Dan Rather Tells Alec Baldwin the 'Truth'

Published Oct 27, 2015, 4:00 AM

Dan Rather was the host and anchor of CBS Evening News for more than twenty years. He resigned the post in the wake of an investigation into then-President George W. Bush's Vietnam-era military service. A new film starring Robert Redford and Cate Blanchett, 'Truth,' explores that period and the outstanding questions raised by Rather's journalistic inquiry. Host Alec Baldwin spoke with Rather at a recent screening of the film at the Hamptons International Film Festival, where they discussed Rather's days as a White House correspondent, recent attempts to re-assess Nixon, and the state of news today.

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This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing, My chance to talk with artists, policymakers and performers, to hear their stories, what inspires their creations, what decisions change their careers, what relationships influenced their work. In nineteen sixty one, Hurricane Carla was threatening the Texas coast. A young reporter named Dan Rather used radar technology on the air for the very first time to show viewers the size of the storm. CBS network executives took note and offered Rather a job as a correspondent. CBS would become Rather as home for the next four decades. Rather built a reputation for hard nosed, in depth reporting. This reputation was called into question in two thousand four after his sixty minutes report about President George W. Bush's military service. CBS conducted an exhaustive investigation on the veracity of Rather's peace. Rather apologized and eventually stepped down truth. A film depicting the lead up to and chaos surrounding that segment on sixty Minutes is in theaters now. It stars Robert Redford as my guest Today, Dan Rather. This conversation was recorded Live as part of the Hampton's International Film Festival a couple of weeks ago, as Dan Rather told me, his own military career started off with a lie that he was fit for service. I'm a child of the oppression years in World War Two, and when the Korean War came up. I know this sounds strange in today's environment more than fifty years later, but my country was at war and I wanted to fight. I was four f because I'd had rheumatic fever when I was a child, which was a so called disqualifying disease. I'm not proud of it, but when it came down with the Marines, I just when I told him, I didn't have any disqualifying diseases. But I have one of the shortest and least distinguished records in the whole history of the United States. But Marine Corps because they eventually found out, and so I was in the Marines for a short time. I didn't see combat. I saw nothing but southern California. But I've always been glad uh for the time I was in I think I learned alec more. Perhaps in the short time I was in the Marines. In any other such periody in my life that one of the four example. One of the things that the Marines teach you is that you can do a whole lot more than you think you can do. But any reach suffice to say, uh that I wasn't in for very long. I didn't do very much when I was in there. The most I can say is I volunteered to go, but did did a affinity for fighting men and now currently fighting men and women. Did that influence your career when you were in Vietnam? Is that what you wanted? Is that what you do? Yes? That that and the recognition. And I've made a lot of mistakes over my career, most of which are fairly obvious, and I have discard to show it. But when the Vietnam War started, uh one, I've recognized that it could become one of the dividing stories of my time. And if you're a journalist, you know your prayer every day is God to give me the big story. And since we're all greedy, right behind that, your prayer is and oh, by the way, God, if you give you the big story, please let me be at or near my best day. But yes, my going to Vietnam was partly based on my short undistinguished time in the Marines. Uh, I was remarkably unprepared to go to Vietnam. And I will say that to this day, and let's face it, I've been really lucky and blessed by being on a lot of big stories. Uh. That the honor and I used that word measuredly, the honor of covering American men and women in combat in that Green Uncle Hell, was one that obviously never forget over What period of time did you visit Vietnam? Well, it wasn't a visit. I was there for the better part of a year late nineteen assigned there and stayed there a better part of a year in late nineteen sixty til nineteen sixty six. I went back another three times, maybe four times after that, but never for that long. And when you were there to be credentialed and to get the permission to go there by the military, I'm assuming it was a lot different than than it is now, a great deal different. The biggest difference in covering combat Corres Monastery today as compared to the Vietnam era. In Vietnam, we were basically in the hitchhiking business. Uh. If you were a credential correspondence, you could go any place you wanted to go if you could get there, and the military would accommodate you. So we you look for a helicopter or a convoy going where you want to go, and you could go you where. And as a consequence, correspondence are not just myself, but correspondence in general, particularly television correspondents, because you have to get the pictures that we saw the war in every area of South Vietnam, from the DMZ all the way down to the Delta, which was rare even for people in the military. Frequently they were in one section, being the Highlands, but they didn't see the Delta. But that's all changed now that when you cover American men women in combat today, it's it's all very tightly controlled. Some people say it's tightly controlled because of you. Well, some people see that you were unearthing