Playboy Interview: Sam Donaldson

In 1977, not long after taking over the White House beat, Sam Donaldson was staked out on the West Wing lawn, waiting for Saudi Crown Prince Fahd to arrive for a meeting with President Jimmy Carter. Like the rest of the Washington press corps, Donaldson was working on deadline, and, growing impatient, he soon broke into song; keying his basso profundo to the occasion, he was already several verses into "The Sheik of Araby" when none other than President Carter emerged from the White House to ask ruefully whether or not the ABC-TV correspondent was enjoying himself. Donaldson nodded, then shot back, "Get the oil!"

Later--after a defeated Carter had wished only two things on his successor: Menachem Begin and Sam Donaldson--the 48-year-old reporter stopped Ronald Reagan as the President was leaving a banquet. According to a story by Robert Sam Anson in the September 1982 Playboy, Donaldson loudly said, "Mr. President, did you hear about the study they conducted of what men do in the shower?" The President shook his head, looking around at the growing crowd of reporters. "Yes, sir," Donaldson continued, "they found that 70 percent sing in the shower and the rest play with themselves. And do you know what the 70 percent sing?" No, the President admitted, he did not. "I didn't think so," Donaldson replied, breaking into a grin as Reagan, at a loss for a comeback, turned on his heels and walked off.

Such stories characterize only one side of Samuel Andrew Donaldson, but also underscore why he is widely regarded as the most intrepid television journalist covering the White House today. Donaldson is a maverick who has been credited with revitalizing Washington press coverage in an era in which some reporters have contented themselves with official briefings and press handouts; yet he has also been denigrated as a loudmouthed clown whose flamboyant and outspoken style--what he himself calls his act--attracts as much attention as his reportorial relentlessness. In the competitive world of network news broadcasting, he has, according to People magazine, "alerted, informed, sometimes amused and often angered two Administrations." His high-jinks and his reputation as a cutup in a city that often takes itself too seriously have led the Washington Journalism Review to dub him "the junkyard dog of the White House press corps . . . he is always 'on'. He is a clown." And, indeed, although Donaldson's antics have earned him such epithets as "pompous," "belligerent," "tenacious" and "grating," he is also, as John Weisman of TV Guide puts it "aggressive. Very, very aggressive."

If irreverence and showboating have created the Donaldson legend, what underlies the act is his unremitting commitment to getting the day's story, and even his severest critics acknowledge his real accomplishments. "Yeah," says one, "people will bitch and shake their heads and say what a belligerent ass Sam is. And then, for their lead, they'll use the answers Sam got. It happens all the time."

While other correspondents may feel the need to prepare their stories well in advance, Donaldson characteristically waits until the last minute, "crashing," in TV parlance, to get the last bit of information. Deadline pressures seem not to faze him--in fact, he thrives on them--and it is not unusual for anchor man Frank Reynolds to see Donaldson's piece for the first time the moment it airs. For his producer, David Kaplan, such workaholic habits may occasionally produce pandemonium, but there's no question that Donaldson has helped galvanize ABC's Washington bureau into a force that has challenged rival CBS for top ratings.

Such competitiveness and drive are not without roots. Donaldson was born on March 11, 1934, on his family's farm near El Paso, Texas. Raised by his mother, "a pretty strict Baptist who thought transgressors should be punished," he was sent to the New Mexico Military Institute, where, he speculates, he learned the values of discipline and competence. Texas Western College in El Paso followed, then the University of Southern California in 1955 for graduate courses in telecommunications. After a stint in the Army and a short-lived marriage, he returned to Dallas in 1959. Unable to muster any enthusiasm for his apprenticeship selling mutual funds, he soon took a job in the news department of KRLD-TV, Dallas' CBS affiliate. Less than two years later, after being turned down by all the networks in New York for lack of "print experience," he went to Washington's WTOP-TV as a reporter, covering local politics, the Cuban Missile Crisis, civil rights riots in Cambridge, Maryland, and Barry Goldwater's Presidential campaign. When ABC hired him in 1967, he was both remarried and anchoring WTOP's weekend news.

Donaldson's conversations with Presidents--and Presidential candidates--began in earnest in 1972, when he snagged the first interview with George McGovern at the Democratic National Convention. His aggressiveness had gotten him moved from general-assignment reporting to Capitol Hill in 1967, first covering the House, later the Senate; not long after, in 1971, he was reporting from Vietnam. Then came Watergate. Both assignments were decisive, Donaldson claims, and forced him to reevaluate his role as a reporter, as well as the credibility of public officials. In 1976, ABC assigned him to Jimmy Carter--"They gave me Carter when he wasn't even expected to get the nomination"--and in 1977, he was promoted to chief ABC White House correspondent. Two years later, as though to signal his need to keep trying his hand at other assignments, Donaldson landed the anchor spot on ABC's "Sunday Evening News" and now also appears on "This Week with David Brinkley," on which he often goes head to head against conservative columnist George Will.

To find out more about Donaldson and the state of TV journalism, we sent writer Peter Manso (whose last assignment was the headline-making "Playboy Interview" with New York City mayor Ed Koch in April 1982) to ABC's Washington News Bureau and points West. Manso reports:

"We began with Donaldson's making very sure of the guidelines, what I call Playboy's Miranda rights: that anything recorded on the record remained on the record; that he'd have no editorial control over the final transcript; and that anything said with the tape recorder off was, indeed, off the record. From the start, then, I got a quick and thorough make on Donaldson the pro, very much the fellow reporter and interviewer being interviewed, and I wasn't at all surprised over the next three weeks when he'd cut in with editorial asides about where I might be 'leading' him.

"Donaldson is a tall man, lanky and energetic; he was inexhaustible during our multiple four- and five-hour sessions. Rather than fumble or backtrack after an interruption by one of his assistants or his producer, he would immediately return to the topic at hand, his recall almost letter-perfect. More than once, he made reference to the magazine's Carter and Koch interviews, joking that by the time we were done, he expected the network to exile him to Atlanta. In effect, he was warning himself aloud to tread--or speak--cautiously.

"By our second session, things began to loosen up, and it was obvious that on the subject of politics, he wanted to talk--surprising in itself, as he'd never before gone public with what I quickly saw as his left-of-center bias. At the same time, he insisted on distinguishing between personal views and oncamera performance--which is, of course, the central issue any journalist faces. Donaldson the character emerged as well, particularly when we went West. The new unemployment figures were expected to break into double digits, and Reagan, so the scuttlebutt went, had planned his pre-Congressional-election sweep through Nevada, California and Texas in order to get out of town; Donaldson, naturally, went to cover the President, and I dogged his every step to watch him in action. And, indeed, the trip began with a bang: Making its approach at Las Vegas, the White House press plane went out of control--a small private aircraft had crashed on the landing strip ahead of us--and as the huge 727 yawed from side to side, Donaldson bolted from his seat, strode up the aisle and, mocking his famed TV persona, bellowed, 'This is Sam Donaldson, ABC News, somewhere over Nevada, and I want to know what the hell is going on here!' His colleagues, used to such antics, hooted and cheered.

"The same refusal to take himself too seriously was evidenced elsewhere--from his openness with a couple of UCLA students in a funky Mexican restaurant in Westwood to his sharing information with younger reporters in the White House press pool in San Diego. Ditto with cabdrivers, stewardesses and waiters. Working with his producer, editor, cameramen and sound technicians, however, Donaldson cracks the whip. Prior to air time, he's a whirling dervish; when he's marshaling his troops, competence is all, excuses meaningless. Which was precisely the message Donaldson delivered to Larry Speakes, the Presidential press spokesman, on the last day of our taping, back in D.C. As Speakes waffled on the subject of American Marines in Lebanon, the man from ABC once again reverted to his private score card, yelling, "That's 16 questions, Larry, and not a single answer!'

"Speakes's retort? 'That's what I'm paid to do.' And did that end it? No. Donaldson just threw out another question."

[Q] Playboy: The most apparent thing you've brought to TV news reporting is a change of image. You're as far from the warm, avuncular Walter Cronkite as possible. In fact, you're sometimes seen as rude and boorish in pursuit of a story. Do you agree?

[A] Donaldson: I long ago stopped seeing Walter Cronkite when I got up in the morning and looked in the mirror. A lot of people think I'm aggressive. Some admire that; others think it a rude, boorish quality; and, sure, I think I make people a little nervous. You spoke of Cronkite as warm and avuncular. True, you can't watch me and get that feeling. I'm always a little on edge. Part of it is that I can't see--I wear contact lenses--and people may think, What's wrong with him? Do I seem a little stiff, grim? Maybe so. Maybe military school made me stiff. I don't feel that way, though if that's how I'm perceived, then that's clearly what counts. But I also think most people feel that I really believe what I'm saying to them.

[Q] Playboy: That at least you're not bullshitting your viewers?

[A] Donaldson: That's right. I'll get a few letters from people saying they think I'm biased or that I've made something up. But most people think I believe that what I'm telling them is accurate, the truth as it is commonly taught. And that is my work. My job at the White House is not merely to pass along what the President says but to tell viewers what's actually going on, to cut through a lot of the bullshit, to use your word. The Administration says something, but is that what it means?

[Q] Playboy: What are the limits to your aggressiveness when it comes to cutting through? You were once quoted as saying, "The people who surround a President, his aides and advisors, even his family, seem to think he's some kind of god. They think the press isn't quite high class enough to ask him questions. To hell with the noise. I'll ask a President whatever seems pertinent and I'll yell or jump or roll on the floor, if I have to, for an answer."

[A] Donaldson: It's basically an accurate quote, though I don't remember saying "roll on the floor," because while I don't dress that well, I don't want to get my clothes soiled. Still, that is basically my attitude: Presidents are there, like mayors and governors, to be questioned by reporters on behalf of a public who put them in office in the first place and who have the right to remove them through the election process. Now, I'm going to be respectful to the President, just as I would be to any mayor or governor, but I'm not going to stay my hand by not asking a question because we're waiting for Margaret Thatcher or some other dignitary--not when I think there's a question that needs to be answered.

Some of Reagan's men don't want that kind of questioning, because they don't want their boss to be put in a position where he doesn't know the answer or where he blurts out something that he shouldn't. Equally, they believe that reporters should not have the right to ask questions, because of decorum and a sense of place. That's the attitude of some of Reagan's men, not necessarily of Ronald Reagan himself, though I could be wrong; that amiable grin may hide a lot I don't see. Some of Reagan's associates really believe that reporters and cameramen and camerawomen somehow aren't quite as good as the President. Well, I don't need that anymore, thank you.

