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Brooks Peterson
Brooks Peterson's column is published Mondays. Brooks also sits on the Caller-Times editorial board and can be contacted at petersonb@caller.com
Monday, June 21, 1999
It turns out an old friend is doing great
Sometimes, running into an old friend you haven't seen for a long while can be a little jarring: You've always been on good terms with the guy, and you've never wished him ill, but . . .
Like when an old pal turned up at our 10th high school reunion (and that was a long, long time ago): There he was, disco shirt open down to here, and this Vision In Blonde on his arm. Well. Not that I begrudged him any of that, y'understand, but it was somehow just a tad, uh, off-putting.
And then there are other guys . . . you run across them, find them thriving and flourishing, and it just makes your whole day.
That's the way it was when I bumped into Roger Mudd the other day.
It's not that he and I are personally acquainted; I've never met the man, though I've long admired him and his work. I came upon him on C-SPAN, where the distinguished former CBS and NBC TV newsman had just launched on an interview with Brian Lamb, the fellow who's been covering the book beat for as long as most videophiles can remember (which is about 15 minutes, but never mind).
I've got to tell you, Roger (hope he won't object to the informality) looked terrific. Lean (as always), fit, confident, relaxed . . . the very portrait of a man at peace with himself. By his own account, he's a tick past 70, but he looked younger than me, for crying out loud.
Why should I care? Here's the thing: Roger Mudd was an integral part of what was probably the greatest broadcast news operation ever - CBS News back in the glory days of the '60s and '70s. Always unruffled, composed and (when the occasion demanded it) slightly sardonic, he not only inspired but commanded confidence.
Then the hammer came down. Though I don't know all the ins and outs of the tale, Mudd was the heir apparent to CBS' incomparable anchorman, Walter Cronkite - but when Uncle Walter uttered his final "And that's the way it is,'' it was the intense, driven Dan Rather who succeeded to the ermine and the scepter, not the urbane, understated Mudd.
I can recall that when all this played itself, I felt more than a little let down. I don't mean I cried myself to sleep, but it did bother me. Still does, a little.
For Roger Mudd, it has to have been a trial by fire. Such things can permanently embitter a man, turn the rest of his life sour. But while he made no attempt to conceal his anger at the shabby treatment accorded him - on learning of Rather's ascendancy, he walked out of CBS News, never to return - he went on to turn out more first-class work for NBC, the MacNeill-Lehrer Hour . . . and to score one of his most memorable coups.
That was the interview during which he asked Sen. Edward Kennedy a simple but fateful question: Why did the senator want to be president in 1980? Kennedy's garbled, meandering reply effectively put paid to his presidential aspirations for good. (Mudd confessed that, as a social friend of Kennedy, he took no joy in having played a part in his undoing: no "gotcha'' guy he.)
Then there he was on CSPAN's Book Channel, chatting with the formidable Brian Lamb about his (Mudd's) latest work, "Great Minds of History'' - a collection of interviews with five eminent American historians.
Mudd was supremely at ease, essaying at one point a (presumably) spot-on impression of Sen. Bourke Hickenlooper: That's something you don't experience every evening.
More: So engaging was Mudd that for the first time in all the years I've watched him, I saw what looked like the beginnings of a smile on Lamb's great stone face. (Normally he is so frostily impartial as to inspire panic in some of his interviewees.)
So: Here was an old (and distant) friend, looking terrific and clearly having a wonderful time. Meanwhile, Gunga Dan continues to slog through the ratings wars with a CBS News operation that is a pallid shadow, if that, of its former glory. Is there a lesson in that? Probably.
At any rate, it was a pleasure to pass the evening with Roger. Got to pick up a copy of the book.
(Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com)
Brooks Peterson
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