Audition (48 page)

I didn’t want to make waves, so Lee watered down my request for control to simple participation. Would they agree that I be consulted, that my views would at least be considered in making these selections? That would mean that I had no authority, just the opportunity to suggest. But this, too, caused a furor.

Dick Wald and Julian Goodman, the former president of NBC and now the chairman and CEO, were particularly outraged by my request for consultation. I was surprised by Dick’s reaction. Years before, we had snuck out of an NBC Christmas party on a clandestine romp to see
Deep Throat
, a much-talked-about porn film. I liked, trusted, and respected him and thought he liked, trusted, and respected me. But he obviously didn’t.

Neither did Julian Goodman, though that didn’t surprise me. It had been Goodman, remember, who had backed Frank McGee’s edict that I could only come in on the fourth question during a
Today
interview. This time he evidently wanted me gone altogether. I heard that he didn’t like the fact that I had appeared as a guest on a nationally syndicated daytime program hosted by the popular Mike Douglas. I enjoyed being on the show, and I also thought my appearance might bring new viewers to the
Today
show. But Goodman didn’t see it that way. He disapproved of a member of the news department appearing on such a lighthearted program. To add insult to injury, he had also seen me doing a little soft-shoe on the Johnny Carson show during one of my guest-host appearances. He hated that. Serious journalists did not do soft-shoe or appear on daytime talk shows. (I wonder how he would have felt about NBC’s news anchor, Brian Williams, last year doing skits on
Saturday Night Live.
)

The negotiations were further complicated by the frequent absence of the NBC executives at the table. As not such good luck would have it, the network was in the throes of a huge strike by NABET (National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians), the broadcasting and cable TV sector of the Communications Workers of America. The engineers had walked off their jobs along with the maintenance workers and newswriters. The strike was serious, and NBC was preoccupied with training its executives to fill the holes left by the union strikers. Therefore my contract negotiations were often canceled or given little attention. Who had time to think about Barbara Walters in the midst of the calamity befalling NBC? Far more pressing were the union meetings at which Herb Schlosser, NBC’s then president, was spending most of his days. He never once took the time to meet with me.

As if that weren’t enough, there was turmoil at RCA, NBC’s parent company. Robert Sarnoff, RCA’s CEO and son of NBC’s famous founder, “General” David Sarnoff, was suddenly fired by the board for no apparent reason. The prevailing story was that Bobby, as he was known, was spending too much time away from work and using the company plane to accompany his new wife, the famous opera soprano Anna Moffo, on her singing engagements. That was bad for Bobby, and bad for me. Bobby liked me and probably would not have allowed NBC to treat me as cavalierly as they were at the time. I didn’t know the incoming CEO, Andy Conrad. I had never met him.

As the negotiations continued to drag on, I began to think more seriously about ABC. One advantage, and it was spellbinding to contemplate, was that I wouldn’t have to get up anymore at 4:30 a.m. After thirteen years of getting up in the dark, I could live a normal life. Jackie and I would be able to have breakfast together. I could walk her to school. I would have much more time with her. And if I went out in the evening, I wouldn’t have to worry about being exhausted the next day. A whole new world would open up for me.

I was also excited by the expanded news broadcast the ABC executives had promised. There would be ample time for interviews, which were my strength, and would make the broadcast unique. No nightly news anchor did interviews. It would set our broadcast apart from the traditional talking heads and newsreaders.

Also, there wouldn’t be the continuous volume of daily homework that was swamping me—the articles that had to be read; the films of celebrities I should really see; the books I had to skim by authors due to appear on the program. I think hosting or cohosting a morning show may be the most difficult, as well as the most rewarding, program you can do. Anchoring the evening news meant being up-to-date on all the major developments of the day, but it didn’t require nearly as much advance preparation.

Other options were even more seductive. You could arrive at the office as late as 3:00 p.m. if you wanted to, and work with the managing editor on the news for that night. ABC did three feeds—one at 6:00 p.m., one at 6:30, and another, if there was an update and they had to, at 7:00. By 7:45 you could be at home. In short, a normal life.

But normal or not, after thinking it over, I decided that I was happy, successful, and ensconced at NBC. Why rock the boat?

