NEWSMAGAZINE
He'll still be around; he's just slowing down.
By DUSTY SAUNDERS
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
When the famous watch started ticking Sept. 24, 1968, Mike Wallace was on the screen, along with Harry Reasoner, introducing the first edition of "60 Minutes."
Their subjects: the presidential race between Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey and the growing tension between police and protest groups, as exemplified by rioting during the recent Chicago Democratic convention.
"That was a long time ago, wasn't it?" Wallace asked rhetorically over the phone from his Manhattan home.
Actually, it was also more than 1,000 stories ago for Wallace, who turns 88 in May and announced recently that he is stepping down this spring as a regular "60 Minutes" correspondent.
Reasoner died in 1991.
"They'll be calling me a correspondent emeritus, because I'll still do occasional reports," Wallace says. "That's fine with me.
"And I'll have my own office on the same floor with the other correspondents. I'll still be around."
He's been around
When Wallace moves to the new office, he'll bring along a lot of memorabilia, including the numerous cartoon posters that show that Mike Wallace really has been around.
The cartoons, including a famous one from The New Yorker, reference the four dreaded words for many interview subjects: "Mike Wallace is here."
Through the years, Wallace and a camera crew would occasionally show up unannounced to interview con men, alleged lawbreakers and controversial figures. Some called it "ambush journalism," others referred to it as tough reporting. Whatever the title, the style shaped the career of one of network television's most aggressive reporters.
"Those days are way behind me," Wallace says.
"I've got two hearing aids and a pacemaker. My eyes don't function as well as they used to and there's pain in my knees. And frankly, the job, with all the travel, is not as much fun as it used to be."
Then there's the important tennis factor. An avid player most of his life, Wallace says he now plays at tennis instead of playing tennis.
"It's time for me to really slow down."
Not impressed at first
Irony surrounds Wallace's 38-year career on "60 Minutes." He was not initially impressed with the idea for such a series. As he recounts in his book, "Between You and Me," Wallace was so unimpressed with the co-hosting offer that he nearly turned down creator Don Hewitt's proposal when it was presented in the spring of '68.
A CBS reporter since 1963, Wallace thought the idea of a "hodgepodge" TV magazine would be lucky to survive one season. Wallace was also weighing an offer that would have drastically changed his career.
"After covering the GOP convention in the summer of '68, I got an offer from Richard Nixon to join his team as press secretary," Wallace recalls. "Obviously, I'm glad I didn't take the position."
However, his association with the late president put him in close contact with Nixon's wife, Pat, one of two individuals Wallace wishes he could have interviewed on "60 Minutes." The other: Pope John Paul II.
"Pat Nixon was painfully shy, which is why many people called her '"Plastic Pat,'" Wallace says. "But she was a lovely person who conducted herself so well, particularly during the Watergate crisis. I tried, but she never would consider an interview."
Wallace did interview Nixon on "60 Minutes," along with every other president beginning with John F. Kennedy. He's tried, without success, to interview the current President Bush, which led Wallace to quip: "He's the only president since Abe Lincoln to refuse me an interview."
The future of news
While Wallace has pleasant memories of the past, he has a pessimistic view of the future of TV news. "Network television news used be Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley and Howard K. Smith.
"Now there are 300 anchors out there on the networks and on cable dispensing stuff that really isn't news. It's basically infotainment. Hard news is too often secondary."