too much of the facts of what we're going on a viet Well, I think that's a bit much. But I do think that the military speaking in general, felt that they learned out of Vietnam that if you let correspondence and news organizations go anywhere in each other place, then the control the narrative, that you do not control the narrative. And the military, regardless of whose military it is, they're always eager to control the narrative. Now we can spend the rest after you're talking about it, but it will make one point that doesn't begin with the military. That begins with the White House and the Defense Department. They want to control the narrative. Therefore they have the military and make the rules saying, don't let these reporters go everywhere they want to go and do whatever they want to do. Oh, they have a system called embedding, which is to say, you're assigned to a certain unit or a certain area and you have an escort, but an escort. There are some exceptions to that, but very few. But that's the biggest change between today and who was the part during the period of time when you were in Vietnam. You were stationed in Psychon for that year that was what year? That was sixty five and sixty So so this was McNamara and Johnson. That's correct, But they always felt they had made a mistake by allowing the press to do that. But footnote bottom of the page. When the U. S. Military did its own analysis of what happened in Vietnam and what went wrong. They addressed the question of, quote, did the press lose the war? Unquote? And this is the military's own analysis are written in the Midden late nineteen seventies, eighties, I think. But anyway, they concluded it was not the press that lost the war. It was a lack of strategy and a lack of proper strategy and transparency with the American people, and the lack of transparency with the American people led to a diminution in support for the war. You were assigned as the White House correspondent when I first came to White House in January of nineteen sixty four. This was just after the Kennedy assassination. As you know, I was in Dallas with the Kennedy assassination. And when President Johnson ascended to the presidency, I came. I covered the White House in nineteen sixty four. Then I went oversee including the time of Vietnam, and I came back in very late nineteen sixty six and was there until roughly nineteen seventy six. Okay, so you're you're covering the White House that period of time. So there's how shall we say there's Uh, they changed a lot more than the drapery at the White House in nineteen sixty eight. And what was that like for you? Was to cover the new administration. Well, you know, when nineteen sixty eight came, the country was in such turmoil. I'm just we don't need to review the whole thing. But Robert Kennedy had been assassinated. Dr Martin Luther King had been assassinated. They were race riots in the country and rose from the dead politically. So when President Nixon was elected in nineteen eight, I had met him and had covered him, but only briefly. And I frankly thought at the time, well, you know, um, independent politically, but this may be good for the country. Uh that we've had eight years of a democratic administration. Things are not all that good. So here's a new breath of air. But I quickly learned that the Nixon people, including President Nixon, they had such a deep and abiding hatred. And I used that word measuredly for the press that for example, shortly as they came on a man named hr Bob Haltelman he later became a figure in the Watergate things. Uh, I met him, he came in and he no, sooner said. Then he said, we know who you are and what you are. I was saying to myself, well, that's more than I know about myself. Tell me what you know. So I said, well, what do you mean? He said, well, you know you were died in the world. This is a paraphrase, but a pretty close paraphrase. You're dying the will liberal, borderline socialist Lyndon Johnson Democrat, which astonished me to hear him say it, but it was replatory, and then it revealed to me the first time we have a problem here. And of course the Nixon presidency of it got off to a reasonably good star. If you remember, he promised that he had a plan to in the war, when in fact he had a plan to expand the war. But things quickly went from bad to worst, not just with myself but with the press scer in general, both print and electronic, because they had this this deep and abiding hostility, at least borderlinding on hatred towards the pression. When when you're there, I mean, this is my opinion, you are someone who is viewed by conservative forces in the country as being liberally biased. They always tried to tire you with that way you sell. You seek the truth about Nixon's activities, you seek the truth about Iran contract, and you're always being labeled as a liberal as being liberally biased because you really wanted them to actually answer your questions. Do you see it that way? I do? And beyond that, I was always proud of the fact that I was part of CBS US history and tradition and mission of CBS News, which was to take on the tough things, to pull no punches, play no favorite and the two parts elect respond to this business of you know, some liberal, politically biased person Number one. I grew up in Texas and I'm not playing humble beginnings, but my father was a distiger and my mother was a waitress. I went to nothing but public schools, including Sam Houston State Teachers College, small public school, product of Texas, product of Texas public schools. Volunteers went in the Marine Corps. Uh, what wildlining here. This is hardly the background of someone who's going to turn out to be some elite Eastern liberal. I was always amazed at the number of people who said, well, you're just another one of those ivy league of elite