“Tell ABC no,” I told Lee.

ABC, however, wouldn’t take no for an answer. The network was determined to beef up its news division, which was a distant third in the ratings to CBS with Walter Cronkite and NBC with John Chancellor. (We considered ABC the schlock news network. The joke used to be if you wanted to end the Vietnam War, put it on ABC and like all their programs, it would end quickly.) Hiring the first female coanchor in broadcast history would, they felt, give the news a needed shot in the arm. It could bring more women viewers, and luring me away from the
Today
show might also help
Good Morning America
gain ground.

ABC’s other divisions were on the fast track at the time. Fred Silverman, a programming genius, had been wooed away from CBS to head the entertainment division. With such innovative prime-time programs as the first big TV miniseries, Irwin Shaw’s twelve-hour
Rich Man, Poor Man
, and several popular new shows like
Charlie’s Angels
and
Starsky and Hutch
, Fred was taking ABC from last place to first in the prime-time ratings. That was before 1977, when he brought the all-time-winner miniseries
Roots
to the television screen.

The other genius at ABC was Roone Arledge, who had left NBC to revolutionize ABC’s sports division. He had certainly moved on since our time together at WNBT in 1953 on the children’s show
Ask the Camera.
By 1976 Roone was well on his way to becoming a sports-programming legend. He created
ABC’s Wide World of Sports
and
Monday Night Football.
He also personally produced the ABC coverage of both the Winter and Summer Olympics and brought his singular “up close and personal” touch to the athletes’ stories. Between Roone and Fred, ABC’s profits were soaring: more than $29 million in 1975; $83 million in 1976; an astonishing $165 million to come the following year. So offering me a million dollars a year was no big deal to them. They could well afford it, especially since only half that amount would be borne by their news division. The rest would be paid by ABC’s entertainment division. In truth it was a bargain for ABC. It wouldn’t cost the news department much to bring Harry’s salary in line with mine, and the four
Specials
could bring in many millions of dollars. But I still planned to stay at NBC.

Then, wouldn’t you know it, in April, a month after my secret meeting with ABC in Los Angeles, the million-dollar figure was somehow leaked to the press. That offer finally got NBC’s attention, but it started a nightmare for me.

Overnight I became the “million-dollar news baby,” proffered a salary that, on the surface, was at least twice as much as anyone else was making in the news business, including Walter Cronkite. Lost in the barrage of incredulous media reporting was the fact that the ABC offer, which I hadn’t accepted, was being split between the news and entertainment divisions. I would in fact be making less at ABC News than I was at NBC News. But nobody cared. Except me.

With ABC’s offer now public, NBC began negotiating in earnest. In fact they told Lee Stevens he could write his own ticket to keep me there. An agreement was hastily drawn up. The same salary as ABC was offering with, yes, a five-year contract. A maximum of two more years on
Today
and then perhaps my own
Specials
or a newsmagazine. Everything except for my right to be consulted in the areas that directly affected my work.

Then the new CEO of RCA, Andy Conrad, got into the act.

“What’s this all about?” he asked Herb Schlosser.

“Barbara Walters may go to ABC,” Herb answered.

“Is it about money?” Conrad asked.

“No. We’ll pay her the same money,” Herb said.

“Then what’s this all about?” Conrad pressed.

“It’s about her having the right to be consulted on a new producer. And her right to be consulted on a new cohost. And her right to have input on the pieces she does. Julian and Dick don’t think that is a good idea,” Herb said.

“Hang on to her,” Conrad said. “Give her whatever she wants.”

With those marching orders, Dick Wald wrote a letter to be attached to the NBC agreement giving me consultation rights. And Herb Schlosser asked me to lunch. There are a lot of things I don’t remember about this time, but I remember so clearly him saying these words: “Barbara, don’t leave us. We need you.”

Where had he been all this time?

I have never felt so torn, personally and professionally. NBC had stalled so long by then that even with all their adjustments, I already had a taste of what a future at ABC might mean. There was now that real opportunity of having a different, easier kind of life. Thirteen years of a grueling schedule would come to an end. Not just doing
Today
five days a week, but
Not for Women Only
as well. I agonized over the next few weeks going through the pros and cons. I was driving myself crazy. I just couldn’t come to a decision.

