Roger Mudd And

Roger Mudd. The Place to Be: Washington, CBS, and the Glory Days of Television News. New York: PublicAfairs, 2008. xv + 413 pp. Plates $27.95, cloth, ISBN 978-1-58648-576-4.

Reviewed by Frederick Blevens

Published on Jhistory (February, 2009)

Commissioned by Donna Harrington-Lueker (Salve Regina University)

In part, Walter Cronkite earned his anchor that led to the biggest disappointment of his ca‐ seat at CBS as a result of the distrust that Edward reer is laced with a hint of bitterness. But the R. Murrow harbored for the new medium of tele‐ melancholy does little to temper Mudd’s enthusi‐ vision. When Cronkite relinquished his role as asm and respect for a network that dominated “the most trusted man in America” in 1981, Roger through talent and creativity from Murrow’s ra‐ Mudd, Cronkite’s solid backup, was the presump‐ dio war days in London through Cronkite’s tenure tive successor. CBS, however, chose Dan Rather through the Carter presidency. over Mudd--a choice made as a result of CBS’s Specifcally, Mudd focuses attention on the whim rather than one man’s distrust of a new CBS Washington bureau between the 1961 and medium. 1980, a period that saw a parade of remarkable It is seldom wise in history to speculate about CBS journalists probing into and pounding away the “what ifs,” but in the case of CBS and televi‐ at some of the century’s most critical develop‐ sion news, Cronkite rather than Murrow and ments: Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, the civil Rather instead of Mudd provide the bookends rights movement, the Vietnam War, Watergate, marking a period of television news that was un‐ civil disobedience, the space program, Roe v. precedented in its scope, infuence, and intrigue. Wade, and the assassinations of two Kennedys, Mudd’s professional divorce from CBS is not a Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X. All that social new story. The selection of Rather and the subse‐ politic was wrapped in stories of an equally un‐ quent break-up between Mudd and the network precedented cultural upheaval: the Beatles, the combined to illustrate just how far television had sexual revolution, Muhammad Ali, women’s liber‐ pushed broadcast journalists into celebrity circles. ation, recreational drug use, and the rise and fall For good reason, Mudd’s description of the events of the counterculture. H-Net Reviews

Mudd credits much of the change to the elec‐ Murrow’s fngerprints were all over the role that tion of John F. Kennedy in 1960, “an elixir for tele‐ the Washington bureau played in CBS’s domi‐ vision” and a man whose family was artfully se‐ nance of television news. ductive in its tease of the camera. “And then ev‐ One of the most compelling narratives is erything seemed to happened at once,” Mudd Mudd’s story of how he covered the seemingly writes. “Scattered sit-ins in the South coalesced endless Senate flibuster of the Civil Rights Act. into a civil rights movement and a political force; Fred Friendly, the newly installed president of Alan Shepard spent ffteen minutes in space and CBS News, suggested that the network push the America was on the way to the moon; young story over the radio and television platforms, giv‐ Americans found the Peace Corps more challeng‐ ing Mudd almost constant exposure from early ing than Wall Street; and television news shrank morning through the late evening newscasts on the world with satellites and videotape” (pp. afliate stations nationwide. Mudd notes that his 35-36). coverage made him a tourist attraction for people Joining Mudd and Rather in covering the visiting Congress, a feat made more remarkable game-changing political events were Daniel by a prohibition on cameras and recording de‐ Schorr, Marvin and Bernard Kalb, George Her‐ vices in the chambers. He was challenged as well man, Bob Schiefer, Lesley Stahl, Robert Pierpoint, in constant coverage of a story whose action was and David Schoumacher, just to name few. The being blocked by a procedure designed to produce most powerful testament to this bureau staf little or no news. comes in an appendix titled, “Where are They Popularizing a flibuster says more about Now?”, a fve-page listing of most of the journal‐ Mudd’s storytelling on television than any of the ists who left a mark on the bureau and on Mudd’s dozens of his other remembrances. But the story‐ career. His descriptions of the characters in this telling in the book refects the passion, detail, and star-studded lineup at times are harsh, though he humor that Mudd learned in his early newspaper is equally deprecating about his own foibles and and radio days in Richmond, Virginia. At the News weaknesses. Leader, the city’s afternoon daily, Mudd was as‐ Early on, Mudd diferentiates the golden age signed to get a local angle for the Mau Mau revolt of television from the golden age of television in East Africa. Mudd, never short on creativity, news, explaining that the transition from pictures found a local company that made hard-bristle in the head to pictures on the screen went from a street-cleaning brooms out of Calabar bass fber newsreel to ffteen-minute news-reading to thirty- harvested from palm trees in the Calabar region minute anchor-driven newscasts in a process that of Nigeria. He milked the story for a whole sum‐ took ffteen years. At the same time, he notes, its mer, until one day in September when the own‐ practitioners evolved from orator-actors reading er’s secretary informed him that the brush com‐ to journalists who could report, write, and talk. pany owner, his primary source, had died. Mudd CBS had an obvious advantage from its expe‐ writes, “I expressed my condolences to the secre‐ rience with radio. During the war, Murrow had tary and sent the desk a note: ‘Broom source dead. recruited and hired a huge contingent of excellent What next’? The desk replied: ‘Have you thought journalists, many of whom came home from the about an obit’? Duh” (p. 9). war and made the transition to television. Even The storytelling is even better in two chapters though Murrow would never take an anchor seat titled “The Front Row” and “The Back Row,” refer‐ at CBS or any other network, it is signifcant to ences to the Washington bureau seating chart. note, as Mudd does throughout the book, that The frst group had the superstars, including

