Show What happens off to the side barely matters what’s behind you doesn’t matter at alL It’s kind of a peasant stamina Put one foot in front of the other Get your bearings Keep going on” Frankly few at CBS know what to make of him On the one hand Rather is tightly wound full of ambition On Texan the other he has a small-tow- n charm a solicitousness for his staff Here is a guy with a huge Bible open his in office and a closetful of hats Most are for disguise but some are pure Rather the soft tweed of the avid trout fisherman and of course the Stetson "Hie Stetson speaks of Rather the Texas leaguer with a tornado temper and a down-hom- e graciousness Framed on the wall of the anchor’s office is a poster that reads “Gene Autry’s Ten Rules of the Cowboy Code" It goes from No 1 (“A cowboy never takes advantage — even of an enemy”) to No 10 (“A cowboy is a patriot”) It might be comball it might be an anachronism but Rather still lives by the cowboy code He sends extravagant bouquets at the slightest provocation He can be the most courteous of men in a business that checks its pockets when confronted with politeness For example one day soon after becoming anchor Rather walked around the newsroom pad in hand taking orders for coffee No one knew what to make of it He thought he was trying to fit in to be one of the guys They thought he was up to something This complex character so so driven so full of self-douby contradictory emotions always has seemed more passionate than his competitors Jennings and Tom Brokaw That’s Rather’s strength It’s also his hard-chargi- ng bt undning This is what people mean when they call him “a lightning rod" Rather’s the kind of guy who braves who a hurricane to report middle student of in me it out toughs protest in Tiananmen Square He’s also the kind who often navels with a bodyguard and has a shotgun at home A litany of startling events over the past decade attests to his ability to stir a whirlwind: a wild cab ride in Chion-cam- cago assaults by viewers in San Francisco and New York’s JFK airport the “Kenneth what’s the frequency?” mugging on Park Avenue the 6 black minutes in Miami when Rather stormed off the set the confrontation with George Bush Confrontation was bred in his bones Bom in Wharton Texas on Halloween 1931 Rather grew up believing as one colleague put it “that he had to scratch his living out of the hard earth every day” The eldest son of an oil pipeline ditchdigger Rather spent his childhood in a blue-collsection of Houston known as “The Heights” Anywhere in The Heights you had to know how to operate your fists Even grade school as Rather later would recall was a school of hard knocks: “No guy would be without at least one fight a day” ar C He’s a prisoner of ager “Morley Safer Peter Kallisher Bernard Kalb But Rather was the tiger He was the war correspondent When the s — hit the fan you sent Rather" Back again in die USA Rather freed a different sort of combat While other reporters did far more to break the story it was Rather who came to symbolize the confrontation between the media and the government in the early kha-ki-cl- ad the throne he occupies’ says Martin Koughan Dan Rather’s former colleague kind of guy when day stuck behind his circular anchor desk on West 57th Street when he’d be happier and better suited to his original role of correspondent Is he doomed by his own success? Rather clearly loves going into the field from the streets of Beijing to the front lines in Saudi Arabia As the anchor stood in the desert Arabian winds ruffling his hair it was clear 'Which is too bad because Dan is the the gun goes off - he'll chew off his leg to get to a story To sit back and be a general I Dan 74 4 TV don’t believe for a second is fulfilled in his job When he got to college at Sam Houston State a pattern emerged: He wasn’t the top student or the best writer but he plain outworked everyone else He even won the school’s beardgrowing contest one year “There’s nobody more competitive than Dan Rather” says his academic adviser professor Hugh Cunningham “This guy's just a human dynamo Get in his way and he runs over you” After graduation and a brief stint in the Marines Rather soon was working as a newsman — first print then radio finally local TV at Houston’s KHOU He calls himself “a child of the storm” because it was disaster that propelled him to national attention When Hurthen-journali- sm ricane Carla came roaring across Texas’ Gulf Coast in 1961 Rather chronicled the devastation for 36 straight hours in Galveston “up to his ass in water moccasins” as Writer Cronkite later would say admiringly If hurricane coverage brought Rather to the big time (CBS network news) another catastrophe catapulted him to prominence Rather was the first to report that President John F Kennedy had been assassinated As the Vietnam War began to escalate the newsman was sent to Saigon to team of CBS correjoin a “What a crew!” recalls Pespondents ter Herford then Saigon bureau man- top-flig- ht 9 aSStarVinnT£:T corrpondent 70s “Dan had this reputation of being Pea Nixon hater” recalls he was Sturtevant “But ter just as had a He on LBJ tough reporttough real aggressive” er’s attitude Few will forget the famous news conference in 1974 when Nixon asked Rather “Are you running for something?” and Rather shot back “No sir Mr President are you?” Rather always has downplayed the incident but it was imin keeping with his street-fight- er hard Peter Jento imagine a age It’s nings or a Tom Brokaw responding with anything more than an ironically arched eyebrow While many still thick of Rather as that brash young reporter the fra is he’s getting close to 60 All three anchors rely on makeup to overcome the wrinkles but because Rather is older than both Jennings and Brokaw (seven and nine years respectively) he needs a few more minutes of artistry Rather has talked about stepping down from the anchor position when his contraa runs out in 1994 Almost a decade in the anchor chair has taken its toll “The real enigma” says one CBS producer “is why Dan hasn’t enjoyed himself more” The answer may be that after Rather scraped and fought his way to the top the top wasn’t as sweet as he thought For all the power he has Rather is to-- he relished being on the scene relished talking to soldiers — relished being a soldier instead of a general in the news army “It was a reminder to me This is why I got into the business It’s awful easy to lose your way to worry about other things like ratings But this is what I can do best This is what brings me happiness” The lesson of Iraq is clear: In battle few can compare to Rather But what happens when there’s no crisis in the routine of the studio? Right now says CBS News president Ober “There’s no master plan to make Dan a field anchor” Which leaves Dan Rather waiting for the next knock on the door day-to-d- ay New book on the news stars Robert Goldberg is the author with his father Gerald Jay Goldberg of "Anchors: Brokaw Jennings Rather and the Evening News" to be published Thursday by Birch Lane Press (S1995) Goldberg is TV critic of the 'Wall Street Journal" and has written for numerous magazines His dad is a professor of English at UCLA USA WEEKEND October 12-1- 4 1990 5 |