liberal people. Well, Sam Howson State Teacher College, which is now sayingson State University that's not in the IVY League. Sam Houston College, well I love the place, but it has about as much IVY United as your average taco bellow McDonald's. So that's number one. The number two that CBS News was was a leader in taking on the controversial issues, asking the tough questions going on the way back to Edward R. Merle and the McCarthy era. CBS News was a leader in covering the early part of the Civil rights movement, was the point person on that. It was a leader in coverage of the Vietnam War. It was the leader CBS News, not just myself, but I was leader in covering that widespread criminal conspiracy which is normally shorthanded border gate. Do you take all that history now? When people don't like the way you report, what they seek to do is detigrate you. And one way to do that is hang a sign around you liberal or socialist or left that hang around I was gonna say, I think you know him pretty well. Some people will say, I mean, in my lifetime, some people will look back and reassess these periods in history, and they'll talk about a lot of the good things that Nixon did, And I'm wondering, do you re assess him now? Do you think that there was some good things that he did? And well, unquestionably he did some good things and he accomplished some good things during his presidency. After all, where did he go wrong? Uh, that's a good question to psychologist, But I do want to answer the question. I think where he went wrong for whatever reason, and I have no reason to know this. With President Nixon, he came to believe that it wasn't enough to defeat his political enemies, that he had to destroy them. And that's a there's a big difference between English. We're gonna fight like hell during the election, but once the election is over, then move shake hands and try to do some good things for the country. And I think where he went wrong was a long time before he came to the presidency, when he had this idea, Listen, it isn't enough to defeat my opponents, I have to destroy and that permeated his administration. Now as the reassessing of President Nixon, there's been a widespread and well financed effort to rehabilitate the legacy of Richard Nixon. I think that's what you're referring to, and they make some valid points. However, I don't think the history if it mentions Richard Nixon a hundred years or five hundred years from now, the inescapable fact is that he, as president, led this widespread criminal conspiracy. Keeping mind, more than forty people were indicted, many of them were convicted of felonies, and the president himself was forced to resign after being called by a grand jury an unindicted co conspiracy. When you sit there in your job and you've seen the president killed, and you see and again, would you say the you don't need to rehash the ramp up to the sixty eight election. I think it is important for people to understand in that context how seminal sixty eight was, with r f K and an MLK dying that spring, the Democratic Convention is of fiasco. You're seeing the Democratic Party unraveling before your eyes. Nixon, who you can't put a finer point on this, that Dixon was someone who he was dead. I mean he was dead, he comes back and wins the presidency of the United States. I mean sixty eight is just this is this amazing year and uh, but when you when you travel down and you get to seventy three, where even you stunned that he he had won a landslide re election, one of the greatest landslides in American history in nineteen seventy two, and a year later he resigned. He was out. We didn't even stunn you that that happened. Well it did, and I was slow. You know, orders get paid to be skeptical. Never cynical, but skeptical. And when the first first faint edges of what we came to know as what a gate you can do emerged, I was skeptical that it would reach the Oval office itself. That you never met anybody who had more respect for the office of the Presidency in the United States than I do every day when I walked through the White House gates to go to work, as a White House corresponded. I know it may sound on a corny and sophomoric, but I really um sort of sucked it up and said to myself, you know, this counts, this was important, and so I didn't believe that whatever crimes had been committed, even became apparent that crimes had been committed, it was very difficult for me to accept that the President himself would be involved in any way. However, as time went a long, facts begin to first whisper, then they began to speak in full voice, and then the facts began to shout. It isn't just lower level campaign opportunities, It isn't just lower level members of the administration. That this probably goes into the Oval office itself. And I felt like hell about it, And for a long time I bought it and said, then, you know, but it almost impossible to believe that the president would be involved in this. But as I say, the facts finally got overwhelming where it was undeniable. I do want to go back to uh, you said, well, in nineteen seventy three, he had just come off a smashing, one of the most decisive victories in the history of the president. I wouldn't absolutely crushed McGovern, But I want to come back to that point, because that drove home the point, and I think this is what got him in the most trouble. They knew they were going to win, they knew they were going to win big, but that wasn't good enough. They had to destroy I don't not just beat McGovern, but they started to destroy McGovern, destroy the Democratic and so it was a classic case of overreach. Now, you you stay in the White House until seventies six, a year there through the impeachment. You're there through Ford's brief tenure, uh, and then Ford looses, of course to Carter, and then you leave. Did