Playboy Interview: Geraldo Rivera

"Never relax!" Geraldo Rivera calls for the third time as he pulls his 21-foot mahogany powerboat, "Beulah," into the choppy mouth of New York's Hudson River. "At 60 miles per hour," he warns his passengers, "the trip could get treacherous, so grab a handle on each side and hold on tight."

The voyagers head out through New York Harbor, past the Statue of Liberty, under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, then across a short stretch of the Atlantic Ocean to the New Jersey coast. This bracing journey is Rivera's usual commute from his office in Manhattan to his home in Locust, New Jersey, along the lush red banks of the Navesink River. For a while the pace slows to a leisurely 45 mph, until Rivera sends the boat into a sharp pitch to avoid a sudden cluster of driftwood. Once again, it's all about holding on tight and never relaxing.

Indeed, Geraldo Rivera knows a thing or two about bumpy rides. When this interview was conducted, he had just capped a two-decade comeback from professional ignominy by signing an exclusive pact with NBC News, placing him in the rarefied $7 million--per-year stratum usually reserved for TV's top anchors and stars. Above all, the deal speaks to the state of cable television today, pitting network news channels against CNN and its cable progeny and increasing the premiums for top talent.

On a personal level, though, Rivera's deal represents validation and a return from exile. In 1970, at the age of 27, he burst onto the scene at New York's WABC-TV as part of a move by the station's programmers to offer a newscast that better reflected the city's cultural diversity. With a degree from Brooklyn Law School, this ambitious son of a Puerto Rican father and a Jewish mother went to work for Community Action for Legal Services, one of the many do-good inner-city organizations of the Sixties and early Seventies. There Rivera became aware of the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican nationalist group working out of a Harlem storefront. He soon presented himself as legal counsel and spokesperson for the group, and it was in that capacity that WABC took notice of his swarthy good looks and easy manner with a microphone.

Rivera quickly made history at WABC, producing a report in 1972 that revealed horrifying conditions at the Willowbrook State School for the Mentally Retarded on Staten Island. It was epochal television, with viewers transfixed as an uninvited, aghast Rivera boldly directed his cameraman through scenes that were too real and grisly to believe. The Willowbrook story won Rivera an Emmy and put him on the fast track at ABC News, a path that led him to the network's prime-time magazine show, "20/20," and million-dollar contracts.

Those were heady days, Rivera notes in his often lurid 1991 kiss-and-tell autobiography, "Exposing Myself," "I was an odd kind of ghetto pet to New York's jet set." But he soon became one of the glittering crowd, partying with rock legends, marrying Kurt Vonnegut's daughter Edie (his second of four wives) and covering hot spots from the Middle East to Latin America. Embracing the gonzo approach to stories, Rivera helped establish "20/20" as a perennial programmers' favorite. His September 1979 report on "The Elvis Cover-Up," which raised questions about Presley's death by a drug overdose in 1977, remains the show's highest-rated episode.

But in 1985 Rivera's good fortune at ABC ended when he challenged management's decision to kill a report by Sylvia Chase that suggested a romantic link between John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe. ABC fired Rivera, who as recently as last fall maintained that the dismissal was part of an industry-wide blackball.

Cut adrift from his professional credibility, Rivera the populist found a lucrative home in syndication. His first live syndicated special offered viewers a glimpse into Al Capone's long-sealed vault in the basement of a Chicago hotel, promising lost secrets of the Mob. The vault was almost empty--but Rivera's audience was riveted, and the April 1986 broadcast became the most successful syndicated special in TV history, a distinction it still holds. To some, the Capone event also served as a demarcation point of Rivera's descent into TV hell.

His daytime talk show, "Geraldo," followed, with its procession of teenage hooker moms. In 1988, awestruck viewers watched as a confrontation on the show between black and skinhead guests escalated into a raucous brawl. A thrown chair broke Rivera's nose, and "Newsweek" ran his image on its cover--broken proboscis and all--to herald the new and curious age of trash TV. Subsequently, Rivera landed in every comedy monologist's repertoire. The release of "Exposing Myself" in 1991, with its dishy boasts of sexual conquests--among them Bette Midler and former Canadian First Lady Margaret Trudeau--seemed another blow to Rivera's career.