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Mudd, Rather, George Herman, Marvin Kalb, and tionship with Rather has come full circle, if not to Schorr. The second group included Leslie Stahl, the level of friendship the men enjoyed when they Jim McManus, and dozens of other new hires who were "front row" reporters for CBS. When Rather aspired to be on the front bench. Here, Mudd was ceremoniously fred for questionable report‐ looks in detail at each person on the frst team ing on President Bush’s military service record and a few on the second. Eric Sevareid gets his during the Vietnam War, Mudd, in an interview, own chapter, not so afectionately called “The partially acquitted Rather, saying he probably de‐ Four Rules of Sevareid,” three of which admon‐ served better after having done well at nearly ev‐ ished all newcomers to “never talk to Eric” in the erything the network wanted. The catharsis con‐ restroom, the hallway, or elevator. The fourth is, tinues in this narrative as Mudd writes:“Perhaps I simply, “Never talk to Eric” (p. 88). should have stayed and not have walked out” The stories behind the news stories are equal‐ when Rather was selected to succeed Cronkite. ly good. Mudd recalls, sometimes emotionally, “Lord knows, they ofered me everything and Robert Kennedy’s run for the White House, Lyn‐ anything I wanted to do except anchoring. But the don Johnson’s sweetheart regulatory deals for his hurt was too great and the fall too sudden. If I had wife’s broadcast empire, and Johnson’s disdain for stayed, perhaps the Kalb brothers would not have Robert Kennedy, a hatred so deep that Johnson jumped ship to NBC, and perhaps we could have concocted backroom deals with FBI director J. helped keep the CBS Evening News with Dan Edgar Hoover to spy on Kennedy and other adver‐ Rather in frst place. Perhaps, perhaps. Too late saries. The most troubling stories revolve around then and too bad now” (pp. 377-378). Mudd’s relationship with Robert Kennedy, a rela‐ There is something very therapeutic to all tionship that tied their families--wives and chil‐ these stories and the healing appears to be com‐ dren--into an extremely close bond. When CBS as‐ plete. signed Mudd to do a documentary on Kennedy prior to Kennedy’s fatal 1968 campaign, the Mud‐ ot ds and Kennedys viewed the piece, then went to dinner. As he prepared the piece, Mudd hosted a wa dinner party for the Kennedys at his home. He Though Mudd’s tales build a marvelous explica‐ about tion of CBS’s hegemonic role in nascent television . news, his candor about his relationship with Kennedy presents a remarkably low threshold in ethics. The industry may not be able to match the talent and quality of journalism during Mudd’s days, but it certainly can say that such obvious and blatant conficts are inexcusable today. That may be a fair trade. Mudd has had perpetually rocky relation‐ ships with both Cronkite and Rather. In a number of anecdotes about them, Mudd is measured but candid, often balancing his criticism of them with his own mild confessional style. He apparently never has reconciled with Cronkite, but his rela‐

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Citation: Frederick Blevens. Review of Mudd, Roger. The Place to Be: Washington, CBS, and the Glory Days of Television News. Jhistory, H-Net Reviews. February, 2009.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=23377

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