho how long did you wok for him as his producer . Four years. Rose the bulger, and the brother Whitey Bulger in the news when arrested in california, johnny depp played him in a movie but here is a report produced by jeff fager and reported by morley safer in 1992. Here it is. The perception of power is just about the same thing as having power. If people think you have it, you have it. And you do nothing to discourage that perception . And there is value in it for me. It can be very useful as in the says of boston edison. Of course. Yeah. They were polluting the air. Right. Particularly polluting south boston, your constituency. Right. What did you do about it . I called them in and reasoned with them. It was impossible, they said. I said, well, youre going to gas very soon. I said you either go to gas or the mass turnpike extension goes right through your plant. laughter i reasoned with them. laughter kidding, folks. The extension to have the mass turnpike will be at your front door. Its a joke, Everybody Knows its a joke. But it also enhances the reputation that, on the real stuff right. He is going to be that tough. Yeah. There is something to that. Bulger keeps the attention with the press alive by not granting interviews. Who the hell are they . He was reluctant to do one was as former state treasurer mr. Crane reminded him. Cant wait to see that show. Oh. laughter you will wish it were 60 seconds. laughter rose what mr. Crane might have been jabbing his good friend about is the sensitive issue of billy bulgers brother james known as whitey, a convicted felon who served final in prisons including alcatraz for bank robbery and has since become according to the feds one of the most feared mobsters in boston. Morley is going to be good to me, arent you, morley . Thats how they all start out, im your pal just remember, im editing it. laughter grab your camera and get out of here. drum snap laughter rose how great is that. Hes doing tough interviews. Yes. Rose he does it with a sense of curiosity. Yeah. Rose and a sense of enjoyment. Yeah. Rose you know, hes enjoying the whole thing. Yeah. I think youre a lot like that, charlie. He just loves it. He loved it. He loved being there. He loved sort of the banter and the give and take and the back and forth, and getting thrown out was the best thing, you know. It was icing on the cake for us, really. It was brilliant. Rose i loved it when the other guy said youre going to wish it were 60 seconds. The treasury secretary of the state of massachusetts. Rose and the former governor. And he and bulger were pals, republican and democrat in massachusetts. But crane ran into morley about ten years later at the front of one of the hotels in boston and morley was getting into a car and he said, morley, where are you going . And morley said, im going to the courthouse. Going to the courthouse. He said, morley, youre not guilty you didnt do it laughter rose it was great. It was great. They loved him in boston, morley. Rose oh, yeah. Take a look at. This morley at this table in 1993 where he talked about how he got started in reporting. Why reporting . What brought you to the newspaper business . I went to college for about four months, a long time ago, got very restless. Id always wanted to be i wanted to be a reporter and particularly a Foreign Correspondent since i was probably 12. Rose was there an image in your mind . Youd loved the subject matter or had seen a Television Show or movie this was pretelevision, charlie. It was hooked on hemingway like a lot of other people. Rose oh. So by the time i was, i dont know, 18, 19, a freshman in college, i thought, you know, im learning about economics i want to see economics and i want to know about it. I havent ti want to be feelingd i just dropped. I left and got a job on a newspaper called the Woodstock Central review which i describe as barely a daily paper, should have been weekly but we managed to put out a daily paper in woodstock, ontario. Rose so i was thinking about this, if in fact morley did earnest hemingway, if he had been available at the time or mike did, would there have been two very different kinds of stories . Yeah, they really would have been. I think thats a story that really needed morley because his ability to express, to tell a story was, i think, the best of any with the exception of charles ca roe lt. Rose that was his core competence, telling a story. It was, he could do a good interview, and he did everything well, by the way. If you look at that body of work, 900plus stories rose 919. There are all kinds. Rose those were the days, werent they . Its amazing, a lot of stories. But there are all kinds of stories, and he did them all so well. But the ones you really remember of morley and by the way, theres a great paragraph at least in every one of them rose and where you see his defining style . Yeah, the storytelling. You know, and likely as i said, its and really, as i said, its just his command of the language. Rose people come to 60 minutes as reporters at cbs news and i assume elsewhere. Yes, mostly from cbs news reporting. And they learn 60 minutes. Yes. Rose what happens . Whats the process, becoming a cbs news correspondent in the London Bureau or the Los Angeles Bureau . Well, it depends on the time you came, by the way, because morley was trained by the original people at cbs news. Rose right. And so was don hewlett. Rose these were morleys producers. Morley got there afterwards. Dick was in charge, fred friendly was present when morley arrived, those are the giants in cbs news and our tradition and values and standards. The way we tell stories, which is really different, and we could spend an hour talking about this right now, is there involves a