Seen and Unseen

“You’re not going to tell them what really goes on, are you?”

Before returning to the 1950s in next week’s installment, we pick up from last week’s account of my first summer internship at CBS News in 1964, which ended with my entirely unexpectedly filing a live prime time on-air report from the floor of the Democratic National Convention. But my father was still suspicious of my work at CBS, having greeted my telling him of my summer job with the question, “You’re not going to tell them what really goes on, are you?”

But I stayed with CBS and landed a summer job the next year, 1965, as a desk assistant (in newspapers, “copy boy”), learning about newsgathering, assignment desks, newsroom operations, and film coverage in the field, complementing what I had seen the previous summer in program production. Lessons ranged from how to change teletype ribbons or paper rolls without missing a story to learning where camera crews liked to eat (a favorite: Juniors, in Brooklyn). Remember, an army marches on its stomach.

And the people from whom I could learn were great tutors: Dick Lobo, who covered the assassination of Malcolm X a few months earlier; Dick went on to be a senior executive running TV stations for NBC and NPR. Ralph Penza, producer of the early evening local news, later a reporter and then anchor. Mary Pangolis, who had just been hired from the New York Post and worked the 4 pm-12 midnight shift on the assignment desk; Mary may have had the scoop of the summer, but more of that later.

A few key lessons are still vivid in my memory: One was that you should always answer the phone clearly and politely, even if the call is on one of the internal lines. The date was August 5, 1965, and Morley Safer’s report from Vietnam on GI’s setting fire to the village of Cam Ne had just run on the CBS Evening News. (See his report at

and read more about it at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cam_Ne_incident.)

The reaction was fierce. President Johnson was livid, calling CBS President Frank Stanton the next day to complain and ordering an investigation of Safer. (Yes, grandchildren, Donald Trump is not the first U.S. President to be angry at news reports.) The Pentagon asked CBS to pull Safer from Vietnam. But that was all the next day.

That night, after the Evening News, I was the 4p-12 midnight desk assistant. An internal extension blinked on the call director, and I answered “WCBS-TV news.” The caller introduced himself as William Paley (the Chairman and Founder of CBS) and said he wanted to talk to the editor on duty.

Was it a prank? Once I saw a reporter pick up an internal line, hear the caller say he was William Paley, replied, “Yeah sure” and hung up. Big mistake.

And once again it really was Paley on the phone. I gave him to the evening desk editor (Pete Carlisi, if memory serves, but I’m not certain), who said “Yes, Sir” a few of times in their short conversation. After hanging up, he told me to ask the producer of the 11:00 news to come over (I believe it was John Reilly, but I’m not certain).

Paley called because he wanted Morley Safer’s Cam Ne report to run as the lead story at 11:00. It may already have been slugged as the lead, but Paley wanted more: Safer’s report should run uncut for the entire length it had run on the CBS Evening News – more than three minutes.

That was different: The late local news had to include a sports report, a weather forecast, and often a theater review, plus commercials, so the time for news was limited. So when stories were repeated from the Evening News, they were usually edited to shorten them by a third or a half. Repeating a story that was more than three minutes long was at least very unusual.

And that is how it ran that night at 11:00, which of course taught a lesson more important than how to answer the phone: The owner of the company was watching, and he cared about what CBS journalists were doing.

It was a different time.

(P.S. Twelve years later, after he joined “60 Minutes” and I was back at CBS News, Morley and I were sometimes on the same flight to New York, quite by accident; he always offered me a ride in his car back to the CBS Broadcast Center, and we would share newsroom gossip and more. But details of that must wait for a later chapter.)

Another major lesson of the summer came at the very end of my time at CBS that year, in our live coverage of the New York primary on Tuesday night, September 14.

On the Saturday before election nights, there was always a dress rehearsal (maybe there still is), which was about camera angles and making certain the equipment all worked and was wired correctly. Election sets were huge temporary structures, from the anchor desks and cameras that viewers could see to the vote posting equipment, telephones and, yes, computers, all invisible to the audience unless something went really wrong.

