Everything, it always seemed, arrived at the One-inch-tape Room in haste and late. It was a tradition that producers, correspondents and editors working in the field polished and repolished their pieces until the last possible moment, so that most came in during the half hour before the broadcast and some after the broadcast had begun. There were even nail-biting occasions when the front half of a report was going out from one tape recorder and being broadcast while the back portion was still feeding into another machine. During those moments nervous, sweating operators pushed themselves to the limit of their skills.
The senior producer most often in charge was Will Kazazis, Brooklyn-born of an excitable Greek family, a trait he had inherited. His excitability, though, seemed to fit the job and despite it he never lost control. Thus it was Kazazis who received Rita Abrams’ satellite transmission from DFW—first Minh Van Canh’s pictures sent “quick and dirty,” then Harry Partridge’s audio track, concluding with his standup.
The time was 6:48 … ten minutes of news remaining. A commercial break had just begun.
Kazazis told the operator who had taken the feed in, “Slap it together fast. Use all of Partridge’s track. Put the best pictures over it. I trust you. Now move, move, move!”
Through an aide, Kazazis had already let the Horseshoe know that the Dallas tape was coming in. Now, by phone, Chuck Insen, who was in the broadcast control room, demanded, “How is it?”
Kazazis told the executive producer, “Fantastic! Beautiful! Exactly what you’d expect of Harry and Minh.”
Knowing there wasn’t time to view the piece himself, and trusting Kazazis, Insen ordered, “We’ll go with it after this commercial. Stand by.”
With less than a minute to go, the tape operator, perspiring in his air-conditioned work space, was continuing to edit, hurriedly combining pictures, commentary and natural sound.
Insen’s command was repeated to the anchorman and a writer seated near him. A lead-in was already prepared and the writer passed the single sheet to Crawford Sloane who skimmed it, quickly changed a word or two, and nodded thanks. A moment later on the anchor’s Teleprompter, what were to have been the next segment’s opening words switched over to the DFW story. In the broadcast studio as the commercial break neared its conclusion, the stage manager called, “Ten seconds … five … four … two …”
At a hand signal Sloane began, his expression grave. “Earlier in this broadcast we reported a midair collision near Dallas between a Muskegon Airlines Airbus and a private plane. The private plane crashed. There are no survivors. The Airbus, on fire, crash-landed at Dallas–Fort Worth Airport a few minutes ago and there are heavy casualties. On the scene is CBA News correspondent Harry Partridge who has just filed this report.”
Only seconds before had the frantic editing in the One-inch-tape Room been completed. Now, on monitors throughout the building and on millions of TV sets in the Eastern and Midwestern United States and across the Canadian border, a dramatic picture of an approaching, burning Airbus filled the screen and Partridge’s voice began, “Pilots in a long-ago war called it comin’ in on a wing and a prayer …”
The exclusive report and pictures had, as the final item, made the first-feed National Evening News.
There would be a second feed of the National Evening News immediately after the first. There always was and it would be broadcast—in the East by affiliate stations who did not take the first feed, widely in the Midwest, and most Western stations would record the second feed for broadcast later.
The Partridge report from DFW would, of course, lead the second feed and while competing networks might, by now, have after-the-fact pictures for their second feeds, CBA’s while-it-happened pictures remained a world exclusive and would be repeated many times in the days to follow.
There were two minutes between the end of the first feed and the beginning of the second and Crawford Sloane used them to telephone Chuck Insen.
“Listen,” Sloane said, “I think we ought to put the Saudi piece back in.”
Insen said sarcastically, “I know you have a lot of pull. Can you arrange an extra five minutes’ air time?”
“Don’t play games. That piece is important.”
“It’s also dull as oil. I say no.”
“Does it matter that I say yes?”
“Sure it matters. Which is why we’ll talk about it tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’m sitting here with certain responsibilities.”
“Which include—or ought to—sound judgments about foreign news.”
“We each have our jobs,” Insen said, “and the clock is creeping up on yours. Oh, by the way, you handled the Dallas thing—at both ends—nicely.”
Without answering, Sloane hung up the telephone at the broadcast desk. As an afterthought he told the writer beside him, “Ask someone to get Harry Partridge on the phone at Dallas. I’ll talk with him during the next break. I want to congratulate him and the others.”
The stage manager called out, “Fifteen seconds!”
Yes, Sloane decided, there would be a discussion between himself and Insen tomorrow and it would be a showdown. Perhaps Insen had outlived his usefulness and it was time for him to go.
Chuck Insen was tight-lipped and unsmiling when, after the end of the second feed and before going home, he returned to his office to gather up a dozen magazines for later reading.
Reading, reading, reading, to keep informed on a multitude of fronts, was a news executive producer’s burden. Wherever he was and no matter what the hour, Insen felt obliged to reach for a newspaper, a magazine, a newsletter, a nonfiction book—sometimes obscure publications in all categories—the way others might reach for a cup of coffee, a handkerchief, a cigarette. Often he awoke in the night and read, or listened to overseas news on short-wave broadcasts. At home, through his personal computer, he had access to the major news wire services and each morning, at 5 A.M., reviewed them all. Driving in to work, he listened to radio news—mainly to CBS whose radio network news he, like many professionals, acknowledged as the finest.