simplicity, it involves a spare, not a lot of adjectives, a simplicity, yet when morley would find the right word, you know, it would change the story dramatically. So in keeping and i think that the cbs news, the reason weve had cbs news correspondents all these years is because they learn that and have learned that over the years, the cbs news style, i have a board in my office which is forbidden words that we dont like news speak. Rose whats a forbidden word . Clear is the number one word on the list. Its news speak. You only hear reporters say the kind of words that are on that board and we dont allow them on 60 minutes because its not how you tell a story typically. Clear is the most overused word. Exclusive is, too. We dont use that either. But clear sounds like reporters are supposed to sound. They use that word. The truth is nothing is clear. Rose this is the cultured 60. Yes, it is strong and intense. One of the things we focus on, and you have been there so many times, charlie, we will go over every line. Rose yes. Well look at every word. I remember morley and don, when they would get into a fight, it would usually be about one word and would be because morley likely wanted the word and don believed a lot of americans didnt know what it meant. laughter rose and that was part of his own mission. Yes, but another part of our culture which is fred friendly, which is youre never to underestimate the audience, thats important. Never ssume they know more about you do than the story. Rose never underestimate the intelligence of the audience but never overestimate how much they know. Thats right. Rose feel free to explain it in a way. Its important. Rose don hewitt and you have been executive producers. Yes. Rose what is it that happens, in your words, in a room that you have been so often with morley, with mike wallace, with me, steve kroft, all the reporters who come, what is it that you define your core competence . Well, i like to think that, when you see a story on 60 minutes, it looks like it belongs there. laughter rose and fit doesnt make it . Weve had clunkers that dont make it, but most the time thats what i do bring, i bring a consistency. I learned from don hewitt. He was the great story teller. The job is as executive producer 90 editorial about what kind of story were going to do, about who were going to interview, about approving stories or saying no to them, about maintaining mix of stories, about how many profiles are we going to do, how many movie or book stories are we going to do very few by the way because there is so much of that out in the world right down to the structure of a story. And there is a way we tell our stories, and we want them to be, as i said, to feel like 60 minutes stories. That can be a difficult project. Sometimes they notvolves five or six or seven screenics of a story, sometimes two, and morleys were never a long process. If he would go back to rewrite or restructure a story, he would come back the next day with a fresh story ready for air. Rose and had been responsive to the questions that were raised in the editing session. Yes. Rose take a look, that is morley talking to me in 1993 about the significance of his vietnam coverage before he came to 60 minutes. Rose speaking of vietnam, the most important shaping of your reporting career . No question the shaping experience of both the reporter and the man. Rose right. And i dont think there is a vietnam veteran, regardless of whether its civilian or serviceman, who wouldnt say the same thing. Rose why . Eporters tend to spend more time there than most the g. I. S, except the ones that chose to reup. Rose yes. The term was close to a year for most servicemen. Yes. First of all, death close up i covered a lot of wars before vietnam, in africa, and they really were flashpoint wars. They were over about the time you got there, or maybe a couple of days. I covered a couple of wars in the middle east, and those wars were very brief wars. There was the hundred hours war and the sixday war in the middle east and a continuing guerilla action in cypress that, in retrospect, wasnt as bad as what was happening in northern ield, whic Northern Ireland h is hardly a big war. But this was fullblown war in which every day, pretty much, you saw death. You know, there is a certain minor survivor syndrome of every dead guy you saw, you felt good that it wasnt you. Rose there but for grace of god. Exactly. Rose first of all, youve sat in so many editing rooms and now putting together the special that was on 60 minutes, but here he was, you know, in a conversation, like hes sitting at the table. Yes, its therapeutic for us. I think were lucky that way that we have this great interview of conversation that you had with him, and we get to see it, and, you know, a lot of people, when theyre in grief and mourning, they dont have that luxury, and it is. When we lost bob simon about a year ago, we did the same thing. It was after his death, which was unfortunate. We got to honor morley, and he saw it on sunday. It was really great. Rose two days before he died. What i said at bobs funeral is come by, you know, to 60 minutes, to all of his friends, and you walk around the edit rooms and you hear his voice coming out of all of them, and there is something therapeutic about it. We have been through this process. We actually have a name for it. Morley helped name it, called pine box productions. Its a real unit. Warren is the great editor. Rose pine box productions. And morley understood pine box productions were putting this story together we heard last sunday. Rose he knew he was dying. Yes. Rose how did he approach it . As he approached everything else, really honestly. He didnt try to sugar coat it . Deny it. He didnt try to deny it. He just said it. He said, im dying. This is it. And we believe and the nurses who were close to him and were wonderful, at his home, told us that they believed, after the special, that hed let go. Rose let go. Yeah, and he did. Rose saw the special. Saw the special. I spoke rose and whatever resistance maybe so. It happens all the time. You hear of it. He was so appreciative after the program. I said, morley, we cant do enough for you, and look what youve done for us . Rose what did he say. He was very hum snoobl you know it was meaningful to be in the room. It was meaningful. Rose he viewed in this conversation and the others i had with him the love of the work was so clear. Yeah. Rose he felt like it was a gift. He knew he had talent, skills, knew he could write like a poet, but he thought, to be able to do this and he said famously, recently, and it pays pretty good, too. Pays pretty good, too. laughter you know, you see him in these conflict situations, and i think its a lesson in journalism, which is in terms of the people who do really well, doing what he does, which is storytelling, under that deadline pressure, daily deadline pressure where you have to file your piece and get it into the evening news, they used to ship it from vietnam two days later, but they were still under really intense deadline pressure to get ut done and get it on a plane, and thats the kind of discipline thats required is to be writing and think how youre going to tell your story while youre reporting it. By the way, the other thing about him when you say joy of what he does that reminds me of you, chamber, a love of what you do and a love of life, is i like being with you. What i miss is he always wanted to laugh. If it was a tough day or if we were having trouble with a story, i just liked going in his office and hanging out with him and wed always end up laughing. Rose and the wide range of his curiosity. Oh, my gosh, everything. If you werent curious about something when you were with him, hed wonder. Rose hed wonder about you. Something must be missing. He really was naturally curious, and he didnt understand when people werent. Rose mike wallace was one of the great interviewers ever, clearly was. Yes. Rose but what morley did in these profiles shows you there is no single way no. Rose to be able to engage somebody in order to figure out because mike said this to me at this table, you know, what you really want to know is what makes them tick. Thats right. Rose what is it that makes them tick, for mike, whoever it might have been. But with morley, too, and they approached it differently, but in the end they got the same result. Yeah, and i think its interesting, they did approach it differently, and i think that, with morley, its a situation where people like him so much that they want to tell him. I think that has a lot to do with really good reporters. If theyre really likable, they tend to get information. Rose absolutely. And its almost like, i think, they dont want to disappoint you. If they like you, they dont want to disappoint you, they want to share. They go beyond where they might go because they dont want to disappoint you. And mike knew how to be both. Hed beat it out of you if he had to. Youre not going to get away with anything, and i think they had that in common. Rose but in tend what they had in common is what makes people tick. They both came from different places with a central question, who are you and what makes you tick. I think the one common trait you have to succeed at 60 minutes as a correspondent is that ability to talk to somebody and get it out of them. And i think that, even more important, that is hard to come by in this world of reporters, that someone whos able to listen and respond spontaneously, that seems natural and easy, but its not. Its a rare trait. Rose in the special at the you did, steve kroft who wrote, i thought, really wonderfully about morley, talked about the number of profiles he had done with women, yes, thats right. Yes. Rose helen maren, i remember him, obviously, kate meryl streep. Rose what was it about he and women . I think it was respect. I think he loved a strong woman. It was funny, because i remember with the dolly parton interview, twisting his arm rose did you produce that one . No, i was executive producer. Twisting his arm to go do it, bill owens and i. Rose he didnt want to do it . No. Rose because . I think he thought rose it was too showbizy . A little tabloid, why dolly parton. That was one of his favorite interviews. He came right into my office when he returned and said he loved her. Rose he loved her. So much substance. Thats what he didnt expect. Thats why meryl streep was so great. He loved helen merrin. These are women of real substance. Rose one of two things, clearly that he like strong women, but strong women understood he admired women. Yeah, i think so. Rose works both ways. Comes across in that interview. Helen merrin, they fell in love with each other on camera. Rose i think she suggested they could undress right in front of the camera. And they walked off hand in hand into the sunset. Rose what happened then. Pretty amazing. Rose ill go to this one. This is morley with katherine ke hepburn, a unique character. Every time someone compiles a list of the most admired women, katharine hepburn. This becomes the style. Doesnt mean much, does it . No, but there is got to be something there. All the debras have died off. Im all thats left. Im in a safe group. I havent got this rough minutic feeling about age, i think we rot away and its too god dam bad we do. laughter rose heres my favorite of all the profiles we do. You see one of the pictures of this in the 60 minutes