A CBS Mystery
HERMAN, GEORGEE
A CBS Mystery In All His Glory: The Life of William S. Paley: The Legendary Tycoon and His Brilliant Circle By Sally Bedell Smith Simon & Schuster. 782 pp. $29.95. Reviewed by George E....
...The first recorded War report, we were told, was made on a sound movie camera with its lens removed...
...Staff newsmen are brought in to fill the empty air space...
...Take the history of Paley's short-lived ban on "instant analysis"—the commentary by correspondents immediately following a Presidential address to the nation or televised news conferences...
...She simply lays out her closely researched history of Paley's words and actions—and their consequences...
...Smith provides an interesting account of the life and times of his family, Jews living in a basically anti-Semitic America...
...As abook about a man, it is an engaging, glamorous, glitzy adventure story...
...The mystery is not what he did...
...The answer to that question is the implicit theme of Smith's colorful and anecdotal book...
...This is a big book about a big man who was active almost to the day of his death, last October 26, at age 89...
...Chairman Paley soon rescinded his ban...
...Instant analysis returned and we five—or at least we four —felt like heroes...
...Well, I can only report that the first machines used by CBS were neither little nor compact, and required a 120-volt power source...
...As in so many other incidents, change sprang from an offhand comment by a friend of the avid social climber...
...In response, five of the network's Washington correspondents (Marvin Kalb, Roger Mudd, Dan Rather, Dan Schorr, and I) wrote a letter to Richard Salant, the head of CBS News, explaining the value of putting Presidential statements in context and correcting inadvertent ad-lib errors...
...Reviewed by George E. Herman Former CBS News correspondent The title and, in particular, the double subtitle of Sally Bedell Smith's biography sound sarcastic, almost farcical...
...Slightly more worrisome is Smith's assertion that FCC Chairman Newton Minow called TV programing a" vast wasteland," when he actually said that daytime TV (the soap operas and quiz shows he had watched while home ill) was a vast wasteland...
...Salant liked the letter and said he would pass it along to Paley when the occasion was right...
...You will not come away from this book liking "Chairman Bill," but you will have a considerable understanding of the man, and perhaps even some sneaking sympathy for him...
...Smith sternly rejects the temptation to construct a possible" Paley Syndrome" in America—how and why a neurotic, frequently insecure but wealthy and charming personality can reach a pinnacle in this country despite so many missteps...
...By then Shirer had left CBS News...
...As a book about our society—and it is that as well—it leaves the work to the reader...
...But these are quibbles...
...and he was as apt to tell a lie as the truth about his operations...
...neither is there any mention of the struggles of parallel major Jewish figures of Paley's era—those in the Hollywood movie business, for instance...
...I can best judge those that pertain to the news department, for which I worked from 1944 to 1987, and in her coverage ofthat period Smith'serrors are of scant significance...
...How did such a faulty human being rise rather quickly to the top of the business and social worlds...
...Wherever possible, she adds what he and his confidants believe motivated his moves...
...But she offers more than enough material for you to build your own theories about the Paley mystery...
...She does not indulge in either flattery or malice, and evidently has no axe to grind...
...A reference to" CBS' ban on tape recorders" during World War II is another minor miscue...
...His subsequent portrayal of himself as the savior of the early Columbia broadcasting business caused wry amusement among his relatives, who say that thanks to groundwork done by other family members, the network was already sailing smoothly when Paley took the helm...
...The plate-glass windows in News Director Paul White's office, for example, did not reach" almost to the floor," they stopped at waist height...
...Paley remained a Jew, but he managed to ignore the fact...
...It was not the young William who introduced the Paley cigar company to radio —his family did that while he was away on vacation, and initially he opposed the idea...
...he was given to selecting brilliant subordinates and then alienating or firing them...
...In a sense, this is a think-for-yourself book...
...To be a business legend in his time and to be one of the Beautiful People were his chief ambitions...
...But they suggest what William S. Paley was all about: his image, his work—the running of CBS—and his desperate need to surround himself with a circle of rich, gentile socialites...
...Thatwasit," Smith quotes a former network executive as saying," Hamman did it for us...
...Nothing in the letter had made any impression on the Chairman...
...Nor does she indulge in trite pop psychology and philosophical musings about the odd combination of character traits apparently required for Success (with a capital S) in our culture...
...The author carefully examines his life and its mystery...
...These reports are necessary when the President ends at a moment inconvenient for networks—that is, at any time other than on the hour or half-hour...
...I know because during the night shift I used to catch a quick nap on the massive brown leather sofa below those windows while waiting for General Dwight D. Eisenhower's communiqu?s to come in...
...As Smith's study shows, in both cases he achieved a flawed success...
...As a book about the rise of CBS, this is an invaluable source for historians of the industry...
...Not until 1949 did we have anything that could realistically be considered" portable...
...Sally Bedell Smith sets the record straight...
...All other quotes I am familiar with are reproduced correctly and in context...
...After complaints from the Nixon Administration, Paley (a strong supporter and financial contributor, who hoped in vain to be appointed ambassador to London) issued a decree: No more instant analysis of the President on CBS...
...Following the warm reception in New York, he wanted to add his name—too late, as it were...
...The Jewish-American culture of his youth is accurately depicted, as is Paley's struggle to enrich himself and get out of it...
...This is a book that makes you wonder, and think...
...They do agree, though, that he was the man who built it into what it is today...
...Smith cooly dissects his memoirs and resurrects the real facts...
...There was some controversy concerning Rather, who was involved in the drafting, but failed to sign the letter before it went to Salant...
...It is up to the reader to examine the evidence and interpret the plentiful facts...
...No comparisons are drawn with other Jewish tycoons in America...
...It is how he made everything come together so well...
...Averell Harriman mentioned to Paley that he no longer watched Nixon on CBS because no one analyzed the President's addresses...
...Overall, In All His Glory gives us a stunning picture of William S. Paley, and of the internal workings of a giant corporation under his restless interfering, prodding and constant changing of the guard...
...The result is fascinating, occasionally strange, and often educational...
...that is detailed in 608 pages of text and 115 pages of bibliography and notes...
...Tape recorders appeared much later...
...So what is one to make of William Shirer's recollection, unquestioned by Smith, that he urged Paley to begin using a" compact little recorder" to capture the sounds of battle...
...Alas and alack for many such legends and myths, some of them fostered by Paley himself...
...Bill Paley was by turns staunchly determined and pathologically indecisive...
...even wire recorders were not yet available...
Vol. 73 • December 1990 • No. 16