[Q] Playboy: Are you saying that when you yell at the President from behind the pressrope lines, it's in response to being stonewalled?

[A] Donaldson: Well, that's why I have to yell. You think I yell because I like to? I'm raising my voice a little bit right now, to you, because we're discussing something very intense. But I'm not yelling; you're three feet from me. But when the man is 15 feet away and I'm behind a rope, how am I going to get his attention if I don't yell? When people write, "How rude of you to yell at the President," I write back, "How am I to get his attention, madam? He is partially deaf." With Jimmy Carter, we often walked along beside him. Even though Secret Service men surrounded him, we were only two paces to the side and there wasn't any need to yell. You could just say, "Mr. President, what about this?"

[Q] Playboy: Comparing the two Presidents, then, which one was more accessible to the press overall?

[A] Donaldson: Carter, hands down. But because of the assassination attempt on Reagan, there was a marked increase in his security. He was shot because he was walking out of the hotel entrance with reporters, cameramen and, as it turned out, the general public, one of whom was named Hinckley, only 20 feet away. Since then, you never see Reagan walking out of any entrance with reporters, cameramen and the public less than hundreds of yards away. Or he'll walk out of an entrance shielded from view by a constructed blockade, a plyboard or canvas framework, a virtual corridor at the door, so that you never see him until the limo drives by. That's for security, and I have no quarrel with it, even if it means we have no opportunity to talk with him or see him.

[Q] Playboy: That's obviously not the stonewalling we mentioned. You said that Reagan's advisors really don't like the press or think they're "as good."

[A] Donaldson: Ah, but that's another question; that comes back to their feelings about reporters and cameramen and camerawomen. They have a sense of pomp, a sense of decorum. They banned our sitting outside on a part of the lawn the press traditionally used. More substantially, during the Carter Administration, we were in the habit of going up to visitors coming out of the West Wing executive entrance and, as they walked down the driveway, we'd try to speak to them. We had our cameras and we'd say, "Governor, governor, can we have a word? You've just seen the President." Sometimes they'd come over to the microphone because they wanted to talk to the press and get on television. Sometimes, because of the nature of their visit or the politics of the situation, they preferred not to; but once, we caught Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski walking together down the driveway. Well, we'd always gone after them, but after that episode, the Reagan people put a stop to it. White House guards now come running up, under orders, of course, and shout, "Get back! Get back!" It is a very debilitating situation. It's clear we are being kept back and, again, for two reasons: the fear of political damage, because the press may get to talk to some disgruntled person who's just seen the President, and also because of the Administration's belief that somehow this pack of disorderly, unkempt--

[Q] Playboy: Raffish?

[A] Donaldson: Raffish--thank you, I'll embrace the word--raffish journalists really clutter up the beauty and pageantry and, I guess, the symbolic purity of the office. And I think that's nonsense. We're as good as the President and his people, as professionals and as human beings. I will concede Ronald Reagan his right to sit in there and decide whether or not to go to war against the Soviets. I'm glad I don't have that responsibility. I concede him his right to private conversation with his advisors. I concede him his right to be protected from nuts such as Hinckley. I concede him his right to have a private life with his family without my peering over his shoulder in the bedroom. But having said that, I concede him nothing. I don't concede him the right to remove himself from the press! However, I exempt Reagan himself. I may be wrong, but I don't think he's the prime mover behind this.

[Q] Playboy: Who is?

[A] Donaldson: I don't know.

[Q] Playboy: Isn't it common talk in Washington that the President's wife, Nancy, has emerged as the instigator of this new decorum, whatever its true meaning or effect?

[A] Donaldson: I don't cover Nancy Reagan. I'm there to cover the President and the activities and the issues around the Presidency. I am not going to in any way criticize Nancy Reagan, their private life or her participation in the Administration.

[Q] Playboy: What happens to a reporter who attends, say, a state dinner held by the Reagans?

[A] Donaldson: I've attended two state dinners, one held by the Carters, the other by the Reagans. It's a type of invitation that you would be rude not to accept. But let me tell you the difference I've seen. Carter's people would invite a White House correspondent or a reporter and his wife or her husband to dinner. Under the Reagan Administration, the reporters were invited but not their spouses. Why? Because the White House wanted to limit the number of people at state dinners? Because it was getting out of hand? Sure. But was the wife of General Motors' chairman not invited? Oh, no; she came. Was Gregory Peck's wife not invited? No, no; she came. The point was that the press spouses were dispensable. The Reagans didn't really consider us on the same level as their Hollywood friends or the industrialists or the artists from New York City. And it is a fact that the guest lists are drawn up in the East Wing of the White House.

[Q] Playboy: The East Wing being Mrs. Reagan's wing.

[A] Donaldson: Yes, and that's a fact. Earlier, you were asking me to suppose or speculate, and I refused to do that. But in this instance, it's a matter of public record that the guest lists for state dinners are drawn up in the East Wing of the White House.

[Q] Playboy: You've been talking about a general effort to keep the press at arm's length. What efforts have been made to prevent you from breaking through the decorum?

[A] Donaldson: Well, during the first several months of Reagan's Presidency, we would have a photo opportunity in the Oval Office or the Rose Garden, the Cabinet Room, wherever, when we'd take pictures of him with world leaders, a poster child, whomever. We would go in--meaning the cameras from the networks, along with one reporter for each network--and, of course, we'd seize the opportunity to ask him questions about the issue of the day. Under Carter, more often than not, the questions would get answered. Reagan followed the same policy in his first few months of office. But his answers began making news, because often they'd show he wasn't really up to speed on what was happening. One morning, The Washington Post carried a headline something like this: "Administration Backs 40-Billion-Dollar Social Security Cut." We went in for a photo opportunity--I've forgotten the subject--and I said, "Mr. President, is it true that you want to cut 40 billion dollars out of Social Security?" He said, "What? I don't know what you're talking about." I said, "Sir, it's in the morning paper." His reply? "I haven't read the paper." Well, his aides, of course, rushed us out.

There were countless other examples, during the first year, of answers he gave that his aides thought were injudicious. A couple of days after the Red Brigades seized General Dozier in Italy, Reagan was in the Cabinet Room and I said, "Mr. President, is there anything we can do about General Dozier?" And his answer, roughly, was, "Those cowards, those bums, I'd like to have them right here on the Mall; I'd show them what to do." He was angry, and the anger bubbled over. Some of his aides were appalled.

[Q] Playboy: All of that happened during the first year?

[A] Donaldson: Yes. The final time, it was Sadat, if memory serves. We were asking the President questions about Cuba, Sadat was sitting there and we were saying, "Mr. President, is it true that the Soviets and Cuba . . . ?" He was trying to answer, and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver just kind of blew his stack. He put out the word that if we reporters didn't agree not to ask questions during a photo opportunity, then we would no longer be allowed in the Oval Office. Our response was, "Fine, our cameras won't be able to show up. You don't want us, you don't need our cameras."

[Q] Playboy: You were prepared to play hardball with Reagan's advisors?

[A] Donaldson: Well, the next time we all went in, as usual, because they obviously wanted the cameras. For their purposes, it was essential that Reagan be seen with this or that king. But we kept asking him questions and they kept fuming. Then there came a day when Hosni Mubarak, Sadat's successor, came to the Oval Office. I started asking the President a question--about the Middle East, I think--and Deputy Press Secretary Larry Speakes, under Deaver's orders, began waving his hands, saying, "Out! Out! Out!"

Then he went out and made some silly claim that I'd created an international incident. That night, a headline on the front page of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner read, "Press Barred From Oval Office." There was a picture of me and a picture of Speakes. That's when they really got tough. My colleagues at NBC and CBS and I held to the position that if they barred us, they barred the cameras. But they finally figured out how to beat us. They didn't confront us. They called the bureau chiefs in one day and simply gave them a fait accompli: "These are the new rules--all your cameras can come in but only one broadcast correspondent. Not one per network but just one broadcast correspondent, period, to represent all the broadcasters. And we're going to cull every broadcast organization covering the White House--the Voice of America, U.P.I., the whole lot--once every 30 or 40 days." Their point was that the one correspondent might be me, but most of the time it wouldn't be; it was going to be someone who didn't share my view of when he should question the President.

[Q] Playboy: How did the bureau chiefs respond to those new rules?

[A] Donaldson: They protested, but they didn't say, "Well, then, no cameras." In fact, NBC said that it didn't care. And once you fall apart, as Ben Franklin said, you hang separately.

[Q] Playboy: They divided and conquered you?

[A] Donaldson: That's right. CBS and ABC hung tough for a few days, but it was competitive, so then CBS gave in. ABC held out. It was Roone Arledge who did it, not Sam Donaldson, and he hung tough for a couple of weeks, but then realized, yes, they had us. The White House aides didn't care if ABC stayed out forever; they still had 40,000,000 viewers on NBC and 40,000,000 on CBS. So now I go in only every 40 or 50 days and they don't have to put up with my questions anymore.

[Q] Playboy: There's a story that at one point Reagan turned to you and said, "Sam, you can ask your questions, but I have the right to wash your mouth out with soap." Correct?

[A] Donaldson: Words to that effect. It was during our battle when they'd made their rule about no questions and I went ahead and asked a question anyhow. The President said, "Sam, this is a photo opportunity. No questions." "Mr. President, I think I have a right to ask a question. Of course, sir, you always have a right not to answer it." He said, "Well, I can also ask you to go sit in the corner and wash your mouth out with soap."

[Q] Playboy: Did you say anything back?

[A] Donaldson: No, no. You always let the President have the last word. You may think of a brilliant line, but you let the President have the last word, unless you're stupid. There have been other times when he and I have bantered--on his terms, always. Now, Carter didn't make light conversation well. So his last words quite often begged for someone to top them. But Reagan usually has a last word that is a topper, and you would be foolish to try it, because you'd fail--it's like going up against Bob Hope. He has great ability at repartee, small talk.

[Q] Playboy: What kind of feedback did you get from Reagan during those light exchanges? Given your battles, did he see you as his perennial pain in the ass?