But, as always, he wasn't down for the count. CNBC president Roger Ailes (now chief executive of Fox News) hired him and launched a prime-time call-in show, "Rivera Live," in 1994--just in time for the O.J. Simpson phenomenon. Rivera dubbed the show "the program of record on the Simpson case" and indeed it soon became CNBC's most watched nightly program. That cachet led to NBC's lucrative embrace of Geraldo last fall.

To talk with Rivera about the strange road Geraldo has traveled since his first Playboy Interview (November 1978), we sentGregory P. Fagan,an associate editor at "TV Guide," to meet with the peripatetic newsman and ambassador to clamorous Nineties television. Fagan reports:

"Geraldo Rivera has a charismatic presence--more profound in person than on TV--that can rub people the wrong way. Some count him among the first and greatest of the Sixties' hippie sellouts. Some can't get past his generous nose and the way he provoked its breaking on national television. And some just label him a fraud--a kid from Long Island named Jerry Rivers who embraced the Hispanic half of his background only when it became profitable to do so.

"In sifting through research, I was surprised to see how much criticism Rivera has survived over the past quarter century. More intriguing, though, is how much false information persists, even as Rivera denies it. Take the Jerry Rivers story, for instance. In his first 'Playboy Interview,' nearly 20 years ago, Rivera explained that he was born Gerald Rivera, and that his Puerto Rican family dubbed him Geraldo, which he chose as his newscaster's byline. (He alters this story in his autobiography.) Yet the Jerry Rivers myth continues. It is as if his public has always been more satisfied pegging Rivera as a hot dog and scam artist than truly finding out what he's all about.

"For our late-night after-show sessions at Elaine's, New York's legendary media hangout, Rivera showed up on time and ready to talk. When our meeting moved to the New Jersey home he shares with his wife of 11 years, C.C. Dyer, and their two daughters, he was gracious and forthcoming.

"On one evening in particular, Rivera was looking out on the moonlit Navesink River from his back patio, and he began alluding to F. Scott Fitzgerald's tortured tycoon, Jay Gatsby. As he spoke, I realized that the character's accomplishments--rising from inauspicious roots to conspicuous prosperity--do invite comparison. Once again Geraldo Rivera has sold himself in grandiose and colorful terms, and his audience has, for the moment, bought it."

[Q] Playboy: We last interviewed you 20 years ago. It seems most of the major events in your career have occurred since that time--at least the newsworthy ones. Let's run them down. In 1985, you were sacked from ABC News after working there for quite some time.

[A] Rivera: Fifteen years.

[Q] Playboy: You lost your job over an exposé that linked Marilyn Monroe to President John F. Kennedy. How did that come about?

[A] Rivera: I was a senior correspondent and senior producer--a management role--at 20/20. Sylvia Chase, who was reporting the Kennedy story, came to me and said, "This is horrible. Roone Arledge is killing the piece!" Roone has had a long and brilliant career in news and sports journalism, but this was one time when he fucked up. Maybe it was his journalistic judgment, or maybe it was his relationship with Ethel Kennedy and his oversensitivity to matters involving the family, as I alleged at the time. But Roone canceled the story.

[Q] Playboy: Your firing was a rough blow for you.

[A] Rivera: I was 42, about the same age my father was when he got laid off from his job as the head of kitchen help in the cafeteria at the Republic Aviation Corp. in Long Island. He was a broken man, and I remember thinking of him as elderly at that time. I was determined that would never happen to me again. Then I got the Al Capone vault gig, and the rest is history. One day, unemployable. The next day, a dozen job offers. So, you know, for all the stigma, the jokes and the ribbing I've taken over the years--and it's been merciless--the fact is, the Monroe controversy eventually made me a rich and powerful man. Well, not rich--let's say a prosperous and powerful man.

[Q] Playboy: Summarize the Capone show for us. After months of buildup you cracked open Al Capone's long-forgotten vault in front of a national audience, only to come up empty-handed. What's the story behind that?