It was, as Insen saw it, this widest possible view of the ingredients of news, and of subjects which interested ordinary people that made his own news judgments superior to those of Crawford Sloane, who thought too often in elitist terms.
Insen had a philosophy about those millions out there who watched the National Evening News. What most viewers wanted, he believed, was the answers to three basic questions: Is the world safe? Are my home and family safe? Did anything happen today that was interesting? Above all else, Insen tried to ensure that the news each evening supplied those answers.
He was sick and tired, Insen thought angrily, of the anchorman’s I-know-best, holier-than-thou attitude about news selection, which was why tomorrow the two of them would have a slam-bang confrontation during which Insen would say exactly what he was thinking now, and to hell with consequences.
What were those consequences likely to be? Well, in the past, in any kind of contest between a network news anchorman and his executive producer, the anchor had invariably won, with the producer having to look for work elsewhere. But a lot of things were changing in network news. There was a different climate nowadays, and there could always be a first, with an anchor departing and a producer staying on.
With just that possibility in mind, a few days ago Insen had had an exploratory, strictly confidential phone talk with Harry Partridge. Would Partridge, the executive producer wanted to know, be interested in coming in from the cold, settling down in New York, and becoming anchor of the National Evening News? When he chose to, Harry could radiate authority and would fit the part—as he had demonstrated several times by filling in while Sloane was on vacation.
Partridge’s response had been a mixture of surprise and uncertainty, but at least he hadn’t said no. Crawf Sloane, of course, knew nothing of that conversation.
Either way, concerning himself and Sloane, Insen was convinced they couldn’t go on feuding without some kind of a resolution soon.
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4
It was 7:40 P.M. when Crawford Sloane, driving a Buick Somerset, left the garage at CBA News headquarters. As usual, he was using a CBA car; one was always available as part of his employment contract and he could have a driver if he wanted, though most of the time he didn’t. A few minutes later, as he turned onto Fifty-ninth Street from Third Avenue, heading east toward the FDR Drive, he continued thinking about the broadcast just concluded.
At first his thoughts had gone in the direction of Insen, then he decided to put the executive producer out of his mind until tomorrow. Sloane had not the slightest doubt of his ability to cope with Insen and send him on his way—perhaps to a network vice presidency which, despite the high-sounding title, would be a demotion after the National Evening News. It did not occur to Sloane for a moment that the reverse of that process could possibly happen. Had it been suggested to him, he would undoubtedly have laughed.
Instead, he turned his thoughts to Harry Partridge.
For Partridge, Sloane recognized, the hasty but excellent reporting job from Dallas had been one more solid performance in an outstanding professional career. Through DFW’s airport paging system Sloane had been successful in reaching Partridge by phone and had congratulated him, asking him to pass on the same message to Rita, Minh and O’Hara. From an anchorman that kind of thing was expected—a matter of noblesse oblige—even though, where Partridge was concerned, Sloane did it without any great enthusiasm. That underlying feeling was why, on Sloane’s part, the conversation had a touch of awkwardness, as conversations with Partridge often did. Partridge had seemed at ease, though he sounded tired.
Within the moving car, in a moment of silent, private honesty, Sloane asked himself: How do I feel about Harry Partridge? The answer, with equal honesty, came back: He makes me feel insecure.
Both question and answer had their roots in recent history.
The two of them had known each other for more than twenty years, the same length of time they had been with CBA News, having joined the network almost simultaneously. From the beginning they were successful professionally, yet opposites in personality.
Sloane was precise, fastidious, impeccable in dress and speech; he enjoyed having authority and wore it naturally. Juniors were apt to address him as “sir” and let him go through doorways first. He could be cool, slightly distant with people he did not know well, though in any human contact there was almost nothing his sharp mind missed, either spoken or inferred.
Partridge, in contrast, was casual in behavior, his appearance rumpled; he favored old tweed jackets and seldom wore a suit. He had an easygoing manner which made people he met feel comfortable, his equal, and sometimes he gave the impression of not caring much about anything, though that was a contrived deception. Partridge had learned early as a journalist that he could discover more by not seeming to have authority and by concealing his keen, exceptional intelligence.
They had differences in background too.
Crawford Sloane, from a middle-class Cleveland family, had done his early television training in that city. Harry Partridge served his main TV news apprenticeship in Toronto with the CBC—Canadian Broadcasting Corporation—and before that had worked as an announcer-newscaster-weatherman for small radio and TV stations in Western Canada. He had been born in Alberta, not far from Calgary, in a hamlet called De Winton where his father was a farmer.
Sloane had a degree from Columbia University. Partridge hadn’t even finished high school, but in the working world of news his de facto education expanded rapidly.