As the lowest form of human life in the newsroom, which was my proud motto, I was assigned to be the assistant on the least important desk in the entire studio, the City Desk. We were given all of the contests and candidates that no one else found interesting: local city council races and other “down ballot” elections. The important, interesting or just plain sexy political stories were elsewhere, including, at the top, the mayoral election, where a movie-star-handsome Republican, John Lindsay, was running so well that he might defeat the decades of Democratic machine rule. But that was elsewhere from our desk, and anyway, Lindsay’s fate would be decided in the general election in November (His campaign slogan: “He’s so fresh, and everyone else is tired.”) And then there was Conservative Party candidate William F. Buckley, who hated Lindsay and tried to split the GOP vote; he ran a campaign everyone wanted to cover because it was just so much fun. Buckley himself said that if he won, he would ask for a recount.

Back in the studio, my boss on the City Desk was the editor, Ed Hutchins, who was a writer and editor on local newscasts. During the rehearsal, he explained to me that our only job was to watch the numbers – the clacking mechanical boards showing how many votes each candidate was winning – and to put up a check mark when it was obvious who was winning. And if at all possible, we should try to post our check marks about five or ten minutes ahead of NBC. But it would be pretty obvious who was winning. OK, got it.

On Tuesday, Ed called in sick.

We were, of course, stretched thin – election night is an all-hands-on-deck occasion - and the powers that be decided not to replace him. After all, I was told, the vote totals were being posted more or less automatically, so hang out and enjoy the night.

But, um, maybe I misinterpreted those instructions. I thought I should do what Ed described: post check marks next to the winner’s name for each contest when it was obvious who had won – and try to stay ahead of NBC by five or ten minutes.

So that is how I spent the night, watching the clackety-clack boards and when the winner seemed obvious (but before NBC) send over a one-sheet form to post a check mark next to the name of the victor. What I was doing may have been unimportant to most viewers, but I really enjoyed it: “calling” local races in all five boroughs of the city was beyond any responsibility I had expected. Besides, there didn’t seem to be any upsets, so what could go wrong?

Well after midnight, we had the signal that CBS was preparing to end coverage and go off the air. I looked across the wall of numbers, and I saw there was only one contest assigned to the City Desk that I had not called: Bronx Borough President. That’s an important job, but the race was a snooze, and the candidate of the Bronx political machine, State Senator Ivan Warner, was heavily favored to win – and that is why it was assigned to the City Desk.

But with 99% of the vote counted, Warner was only a few hundred votes ahead of the insurgent, Herman Badillo. Herman who? What’s going on?

My thought was that CBS should not go off the air without calling the race, but it was really, really close. So I decided to find out who had won. But… Who would know for certain?

Dear readers, just remember: Who knows anything for certain about New York? Who knows the city block by block, house by house?

The cops.

The wise guys.

The letter carriers. They even see what goes into your mailbox every day.

The garbage collectors (and see #2 above). They even see what you throw out every day.

For politics, it’s the club houses.

The clubhouses are where you find the district leaders and co-leaders, the street fighters, the capos, the block captains, and more. They know what’s really going on, house by house. It’s their bread and butter. It’s real money to them, their jobs, and you have to be out there on the street taking the heat (and the cold and the rain and the snow) to know what’s really going on. That’s almost the direct opposite of today’s commentators who sit in their air-conditioned TV studios talking to each other.

(Brief but informative sidebar: In early 2024, I touched base with one of the Democratic Party pols who was responsible for keeping tabs on the party clubhouses in the outer boroughs – ie not Manhattan. So how’s it going? He said that in every clubhouse in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, without exception, they all expected Trump to defeat Biden, who was still in the race. Remember, these were all Democrats. They could see Biden’s support slipping away, house by house, block by block. These guys know what’s happening on the ground – and I have yet to meet any of them who has ever spoken to The New York Times. Of New York’s seven daily newspapers, it was the tabloids, the New York Daily News and the Mirror that had reporters and photographers who covered the streets, and some became famous – Jimmy Breslin! Weegee! – but more of that later.)

Back to 1965: So I called my father’s clubhouse, the Alfred E. Isaacs Club of Democrats (I never knew who Isaacs was) and asked a friend who could tell me the winner. He gave me two phone numbers, and they both delivered.

From a clubhouse in the Bronx: “Herman’s got it. The ED’s [Election Districts] that are still out are Puerto Rican. He’ll win by a few hundred votes.”

