Huntley Finds Life Has Its Drawbacks BOZEMAN, Mont
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Huntley Finds Life Has Its Drawbacks BOZEMAN, Mont. July 21. (AP)—Chet Huntley of the Huntley-Brinkley news tele- cast says Life magazine incor- rectly quOted him as saying it "frightens me" that Richard M. Nixon is president. In a letter to the Bozeman Chronicle, Huntley declared Monday that he actually said he "worried about all presi- dents of the United States— whether they will stay healthy, whether• they can stand the strain, their power, the decisions they make, and our tendency to make mon- archs out of them." In New York a Life spokes- man declined immediate com ment, pointing out that nei- CHET HUNTLEY ther Huntley nor his ern-. ... good night, Lite! ployer, NBC, had complained. to the magazine. into the statement that I. think Huntley, 58, retires from Mr. Nixon was shallow," Hunt- the telecast after the Friday ley said. night show and will devote Huntley also denied having full time to developing a Mon- said he had "poured Scotch" tana recreational complex. for President Johnson. The newscaster also dis- owned another quote in the "Well, so it goes," concluded Life interview: "The shallow- Huntley. "The only reasonably ness of the man—President accurate quote was the one Nixon—overwhelms me." about the Eastern Establish- In disclaiming that quote, ment." Huntley said he had ventured In that passage the newscas- the judgment that the 1968 ter was quoted as saying campaign, as waged by all can- "Spiro Agnew is appealing to didates, was shallow and that the most base of elements" the President's rationale for and that the networks had "al- Cambodia was thin. most created" Agnew through "But that was transformed intensive news coverage. Half of Huntley-Brinkley signs off the air Chet Heads for the Hills by THOMAS THOMPSON untactfully implying that his slightly bagging gray trousers, his blazer with the threads hang- When Chet Huntley and David Brinkley ing from the back, his shirt with the fray at first materialized for a national audience in the collar, his inexpertly knotted tie needed re- 1956, a. fellow could swim in Lake Eric, planes pair before exposure to 20 million watchers. landed on lime in New York, the 11.S. had "Nah," he said. 600 or so "advisers" in Vietnam. and in He slipped behind a desk in the studio, tech- Baltimore a lawyer named Spiro Agnew had nicians darted about him, maps and severed not yet even run For the presidency or his lo- beads of famous people flashed in rehearsal cal PTA. on screens fore and aft, and promptly at 6:30 Now Chet Huntley is leaving, going hack EST, the voice rolled out: "Chet Huntley, to Montana, taking away that sonorous voice NBC News, New York." Everything was made of dignity which seemed not so much merely right. Suddenly he seemed sartorially splendid, to deliver the news, but to drop it on us assn sit- Suddenly all was majesty. Vocal cords, not fending object; realizing, at 58, that it is im- clothes, can make the man. portant for the boy to come to New York. but Only rarely has that voice betrayed him. In even more vital. for the man to go home. The the first year of the partnership, in the year other day he was cleaning up in his office at when everybody at NBC agreed the idea to NBC, rummaging about his rolltop desk with pair them was a disaster, when for several an old buffalo rifle hanging precariously over months in 1957 there was not a single spon- it, next to the framed memo his father wrote sored minute, in that year Huntley sometimes in 1923 ordering all trains of the Northern Pa- had to bite his inside cheek to keep from break- cific line to pause for five minutes in memory ing up at Brinkley. The voice trembled in 1963 of President Harding's passing. Huntley's of- as President Kennedy's coffin went to its grave, lice is a place where books are tumbling out and again on the night Martin Luther King of shelves, where papers are strewn about like Jr. was shot, and it cracked in anger that last autumn leaves, where two brass spittoons do night in Chicago of the Democratic Conven- not even look out of place beside the desk. "I tion. But in the main it has been one of the wanted to get these damn deadlines oil my few constants left. neck." he said. "Jesus, six nights a week, night "I've tried to cast myself as the voice of re- after night after night ... the noise the straint around here." he said later. "That night clamonng for attention ... the divisions in in Chicago 