Mike Wallace Says Ahmadinejad an Impressive Fellow
Mike Wallace came out of retirement to interview Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Wallace found him to be “an impressive fellow.” Indeed, he might have a little man-crush on him, remarking, “He’s actually, in a strange way, he’s a rather attractive man, very smart, savvy, self-assured, good looking in a strange way.”
Twenty-seven years after a chilling sit-down with Ayatollah Khomeini that was one of Mike Wallace’s most memorable, the CBS newsman snagged an interview this week with current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran. The 88-year-old Wallace had been pursuing the interview for so long that he had to be reminded by Ahmadinejad when he first asked for it. A portion of Wallace’s interview, conducted Tuesday at a crucial time in the Mideast with Israel fighting the Iran-backed Hezbollah, will be shown Thursday on the “CBS Evening News.” A fuller report will air on Sunday’s “60 Minutes.”
In the interview, Ahmadinejad said of the Bush administration, “see how they talk down to my nation.”
During the midst of the American hostage crisis in 1979, Wallace interviewed Iranian leader Khomeini, locking eyes with the cleric when he asked for a response to Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat calling Khomeini a lunatic. Of Ahmadinejad, Wallace said, “He’s an impressive fellow, this guy. He really is. He’s obviously smart as hell.”
Wallace said he was surprised to find that the Iranian president was still a college professor who taught a graduate-level course. “You’ll find him an interesting man,” he said. “I expected more of a firebrand. I don’t think he has the slightest doubt about how he feels … about the American administration and the Zionist state. He comes across as more rational than I had expected.”
Hollywood Reporter’s Paul Gough account makes it clear that Wallace had this reaction even after some rather rude treatment at his host’s hands:
[W]hen they got there they were told that the Iranian president was very busy and may not get to talk to them. The CBS crew cooled their heels, so to speak, in Tehran’s 100-degree heat in a hotel without air conditioning. “We waited, and they said, ‘he’s still busy, he doesn’t know, he hasn’t decided,'” Wallace said. “We were scheduled to return. If he hadn’t talked to us by late Tuesday we were going to get on the plane. All of the sudden word came through he was going to talk.”
The 3:30 p.m. interview didn’t come off until 5 p.m., but Wallace said their talk stretched for an hour and a half. “We went on and on,” Wallace said. “We were told we were going to get 30 minutes.”
Wallace has spent a lot of time in Iran over the past four decades, interviewing the Shah, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani and, most famously, the 1979 sitdown with the Ayatollah Khomeini who asked the Iranian leader what he thought of Anwar Sadat’s desciption of him as a lunatic.
There wasn’t any of that this time. Wallace dismissed the common perceptions of Ahmadinejad. “He’s actually, in a strange way, he’s a rather attractive man, very smart, savvy, self-assured, good looking in a strange way,” Wallace said. “He’s very, very short but he’s comfortable in his own skin.”
Despite problems with translation — there was only one translator for a time during the interview — Wallace said Ahmadinejad was patient. “He couldn’t have been more accomodating. He had a good time doing the interview,” Wallace said. And he believes that it was Ahmadinejad’s idea to do the interview. He acknowledged that he had become a much-desired interview subject but told the veteran CBS journalist that he remembered a discussion the two had over a year ago when Ahmadinejad was in New York. “I don’t know if you remember this or not but you and I had a talk over breakfast at the United Nations,” Ahmadinejad told Wallace. “Do you remember that you asked me at the time if I would sit down with you … and I said by all means, let’s do it.” Wallace said he was surprised that Ahmadinejad had remembered.
As for retiring, Wallace said that he isn’t having a happy retirement because he likes the job. He does acknowledge, particularly in this last voyage, that the airplane travel is “interminable” and the major reason why he wanted to retire in the first place. But he said there were other stories that he wanted to do. “When you love what you do, it’s not work,” Wallace said.
Now, Wallace is a professional journalist and, with some major caveats (see below), one of the best. That he found Ahmadinejah charismatic and impressive does not offend me, either. I’m sure Hitler and Stalin had a presence, too. I understand the same was true of Osama bin Laden in his prime; there haven’t been any interviews lately. Still, I share David Bernstein‘s befuddlement at the lack of countervailing disgust at a man who, as Bernstein puts it, is “the man whose agents are killing scores of Americans in Iraq, not to mention thousands of Iraqis, and who also is the world’s leading Holocaust denier and most dangerous anti-Semite [relevant aside: Wallace is Jewish], currently engaged in a devastating proxy war with Israel and threatening to wipe out the country entirely.” But, damn, he’s hot!
Wallace, though, is a man whose value set I can’t quite understand. I call to your attention, again, to a 1987 exchange from a PBS panel discussion. James Fallows describes in hindsight a dialogue between the late Peter Jennings, then anchor of ABC World News Tonight, and Wallace about a hypothetical war they were covering.
With Jennings in their midst, the northern soldiers set up a perfect ambush, which will let them gun down the Americans and Southerners, every one. What does Jennings do? Ogletree asks. Would he tell his cameramen to “Roll tape!” as the North Kosanese opened fire? What would go through his mind as he watched the North Kosanese prepare to ambush the Americans? Jennings sat silent for about fifteen seconds after Ogletree asked this question. “Well, I guess I wouldn’t,” he finally said. “I am going to tell you now what I am feeling, rather than the hypothesis I drew for myself. If I were with a North Kosanese unit that came upon Americans, I think that I personally would do what I could to warn the Americans.” Even if it means losing the story? Ogletree asked.