you leave at your own choice? Did you feel like you were done and you wanted to move on or what happened? No, I didn't. I didn't cover all of the very short uh forward period. I covered the very early stage of the board administration that CBS News chose to move me from the White House to New York uh, not long after President Nixon had resigned. Now, I thought at the time, and I'd be less than honest, but I didn't say I still believe that they moved me because I had become a controversial quote unquote. Now in fairness, Richard s Land, who was the president of CBS News at the time and probably the best president of the news division in history, he told me, no, damn, that's not the reason you're wrong about that. We're moving you because you think we think it's good for your career. But as I say, I didn't believe it in and I don't believe it now and you're there in New York doing what before they tapped you on the shoulder to succeed Cronkite. You succeed Cronkite? What year? I succeeded Walter Cronkite, And I appreciate you using the words succeed. Nobody replaces a legend like country. I succeeded Walter Cronkite in March of nine, I was named. So it's about five year period when I moved from the White House, having been there for a total of ten years. They moved me to New York and head of the documentary unit CBS Reports, which was the flagship documentary unit. I was there for a short while before they came and said, we're moving sixty minutes to seven o'clock on Sunday, and we need a third correspondent. They had two correspondents, Mike Wallace and Morley Safer at the time, and so I moved to sixty minutes in very early nineteen seven the six and you're there how long? I worked sixty minutes for the better part of seven years. I took the anchor chair in when you when you do that job, when you become the anchor. Is there a period of time when they come to you, when they tell you get ready, and they start to groom you, and you know what's coming months in advance. When you go home on a Friday and you come in money and you're the anchor? What wit? What? How does it? I wish that had been the case, because I might have been better at it had that been the case. But look, I was a line correspondent. I love being a field correspondent. I was a land correspondent for almost twenty years. And uh, nobody said to me, we're preparing you to be Walter Cronkite's successor. And quite frankly, until very late in the game, I didn't really consider it. Uh you know, I thought across the line, that would be nice, pays well and get your name in the paper. But it wasn't something that I thought was in my future. What do you miss about that job? I missed the people. When you work closely every day with people, remember the EV users, five days a week, every night. When I left CBS News and left the anchorage here, I thought I would miss it more than it turned up was the case. I missed every day working with the people that I've worked with tremendous people, great professionals in that camaradie of the newsroom, and missing the people that's still with me. Dan Rather misses his colleagues at CBS, but he tries not to miss a big story at three. Rather regularly reads six newspapers a day and still hosts his own show, The Big Interview on Access TV. Explore the Here's the Thing archives, you'll find my conversation with Dick Cavitt, another person comfortable with asking tough questions. He admits there are some words you'll never hear him say. I swore to God recently that I would never say the word awesome and my life and if we could only make that true everyone in the world, that would be swell. They can go along with iconic and closure and like of course, and a few others. Amazing. We all are saying amazing all the time. Now I've got five amazings and watching morning television for about forty minutes the other day. Amazing gas, amazing gas. We have it's amazing script. It's just amazing. I was amazed by career. Amazes. Man. Take a listen, and here's the Thing dot org. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. The new film Truth, starring Robert Redford as Dan Rather and Kate Blanchette as his producer Mary Mapes, explores the most controversial point in rather His long career. The movie chronicles the before and after of his now infamous sixty minutes report, casting President George W. Bush's military record in a negative light. The documents at the heart of Rather's allegations were never authenticated. I'm not perfect. I've made a lot of mistakes. But what I've tried to do other people who have to judge how well how poorly I did it. I've tried to be a bull, no puncher's play, no favorites, lifetime reporter who's loyal to the people he works with, supports the people he works with, and Bob Redford in his film captured that essence to a degree. I didn't think it was possible, and my gratitude runs really deep to him for doing that. For those of you who have seen the film, there is a shot at the end of the stone. I mean, you can't get more licked head to toe in a movie than they lick you head to toe in this movie with that slow motion shot of Redford beaming. I mean it's almost like you're you have you're the only thing missing is they put Christmas lights on you. You know what I mean. It's so loving and respectful at the end. But um, but the uh so mapes with somebody. You picked her, You chose her to work with you, and she chose me. That Mary Maps, whose name obviously because she was a producer on air person her name before this happened, was not that well known. But Mary Maps was by not just by majority opinion, by consensus, almost unanimously, one of the great television investigated news reporters producers of her time. Uh she not alone, but as a team operation we broke the opera grape story. She was a story hunter, a story breaker, great storyteller in