Wow. That was my first reaction. If this turned into something real, I’d be the first solo female anchor of an evening newscast. Ever. Barbara Walters with Harry Reasoner was a disaster. Connie Chung tried it with Dan Rather—another disaster. But me, out there alone…I suspended disbelief long enough to wonder, Could this actually work?
The courtship officially began at the Park Avenue apartment that Les and his wife, Julie Chen, were in the process of renovating. He greeted Alan and me at the door wearing his let’s-make-a-deal smile—shrewd blue eyes, perfect veneers, skin burnished by the California sun （he was fully bicoastal, with a $28 million estate in Malibu）。 Then he guided us to the sofa, one of the few pieces of furniture in the place, and offered us red wine in delicate Italian juice glasses—not stemware, but the kind from which you’d sip fresh apricot nectar on the balcony of a palazzo overlooking the Amalfi Coast.
“I want to reinvent the CBS Evening News,” Les said. “I want to energize it, give it new life.” He talked about getting rid of the portentous, pretentious voice-of-God format and making it warmer, more accessible. Something smart and new.
I sipped my wine and listened, desperately scanning the place for cheese and crackers. “And I think you’re just the person to do it,” Les said.
I was flattered. And a little buzzed, although I didn’t know if it was the pinot noir or the fact that he was massaging my e-spot （as in ego） so expertly.
Les went on: He thought I had the perfect personality and skill set to bring that kind of change, having mastered the tricky combo of being both approachable and able to hold people’s feet to the fire in tough interviews.
Les said he wanted to make one thing clear: He wasn’t interested in “blowing up” anything, as he’d been quoted as saying. He might as well have lobbed a grenade straight into the heart of the CBS newsroom, unleashing waves of fury and fear.
But he was looking to revamp a format that he believed had grown stale. Anachronistic. The evidence was hard to ignore: steadily declining ratings at each of the Big Three evening news broadcasts, with CBS stuck in last place for more than a decade.
It all felt a little surreal. While I could take a lot of credit for helping make the TODAY show a success, I was self-aware enough to know that I’d be a big departure from what people expected in an evening news anchor.
Of course, the gold standard was Walter Cronkite, whose authoritative, avuncular demeanor inspired worshipful reverence in millions of Americans. I couldn’t imagine filling his wingtips.
Dan Rather’s cowboy boots were another matter. He got the job in 1981 and held it for 24 years. Rather brought deep experience, authority, and a Texan folksiness, deploying election-night “Ratherisms” like “This race is as tight as the rusted lug nuts on a ’55 Ford,” “This race is hotter than a Times Square Rolex,” and my personal favorite, “This race is tight like a too-small bathing suit on a too-long ride home from the beach.” （Sometimes he just plumb ran out of gas, once saying, “This election swings like one of those pendulum things.”） But when he reported a story on 60 Minutes II about the supposed preferential treatment of George W. Bush in the National Guard, the whole thing blew up in his face when his sourcing came under scrutiny. Less than a year later, he was out.
The genial, much-loved Bob Schieffer, a fellow Texan who’d been with the network since 1969, filled in heroically and stabilized the broadcast while CBS figured out its next move. And that next move was apparently me.
I LEFT LES’S PLACE incredibly excited about the possibility of working with smart, strong producers on the evening news. He also said I’d have the opportunity to be a correspondent for 60 Minutes, a lifelong dream.
This wasn’t the first time I’d been approached about it. “Hey, kid,” came the wiseacre voice through the phone a few years earlier—Don Hewitt, the show’s legendary creator. He took me to lunch at plush Café des Artistes, with its murals of wood nymphs frolicking in the nude and leopard-spotted cushions. Our water glasses hadn’t even been filled before he uttered the heart-stopping sentence, “I see you as the future of 60 Minutes.” A bit later, over Dover sole, he offered me a job.
It was such a big deal to me that a guy of Don Hewitt’s stature thought I could bring something to the team. I wasn’t ready to jump at the time, but we stayed in touch. Don sent a handwritten note:
If you ever want to stop “flirting” and talk about getting “married”…you and 60 Minutes…you know where to find us. As ever, Don Hewitt