[A] Donaldson: No. He has never displayed that attitude in such a way that I could feel it. What he thinks of me deep down, you'd have to ask him. But every time he's had contact with me--and I emphasize that such contacts have been minimal and fleeting--it has been friendly. In fact, sometimes there's been banter, and, of course, his aides don't like it. One time, I was in the Oval Office when several leaders of Congress were there watching the President sign a resolution. He was saying, "I want to thank Senators Hatfield and Baker and Congressmen Conte and Michel," pronouncing the last name Michelle. Well, Bob Michel, pronounced Michael, wasn't there, but he's a Republican, and the Minority Leader of the House at that. I corrected the President: "Are you talking about Bob Michel?" "Oh, Michel, yes, Bob Michel," he corrected himself. Then he asked me, "Don't tell him I said 'Michelle.' " I said, "No deals, Mr. President. You said it. No deals." I'm speaking with a smile in my voice; this is not a mean conversation, and we're being overheard by reporters and cameramen and his aides and the Congressional delegation. He replied, "Haven't you ever made a mistake with a name?" And, again, he's smiling at me. I said, "Sir, the last time I called someone Michelle, she was a blonde." He laughed. Other people laughed. But one member of the Congressional delegation complained to the staff that it was unseemly for the President of the United States, the leader of the free world, to be engaged in banter with a reporter.

[Q] Playboy: You say those moments have been minimal and fleeting. How many one-on-one interviews have you had with the President since he's come into office?

[A] Donaldson: One, and I don't think it should count, because it was an interview for ABC Sports. It was just an interview about his old coach and his college days.

[Q] Playboy: You're saying that as ABC's White House correspondent, perhaps the most visible TV correspondent in Washington, you've done a face-to-face interview with the President to discuss only----

[A] Donaldson: Football and his old coach, correct. A producer at ABC Sports called and said, "We're doing a feature on the President's old coach, who's celebrating his 87th or 88th birthday." So I got to sit in the chair opposite Ronald Reagan and ask him about his old coach.

[Q] Playboy: For how long?

[A] Donaldson: About ten minutes.

[Q] Playboy: How hard have you tried to interview the President?

[A] Donaldson: I've requested interviews with him. But they were requests that were almost always doomed to be rejected. They decide who will have a one-on-one with him purely from the standpoint of "What good will it do us?" and----

[Q] Playboy: "They" being Deaver, Edwin Meese and James Baker.

[A] Donaldson: Yes, and maybe even Speakes. And maybe Nancy Reagan and, ultimately, Ronald Reagan. But at ABC, we have a principal anchor man named Frank Reynolds, and we also have Barbara Walters.

[Q] Playboy: You're saying you've never had a real interview with Reagan because ABC has never put you forth as the interviewer.

[A] Donaldson: That's correct. Has CBS put Lesley Stahl forth? No. It was Walter Cronkite who did the interviews, thank you very much. Has NBC put Judy Woodruff forth? No; it was John Chancellor. The only White House correspondent in modern times I know of selected by his network to do a long interview with the President was Dan Rather, who did an hour with Richard Nixon some time in either 1971 or 1972.

[Q] Playboy: Does that frustrate you, disappoint you?

[A] Donaldson: No. I understand how our system works.

[Q] Playboy: You accompanied Reagan to the NATO talks in Brussels last summer. In the course of that airplane trip, didn't you spend any time talking with him?

[A] Donaldson: Oh, no. I flew on Air Force One on one leg when it was my turn, but he didn't talk with reporters on the airplane. He seldom does. Carter did that almost every trip for the first three years of his Presidency, until he went to ground during that last awful year. Reagan began by occasionally coming back to the press seats, but now it's so infrequent that you could count the times in the past year on one hand.

[Q] Playboy: There are really two issues here: the Reagan Administration's emphasis on decorum and its reputation for limiting press access. Let's take the first. Haven't you been chastised for behaving indecorously? There was a famous incident with Margaret Thatcher when the press, as usual, was kept waiting, and you, as is your wont, supposedly yelled out, "Bring her on!"

[A] Donaldson: Exactly right, and I'm glad you got the quote right. Because I've seen versions of it using vulgarity, versions of it that I never said.

[Q] Playboy: But the story goes on to allege that Meese was so put out that he supposedly got in touch with the ABC News management and made ugly sounds about having your White House press pass withdrawn.

[A] Donaldson: I know Meese was put out, to use your words. I do not know for a fact which official at the White House called ABC News management.

[Q] Playboy: Was there such a call?

[A] Donaldson: I'm told there was such a call. No one lifted my White House press pass.

[Q] Playboy: Then we're talking about an Administration that has quickly gained the reputation of cutting off the public's right to know----

[A] Donaldson: Much more than the Carter Administration, correct. Not cutting it off completely but curtailing it effectively.

[Q] Playboy: Has the White House press corps done much more than treat Reagan with kid gloves? Has the press been tough enough in questioning him?

[A] Donaldson: No, and I include myself. Reagan has had an extraordinary honeymoon, much longer than Carter's. We did not pursue him with hard questions and tough reports early on, basically for three reasons. First, because of his hail-fellow-well-met style, his amiable grin, his reputation as Mr. Nice Guy. That's beginning to change. Second, the assassination attempt extended the honeymoon. And, third, in his first year, he had a string of victories--he beat Congress every time he went up against it. But we now have the facts that supply-side economics hasn't worked. And the bloom is really off the rose with the Congressional defeats and the mid-term elections.

[Q] Playboy: Despite your limited access, isn't there too much coverage of the President--the man as well as the institution? Your air time is limited, yet TV news often finds a way to include trivial doings in the White House.

[A] Donaldson: I agree. But the rationale is a good one: The President is important, his post is important and, therefore, he ought to be covered like a blanket. Now, many things he does are not important, and the problem is to differentiate. Besides importance, there's interest. If Jimmy Carter and Jody Powell get down on their hands and knees and try to capture a frog in the Rose Garden while a bunch of cherry-blossom princesses look on, that's interesting. But I concede it is not important from the standpoint of affecting our lives.

[Q] Playboy: There are sillier examples, such as the long-distance-camera coverage of Reagan at his ranch.

[A] Donaldson: That began when one of the two other networks--perhaps both of them--decided to take long lenses to a peak two and a half miles away, the nearest spot. Well, I'm opposed to that. It was invasion of privacy and ridiculous in terms of news coverage. I'd love to have said to NBC and CBS, "Fine. You boys stay up there on that mountaintop with your cameras." But I had to agree with my bosses that we had to do it, too. Competition is very much a part of this business.

[Q] Playboy: It's also what's known as the body watch. Would you explain that term?

[A] Donaldson: It's literally watching the body of the President to see whether or not he gets shot, God forbid, or suffers a heart attack. It was begun after the assassination of J.F.K.

[Q] Playboy: And it's now practiced from a mountaintop miles away?

[A] Donaldson: Right; and I'm opposed to it.

[Q] Playboy: But surely it has occurred to you that your energies and intelligence could be put to better use. What about an overview? What about covering the Presidency, not merely the President?

[A] Donaldson: Overviews are essential, but someone has to take the machine-gun nest. That's my job at the moment.

[Q] Playboy: Let's talk about the job of a reporter apart from covering the President. In general, isn't there still a split between you television people and the print reporters? Isn't it a standard assumption, for instance, that only in print journalism can reporters gain the necessary experience?

[A] Donaldson: It used to be. Certainly in 1960, when I applied to NBC. Not that I would've been hired, anyway, but I wasn't even considered, because I hadn't worked for a paper. Print experience was an icon. TV people were very embarrassed about being the new kids on the block, and they wanted to let everyone in the business know that they were as responsible as the wire services. Today, that's all gone. Frank Reynolds never worked for a newspaper. I don't think Dan Rather ever worked for a newspaper; he was a disc jockey, like me. [In fact, Rather worked for the Houston Chronicle.] Tom Brokaw never worked for a newspaper; Mort Dean never worked for a newspaper; Bill Plante never worked for a newspaper. You used to have to hide facts like those. Now you don't have to, because we're more confident in what we do. We don't have to go around proclaiming our integrity all the time. To progress in television news today, we have to take Edward R. Murrow's picture and turn it to the wall. He was a great innovator, a pioneer, and deserved all the praise he got; but life moves on and our way of doing things, the technology of our business, moves on. Murrow would have moved on, too.

[Q] Playboy: Yet it's a pervasive criticism--and not just by print reporters--that TV news people can be all looks and no brains, that it's all showbiz and that TV reporters think of themselves as budding stars.

[A] Donaldson: I know; the bubblehead theme, the notion that TV reporters are ninnies or dummies. It's not true.

[Q] Playboy: Let's start with the obvious--looks. You do have to care more about how you're dressed and how you look than the print people do.

[A] Donaldson: To some extent, if only because we have to go oncamera. We have to wear a tie and a jacket, at a minimum; be shaven; have our hair, if any, fairly kempt. A print journalist does not have to worry about those things. But we have men like James Wooten and Jack McWethy, who've made the transition from print to TV, and until the print guys get over here and see what their beards look like without make-up, they won't understand why we do it. They think it's vanity. No, it's to keep our job, son.

OK: bubblehead, make-up, hair spray. Then, after that, we go back to the serious business of journalism. They don't see us making a lot of those 2:45 appointments with the lower-level officials, that background research, so they immediately assume a TV guy doesn't know anything about the story. They don't know how we work. Well, talk with the people who have successfully made the transition from print. They'll tell you they never worked as hard before coming to television.

But most reporters have a preconceived idea of us. For example, a guy named Ken Auletta wrote a piece about the Carter campaign in which he savaged me. He thought it was great fun to show how the Carter people were adept at hoodwinking us TV people while the print reporters got the real stories and occasionally penetrated the Carter smoke screen. The TV reporters were all ninnies, and by way of proof, said he, let me introduce you to Sam Donaldson. And the rest of the piece followed that line. I have never met Auletta. Someday I hope to.

[Q] Playboy: You say that with malice, as a threat?

[A] Donaldson: That's right; tone of voice isn't recorded in this interview. I say it because during the entire time he was preparing that piece, he never introduced himself to me. He never asked me a question. He never came to me and said, "Sam, my name is Ken Auletta. I'm doing a piece on the press corps, and I'm gonna do a lot of things that have your name on them. And I think it's fair to tell you that I think"--to use the word that he used in his article--"that you're an asshole. Is there anything you'd like to say?" I would've made my best case, and then he would have been free to write whatever he wanted. But I never heard from him until I saw his piece in print. In his article, he claimed that one of the little people who ride in the back of the press plane--you know, like one of the secretaries--said, "Sam Donaldson is the greatest asshole on the face of the earth." I didn't mind that so much. But two weeks later, after the piece had been published, a guy came up to me and said, "Sam, I want you to know that I'm actually the source for that quote." I said, "Thanks, Jody; I appreciate your coming up and telling me."

[Q] Playboy: Jody Powell?

[A] Donaldson: Jody Powell, Carter's press secretary, yes. Now, think of the difference to the reader. If Powell, one of the senior aides to Carter, says Donaldson is the greatest asshole, fine. But no; Auletta makes it appear that I must step on the little people in the back of the plane, that I'm such a spoiled brat that one of them calls me an asshole. That's the kind of stuff that I'll never forgive.