the sense don't television together. So yes, I had worked with her before, and answer your question, I picked her, but she also picked me. Mary didn't want to work with everybody that she was good enough and had a good enough reputation that she pretty much shows if you came to and said work with ex and she didn't want to work with actually just say thank you very much. And because of a record, she could make that stick. We're gonna take some questions, but uh, in the film a lot of that, and people lose their job mapes of course. Uh. And everyone who knows her story knows she never works again. And in the news industry, um, you yourself are told, asked, suggested, you know whatever you want to call it, to resign from your job. And yet there are people today who I think have done certainly I'm not gonna say guilty, But there are people to day who are in broadcast news who have uh been associated with things that are as bad, if not far worse in terms of fostering doubts about their common sense or even journalistic integrity, who have held on to their jobs. What do you think has changed in terms of television news that that happened. I don't have the answer to that question. I will say that with our story, look, we made some mistakes, and if we had it to do over again, when I do some things differently, of course, but generalism is not a precise science. I did it at the time what I thought was journalistically an ethical thing to do. And this is a salient point. Our story was was true, you can argue, and this is a successful attack was launched. Owners they couldn't attack the facts. They couldn't attacked the truth of the story, so they attacked the process by which we arrived at the truth. Was the process flawed? Yes? It was flawed? Was it flawed more than it should have been? Yes? Am I responsible for some of that? Yes? And I you may want say I'm responsible all But this is the point. The story was true. It was true, then it's true. Now the process was flawed. That's a different thing than a story is proven to be wrong. That they didn't. You don't get to the truth now as to why we suffered as we did, and h raps I should use another burb rather than suffered. But nonetheless, whereas other people who do stories that are untrue don't suffer the same faith. I don't have the full answer. I will say this that Viacom was at a particular point where they when this story broke, preceding it, preceding it, during it, and afterward, they were in negotiation is their lobbyists. Their lobbyists were trying to get all kinds of things passed in Washington put into effect in Washington that would result in tremendous profits for Viacom. Now, one of the things I hope people take away from this film because it's so important, is the point what has changed in journalism is the involvement with large corporate power being excused my phrase, if you must, being in bed with big government in Washington, whether that governments in the hands of Republicans or Democrats. And given time now, having said earlier in our discussion, there was the time when there was a firewall between the corporation. But what was revealed in this case was when the White House and powers in the Republican Party began to scream about the story. They said, you know, rather in his crowd have made some mistakes and started demanding that we retract the story, which, by the way, the story was never retracted. We apologize for the documents, but didn't retract the story. But at any rate, the amount of influence that the lobbyists had with the corporation, which in turn influencing news division, is really stunning and that has changed. And we talked about the corporatization and politicalization of news today. See what this film truth is about it base It's less about me or Mary Maybes or even former President Georgia which what is about it at base is what's happened to the news, why it's happened, how it's happened, and why you should care Before we take a question. In my lifetime, what I've seen this is an opinion and an assessment. You know, our country is this machine that that where democracy and capitalism interact and as and in my lifetime, what we've seen is, uh, we were throwing out the democracy in order to accommodate capitalism and maintain standard of living in our political and military power around the world. And but what I want to ask you is when you go through your career and you think about Vietnam and then Watergate and then Iran Contra. Now I have my own answer to this question, but I want to hear yours. Iran Contra and then Upo Grabe and then nine eleven and our response to nine eleven and what we've done and not done over in the Middle East. Which one in your lifetime has made you more worried for the country. What a good question, maybe because it's so recent, but I'd say nine eleven. Don't misunderstand me. I was obviously far younger when I covered the early part of the civil rights movement and Dr Martin Ruth King. That was my daily, weekend, week out job that changed me as a person and as a pro in in really fundamental ways. That's a long time ago. And the reason I say with nine eleven, I think by any objective standard, the decision to go into Iraq, which flowed out of what happened of nine eleven decisions are going to rack, was a a a strategic blunder of historic proportions which continues to resonate, which continues to resonate to this day. So and answer your question, which one of those stories were causes me to worry the most about the country, But I want to emphasize it. I'm an optimist by experience and by nature, and we'll get through this period. And I do think it's almost say so, but it's just place only because I really believe it that I think the best days of the country can be and may very well be ahead of us. But this is a very difficult time because we as a people, as