For a long time at CBA their careers were parallel; as a result they came to be looked on as competitors. Sloane himself considered Partridge a competitor, even a threat to his own progress. He was not sure, though, if Partridge ever felt the same way.
The competition between the two had seemed strongest when both were reporting the war in Vietnam. They were sent there by the network in late 1967, supposedly to work as a team, and in a sense they did. Sloane, though, viewed the war as a golden opportunity to advance his own career; even then he had the anchor desk of the National Evening News clearly in his sights.
One essential in his advancement, Sloane knew, was to appear on the evening news as often as possible. Therefore, soon after arriving in Saigon he decided it was important not to stray too far from “Pentagon East”—headquarters of the United States Military Assistance Command for Vietnam (MACV) at Tan Son Nhut air base, five miles outside Saigon—and, when he did travel, not to be away too long.
He remembered, even after all these years, a conversation between himself and Partridge, who had remarked, “Crawf, you’ll never get to understand this war by attending the Saigon Follies or hanging around the Caravelle.” The first was the name the press corps gave to military briefings; the second, a hotel that was a popular watering hole for the international press, senior military and U.S. Embassy civilians.
“If you’re talking about risks,” Sloane had answered huffily, “I’m willing to take as many as you are.”
“Forget risks. We’ll all be taking them. I’m talking about coverage in depth. I want to get deep into this country and understand it. Some of the time I want to be free from the military, not just tagging along on fire fights, reporting bang-bang the way they’d like us to. That’s too easy. And when I do military stuff I want it to be in forward areas so I can find out if what the USIS flacks say is happening really is.”
“To do all that,” Sloane pointed out, “you’ll have to be away for days, maybe weeks at a time.”
Partridge had seemed amused. “I thought you’d catch onto that quickly. I’m sure you’ve also figured that the way I plan to work will make it possible for you to get your face on the news almost every night.”
Sloane had been uncomfortable at having his mind read so easily, though in the end that was how it worked out.
No one could ever say about his time in Vietnam that Sloane didn’t work hard. He did, and he also took risks. On occasion he went along on missions to where the Viet Cong were operating, was sometimes in the midst of firefights, and in dangerous moments wondered, with normal fear, whether he would make it back alive.
As it turned out, he always did and was seldom away more than twenty-four hours. Also, when he came back it was invariably with dramatic combat pictures plus human interest stories about young Americans in battle, the kind of fare that New York wanted.
Following his plan shrewdly, Sloane didn’t overdo the dangerous exploits and was usually available in Saigon for military and diplomatic briefings which, at the time, were newsworthy. Only much later would it be realized how superficial Sloane’s kind of coverage had been and how—for television—dramatic pictures were a first priority, with thoughtful analysis and sometimes truth trailing far behind. But by the time that became apparent, to Crawford Sloane it didn’t matter.
Sloane’s overall ploy worked. He had always been impressive on camera and was even more so in Vietnam. He became a favorite with the New York Horseshoe producers and was frequently on the evening news, sometimes three or four times a week, which was how a correspondent built up a following, not only among viewers but with senior decision makers at CBA headquarters.
Harry Partridge, on the other hand, stayed with his own game plan and operated differently. He sought out deeper stories which required longer investigation and which took him, with a cameraman, to more distant parts of Vietnam. He made himself knowledgeable about military tactics, American and Viet Cong, and why sometimes those of both sides didn’t work. He studied the balance of forces, stayed in forward areas gathering facts on ground- and air-attack effectiveness, casualties and logistics. Some of his reports contradicted official military statements in Saigon, others confirmed them, and it was that second kind of reporting—fairness to the U.S. military—that separated Partridge and a handful of others from the majority of correspondents reporting out of Vietnam.
The bulk of reportage on the Vietnam war was, by that time, negative and
adversary. A generation of young journalists—some of them sympathetic to anti-war protesters at home—distrusted, at times despised, the U.S. military, and most media coverage reflected that conviction. An example was the enemy’s Tet offensive. The media proclaimed Tet as a total, smashing communist victory, a claim which calmer research two decades later showed to be untrue.
Harry Partridge was one who, at the time, reported that U.S. forces at Tet were doing much better than they were being given credit for; also that the enemy was doing less well than generally reported and had failed in some of its objectives. At first senior Horseshoe producers queried those reports and wanted to delay them. But after discussion, Partridge’s record of solid accuracy won out and most were aired.
One Partridge report which was not aired involved a criticism of negative personal opinion presented in a news context by the venerable Walter Cronkite, then anchorman for CBS.
Cronkite, reporting from Vietnam, declared during a CBS “post-Tet special” that “the bloody experience of Vietnam” would “end in stalemate,” and “for every means we have to escalate, the enemy can match us …”
He continued, “To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe … the optimists who have been wrong in the past.” Therefore, Cronkite urged, America should “negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.”
Because of its source, this strong editorializing—intertwined with honest news—had tremendous effect and gave, as a commentator put it, “strength and legitimacy to the anti-war movement.” President Lyndon Johnson was reported as saying that if he had lost Walter Cronkite, he had lost the country.