[Auletta claims that Powell was not the source of the original remark.]

[Q] Playboy: Aside from characterizing you as a spoiled brat, doesn't the story convey the image of you that many people have? That Donaldson is intemperate, refuses to go by reasonable rules?

[A] Donaldson: Maybe to some extent, if you're referring to rules such as the one I mentioned earlier--not questioning Reagan during photo sessions.

[Q] Playboy: Or challenging the Secret Service.

[A] Donaldson: Well, that's another question apart from yelling at the President. I think I bridle at rules, at authority, if I believe they're unfair or being applied without warrant.

[Q] Playboy: That's been a theme in your life, hasn't it? We read that you were sent to the New Mexico Military Institute as a kid because you were--to use your phrase--"a bit of a bad-ass."

[A] Donaldson: If I was bad, it was not bad in the sense of brushes with the law. I have no criminal record except for driving offenses. But I think my mother thought I was probably uncontrollable or lacking in certain values dear to her. She never slapped me, but a nice switch, carefully pruned from some supple tree in the orchard, was occasionally, when I was a little boy, applied to my buttocks.

[Q] Playboy: By your mother?

[A] Donaldson: Yes. My father died before I was born. But my mother's punishment wasn't excessive. Remember, in those days, corporal punishment was thought by most families, particularly farm families, to be the way to raise children. My mother is a tough woman who came from a family of 13, a farm of 40 acres in Missouri. She grew up as a devout, God-fearing woman. Her God is a God of vengeance, a God who punishes, a God who believes in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And she has, I think, often seen herself as someone who ought to help God in punishing transgressors, particularly her sons.

[Q] Playboy: And it was her view of you as a wrongdoer that led to your being sent to military school?

[A] Donaldson: Probably. But if I had to look at several bench marks and say, "These are the things that helped me get to where I am today, for whatever they're worth," having gone to New Mexico Military Institute was certainly one of the important ones. Had I not gone there, I wouldn't have learned about having to fend for myself in an environment in which things aren't just given to you.

[Q] Playboy: A military academy calls up images of hazing----

[A] Donaldson: Exactly. In those days, as a cadet, a rat or a plebe in my first year, I was beaten regularly with rifle butts, paddles and wire coat hangers. What hurt the most, though, was an ordinary toothbrush, because, as small as it may be, a toothbrush is very springy and hits on a very small area. So if an older cadet said, "All right, mister, grab your ankles," and took a toothbrush to you, you remembered it.

I hated the place. In the first year, I was a very sad rat. I never polished my brass, didn't shine my shoes, my clothes were often not as sharp as they could be. Now, I'm not recommending that people get beaten with rifle butts, but I did learn something--namely, that the world didn't owe me a living and that if I wanted to get ahead, I was gonna have to work harder than the next guy. Maybe if I had had a father, he would have taught me a lot of that at home. My mother certainly tried; she did her best. But the summer after my first year, I thought about it a lot, and when I went back in the fall, I knuckled down. And I rose in rank. By the end of the second year, when the promotions were given out for the third year, I was promoted to sergeant, which was the highest rank one could attain for my class. I transformed myself from a first-year sad sack into one of the sharpest cadets there.

[Q] Playboy: There must have been a lot of macho behavior in that sort of environment.

[A] Donaldson: If what you mean by machismo is something like George Patton, no, I was never into that. But, yes, I grew up in a society where a woman's place was in the home, where women were still subordinate; those were my feelings, too, but not to an extreme. I was never the extremist in putting down women, and today, I think I've changed almost completely. But, as I've said, there were good things I got from my upbringing--self-reliance and working hard being the most important. In fact, now when I talk to journalism students and they want to know, "What's the secret? How do I get a job with a network?" I always tell them, "You just work harder than everybody else, and even the people who are smarter than you will be left behind." Of course, their eyes glaze over. They've never heard of Horatio Alger. Instead, they think that somehow I've got the real secret but I just don't want to tell them.

[Q] Playboy: How did you get interested in television?

[A] Donaldson: I was part of that silent generation who went to school to have a good time; I managed to get through college by cramming all night before tests and by getting in three weeks of homework under threat of being expelled. And I was a disc jockey for a while in El Paso. But by the time I got out to Los Angeles, to work on a master's in telecommunications, I was again knuckling down seriously. I started a magazine, Television Film, with a guy who was an instructor at USC. At that point, I was thinking of making money. The magazine almost went broke, and then I even tried selling mutual funds once I was back in Texas. I hated it.

[Q] Playboy: When did you decide you didn't want to make money?

[A] Donaldson: Recently. Ever since I've been in the news business, one of my goals has been not to get rich.

[Q] Playboy: But before then, was it your main goal?

[A] Donaldson: Well, one mark of the Southwest is wheeler-dealerism. All of us young boys wanted to pattern ourselves on those guys--the Hunts, the Murchisons.

[Q] Playboy: Given your background, you probably would have patterned your politics on them, too, right? You were schooled in conservative politics.

[A] Donaldson: Yes, but I changed. It was a little like Ronald Reagan's second life--after his conversion, albeit in reverse. I was raised in the Southwest, where the dominant theme was conservatism, the emphasis on the work ethic: If someone really wants a job, he can get one. If he doesn't, he's just a lazy, shiftless bum. I helped establish the Young Republicans Club of El Paso in 1956 and was thrilled to death when Richard Nixon, who was then the Vice-President, came to campaign there. I just thought that was terrific. I read Time magazine and U.S. News & World Report. Time, of course, was Henry Luce's then, and I won't insult the people reading this by giving them a tick-tock--that's a Washington term for a blow-by-blow description--on what that meant.

But when I came East to New York and Washington, my view of the world and politics changed. When I went back home, I had violent political arguments with my mother and friends. I had left the fold. I was reading The New York Times and other so-called Communist-inspired papers, such as The Washington Post. I was coming back with these screwy ideas--you know, I didn't think everyone who was out of work was really responsible for not having a job; I didn't feel someone who couldn't read and write English could be faulted for not finding a position as a computer operator. Some of my friends thought I had been won over and was an agent of the Kremlin.

[Q] Playboy: Converted or not, you went for the big time in the big city and succeeded. And now you're in what most journalists consider the biggest-time post of all--Washington. Is that what's been important to you--the big-time action?

[A] Donaldson: Part of being in Washington is enjoying the fact that you get your victories often and quickly. You don't have to wait a lifetime to figure out if you've done something worth while. On any given night when I'm on the air, whether I've done a good piece or a bad piece, I'll get feedback immediately. I don't need it, since I know when I've beaten the competition; but when it happens, I'm on top of the world. And eventually, if I've done a better job than the competition, my rewards will come before I get to heaven. If I've failed, that will be demonstrated.

[Suddenly, one of Donaldson's assistants gestures from the newsroom and presses to the glass a note reading Special Report. Donaldson runs to a nearby monitor. A Marine has been killed in Beirut, but, as Reynolds points out, it is unknown whether or not by hostile fire. Donaldson, clearly agitated, wonders aloud why regular programing has been interrupted, thinks the announcement may be premature. Returning to his office, he mutters, "See, this is what competition does to us, damn it."]

[Q] Playboy: You just made a remark about the effects of competition. What did you mean by that?

[A] Donaldson: I'll tell you what I meant. In the old days, even just a few years ago, we would not have gone on the air with a special report unless it was something of major, dramatic circumstances. Certainly, a Marine's being killed in Beirut is a newsworthy topic, but I'm trying to make the contrast between now and what we used to do. I don't want to say we should interrupt programing only for the assassination of John F. Kennedy or the shooting of George Wallace. You can make some gradations. But I warrant that five years ago, none of us would've gone on the air with a special report to say that a U.S. Marine had been killed and not from hostile fire. So I wonder what it does to viewers. Are they on to the fact that we're going to break in with almost anything that qualifies as a development in an important story? Is the audience going to become progressively indifferent? Or do we alarm people unnecessarily?

[Q] Playboy: Which brings us back to the question of competition, the need to beat rival networks. Would you rather be first or right

[A] Donaldson: I would err on the side of going on the air. I may later say to myself, Well, that piece of news wasn't really that important; but if it were a close question, I'd go on the air. These questions nag us all. They nag Arledge. We're not irresponsible people. We sometimes do things and later say, "Gee, I wish we hadn't done that. It didn't fit the criteria."

[Q] Playboy: The criteria of not going on the air? Having the discipline to resist an item you think is inconsequential, even if a rival network succumbs to it?

[A] Donaldson: We've done that at ABC, and I'm sure the other networks will tell you they've resisted, too. Even though we feel that at any moment, we'll see Special Report slides jump up on CBS and NBC. We've done that.

[Q] Playboy: Yet the most common criticism of TV network news is the so-called group-think syndrome. Not only is it common for the networks to use the same stories on the evening news but usually they're presented in the same order. Try it; just flip from one channel to another. Aside from the personalities of the anchors and correspondents, the shows are almost carbon copies of one another. Often, even the film footage is the same.

[A] Donaldson: Sometimes that criticism is justified. Sometimes I think we all succumb to the idea that, goddamn it, the others are just about to do this or the others have just done it, so we'd better.

[Q] Playboy: How do you know when another network is about to do something?

[A] Donaldson: We don't. We don't have spies at CBS or NBC. You have a feeling. But I have never known of an instance when someone has said, "I've just gotten a call from CBS or NBC. They're about to go on with something. Should we do it?" On the other hand, we've often sat there and said, "On, damn it, now what are we going to do with this? I'll just bet CBS and NBC are going to do a bulletin." We have weighed that. I would be lying to you if I said we hadn't.

[Q] Playboy: And isn't it that competition that leads to the grossest errors in TV news coverage?

[A] Donaldson: Because of competition, I think we do get ourselves pushed to some excesses. For example, there was the Saturday that I call the Battle of the Network Anchor Men. It was during the Falklands crisis, early, before the fighting started. All day long, the anchor men broke into programs with the most unimportant items. You get caught up in the competition of wanting to make damned sure that no one can say that CBS or NBC had it first, while poor ABC didn't care anything about the story.

[Q] Playboy: And, meanwhile, you're traumatizing a nation.

[A] Donaldson: That, or a lot of kids are missing their kiddie shows for no reason. I love people to miss their shows when I have something important to tell them. But even so, then they write in and say crossly, "You broke into my soap opera."

[Q] Playboy: Let's take another example, a more extreme one with which most people are familiar: the coverage of the attempted assassination of Reagan. Didn't competition push the networks into giving a false report of James Brady's death? And weren't you somewhat responsible?