halls. Jackie gleason and morley around a pool table. You like that one, pal . Tell me something the great one, where did that come from . Well, orson wells called me the great one first, and then lucy started to call me that, and im really not offended by it. Did you ever really believe it . You just saw me play pool, didnt ya . Rose now, my question, was that the last byte of that piece . Was that the end . Its a great ending if not. It was such a great piece. Thats alan weisman whom youve worked with a lot. Rose who loved gleason. Morley came up with a nickname for alan, sparky. Alan is not sparker, probably why he came up with it. But alan, morley gives him credit for deciding to do that interview in a bar with a pool table, and thats what brought out such an amazing exchange with that classic character. Rose that was a brilliant insight. It was. Rose here is another one, with an interesting take. This is morley talking about contemporary art, and his own sense of is it really art . Here it is. Recently, a vacuum cleaner just like this one and the one down in your basement was sold for 100,000. Also a sink went for 121,000, and a pair of urinals for 140,000. I was giving a definition of life and death. This is eternal. A canvass of scrolls done with the wrong end of a paint brush bears the imaginative title of untitled which cy quably and sold for 2,145,000, and thats dollars, not quamblys. laughter rose he used to say 60 minutes meant 60 producers. It is collaboration. Yeah, and i think thats really a big part of ybz as well. Everybodys a reporter, five or six or seven happen to be on the air in 60 minutes, but there are 75 reporters, and, you know, the producer plays such an important role, theyre all reporting stories, constantly reporters. And i think in the case of David Browning who did the tribute sunday with warren lustik and katy and john rose the dream team. Also, and i think particularly browning who worked so closely and warren with morley, browning was like tiffen to morley. They had such similar sensibilities. I hired browning to come to work i think the first year i took over. Rose theyre all wordsmiths. Beautiful writers who have sensibilities about what kind of stories they want to tell. Browning and morley did a wonderful piece on the vatican library. Rose we saw that in a special where you can just see i mean, its a sense of history and morley almost touching these documents. True. Rose a sense of, by this touch, i am connected to the past, i am connected to a powerful force in life, religion. And they did the coliseum. Rose oh, yeah. Within a couple of years of that. And i think that part of that was also morley just getting back to italy, you know. laughter you know, its not that hard to find a great story in italy. That was morleys philosophy. Rose we had a thing on cbs this morning, we did some stuff i had done with him, and i made the point with him, i said, you pretty much can do whatever you want to. And he said, well, you know, maybe if i wanted to do a story at slovinkian windows, it might be a hard sell, but probably. Steve kroft and a few others, morley, there are a few people in that category, you want to go do something, feel that strongly about it, its going to come back well. Rose if they want it, there is something there. Yeah, just great story tellers. It got to a point where morley really did have carte blanche. You know, whatever you want to go do, sounds fine because its going to come back well. Rose what did morley safer mean to you . He meant so much to me on so many different levels. You know, i was thinking, charlie, at moments when, you know, there are tough decisions to make or broadcast is under attack or were bringing someone on i remember when i was put in charge of 60 minutes, too, and i wanted to hire this guy charlie rose to come be a correspondent, and don hewitt felt strongly correspondents shouldnt have two jobs, they should focus on the 60 minutes, just be focus opened that and that makes focused on that and makes a big difference. I told morley, i want charlie rose to be on 60 minutes, too. He said, you should do it, hes not giving up charlie rose the show. That advisement so much to me. In a way, he was like a brother. In a way, he was in a funny way like father figure as well, though i have a very strong father figure, and just a really good pal, and i knew when you ask him something, hes going to give it to you right from the heart. Hes not going to try to cover it or sugar coat it or anything and thats the kind of person he was. Rose thanks for coming, jeff. Thanks for having me and talking about one of our favorite people. Rose absolutely. If this sounds like we are in a love fest, we are, unpoll jetticly in a love fest. This was a special man, and he deserved everything we have said about him. If you dont believe it, go look at his work, and you will see everything we said ereflected in his work. Back in a moment. Stay with us. Rose much has been said about mike wallace and we will repeat some this evening but these are three people that have worked closely with mike and knew him well, knew the best and the moments that have been defining for him as well as understood what he was about, so i want to revisit a question, morley, that h by gan with on cbs this morning. What was the essence of this man . He was erasable. He was his own person. He never took orders from anybody. He was feisty. He was complicated, probably the most complex man ive ever known, and a man, at the same time, with terrible insecurities. Rose about . About himself. I think that, at some point in mikes life, he invented a guy called mike wallace, who was going to be a toughasnails, nononsense, noholdsbarred reporter. Rose a bit like general