Between You and Me: A Memoir

ISBN: 1401397409

Author: Wallace, Mike

Condition: Used

Product Description A t the age of 87, Mike Wallace is a legendary figure in broadcast journalism. Now, after 60 years of reporting on important events around the world, he shares his personal stories about the incredible range of celebrities, newsmakers, criminals, and world leaders who have subjected themselves to his unique brand of questioning. Through Wallaces intimate observations about these figures, we experience afresh the pivotal events that have shaped our world. Here, we meet the guilt-racked Secret Service agent assigned to John F. Kennedys car in Dallas. We learn about the candid moment when President Nixon revealed an unexpected softer side. We witness the underpinnings of the centurys greatest social movement through Wallaces eyes as he manages to earn the trust of major civil rights leaders, and we see the trauma Wallace experienced while covering the conflict in Israel. These off-camera anecdotes and fascinating excerpts from Wallaces interviews with everyone from Eleanor Roosevelt to all the presidents of the last half century, from Frank Lloyd Wright to Johnny Carson, from Margaret Sanger to Malcom Xgive us a new perspective on some of the greatest lives and minds of our time. With a reporters eye for detail, Wallace mingles laughter, tragedy, and revelatory insight in a memoir unlike any other. For anyone whos ever wondered what its like to make history for a living, this is a must-read. Excerpt. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Between You and MeA MemoirBy Mike WallaceHyperion AudiobooksCopyright 2005Mike WallaceAll right reserved.ISBN: 9781401397401Chapter OnePresidents JOHN F. KENNEDY DREW PEARSON CLARK CLIFFORD In making the jump from a local program to the showcase of a coast-to-coast broadcast, Ted Yates and I were determined to maintain the candid, sometimes combative style we'd introduced on Night Beat. But that proved easier said than done. Part of the problem was that we'd lost the element of surprise we'd enjoyed when Night Beat burst on the scene the previous fall. Our reputation had preceded us to ABC, and more than a few of our prospective interviewees were wary of being grilled on network television by a guy who had been described by one captious critic as "Mike Malice" and by another as "The Terrible Torquemada of the TV Inquisition." This meant we had to work that much harder to find the kind of characters who might interest a national audience. But I'm happy to say that during our first few months at ABC, we were able to book a diverse gallery of guests for The Mike Wallace Interview, ranging from the highbrow (Philip Wylie, Margaret Sanger, and Frank Lloyd Wright) to the lowbrow, a group that included a mobster (Mickey Cohen), a stripper (Lili St. Cyr), and a pair of Hollywood sirens (Jayne Mansfield and Zsa Zsa Gabor). Still, there were problems to confront. It didn't take us long to discover that in moving up to a network broadcast, we'd ventured into terrain far more treacherous than what we'd been accustomed to at Channel 5. Now that we were playing to a national audience, the stakes were higher, and there were times when we ran into the kind of dicey situations that provoke threats of libel suits. One such dustup occurred when I interviewed the muckraking Washington columnist Drew Pearson. In those days, almost all the media power was in print, and no one was more powerful than the syndicated columnists. While many Washington columnists saw themselves as pundits and preferred to pontificate instead of investigate, Pearson was a journalistic throwback to the old school. He specialized in finding skeletons in Beltway closets, and he found enough of them to make him the most feared reporter in Washington. To go along with his zeal for exposure, Pearson had a reputation for shooting from the hip. At least two presidents-Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman-had publicly accused him of being a chronic liar, but when it came to that particular allegatio