[A] Donaldson: No, that's wrong. Someone wrote that there was an erroneous report from a White House correspondent. I wasn't at the White House.

[Q] Playboy: Let's put that one to rest, then. Describe what happened.

[A] Donaldson: I was outside the hotel when Reagan came out. A number of us were yelling questions about Poland. He turned to the rope line, raised his hand and waved. Who knows now whether or not he was going to come over? But just as he turned and raised his hand, Hinckley started to fire. And I knew they were shots. I couldn't have told you what caliber from hearing it, but I knew it was a handgun, small caliber. Five--rather, six--shots.

[Q] Playboy: Were you surrounded by other reporters who went down?

[A] Donaldson: Some of them may have, but not the network cameramen. Our cameraman stayed on the President; and, then, aware of the commotion to his right, where the shots had come from, he swung his camera over and caught bodies on top of Hinckley. I was watching Reagan. I wanted to see whether or not he was going to be hit.

[Q] Playboy: You didn't turn to see where the shots were coming from?

[A] Donaldson: No, no. My job was to watch the President. I'd never been at an assassination attempt before, but I'd lived through Dallas here in Washington. I watched them take the news to Teddy Kennedy, as he sat there in the Senate, presiding in the chair, that his brother had been shot. I was in the press gallery, right above his head, watching. And, of course, when Bobby was shot on the West Coast, I was here. You go through all of those as a reporter, and when you're finally around a political figure and the shots are fired, you know exactly what's happening, and you also know that the important thing is the question, Are they gonna get him? Someone in a group about three days later said to me, "You mean to say you heard the shots and you were interested only in whether or not he'd been hit? Why didn't you protect the President, why didn't you grab the assailant?" I tried to explain patiently that it was only two seconds. Of course, I'd like to protect the President, but in those two seconds, my job was to watch Ronald Reagan.

Anyway, I didn't see him hit. I didn't see him slump or see any pain on his face. I saw a quizzical expression, or what I thought was a quizzical expression. I was watching from the side as he was rushed into his car, then I ran to the phone. My first radio report was that shots had been fired at the President but that while I had not seen any evidence that he was hit, I did not know that for a fact. Then I went back to the studio, I got cleaned up there and, 30 minutes later, Frank and I were sitting in the anchor chairs, saying that although the President of the United States had been shot at, he hadn't been hit, according to the Secret Service, the White House press office and Mike Deaver, who was at the hospital. All of a sudden, Frank was handed a piece of paper that said Lyn Nofziger had just announced that the President had been shot. Well, my reaction was to say, on the air, "Frank, excuse me, I'm gonna go over to the hospital." He agreed and I went.

I'm not paid to cover the White House. I'm not paid to cover Nancy Reagan or Rosalynn Carter. I'm paid to cover the President. Reagan was lying shot in the hospital. Other reporters went to the White House. I'm not criticizing them, but I was standing behind the rope line at the hospital, talking with every nurse who came out. Some of my colleagues actually got into the hospital. I didn't get in, but while I was outside, one of my colleagues at the White House thought he had nailed down a confirmation that Brady was dead. He had it from a man who was then in the press office of the White House. And he was not the only source for our report but one of several that Frank used finally to announce that Brady had died.

[Q] Playboy: Yet isn't it true that Sid Davis, NBC's Washington bureau chief, waited for several confirmations of Brady's death before NBC went with it?

[A] Donaldson: I don't know. But to answer your implicit question, we were wrong. In a clinical sense, looking at what happened that day, we were clearly wrong. Reynolds will be the first to tell you, but at the time, we believed honestly that we had enough confirmation.

[Q] Playboy: The announcement of Brady's death was also the moment for which Reynolds was criticized for being overly emotional oncamera. Have you ever lost your cool on the air?

[A] Donaldson: I am certain that some of my reports in the Watergate days would show that I was under emotional strain. Ditto for some of my reports from Vietnam. I've changed, but I think now that some of my worst moments as a reporter occurred during Watergate. Toward the end, meaning the last two or three months, I didn't always keep my personal views and attitudes out of the work. There came a time when I was convinced that Nixon was a conscious member of a criminal conspiracy and that, therefore, the public ought to remove him. It was not a question of saying, "I think Nixon's guilty as hell." That was not my job. But, in retrospect, my demeanor, my tone of voice may have given that impression. I can defend myself by claiming I never said Nixon was a crook. But you use words that push viewers in that direction. You don't do it intentionally; it just happens. You're not sufficiently self-critical to notice.

[Q] Playboy: You say you've changed. Do you think the discipline of keeping your personal beliefs in check serves a psychological function for you?

[A] Donaldson: I have strong opinions. And there are things I do that perform a psychological function. Keeping my personal views out of my copy is not one of them.

[Q] Playboy: What are they?

[A] Donaldson: Go back to my aggressive behavior when questioning people on television. That probably performs a psychological function for me. Just how and why, I leave to the experts. But if you ask me, "Can't you be mild and quiet and not interrupt?" obviously, I can't or I would.

[Q] Playboy: It's more than that, though, isn't it? You thrive on the action. It's as if you're testing yourself every day.

[A] Donaldson: OK. What fulfills me? What do I need out of life? I need my job, first of all. It cost me my long second marriage, so, clearly, my job came first. I'm not saying that with satisfaction, just stating the fact. You're right, OK? I need the fast action. I don't have to have all of every big story in Washington--no one can--but I need a piece of it. Any time Arledge tries to relegate me to a point where I can't get a piece of a really big story, he has an unhappy Sam on his hands. But he hasn't done that.

[Q] Playboy: Your propensity for crashing, the term for going down to the deadline wire on a story, is part of the action, isn't it?

[A] Donaldson: That's true, I think. On those occasions when I anchor for the Sunday news or substitute for Teddy Koppel on Nightline and we're ready 20 minutes ahead of time, I'm flat. I can't read, or something happens. But when it comes right down to the wire and people are screaming and phlegm is flying, and with ten seconds left you straighten your tie, then it usually comes out better.

[Q] Playboy: What are the occupational diseases of that life?

[A] Donaldson: Well, there are my two divorces. I realize that's not a disease, but it's certainly not uncommon. I guess high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke. Myself, I let it all hang out. I may wind up with a heart attack but not ulcers.

[Q] Playboy: Is there much boozing?

[A] Donaldson: Yeah, there's boozing. There may be a few teetotalers, but I don't really know them. On the other hand, are there those who get sloppy drunk? No, they can't afford to. Certainly, a correspondent can't afford to have his speech slurred on the air.

[Q] Playboy: What about the effect of celebrity? Has that changed your life?

[A] Donaldson: I really don't need that. When I started in the business, it gave me a big thrill: "There he goes; I see him on television." Ah, I thought that was terrific. But that was a long time ago. If you talk with anyone else in the business, he'll tell you the same thing. Frank Reynolds and Dan Rather will both say it complicates their lives. And they can't, like Cronkite before them, go out and cover a news story. Every time they try, they become the news. Even their fellow reporters swarm around them and won't let them work. For example, if they go to a Presidential news conference, it distorts the conference, because even Presidents will defer to them.

[Q] Playboy: Despite the protestations, don't most people enjoy that sort of power?

[A] Donaldson: But, you see, it's a reverse power, a cancerous power, because it turns against them. Reynolds would like to go out there and occasionally be a reporter--Rather would, too--but he can't do it, because of what you call his power.

[Q] Playboy: Surely, though, much of the satisfaction of your job is in being close to power. Somehow it rubs off, doesn't it?

[A] Donaldson: A lot of the satisfaction has to do with being close to power in the sense that I get to see how powerful people work and what they're doing to politics. Would I rather be covering the mayor of El Paso, my home town, than the President of the United States? No, I'd rather be covering the President, thanks very much.

[Q] Playboy: What are you saying, Sam--that this proximity to the President hasn't affected your self-image? Come on.

[A] Donaldson: To the extent that I've acquired more self-confidence and more verve and élan, OK; but it's more a result of having achieved some success in the business. Now, do I enjoy that? Yes. It enhances my ability to do my work, and I think my work is better because I feel freer to express myself.

[Q] Playboy: Then perhaps you'll express some more political views. Despite your attempts to keep your personal opinions in check, haven't you made your feelings about Reagan clear? For instance, you once said, "Reagan's view of the Russians is one that existed in the Fifties. He's obsessed with the thought of 'The Russians are coming."'

[A] Donaldson: I believe that is the attitude Reagan brought to Washington. Although I think he's adaptable, I remember his first press conference. I asked him a simple question, and the transcript will show the exact words: "What do you think of the Russians? Do you think they're out to dominate the world or do you think that they really want détente?" And out it came: "They lie, they cheat, they steal. They reserve the right to murder, pillage, rape, burn." And he went on to talk about the Soviets' openly preaching world domination. Well, the record shows that not since about 1963, when Nikita Khrushchev, in a party-congress speech, made reference to world-wide Soviet hegemony, have they openly preached domination.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think his fundamental commitments remain unchanged?

[A] Donaldson: His ideological belief remains firm, yes: The Soviet Union is out to destroy us on a plain just short of Armageddon. Nevertheless, he has proposed intermediate-range talks in Geneva. He hated the SALT treaty, campaigned against it, said it would allow the Soviet Union to gain such an advantage that it was sure to press an attack. His last known position on the SALT treaty is that the U.S. would abide by all its provisions as long as the Soviets did.

[Q] Playboy: Why do you think he decided to do that?

[A] Donaldson: Because he had to. The man is a good politician, flexible enough to do what he has to when the political forces are overwhelming. But that doesn't mean that he has changed his conviction.

[Q] Playboy: If Reagan is obdurate in his ideology but has good political sense, is it fair to say that Carter was more flexible in his ideology but less of a politician?

[A] Donaldson: I agree with Hamilton Jordan's assertion that Carter didn't have a unifying philosophy. Reagan does.

[Q] Playboy: As someone who has covered both Presidents, what do you see as the most striking personal differences

[A] Donaldson: Carter had greater insecurities than Reagan, more questions about things and about himself. With Reagan, you get what you see. With Carter, I was never quite clear what he was. He wanted to be President because, first of all, he wanted to win the office to demonstrate that he could do it. It wasn't an ideological necessity. Carter always believed in striving, demonstrating to himself and to others that he was not only up to a job but that he could do it better than anyone else. Carter's rhetoric was filled with expressions about the best, "Why not the best?" that sort of thing, and at the end, it was kind of pathetic.