patton, who defined what kind of general he would like to be and became that kind of general. I think thats precisely what happened with mike. I think as you will see on the 60 minutes tribute, he had terrible acne as a boy, and that gave him a kind of insecurity that he never quite overcame. So he had to go out there every day and prove that mike wallace was the toughest, meanest, most sixfulsuccessful, most recognize reporter ever. And he achieved it, by the way. He had incredible natural abilities. He might have been driven by the insecurities, and he did talk about those that hed work harder than anybody, but his natural abilities as a broadcaster and someone who could coan interview that was a firstclass, quality interview, listening to what was being said and following it up like none other, and i think to the degree that it almost got to a point where you looked forward to finding out, regardless of what story he was reporting, what is he going to ask this person next. Rose what did you learn about interviewing from him . Well, i think weve all learned a tremendous amount from mike. I think thats something you have to continue to remind yourself to do. I think its ask the outrageous question. Larry king also said dont be afraid to fail or ask the outrageous question because you sometime get into territory youre not quite sure you want to get into and almost invariably it produced great material to take the interview in a different direction, and i think that mike we want into those interviews. I think he was always very well prepared. I think he studied really hard for those interviews, but i think he also knew how can i make this my interview . How can go off in a certain direction . He was absolutely brilliant, uncanny at finding the subjects weak spot, his most his or her most vulnerable spot, and he would go at it, go for it with a scalpel, and just watch the blood run out. What was interesting, you know, too, when mike was first hired, he was hired in 1963 by dick salant rose he had come to see dick, president of cbs news, looking for a job and was about to accept a job somewhere in local news as an anchor and salant said if youre that serious, come to work for us. Exactly. He charmed salant into hiring him and salant wasnt crazy about the idea because of his previous jobs. Rose and this was after his son had been killed and died in greece. In 63. The other correspondents and ybz at that time, all the murrow men, charle the old kind of dipt correspondents rose road scholars. Snooty, road scholars. Rose are they all dead . Except for holland. Radio guys. And they were just making the transition and they looked down their nose at mike. They thought he was crass and brassy and not one of us. Rose a tv host. They took the same attitude by the way to Walter Cronkite because he was merely a wire service guy is that. Rose yeah. And i think when mike came, there was no way mike wasnt going to whip these guys. He was determined to do it. Rose to get the story. To get the story. To get the attention. And sure enough, he did. And i must say that, ultimately, a few of those guys, anyway, really respected him. Rose he earned their respect by the work he did. Absolutely. And, you know, there was nothing mike got out of the trenches. As you said, somebody said, he did the homework. He really did. Rose dont you have to do that . Dont the best ones all have to do that . We all have to do that, but mike was particularly diligent about that, and he would find that one kernel in the research that he knew was going to really make this story. He could find the core of that story, and he was brilliant and finding it. Rose he taught me once about the ambush style of interviewing which in an evolving part of the role 60 minutes has undertaken as done less, fair to say . Oh, yes, much less. It was fai there was a period where it was constant. Rose and nobody better than mike. He was good at it. Rose did he enjoy that . I think he relished it, but i also think he grew very weary of it. But the broadcast was benefiting from it. The broadcast was ben fin fifthing from it, but, honestly, everyone felt uneasy about that, even mike, when he was doing it. We all felt this really is not what we want to be remembered for. Rose so his legacy was, is . I think his longevity, his energy, the fact that he became such an important figure in the last half of the 20th century. You know, i said this on the morning news the other day, he was parody on the sid caesar show and the simpson. Thats 60 years where people know who mike wallace is and i think thats reflected in a long New York Times oped the other day. Rose tribute, front page of the New York Times with a color photograph. I think he could probably write a pretty good history of the last half of the 20t 20th century, just based on mikes interviews. What were we watching . Who were the entertainers . Who were the politicians . What were the issues . Just think about it. Rose true. Weaving your way through those interviews. Pretty interesting history of most of a century. Rose morley safer who died this week at age 84. Rose for more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs. Org and charlierose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Larriva its like holy mother of comfort food. Ion. Kastner throw it down. Its noodle crack. Patel you have to be ready for the heart attack on a platter. Crowell okay, im the bacon guy, right . Hoofe oh, i just did a jig every time i dipped into it. Man it just completely blew my mind. Woman it felt like i had a mouthful of raw vegetables and dry dough. Sbrocco oh, please. I want the Dessert First [ laughs ] i told him he had to wait

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