March 4, 1997
C-
Sixty Minutes didn't do s***. They just gave me a lot of free publicity and I have picked up a lot of new web page readers--I've got their letters of support to prove it.
I won't go into it now. I had weeks to prepare for the interview, and anticipated every angle (I made a couple of slip-ups, but they weren't intelligent enough to use them).
There was a lot of pressure. Sixty Minutes gets a hour plus of tape, of which they will use maybe a minute and a half. They are renowed for choosing a tiny part that makes them look super good and the subject super bad. With the same material, I could have made Leslie Stahl look like Adolf Hitler. But I knew all that beforehand, and have no complaints.
It was really funny. They were so desperate to do a hatchet job on me, they would agree to do it anywhere (Leslie Stahl flew out to Reno, went straight to the interview, went straight back to the airport, and went back to New York). It was only the second time 60 Minutes had ever been in Reno (the other time was the President of University of Nevada, Reno, re some sports thing). Even the Producer made a special trip out ahead of time, to reassure me it wasn't a hatchet job. (So, of course, I knew it was going to be a hatchet job.)
So I made them meet me at a bar called "Area 51". It was hilarious.
I gave them no material to attack me with except for the subject matter (TWA 800, etc.) and Leslie Stahl made a fool of herself attacking the missile theory as well as advocating censorship of the news.
I wore my best Greg Allman wig, drank a guiness on camera (to give them an out--i.e. I'm just a neighborhood drunk [which raises the question why they are there in the first place] ), which is the spin they put on it. Which also will annoy about 1/2 of blue collar America--prim Leslie Stahl with every hair in place. I decided on this image about two weeks before the interview: but, as it turned out, I had the flu and was losing my voice (it was gone by 6 pm, after the interview which took place around 1:30), so I ended up having a second reason for the guiness.
In the end, all Stahl could say was, in effect: "Parents remember when your children are on the Internet to protect them from reading the likes of J. Orlin Grabbe."--annoying everyone who believes in the First Amendment.
It worked out fine. (There is more to the story--but I can't discuss this at the moment.) But I'm laughing all the way to the media bank.
Besides, the CBS editors got to see me explaining all about Mike Wallace's bribe. That was my best moment (never mind that no one else will see it). So I expect that rumors are flying all over the CBS building right now.
Orlin