Even though it would almost certainly mean losing my life, Jennings replied. “But I do not think that I could bring myself to participate in that act. That’s purely personal, and other reporters might have a different reaction.” Immediately Mike Wallace spoke up. “I think some other reporters would have a different reaction,” he said, obviously referring to himself. “They would regard it simply as a story they were there to cover.” “I am astonished, really,” at Jennings’s answer, Wallace said a moment later. He turned toward Jennings and began to lecture him: “You’re a reporter. Granted you’re an American”-at least for purposes of the fictional example; Jennings has actually retained Canadian citizenship. “I’m a little bit at a loss to understand why, because you’re an American, you would not have covered that story.” Ogletree pushed Wallace. Didn’t Jennings have some higher duty, either patriotic or human, to do something other than just roll film as soldiers from his own country were being shot? “No,” Wallace said flatly and immediately. “You don’t have a higher duty. No. No. You’re a reporter!” Jennings backtracked fast. Wallace was right, he said. “I chickened out.” Jennings said that he had gotten so wrapped up in the hypothetical questions that he had lost sight of his journalistic duty to remain detached.
Bizarre, indeed. I fully understand the idea that getting the story is important. That this is paramount to one’s loyalties as a citizen, however, is beyond my powers of empathy.
Thank goodness we have Mike Wallace as one of the preeminent self-proclaimed guarantors of our freedom.
Deleted by editor. Repeated posting variations of the same inane comments on thread after thread is not welcomed here.
Deleted by editor. Repeated posting variations of the same inane comments on thread after thread is not welcomed here.
Insane comments?
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bannedsternly warned.I guess Mike didn’t get around to asking about all the hangings of gay and “fiesty female” teens. I suppose he was too charismatic for such pedestrian questions.
I think the references to Hitler or Stalin’s ‘personal magnetism’ is most apt. We’ve seen this play before.
I would think that an important part of this story would be what part Ahmadinejad played in our invasion of Iraq.
we know Ahmed Chalabi was a consultant to the President
we know Chalabi had Iranian contacts
we know that Chalabi was accused of spyig for the Iranians
we know that most of the information from Chalabi about Iraq was false
we know that “curveball” was a Chalabi plant and that information was false
we know that according to Wolfiwicz(sp), the plan was to turn the whole thing over to Chalabi after Saddam was gone….what happened to that plan, somebody woke up?
and you guys pick on Mike Wallace
MIKE WALLACE ISN”T THE PROBLEM HERE PEOPLE
Walter:
Every mention of any facet of an issue of public policy does not require a discussion of every other aspect. Indeed, that would be just silly.
Wallace’s statements here –which I largely defend, aside from questioning why he leaves it at that– have nothing to do, whatsoever, with Bush’s relationship with Chalabi, US-Iraq policy, or US-Iran policy. They are analyzable as a discrete instance.
There will, doubtless, be plenty of threads where those discussions are applicable. (Indeed, last night’s post by Alex Knapp comes to mind.)
I see Walter 666 thinks Saddam was not worthy of removal from office on his own merit. Ole 666 is convinced President Bush was easily maneuvered into doing the bidding of the Iranians. I understand what James means by insane now. The President of Iran is no fool, he is a religious zealot who has some apocalyptic beliefs that he intends to facilitate, if given the tools. They cannot win, overall, but the toll in lives will be high unless something is done soon.
LJD/ZRIII: I said “inane” not “insane.”
I know. Just too funny to resist.
I do understand, and appreciate, and respect the journalist who puts their professional responsibilities above all else. It is probably good that most journalists would not take things to the extreme, but it is also good that some do. If the cost of getting all the information that we can is to tolerate a few journalists who lack the patriotism gene, well, so be it. Free people need access to all information. Free people resist, instinctivly, being told that some subjects, or interview subjects, are beyond the pale. I dont need Mike Wallace to tell me that he is disgusted by Ahmadinejad. I need him to get the guy to talk, and I can make my own conclusions.
Tano: Fair enough. But then don’t gush about what a smart, sexy, charismatic fellow the guy is, either. If that’s all one says, one gathers that one finds him unobjectionable. Whatever shortcomings Wallace might have, surely that’s not among them.
So far all we’ve seen are Mike’s personal reactions to the guy, – not the entire content of the interview. I’ll give Mike the benefit of the doubt for the moment and assume he asked a pointed question or two.
I don’t think you get to a position of leading a sizable country without having a thing or two going for you. It’s probably some combination intelligence, charisma, and connections. The fact that Mike discovered one or more of these characteristics in Ahmadinejad shouldn’t surprise anyone.
I also agree with Tano that a good reporter draws a person out. They don’t immediately put the person being interviewed on the defensive. I want to know what make people like Ahmadinejad tick, what’s important to them, what they think they know about us, and what they think we’ve got wrong about them, etc. Why do they think the way they do? What put them in power and what’s keeping them there?
Too many people just want to label somebody as “evil” and leave at that. You are much better off negotiating (or fighting) with an enemy you understand.
mike wallace, dan rather, cbs, the msm, these are people and organizations that would give hitler a blow job if it meant they got the interview.
If I have to hear one more time that mr hitler is such a nice gentle person and loves animals I’ll puke.
ARE WE STUCK ON STUPID? How do we tolerate this propaganda SHIT and still watch, and still buy the product their advertisers are pushing?????
WHY ARE THESE people and organizations NOT SCORNED and OSTRASIZED?
Mike Wallace has a history of being a self hatred Jew. He praised a Jew hating, America hating cruel dictator of Iran. It is not unusual for Wallace to criticize Israel. He did not ask hard questions, especially about Iran’s desire to destroy the Jewish state. Frankly, I am surprised that CBS gave us such a revolting program. I have met Wallace and will celebrate the day he dies.