[A] Rivera: After I was fired from ABC, the only offer I had was from CNN, for $200,000 a year, and this was after I'd been making $1.2 million at ABC. I was spending $50,000 a month. That's the grim reality. The people who were dependent on me weren't just C.C., who was my girlfriend at the time, or Craig, my little brother, who was working for me. My mother and a huge circle of people who had no alternative sources of income needed me. I decided that, rather than deal with it--and considering I had my $500,000 severance pay from ABC--I would take my boat and sail it from New York City to Los Angeles. I figured that would at least tell my audience I wasn't moping about--that this was not a defeat but just another phase in my life.

But then I got a call from Jimmy Griffin, my agent, and he said, "I am honor-bound to give you every offer. This one I know you're going to turn down. The Chicago Tribune's television arm has this vault in the basement of the Lexington Hotel in Chicago where Al Capone lived for many years. There's something in there, but they don't know what: It could be bodies, it could be Prohibition booze equipment, it could be weapons. There has been stuff found in other Chicago vaults. And they have an idea for a live special."

I asked him, "How much?" He said, "They're offering $25,000. But you can't take it because it would be like when Joe Louis went into professional wrestling after his boxing career. You'll humiliate yourself." I said, "If they give me $50,000, I'll do it." So Craig, C.C. and I set off in New Wave, my 44-footer, and sailed to Key West and Cuba. I got a call on ship-to-shore from Jimmy. He said, "How can you do this job?" I said, "I've got no choice. It's one less month I have to worry about. I'll leave the boat in Panama, fly to Chicago, do it, then continue my journey."

And that's what happened. I flew back to Chicago for a month of on-location stuff for a pretty good documentary about the Mob era, and then did the live special in April 1986.

[Q] Playboy: And inside the safe?

[A] Rivera: Two empty Gilbey's gin bottles, a stop sign and a couple of other things.

[Q] Playboy: You looked pretty dejected on the air.

[A] Rivera: Yeah. I went to the party the Tribune threw that night at the Hilton. When I got there, the president of the Tribune had already left. Meanwhile, I promised the guys who did the actual digging that I would meet them at the Catfish Bar right near the Lexington Hotel. I went there and had a few.

What really irked me was knowing that Peter Jennings, my archenemy, was watching and laughing at me. Good thing the windows in my hotel room didn't open. The next morning, the elderly man who brought my room service said, "Don't worry. We don't blame you that the damn thing was empty." It made me think that maybe there was hope. Then there were all these messages outside the door--12 job offers. The show turned out to be bigger than the Academy Awards. It's still the highest-rated syndicated special in history.

Look, this was Hollywood, and they're lemmings. There wasn't a major studio in Hollywood that didn't offer me a job. I went from being the coldest, most unemployable man in the business to being the hottest commodity.

[Q] Playboy: The Capone gig led to your daytime show, which landed you alongside Donahue and Oprah, in the holy trinity of daytime talk. But part of that success had to do with sacrificing your role as a journalist in order to respond to commercial market pressures. In other words, it was sellout time.

[A] Rivera: Let me suggest that the difference between a program like Dateline NBC, for example, and one of the tabloid shows--say, Hard Copy or Inside Edition--is in degree, not in substance. The network would have you believe that it does a far superior and more honorable job. That's absolutely a canard. The topics on Dateline NBC and those other network shows are exactly the same ones everyone else is doing. Diana is dead. JonBenet Ramsey. Whenever they do an exposé, it's about the guy running a tire scam on a college student in a Georgia gas station, not stories about multinational corporations that actually have the resources to sue them. The network news business is more hypocritical today than it has ever been. It's absolute bullshit.

[Q] Playboy: Speaking of the Ramsey murder, you've called your CNBC show "the program of record" on the JonBenet Ramsey case. Why is there the continued fascination?

[A] Rivera: Here is a victim immortalized on home video, so we all have a chance to relate to that child in the cruelly artificial world created by her parents. An assistant D.A. in Denver suggested that the child was abused by the way her parents were exploiting her. So we already pity her and damn the parents even before the murder. That's the setting for the murder story--an exploited child whose parents are the objects of our disdain. What's the first thing they do when their child is killed under mysterious circumstances? They hire lawyers.

