found its way into the story. But that wasn't the point, it just was
so pervasive at the time that you couldn't miss it.
What did you witness when you were there?
The first day I was in the corridor talking with a female staffer
and I saw out of the corner of my eye Mr. Wallace coming down the
hall. He didn't know me yet because I hadn't interviewed him, so he
had no idea that it was a reporter standing there. I'm sure it
would have changed his mind. Anyway, just before he reached her she
pushed both her hands behind her bottom, like a little kid trying to
ward off a mama's spanking, and got up on her toes and leaned away.
But that didn't stop him. As he went by, he swatted her on the butt
with a rolled up magazine or newspaper or something like that.
That's no big deal, one could say, but I must say it did raise my
eyebrows. I said to her, "God, does that happen all the time?" and
she said, "Are you kidding? That is nothing." And that led to
people telling me how he'd also unsnap your bra strap or snap it for
you. So he had a reputation for that.
Then I also heard about this far-more-worrisome incident with Hewitt
and that one did get into the piece, although in a much censored
form, where he lunges at a woman in a deserted place, pins her
against the wall and sticks his tongue in her mouth. There were
other incidents women told me about Hewitt, and, of course, (former)
Washington Post journalist Sally Quinn was already on the record in
her book "We're Going to Make You a Star" accusing Hewitt of making
an aggressive pass at her and sabotaging her work when she refused
him.
Was the sexual harassment at "60 Minutes" pervasive?
It sure seemed that way. There's a woman quoted in my story saying
that Mike would constantly have his hands on your thigh, or
whatnot. One producer said that basically Mike Wallace and Don
Hewitt felt this was their right. And that's how a lot of men in
television felt for many years. Women were basically hired for
their looks. You had to be competent too, but you damn well better
look good.
I understand that you had a difficult time getting the story
published in Rolling Stone.
The entire piece almost never ran because Don Hewitt tried to kill
it and (Rolling Stone editor and publisher) Jann Wenner almost went
along with him. They did emasculate the piece by taking out a lot
of the damaging material. You'll see in there that there is one
basic episode involving Don. There were four that I had reported.
[...]
So what did you think when you saw Hewitt taking a stand for
Kathleen Willey?
It was odd to me, seeing Don quoted in the New York Times on Friday
and Saturday as he was hyping Sunday's broadcast. He's talking
about what happened and I just thought of that old Dylan song:
"You've got a lot of nerve."
I hoped somebody would call him on it. In today's Times, Patricia