[Q] Playboy: You're suggesting that Carter's need for a demonstration of success--

[A] Donaldson: Was greater than Reagan's, though, clearly, anyone who runs for the Presidency has some needs for success. I'll give you a mundane example. Carter hated to lose. One time--in the summer of 1976--I played in one of his softball games. My son, who was then nine, was watching. I went up to bat, Carter was pitching and he struck me out in front of my son. And he meant to, knowing that was my son watching. Now, I think that if I'd been pitching against somebody whose nine-year-old son was there, I might've put the ball right over. Not ol'Jimmy. And my son kind of looked at me and I said, "Well, he struck me out. But you just wait." Well, sure enough, I was the catcher and, later in the game, Carter came pounding down from third base. He saw me there with the glove. I got the ball and I tagged him out. In the heat of the game, I probably struck him a little too hard. By mistake, of course. But I tagged him out and looked back at my boy and said, "You see, life comes round, doesn't it?

[Q] Playboy: What was Carter's reaction?

[A] Donaldson: Oh, he heard, of course, but said nothing. Carter grinned a lot, but that famous Carter grin is basically a rictus. Watch the eyes; the eyes very seldom smile. When he was in the Oval Office with the late Golda Meir, making small talk in front of reporters, he said to her, "Do you get back to your home town, Chicago, very often?" She said, "Milwaukee, sir." He kind of grinned, but his eyes said, "Damn it, I made a mistake and these people heard it." And then he said to her, "Well, you know, you're about the same age as my mother." Meir sort of stiffened a little and said, "Oh, really?" Very few people, women or men, want to be told they're old. And Carter realized he'd made another mistake. You could see it in his eyes: "Oh, I did it again."

[Q] Playboy: Is there less self-questioning, more security, on Reagan's part?

[A] Donaldson: Yes, but again, neither one of us is a psychiatrist, so this is all impressions. On the other hand, let me ask you a question: Does self-doubt have any correlation with intelligence? Does intelligence translate into security? Because some people have the point of view that Reagan is self-assured simply because he isn't smart enough to see his errors, his stupidity. I don't believe that for a moment.

[Q] Playboy: But earlier you said that Reagan's advisors may try to insulate him from the press because they worry that he may be perceived as not quite up to speed. Many observers--even friendly ones--have made the point that Reagan often seems in over his head intellectually.

[A] Donaldson: That's a value judgment that I'm not going to make, but I'll answer the question in another way. Reagan frequently displays the fact that he does not know details of policies, programs that are part of his Administration's work. If he were sitting here today, he might deny it on the surface, but I don't think he'd really argue against what I just said.

[Q] Playboy: Carter was known for putting in--what?--18-, 20-hour days?

[A] Donaldson: Yes. And he knew every detail. Reagan, though, is 71 years of age, and he needs his rest.

[Q] Playboy: Is his age a factor in his intellectual capabilities? Recently, someone in the press corps remarked on his clenched fist, as if he were struggling to last out the speech he was listening to.

[A] Donaldson: I can't see it yet. I watch for signs of senility or forgetfulness. He often misquotes figures and gets things wrong. But I think it probably has nothing to do with age. Reagan absorbs things and he remembers them forever, even when they're wrong. You say, "Mr. President, you've said at your press conference that the first combat division of Marines to be sent to Vietnam was sent by John Kennedy. Well, sir, that's wrong; it was Lyndon Johnson." But the very next time he goes out, he'll repeat the same illustration. Why? Because he believes it.

[Q] Playboy: Out of stubbornness?

[A] Donaldson: Who tells him those things and why does he believe them? I don't know, but it fits his ideology. He'll find an illustration that suits him and he'll put it somewhere in his mind as part of his repertoire and he'll use it over and over again. His mind doesn't let in what it doesn't want to know. Lyndon Johnson had some of the same trait.

[Q] Playboy: The pattern of President Johnson's lies during the Vietnam years certainly had an effect on the press. Didn't it turn you all into skeptics?

[A] Donaldson: It shaped our thinking about the way to watch Government. Watergate reinforced it, drove the lesson home, but it was Vietnam that taught us you had to be extremely skeptical, yes, and that you could not, as many reporters had done previously, work hand in glove with Government.

[Q] Playboy: On the subject of alleged misinformation, will you comment on General Westmoreland's lawsuit against CBS over its story alleging that he knowingly misrepresented body counts?

[A] Donaldson: I'm reluctant to do so, because it's an ongoing court suit at the moment, and for me to inject myself as a potential party to that suit would be ridiculous. I'll speak to the general issue, though: The general issue is a claim that the news organization begins with a premise, sets out to prove it, runs across contradictory information, contradictory witnesses, and deliberately--using the word of the law, maliciously--fails to take those into account. If that, indeed, happens, then the organization ought not to be in the news business.

[Q] Playboy: Shouldn't the same standard be applied to both parties?

[A] Donaldson: In the body-count charge? Good; you have a point.

[Q] Playboy: Advocacy journalism usually starts with a premise, too. Are you opposed to that sort of reporting?

[A] Donaldson: For me, it cuts too many corners, precisely because it does begin with a premise. Sometimes I'll agree with the premise: that the poor should somehow be helped or people who are being unfairly treated should somehow not be. And I also think that the news media ought to be in the forefront of spotlighting such abuses. But if the advocate journalist begins with a premise and then sets out to document it, and if along the way he runs across information that either refutes his premise or at least, out of simple fairness, warrants presentation, and he doesn't include it because it takes the other side against the good and the beautiful, then that's cutting too many corners.

[Q] Playboy: Isn't that what Geraldo Rivera's critics charge he does?

[A] Donaldson: In this very magazine, he was quoted as having said, in effect, that when he was down in Panama, he didn't report certain information that was inimical to the Senate's ratification of the Panama Canal treaty because he himself believed that it was important that the treaty be approved. I don't think a journalist should make that kind of judgment based on that kind of reasoning. If, in fact, Rivera said it, and if, in fact, he did it, then I think he ought not to work for a news organization.

[Q] Playboy: What about Jack Anderson?

[A] Donaldson: For a long time, Jack was primarily a reporter and primarily a journalist. Now, I think, he's primarily a businessman, putting out newsletters, and so forth. If you speak on the air five times a day and you print this and print that, you have to depend on a lot of other people for information and the chances for error are much greater.

[Q] Playboy: What about other opinionated journalists, such as Theodore White?

[A] Donaldson: Teddy White wrote nuts and bolts, but in his last books, he's tried to be the philosopher king, and they haven't been his best books. I think his best one was in 1960; at least it was the great one.

[Q] Playboy: Oriana Fallaci?

[A] Donaldson: I like her work. I see her as a hard-hitting reporter who isn't afraid to ask tough questions, the right questions, and who really lets the person she's interviewing talk. Like some television, and the Playboy Interview, her interviews show the true individual emerging over a period of time, despite his or her best efforts to conceal it.

[Q] Playboy: You're not bothered by what some people see as Fallaci's manipulation of her subjects?

[A] Donaldson: I judge that--again, like this interview--every one of her subjects consents to it. This is not ambush journalism. They go in with their eyes open. Maybe they say, "I can beat her," or "It's a challenge to me, since this journalist has a reputation for bringing her subjects low through their own words, so I'll demonstrate. . . ."

[Q] Playboy: Is that what Kissinger may have thought?

[A] Donaldson: When he came out as the Lone Ranger? A perfectly innocent phrase, when you think about it. But, coming from Henry Kissinger, it made him look a little ridiculous, I agree. Well, we all come to these things as consenting adults. Therefore, I'm not disturbed by Fallaci's attempts to manipulate.

[Q] Playboy: You seem to admire people who take stands. Would you name some people in television who've taken comparable stands?

[A] Donaldson: Fred Friendly is definitely one. He was a courageous producer with his See It Now broadcasts and, in particular, his Murrow broadcast against McCarthy. He was also a courageous and good president of CBS News. And I admired him when he resigned. Instead of carrying the first hearings on the Vietnam war, which William Fulbright, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was conducting, CBS chose to carry reruns of I Love Lucy. Friendly resigned in protest. I think that was a courageous act.

[Q] Playboy: Friendly is the exception in television, though. It took two pretty courageous print reporters to break the Watergate story. It took a print reporter to break My Lai and it took The New York Times to do the Pentagon papers. So the scoops are still largely on the side of print.

[A] Donaldson: No, I don't think television by itself has ever originated as big a scoop, to use your word, as The Washington Post did with Watergate. I don't want to be defensive about it, but it now comes time to discuss the differences of operation, the differences of ability and the strengths and weaknesses of the various news media, not just people. One of the basic reasons is that we are a visual medium. We're always looking for pictures that show people the world, and those pictures are usually of things that happen in the open, leaving aside the creepy-peepy--or ambush--camera, about which there's a lot of debate. The Watergate informants weren't operating in public. I am both explaining and conceding, since, on the other hand, you saw the little girl with the napalm on her back in Vietnam, and that made an impact. And, more recently, you saw those dead bodies in the Sabra and Shatila camps in Beirut, which made an impact far beyond the accounts in the Times or the Post. If the American public is outraged about what happened in the Palestinian camps, it's more because it saw little girls and boys dead with flies feeding on them than because it read about them. By the same token, if there is a conspiracy to cover up a felony that eventually reaches the President of the United States, its coverage has to start with the kind of hard digging that Woodward and Bernstein did. It's just the nature of the media.

[Q] Playboy: Why don't the networks have a kind of subterranean staff, people on the daily news programs who do the same sort of digging as newspaper reporters do?

[A] Donaldson: We're developing them: a group of people who are called off-air reporters. Some of them are young; some are top-flight people who have worked for major organizations whom we've been lucky enough to hire. They develop information on their beat and we use it on the air, but they don't get the credit they deserve. We're working on that, too. But you're right; those off-air reporters can go into that kind of meeting with low-level officials, for example. On the other hand, there's never enough time, either in the 90 seconds they give you on the air or in my own research time, to use the information, to absorb it on a day-to-day basis.

[Q] Playboy: But if you came up with a story as big as Watergate, you'd surely use the entire evening news to break it. The point is that broadcast journalism has never gone after the scoop.

[A] Donaldson: You're asking for greater resources than we have. All the networks have tried setting up investigative teams.

[Q] Playboy: And what happens?

[A] Donaldson: What happens is that the pressure for a daily return becomes too great from both sides. The investigative unit wants other jobs and the network wants a return on its investment.

[Q] Playboy: And there's the format of television news, of course: its brevity--you have, as you said, 90 seconds for a story--its reliance on pictures, what you call "writing to a picture." Don't those factors preclude in-depth reporting? It has been estimated that the typical 30-minute TV news show, if written, wouldn't fill a single page of a major newspaper.