a society, through our government, have made some some very serious mistakes over the last decade and a half plus. Um, we're gonna take something, We're gonna go around with some mike's in this section here got a question, give us your question, shouted out Mr. Rather, do you think the reason why you and your team got in such hot water for exposing George W. Bush's less than honorable service reactor with the Air National Guard was because the Bush family used their political power to prevent this from being exposed. And before I give over the mike, I just want to point out that President Richard once President Richard Nixon once said I would have made a very good Popeye. Well, the two main as to the first part of that, uh that emphasizing the film. Truth isn't all about who did what to whom, who said what to whom, what mistakes were made. But in so far as it is about that, the two most important things are the facts. Everybody is intended entitled to their own opinion, but they're not entitled to their own facts. Fact one, it's a fact that a younger George W. Bush, his father used his political influence to get the younger Bush into the so called Champagne Unit of the Air National Guard as a way of ensuring that. But that's fact one. Fact two that after he got in this special unit of the Air National Garden. He did at least reason well, perhaps quite well as a pilot for a while, but then he disappeared for a year. Nobody disappears from the U. S Military for a year without reporting. Now, those two things are are are facts? And by exposing those facts, digging down getting those facts, what's your facts? Whatever you think of the documents plus minus or don't know, those are those are the things that got us in trouble. Where the those who found the facts inconvenient, to say the least for idiological, political, or some of the reason. They couldn't attack us on the facts, they attacked us on the process by which we arrived at the truth. And they succeeded in those attacks. They're right there with hand up, thank you a day, And I wanted to ask you a question about looking into the future a little bit. And with the network news ray eatings dropping every day, with the audience getting older, um, and with the advent of immediate social media news, where you know, I could use this thing in my hand to get all the news, and uh, I don't need to wait till five thirty to find out what happened that day because it's old news. Then what do you see as the future of where you came from and where it's going to go. Well, I'm gonna try to answer the question. But when we talk about the future, I learned a long time ago that he who lose by the crystal ball learns to eat a lot of broken glass. And I've eaten more than my share. But the question is good, naturally, because I have a passion for reporting and journalism. I think a lot about it. This much, we know that the Internet, if it isn't already, I think the Internet in general already is the dominant place where most people get most of the news first. Now I've lived long enough to live through the print era, of the radio era, the television era, and moving forward, the Internet will become if it isn't already dominant, it will be dominant and be completely dominant. But that doesn't mean that television news, as pretty much as we know it, is going to completely disappear anymore than radio news disappeared when television came along. To answer your question, we're into the digital era now and the the essential thing, and I don't need to be preachy about this, but as citizens, as consumers of news, I think you should think about right now, as the television era fades and the internet era begins to dominate, there's been a tremendous shrinking in two really important areas. One is first class international reporting, what we used to call foreign news. The amount of quality foreign news reporting has swunk, I think, dangerously low. The other is deep digging investigative reporting that the market for it, if you will, has sunk. And here's the reason. Those are two of the most expensive forms of journalism, covering international news and doing investigative reports. And because one because they're expensive, it takes a lot of money to do them, and too, particularly the second investigative reporting causes controversy. Uh No one has come up with a new business model, if you will, that will only sustain, basis, pay for finance the kind of international reporting and investigative reporting we had not long ago. So I think that's something to watch looking forward. How do we come up with the business model? Having said, I'm an optimist, I think somebody will come up with that business model, but up to including now, they haven't. And I do think you will continue to see declining audiences for television, you know, looking at the television said increasing audiences for internet use, Um, we have time for just a couple more kers of our time. We're gonna go to this corner over here, you sir, I think, well, one of the most interesting things about the film Truth was that for the people that are my age or older, the buzz around is that we all thought we knew that story. When you just sort of thought you knew that area, you lived through it and you heard the story, and it's you watched the movie is simply not true. So I think, Uh, I don't know how I would feel to sort of have my career curtailed and sort of not have my story told. But thank god it's been told. But the thing, um, I don't understand is how how things keep getting the story keeps getting co opted. When you say they uh couldn't attack you on the facts that they attacked on the process, who are they because that they keeps getting the story and they keep doing like, Okay, let's that's a fair question. The emails and that's a fair question. And the day to which I refer