From the other number: “Yeah, Herman’s won. We’re wiring it up now.” (I have no idea what he meant and didn’t want to ask.)

So I scrambled, prepped a one-sheet, sent it over, and posted a check mark next to Badillo – who was still behind.

My memory – this was more than 60 years ago – is that as we were going off the air, a CBS analyst (Jerry Wilson?) was saying that this is a landmark moment in New York politics, that we have gone from the “three I’s” (Ireland, Italy and Israel) to the arrival of the Black vote, and now the Puerto Ricans…

But minutes later, CBS executives were in front of me.

“Who put up that check mark? He’s losing.”

“I did.”

“Where’s Ed?”

“He called in sick.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m the summer D.A.”

“You put up the check mark?”

“Yes, I made a few phone calls, and…”

“YOU MADE A FEW PHONE CALLS?”

PS When all of the votes were counted, Badillo won the primary election by 205 votes. He went on to upset the favorite in November, incumbent Joseph Peroconi, a Republican. (Yes, grandchildren, Republicans used to win in New York City, including, that fall, a Republican, John Lindsay, who was elected Mayor.)

Remember my father’s worry, “You’re not going to tell them what’s going on, are you?”

Lesson: It’s not good enough that it’s true: Someone respectable (such as the Associated Press) has to say it’s true.

(PS A few years later, during another Saturday rehearsal for election night, they asked me to sit on the set to sub for an anchor who had called in sick. It was just to check camera angles, so I ad libbed some fun campaign items. CBS execs cut the rehearsal short and called me into the control room. Said one: “I’m going to make you a star.” My reply: “Wrong gender.” But they wouldn’t let me leave until I agreed to be on camera, a role I had been resisting. “OK,” I said, “for 26 weeks.” Yeah, they all said, no one wants to go back after being on the air. But more of that in a later chapter.

Ah, but I have saved my favorite 1965 story for last:

On June10, Robert Wagner, three-term Mayor of New York, scheduled a midday news conference to announce his future plans. Everyone assumed he was going to run for reelection. CBS sent a remote truck to City Hall to carry the news conference live.

Remember Mary Pangolis, from many paragraphs ago, who had been hired by CBS from the New York Post? Mary was sent as an assistant on the remote, to facilitate communications between City Hall and the CBS Broadcast Center. But Mary being Mary, she snooped around and discovered the closet where copies of Wagner’s statement were stored, ready to be handed out after he spoke.

Wagner was about to withdraw.

Back at the newsroom, my call director blinked. I picked it up, and she said she had to talk to the editor, right now. The editor turned to me and told me to prepare to do a bulletin interrupt, breaking into a CBS daytime soap opera with our exclusive.

Clatter clatter clatter on the manual typewriter.

The correspondent who was closest to us was Robert Trout, who had anchored CBS News going back to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration and most recently anchored CBS coverage of the 1964 Democratic National Convention (replacing of Walter Cronkite! To find out how that happened, see my previous chapter). He and I headed west to the far end of the building, where control rooms 31 and 32 controlled the CBS network, and Trout set down in an announce booth.

“We interrupt this program…” began Trout.

I ran back to the newsroom. “Are we clear?” I asked the editor. “We’re clear,” he said. “Can I make a phone call?” “Sure.”

So I stepped into the closest edit booth and called my father in Washington. It was soon after 12 noon, so I knew he would be at his desk on Capitol Hill, where he would always answer a special direct line that rang under the top of his desk.

“Dad, Wagner is dropping out.”

“Son, you’ve got that wrong. Bob’s running for a fourth term.”

“No, he’s about to announce he out. We have his statement. Robert Trout just interrupted air with a bulletin.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes”

“I’ll call you right back.”

A short time later, he called back. Without saying hello, Dad began, “I told LBJ. I told Bobby [Kennedy]. I told…” And then, “Look, son, any time you have anything like that in the future, you can just call me, all right?”

Lesson: Information is power. It can even override misgivings about telling them what really goes on.

Coming in the next installment: Life with Dad in New York, Washington, and some amazing trips to Europe and the Caribbean that will raise more than a few eyebrows.