[A] Donaldson: What you seem to forget is that this is a recent development, using pictures and symbols as we do now. Before Av Westin [an ABC News executive], before Roone Arledge made certain changes, anchor men's faces filled the screen. Cronkite, Huntley, Brinkley. Westin said, "We're going to show people things." If the anchor man says "Good evening" and starts in on a story about the Middle East, let's show a map of the Middle East. Let's show a picture of Golda Meir. That was all new. The old hands threw up their hands and said, "It's horrid. Murrow never did it this way. Sevareid never did it this way." I'm broad-brushing now, but a lot of people thought it was irresponsible, it cheapened our values. They claimed it was just show business, a gimmick. Well, I think that's nonsense. We're talking about television--not radio, not a newspaper. If we can't show people what's happening, then we aren't using our medium. So to imply, as some people do, that the use of pictures is done for titillation or in a way that cheapens the product betrays a lack of knowledge.

[Q] Playboy: Go back to the example of the pictures of the bodies in Beirut, the dead children covered with flies. Isn't it said that such pictures are shown essentially for their shock value or, at least, that they lead to uninformed emotionalism rather than a deeper or more responsible understanding of the issue?

[A] Donaldson: Pictures have shock value because they are shocking; they represent an act that was shocking. And to use them is responsible journalism. That they make people uncomfortable and that they bring emotion to a story that previously lacked it to such a degree isn't a charge that should be refuted. It is, rather, something we should be proud of. Statesmen often enjoy talking about policy questions in a detached, unemotional way, often pretending or accusing their critics of not understanding because emotion clouds their judgments. After all, they say, we are trying to divide the world in a detached, rational fashion. Well, I say that's right and as it should be for statesmen. But emotion has a place, too. Dead bodies bring home the fact that a policy that causes death and destruction ought to be re-examined or that there's another side apart from that of geopolitical maps and arcane arguments. It is a policy that ought to be leavened with emotion, and pictures do precisely that. In fact, it was such pictures that helped unveil our unwise involvement in Vietnam. Too many policy decisions over the years have been made by men in closed rooms not thinking about the dead bodies. When bullets fly, people die, and pictures ram that message home.

But it's not like a tabloid's use of pictures. In television, you're also hearing the responsible story. TV reporters have to use the English language and, yes, they have to recognize a story if it bites them on the nose. But they also want to be able to use television as a medium. It's not good enough to sit in the studio or stand out in the field looking down at a clipboard, reading your script. You've got to show people, be able to use pictures so that they make sense and the audience can understand them.

[Q] Playboy: What about the charge that TV news uses visual techniques merely as attention grabbers? Because of your boss's sports background, Arledge's news broadcasts have been referred to, scornfully, as The Wide World of News.

[A] Donaldson: Howard K. Smith said something in the Sixties that I didn't understand then. He said, "The greatest sin in television news is to be dull," and I thought, How can Howard K. Smith, whom I respect, say that? The greatest sin is to be inaccurate, or to deliberately distort, or to have a bias. I went through all the great journalistic sins, and I thought, Dullness is a great sin? But more and more, over the years, I've come to understand what Howard meant. It does no good to have a story if no one watches it, if no one listens to it, if no one understands it. It's as simple as that.

[Q] Playboy: Without its being a rationale?

[A] Donaldson: Yes. It's not a rationale, it's a fact. You talk about the tabloids and The New York Times. Now, the Times doesn't have to have mass circulation to stay in business. It's the newspaper of record, and I read it every day. But I'll tell you something: I read the Times because I have to, not because its stories are written so they really interest me.

[Q] Playboy: You're still talking about visual impressions. Isn't the prime objective of journalism to keep people informed?

[A] Donaldson: We are not a medium of record; you can't go back and look at us again. So we do give impressions. You get an impression from watching a television news story and to some extent remember what was said. People are forever writing in, accusing me of saying certain things that I never said. They honestly believe they heard me say them, but I didn't. Now, I'm not talking about a weasel word, a modifier they didn't catch. I'm talking about four or five words, direct quotes. Yet they have gotten an impression, which is correct, of what I was saying to them. They will write, "You called the President a liar." I didn't call the President a liar; perhaps I said what I thought was really happening behind what Reagan said was happening. Now, those impressions add up, from day to day, much as the hours of a Playboy Interview add up; and after a longer period of time, the viewer may come away with a more complex, less superficial understanding of the subject.

[Q] Playboy: Perhaps, though the demographics hardly suggest that TV news has been in the forefront. According to a 1974 comprehensive study, the median age of viewers--40 percent of whom didn't have high school diplomas--was 55. The yearly household income was less than $10,000. The occupational status was 70 percent blue collar or unemployed. Admittedly, the figures are several years out of date, but the profile remains.

[A] Donaldson: Granted, we have to do things differently because we know we're not talking to people who can understand certain words. Instead of saying "eleemosynary institution," I may say "nonprofit charitable organization." Yet I don't think people who have had a one-to-three-year high school education--or who are blue-collar workers--are as unable to grasp a news story as some people would believe those indexes suggest. I think television viewers are much smarter than some people like to believe. People can watch a politician and interpret his reactions, his body movements, and be right about him in a way his words alone won't convey.

[Q] Playboy: In his recently published book, Newswatch, Av Westin says, "Television news is the lazy person's way of keeping informed. It never claimed to represent what an informed citizen needs to know. Too many viewers do nothing more, preferring instead to complain that TV news fails in roles it never set out to fill." How do you respond to that?

[A] Donaldson: It's true. We never claimed to be so thorough that if you only watch us, you need not read newspapers, you need not look elsewhere. That's ridiculous.

[Q] Playboy: Let's continue talking about television news in the role it does fill. And that takes us back to your brash style. Do you ever think you'll go too far, push some President or politician too hard?

[A] Donaldson: I push against the boundaries and occasionally I put my foot over instead of my big toe, but I don't think I go so far as to be cast out by my bosses. I think I'm smarter than that. I have a healthy respect for the need not to commit suicide. I've seen people do it professionally, and one of the reasons is that they begin believing their press clippings. They begin to think they really are somebody.

[Q] Playboy: What about the feeling around Washington that Donaldson already has stepped on too many toes?

[A] Donaldson: I do step on toes. I'm told there is an executive at ABC who frequently says to the news division, "This time, Donaldson's gone too far." I don't know how the news division responds, except that I'm still in my job. Obviously, it's not the chairman of the board, Leonard Goldenson, or I suppose I wouldn't be here.

[Q] Playboy: Go a step further. Are you sure a situation couldn't arise with the Reagan Administration in which you felt compelled to take a stand that took you too far over the line?

[A] Donaldson: No, I'm not sure that that situation couldn't arise. We all like to think that we're brave enough that we would report a piece of news and do it repeatedly if it were necessary. But I also feel that Arledge would back me; if I didn't think that, I'd have to rethink the whole relationship. For instance, there was that exchange the day the new ABC building here in D.C. was dedicated by President Reagan. It was also the day that the David Stockman interview in the Atlantic Monthly was released. Goldenson, Elton Rule, the president of ABC, and Roone Arledge were all at the dedication. As soon as Reagan finished, I began to question him about Stockman, and he said he was going to meet with Stockman to talk about the piece that afternoon. That was the first we knew that Reagan was going to meet with him. In the long march of history, that's not much of a news story, but at that instant, that day, that was the news. So I questioned him some more. Then Helen Thomas started to question him, and Roone, clearly trying to keep the peace, said, "Well, Helen, this isn't really a news conference. I don't think we ought to keep the President any longer." Then he said more or less the same thing to me. I said back to him, "So fire me." And, with that twinkle in his eye that he often gets, he shot back, "That's not a bad idea."

That all happened publicly, with the President standing there, his aides, Goldenson and his aides, the newsroom filled with visitors as well as our regular personnel. Roone was teasing, and I was teasing him back. I didn't mean it in a snotty, defiant, if-you-don't-like-what-I'm-doing-fire-me way; I meant it jocularly. But not everyone in that room took it that way. Fortunately for me, one man did, and that comes from a number of sources. As they left the room, Deaver started in on Roone. I don't know what his tone of voice was; I don't know his words; but it was something like "Gee, you mousetrapped us. We didn't think we were over here to hold a news conference; we thought we were over here to dedicate your building." But before Roone could say anything, Reagan said, "Oh, that's just Sam. He's irrepressible, as you know. That's fine." Or words to that effect. And you know, Reagan, of them all, has the best sense of what the press is about and is the most tolerant. Oh, Reagan doesn't want to put his head in a mousetrap--he wants to avoid tough questions, just like every President--but I think he understands what we're doing.

Still, if Arledge hadn't wanted to back me, that day was the perfect day not to do it. Because I think Goldenson was embarrassed; Rule was embarrassed; a lot of people on the President's staff saw it as an opportunity to make their case against me in ways that ABC would understand. But it didn't happen, thanks to Ronald Reagan and, also, thanks to Roone Arledge. On the other hand, I have to admit that on occasion I will simply press a question on the President not only because I want an answer for a news report but also because I continually want to make the point to his advisors that while they may hold their views about decorum and the proper time for questions, they are not going to deter me or other reporters. I've helped, I think, destroy that type of thinking in the press corps.

[Q] Playboy: So, all in all, there was good reason for Carter to feel that you were one person he didn't regret leaving behind when he left the White House.

[A] Donaldson: Oh, absolutely. The press corps gave him a private farewell dinner the week before he left the White House. It was all supposed to be off the record, which, of course, is the best way to get everything immediately into print. It stayed off the record all of five minutes. And Carter said, "There are two things I wish on Ronald Reagan: that Menachem Begin remain prime minister of Israel and that Sam Donaldson remain the White House correspondent for ABC News."

[Q] Playboy: Did his press secretary, Jody Powell, feel that way, too?

[A] Donaldson: Jody and I are good friends now. In fact, he's an ABC News contributing editor, and we work together. But he and I used to have some knockdown, dragout fights--not in the literal sense, though once, before Carter became President, I thought we were going to square off.

[Q] Playboy: Oh?

[A] Donaldson: We were having an intense disagreement about coverage of Carter. He thought I'd been unfair in my report that night. We'd had a few drinks; we were on the press plane between El Paso and Cleveland, the so-called margarita flight, and Powell and I stood in the aisle and roundly denounced each other. I had the impression that if we kept on, we might've gotten physical, but both of us knew we had to back off.

[Q] Playboy: Does any of your scrappiness have anything to do with the network you work for, ABC, which used to be the perennial underdog?