1 was mad, but when we had an on- our society.... When you deliver it night af- camera bull session after the convention shut Huntley at the site of his Montana resort ter night you start feeling almost responsible down, 1 pointed out that there was u definite for it.... I'm not running away from things, brat element out there in the streets, that it I'm running away to think. Maybe where was not a total slaughter of the innocents." an accident, a freak, it won't happen again." there's clarity of air, there's clarity of thought." NBC will replace Huntley with veterans 'tether this midsummer week he had given Frank McGee and John Chancellor, who with up his NBC radio programs which, in truth, .n the bars of Rockefeller Center where Brinkley will make up a three-man team. But he relished more than his nightly television du- the network people drink, there is gossip that there will be no attempt' to create a trio to n- ties because the radio work was entirely his Huntley was pushed. It isn't true. He had sal the old duet. "We won't have a lot of peo- own. He wrote his thoughts, edited them, more than two years to run on his 5300,000- ple saying good night to each other. that's for spoke them. "I came in this morning," he said, a-year contract, and the Huntley-Brinkley sure," says NBC News head Reuven Frank. "and for the first time in 15 years didn't know ratings, which in the past few years have oc- In truth, Huntley beat Brinkley to retire- what to Jo with myself." casionully been topped by competing Walter ment. "I'm always mumbling shout leaving," Al 6:10 he wound through a familiar maze Cronkite on CBS. have about pulled back said Brinkley, -because 14 years is an incred- of corridors, stopping in a room with a wall into a dead beat. NBC, which counts on its ible grind for this sort of thing. I'm Calking mirror. He found a can of face powder and hyphenated news show to bring in almost 30 about the work, because the relationship be- flopped some on his forehead. "The guy is sel- millions of revenue annually, one of its larg- tween Chet and me has been entirely cordial. dom here so I do it myself," he said. There est pots of gold. is frankly terrified. Said a Incredible as it may seem. in 14 years we are pouches, under the eves and a paunch grow- network executive: "Johnny Carson we can haven't had one unpleasant word together. ing about the middle, but he remains n strong, replace someday—we replaced Jack Pmar- Maybe that's because we've usually been 250 tine-looking man. and another Laugh-fn will always turn up. miles apart." "Do you have to change clothes'?" I asked, But the chemistry with Chet and David was Huntley is so eager to go back to his own CONTINUED ON PACE 38 33 61 thought I was the classic liberal' CONTINUED behind the stoic face and delivery. Country that he Mans, on the morn- Some hints: ing after the last newscast on Au. ► "Covering the astronauts was.an gust I, to lock the door of his East exercise in boredom. The networks Side town house and fly with Tip- all got trapped. Most astronauts py directly to Bozeman, Montana. are dull as hell, nice guys, mechan- Tippy, who was once a weather girl ics. The only ones who had a mind for a Washington TV station. is of their own didn't hat long." Huntley's second wife. He and ha a- "It deeply concerns me that first wife were divorced in 1959 and 55r, of the Ameremn people arc have two grown daughters. The getting most of their news from house rising in Montana is the first TV. These are people who, for the part of Huntley's dream, begun most part, are being confronted only IS months ago, but rapidly with news ion the first time. And coming to fruition. The dream Is these are the people who form the Big Sky. a 13,000-acre resort ik- Agnew claque." velopment in the lap of 11.000-foot ) "Of the Presidents T'vc been Lone Mountain, a Si5 million around, T think I liked L.B.J. best. complex of condominiums, hotels, He was kind to me. As insufferable restaurants, a summer village for as he could he, he was a gracious hiking and fishing and swimming, and funny man at ease. I never tried and a winter village for skiing. to argue with him. 1 just kept fill- ing his glass with Scotch and we talked about breeding Herefords. It is Huntley's passionate intent I'm going down to his ranch some- to build his complex out of native day and sell him 74 bull." Montana wood and stone and to • "I've been with Nixon socially: nestle it discreetly in the envimn- I've traveled with hint in his pri- mem.