are those uh people, the people in the White House, people in the Republican Party. But not confined to the Republican Party. There plenty of people who found fault with us, who were non Repolican party, those who see themselves as invested politically, ideologically, or otherwise in a one political direction. You call it conservative, you want a reactionary or whatever. Uh, and and their corporate allies. Those are the day, hope that's grammatically correct. Those are the day to which you refer that the same people who and you say, well, who are these people? Are people who were in the White House at the time the story broke, People who were who were in the positions of power in the in the Congress at that time. Uh. The people who were at in die Com at that time and are still there, some in the upper reaches of CBS at the same time. And I want to make it clear because I think it needs to be emphasized for fairness. We made mistakes and we need to be accountable for those mistakes. But I emphasized again holdless responsible for what we did that we shouldn't have done, and what we didn't do that we should have done, but recognized that flawed as it was, we got to some basic truths. We got to some facts, and that they that are referred to is it whomever wherever found those facts? Found that truth inconvenient to say the least, are harmful to their interests, political or otherwise. They are the ones who attack us, and as a matter of fact, or in the process of undercutting the movie to this day, as much as they can possibly do. I have no illusions about the film truth. Um, but one thing. This film has no dragons, no robots, and no sex. So it's a lot of drinking in this film. Uh. But my you know, my hope is uh that it will broaden a new conversation however one feels about what we did or didn't do. Every one feels about me or CBS News or my team of people, whatever I would it'll spark a new and broader discussion about the importance of a free and independent, fiercely independent when necessary press as part of the red beating heart of democracy and freedom. I have a question for you. You sued CBS and we went on a long uh campaign there on that litigation, which, if I read the facts correctly, you spent a lot of money invested a lot of money in that. Similarly, did you ever think about getting private investigators and people to find out to answer your questions of what happened the answer is yes. One. When in the middle of the maelstrom that developed in the wake of our story, uh, when the president of CBS News, I think, on the direction of the people in the corporate side, said stop looking to the story and orders we were continuing to investigate the story, saying well, these people are asking questions, we're gonna find out, We're gonna find out more. He said, cease and desist. We're no longer going to work on this story. Cut it off now. At that point, I said to the president of CBS News, man named Andrew Heyward, Uh, well, if you're not going to do it, then I'm going to take money out of my own pocket and look into investigation. He said, well, Dan, you know, don't do that. I'm not good what he said. He said, don't do that. Then he came to me and said, well, look, the corporation is going to hire some outside investigators to look into this case. And they did that for a little while, didn't turn out very much, turn up very much, no surprise, and they cut it off. Because that's why I was still at CBS News. Now, after I left CBS News and formed my own production company called News and Guts and you know, like a year later, more than a year later, the following thing dawned on me. And I'm sorry to be lengthy here, and I apologize in advanced but it may be important to understand I didn't want to sue CBS. I had moved on. I said, okay, I would rather have gone out on the Watergate story, the Kennedy assassination, or the civil rights but this is where life works. But CBS, and I was slow. I can be dumb as a fence post about a lot of things, and I was dumb about this. That they had begun to erase me from their history, which is to say little like the Russians used to do when they had a change of in the party apparatus. They would brush brush people out of photographs. That it was as if I had never been there. Now, whatever mistakes I made, and Evan said, I made plenty of, what are imperfections I have? You know you are what your record is. And I had a record at CBS, and I was rightly, wrongly proud of that record and still am. And when I realized that they were trying to erase me out of that record, no reference any time they do something on the Kennedy assassination is as if I wasn't there at that point. I said, then you're in nicasic classic fight or flight situation. You either have to fight them or you're gonna You're gonna just disappear. Now. I lost the lawsuit. They won, They won on appeal, they didn't win on the facts of the case. We wanted to take the case to jury. Feel scored. We lost the case. But some things are worth fighting for even if you lose. And I was told going into the lawsuit, then you can't take on a power like by a common CPS. Yes, you've made fairly good money over your time, but these people have deep pockets, and besides that, there's this next deductible yours is not. But I did say to myself, no, you know, I see myself as a fighter when they have to feed, and I'd rather go down fighting than just quietly sort of slink off and have them erase the whole record while I was there. This is Alec Baldwin. This conversation was recorded at the Hampton's International Film Festival. You were listening to here's the thing the cans to to a d

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Award-winning actor Alec Baldwin takes listeners into the lives of artists, policy makers and perfor 
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