[A] Donaldson: Yes. We're an aggressive news organization, in that we pursue the news and nowadays often get there first. Fifteen years ago, ABC would always get there last. We're also aggressive in that we present as much as we can, such as Pierre Salinger's special on the hostage crisis. By contrast, I think some other news organizations come across as bland, giving a straight--by which I mean colorless--presentation of the news. We're aggressive, interesting and young in the sense that we're innovative.

[Q] Playboy: If you think ABC is at the top in terms of personality and aggressiveness, who's at the bottom?

[A] Donaldson: NBC. But individual correspondents at the other networks, such as Bill Plante and Lesley Stahl at CBS, are aggressive. Competitively speaking, I think my colleagues now believe they need to show their presence more aggressively, because if you work for NBC or CBS, it gets awfully tiring to have Reagan constantly say, "Well, Sam, let me tell you." Or, "No, Sam. . . ." I mean, you have to cut out the Sam, and that takes a little time. CBS doesn't want those constant references to Sam, since people kind of know whom Reagan's talking about; they want him to say, as he did yesterday, Bill. That's fine. Still, I suppose that I have one personal, as opposed to institutional, advantage over some of my colleagues: I have a loud voice, and since Reagan is half deaf, he naturally responds to things he can hear. But there are times when he seems to hear much better than others. [Laughs]

[Q] Playboy: It hasn't escaped our notice, Sam, that you've been relatively restrained so far in discussing both your colleagues and the subjects you've covered; you choose your words with great care. Is this the same kind of caution that made you hesitate before agreeing to do this interview?

[A] Donaldson: Yes. I discussed it with my lawyer and several friends, some at ABC but not management. As you might suspect, half of them said, "Sure, why not?" and the other half said, "You can only injure yourself; you don't need it."

[Q] Playboy: Too high a risk?

[A] Donaldson: If you do an interview like this, no matter how honest the interviewer and the magazine--and I believe Playboy is honest or, clearly, I wouldn't have dared risk it--well, in all the hours that you talk, you're going to say things that later you're going to wish you'd put a different way. Even if I haven't said anything egregiously stupid or provocative, anything I say will, like Kissinger's Lone Ranger remark to Fallaci, be read in various ways.

[Q] Playboy: Why did you make the decision to go ahead and do it?

[A] Donaldson: Ultimately, for the challenge. If I had said no, I'd have to ask myself what I was afraid of. Also, there's self-interest involved; there has to be. Ultimately, I want to be judged by the job I do for ABC News. Now, among the interviews done with me in the past three or four years, this is the first to really ask me about my work or the business. Every other one has concentrated on what the interviewer discerned or had been told about my off-air personality.

[Q] Playboy: Do you feel you're not seen as a serious man?

[A] Donaldson: Yes; a lot of people do not regard me as a serious man. They respond to me because they like my "act"--or because they hate it. It either amuses them or repulses them. Still, trying to get my views across in this interview won't necessarily help me, say, with Roone Arledge. I trust it won't hurt me, either. Let me put it to you this way. It's no secret that I want to leave the White House assignment. People have known that for two years, and Arledge has agreed to find something else for me.

[Q] Playboy: Which some people say is because of what is commonly called burnout. And that returns us to the rumors, accurate or not, of your becoming "flaky," increasingly jumpy and temperamental.

[A] Donaldson: I don't agree with that characterization of my activity or demeanor.

[Q] Playboy: Nonetheless, you've been talking about your increasing frustration in covering the White House.

[A] Donaldson: That I'll agree with. I've been saying that because of the burnout factor, I felt it was time for me to leave the White House assignment. I mean, the tenth time you see the same story come through the pressroom, you write it because it's your job, not because you find it exciting and important. The White House beat can become sterile, and, as someone once said about being ridden out of town on a rail, if it weren't for the honor of the thing, I'd sooner walk. There are days when it is exciting, when I feel that I've done a job that I hope is good, but there isn't that much opportunity for growth. The first time you go to the White House, you're in awe of the Presidency. The first state visit, you see the ceremony on the South Lawn with the cannon, the 21-gun salute and Hail to the Chief, and--wow!--your stuff looks pretty good. About the 50th time you do it, you say, "Who wants to see the cannon again?" Besides, I'm tired of being the one who has to go up to the rope line and yell the questions and get the mail that says, "You rude, crude, arrogant loudmouth!" Well, I don't need that anymore, thank you very much.

[Q] Playboy: What would you do instead?

[A] Donaldson: I don't know, and I'm not dodging the question. At the moment, there are jobs that aren't open, but if Roone wanted me there, I'd certainly be happy to take them.

[Q] Playboy: An anchor position?

[A] Donaldson: Reynolds was once the White House correspondent; so were Rather and Brokaw, and they all now have traditional anchors' jobs. There's talk, I don't know if there's anything to it, that someday Roone may decide to put the Brinkley show up against 60 Minutes, and that would be a hell of an idea. That's self-interest, because I'm on the Brinkley show at the moment, and put up against 60 Minutes, I think we could take them.

[Q] Playboy: "I think we could take them." Sums it up, doesn't it?

[A] Donaldson: I always knew I could do the job, but, yes, I'm doing a better job today than I did when I first came to the White House. I believe that. I don't know whether you're born with it or you acquire it, but you certainly don't come to the White House at the age of 42 and suddenly develop it. Look, I'm aggressive!

[Q] Playboy: One final thing--

[A] Donaldson: Sure, sure! [Loud laugh] All I can think of is poor old Jimmy Carter hanging on to his door in Plains, about to answer his final question, just dying to tell you guys how he had lust in his heart. No one made him say it. Just wanted to be one of the boys so he wouldn't be thought of as some Southern Baptist prude. But sure, fire away.

[Q] Playboy: Nothing as dramatic as that. We were just going to ask, How do you compensate for the pressures of your job? How do you let off steam?

[A] Donaldson: [Long pause--first one in the interview] I don't know. I don't have any hobbies. I go out to dinner, I listen to music in my apartment, but I don't spend much time there. So I don't know how to answer your question. I don't do anything but work.

[Q] Playboy: There's another side to that, though.

[A] Donaldson: You know there is. It's what people call my act. That's how I release tension and frustration: I let it out; I do a lot of yelling at work. I'm also not certain that my needing a pill to get to sleep sometimes may not be related to the job.

But the biggest price I've paid is the end of my long second marriage. During the campaign of 1976, I'd go home for a few hours at a time to change my laundry, then go back on the road. And everyone at home would understand that was why I was coming home. [Bitter laugh] It's hard for a loving relationship to continue when it's understood that Daddy's coming home because he needs fresh underwear.

It's been three years since I was invited to leave my marriage, and I think I've gone through my way stations: pretending I'm 24 again, pursuing women because it's supposed to be the thing to do. The process may not have ended, but I think one needs to regularize one's life. You have to have an anchor, something in your life that's not just yourself: someone you can talk to, let down your hair with; someone you can love.

[Q] Playboy: You realize, don't you, Sam, that this has been a lot of serious talk from a guy both the public and some journalistic insiders see as the wild man of the airwaves? You've been not only serious but downright careful in your answers to us.

[A] Donaldson: Obviously, I've been careful. I understand what this is about, that you publish what I say and that I can't just pop off as if you and I were having an informal drink, B.S.ing over some red wine. But I know what's said about me out there. I even read about myself in a comic strip, freaking out like Howard Beale in the movie Network. Why should I add to the perception that I'm not a serious person? So, yes, I've been very careful in this interview, even to the point of not using the profanity I might use in everyday language. You're suggesting that's not the real Sam Donaldson? Well, I'm tired of that exaggerated perception of me. If I'm coming off a little statesmanlike, well, your questions are serious, not frivolous, and I appreciate that.

[Q] Playboy: But, in the final analysis, how much of it is covering yourself, simple careerism?

[A] Donaldson: OK, fair question. There is some careerism. If I came off as a non-serious idiot, I don't think the president of ABC News would be very impressed and want to give me any more responsibility in his news organization. But I want to tell you something: Believe it or not, I'm personally tired of the way my public image has been going. It's been snowballing. And I'm not such an insensitive boor that I can laugh about all the things said about me. Now, I'm not trying for a moment to deny that in my private life, I like to have a little fun. Occasionally, I'm still capable of walking down a street and, if I see a little ledge, I'll jump off it, like a 17-year-old would. But I think I've matured; I think I'm serious about my work; I think I'm a reasonably decent human being. I can't defend all my actions, but on balance, I think you can take me places without fear that I'll run amuck, attack the ladies, bore the men.

[Q] Playboy: Do you mean that with age, you may end up becoming more like Walter Cronkite after all?

[A] Donaldson: I'll never be thought of as Walter Cronkite, nor do I want to be. On the other hand, I'm not Howard Cosell. I'm not knocking him, but in doing this kind of interview, he'd work hard to add to the Howard Cosell legend and be pleased he was able to do so. I don't want to add to the legend that I'm a wild, crazy man. In my ideal world, I'd go out walking in the woods or raise roses in the garden. That's a lot more refreshing to me than parties or sports. Because in this business, when a telephone line goes down, say, in Omaha, and that prevents you from feeding your report to the network, and everything else is crashing down around you, you've got to do something. Meanwhile, this so-called act of mine manages to keep me from going nuts.

"A lot of people think I'm aggressive. Some admire that; others think it a rude, boorish quality; I think I make people a little nervous."

"Some of Reagan's associates believe that reporters somehow aren't quite as good as the President. Well, I don't need that anymore, thank you."

"I said, 'Mr. President, I think I have a right to ask a question.' He said, 'Well, I can also ask you to go sit in the corner and wash your mouth out with soap.' "

"Until the print guys see what their beards look like without make-up, they won't understand why we do it. They think it's vanity. No, it's to keep our job, son."

"When I came East to New York, I left the conservative fold. I was reading The New York Times and other so-called Communist-inspired papers, such as The Washington Post."

"Of course, I'd like to protect the President, but in those two seconds during the assassination attempt, my job was to watch Ronald Reagan."

"I need the fast action. I don't have to have all of every big story in Washington--no one can--but I need a piece of it."

"Carter had greater insecurities than Reagan. With Reagan, you get what you see. With Carter, I was never quite clear what he was."

"Too many policy decisions have been made by men in closed rooms. When bullets fly, people die, and TV pictures ram that message home."

"Before Roone could say anything, Reagan said, 'Oh, that's just Sam. He's irrepressible, as you know."'

"It's hard for a loving relationship to continue when it's understood that Daddy's coming home because he needs fresh underwear."