As my weeks of tortuous indecision went on, Lee Stevens was encouraging me to go. “What an event it will be,” he proclaimed. “You’ll be making broadcast history. You’ll be changing the world for other female journalists.” That really got to me. This wasn’t just about me. The role of women in broadcasting would be vastly improved. Could I help to bring that about? If so, what a genuine accomplishment.

But what if I was a huge flop anchoring the news? I would be destroying what it had taken me years to achieve. There was also the question, as yet unanswered, about my potential coanchor, Harry Reasoner. I’d first met him many years before at the Democratic convention that nominated Lyndon Johnson. We’d had a rather flirtatious lunch. I’d seen him again on the trip to China with Nixon in 1972. Had he been part of the old boys’ club in China that stonewalled me? I couldn’t remember.

I couldn’t imagine he’d be happy sharing the anchor job with me, a “girl” from the
Today
show. I couldn’t imagine him being happy sharing the anchor job with anyone. He’d come to ABC from CBS, leaving
60 Minutes
specifically to anchor the
ABC Evening News
. For a while he’d shared the slot with another veteran newsman, Howard K. Smith, but somehow he’d gotten rid of Smith. And now—me. A woman he probably wouldn’t think had news credentials, who had grown up in television and never worked on a newspaper or at a wire service.

The early indications were not reassuring. The
New York Times
reported that Harry had initially threatened to quit when he heard I might be coming to ABC. His attitude had improved only a little bit since. “I am trying to keep an open mind about it,” he told the
Times
. Another source, however, was quoted as saying Harry thought the ABC offer to me “seemed in the nature of a stunt rather than a solid journalistic move.” Said Harry to
Newsweek
: “I was with her on Nixon’s China trip, but I never actually saw her work. All I know about her from that trip is that she rides a bus well.” Not very encouraging words.

Heaven knows why, but it didn’t occur to me, or for that matter, to anyone else, to arrange a meeting with Harry. That seems insane to me today. Is it possible that, with all the turmoil, I was too busy? Granted I was still at NBC, but it certainly would have been helpful to talk to him personally rather than reading what he’d said in the papers. I didn’t know how he really felt, only how ABC executives felt. And the head of ABC News, Bill Sheehan, seemed to me to be a bland, rather ineffectual fellow. I couldn’t really rely on his opinion.

So there I was, not knowing what to do.

Back and forth. Forth and back. Almost paralyzed by indecision, I somehow managed to get through the
Today
show and
Not for Women Only
every morning. Then I spent most of the rest of the day answering—or, more to the point,
not
answering—the questions from the media about my decision.
Newsweek
wanted to do another cover story.
Time
was planning a major piece. Then there was Sander Vanocur, the television critic for the
Washington Post
, who called me daily for the answer, and even wanted an exclusive. I’m not one to hold a grudge, but I found it ironic that Sandy, the former NBC reporter who never shared his slot with me as a pool reporter all those years ago in India with Jackie Kennedy, was now asking me for an “exclusive.” I talked to him but I didn’t give him one. In truth I didn’t know what to say.

Thank heaven for Alan Greenspan. Remember I told you he saw me through an agonizing time? Well, this was it. I hemmed and hawed, paced up and down, wrung my hands. NBC was home. ABC was the unknown. What to do? Alan listened to me patiently night after night while I tried to reach a decision. He was a calm and objective friend. He also did a little homework on his own. He was somewhat concerned that ABC might not be able to come up with the five million dollars guaranteed for five years. He did some calculations and determined they could. That was reassuring. ABC could pay the money if I could deliver the goods.

By then a media frenzy was building. It may seem strange today that my staying or going would be such a story. But remember the headlines about Katie Couric when she left NBC for CBS thirty years later? Back when I was agonizing about what to do, no woman had ever been considered as anchor or coanchor on a network news program. Equally important, no newsperson was making a million dollars. There were reporters and photographers staked out in front of my apartment building. We were still living in my rent-controlled apartment on West Fifty-seventh Street, and there was no doorman to hold them at bay. The reporters were making Jackie very nervous.