They've guaranteed they will remain under suspicion no matter what the grand jury in Boulder does, unless they find someone else who did it.

[Q] Playboy: Why hasn't there been a resolution yet?

[A] Rivera: It's like Zippergate. The only two people who can tell you whether or not they did it are the president and Monica Lewinsky. In a family homicide, the only people who can tell you are family members. If the crime originated in the family and no one's going to talk, it will remain unsolved. The forensic evidence is inconclusive. If there's a butchered little girl, and her father picks her up and hugs her to his bosom--as any dad would--then his forensics are all over the crime scene and all over the victim. So by his professed love for his child, he has obliterated any chance that the murder can be traced to him, forensically speaking. If the Ramseys are involved, it is diabolically brilliant, because once the crime scene is polluted in that way, it becomes a question of circumstantial evidence that isn't very powerful.

[Q] Playboy: Getting back to the point, hasn't the network news been dabbling in tabloid-style reporting for years?

[A] Rivera: Yes. The networks have gone down to meet the tabloids, and the tabloids have come up, partly to avoid the citizen revulsion that was welling up. But the difference now, especially on the big stories like O.J. Simpson, is almost indecipherable.

But to respond to your earlier question: Did all of this force me to become more commercial? Well, look at the great topics I did in the good old days. The highest-rated 20/20 in history was my story on the Elvis conspiracy. It was sex, drugs and rock and roll. It was Dr. Nick prescribing Elvis 12,000 pills and amphetamines in the last months of his life. It was a great topic for the National Enquirer. To say that what I did then was noble, and what I was doing until a couple of years ago was ignoble, is a gross oversimplification. In both cases I was doing stories that people have a gut interest in. A lot of times people don't even know why they're interested. They just are. But what I'm most scornful of is the pretense. I've always been one of the truth squads in the news business, and now it seems there's more bullshit and less difference than ever.

[Q] Playboy: Wait a minute. Through much of the afternoon-talk boom, you were slopping around in the mud with the rest of them.

[A] Rivera: I agree, I agree.

[Q] Playboy: And 60 Minutes, for instance, sure wasn't going in that direction.

[A] Rivera: I agree.

[Q] Playboy: And it wasn't until 1996, when talk-show trash came under heavy fire, that you introduced your bill of rights for viewers--a public promise to clean up your act. Do you really think much has changed since then?

[A] Rivera: I saw the Jerry Springer Show yesterday, with trailer-park trash punching each other onstage. I think Jerry Springer is the most shameful man in America. I look at him and see Geraldo at his worst--times ten. It's appalling that it still exists, that people advertise on that program. It's disgusting. I was even going to write him a letter about it today, mainly because he's a smart man. He was the mayor of Cincinnati, for God's sake. This is not someone who doesn't understand what he's doing.

[Q] Playboy: When did you begin to think about pulling out?

[A] Rivera: We all started trying to out-low-ball the other guy. I'd do "My Daughter Is a Hooker and So Am I," so you'd do "My Daughter Is a Hooker, So Am I and So Is My Mother." It just got crazy. But when I started losing my advertiser support, I pulled out of the death dive just to save myself and whatever remained of my reputation. I pulled out to get off the late-night monologs. In the end, I was getting a lot of the heat for things of which I wasn't by any means the most egregious example.

[Q] Playboy: When did you hit bottom?

[A] Rivera: The worst thing that ever happened to me was getting my nose broken, because that made me the epitome of the worst of trash television. That's what the Newsweek cover said. At some point, I thought, Fuck it, it's just not worth it. I'm not going to go there.

[Q] Playboy: You were clobbered with a chair by a skinhead.

[A] Rivera: It's been ten years and people are still talking about it. That's amazing, when you consider that Jerry Springer has about ten fights a week at this point. But it was a real fight. It was spontaneous. I'm not unhappy that it happened.

[Q] Playboy: Did you see the broken nose coming, or were you as surprised as the rest of America?

[A] Rivera: I wore my Herman Survivors boots that day. My assistant said, "Why are you wearing those?" I said, "Because if something happens, I want to be on firm footing." So, yes, I definitely knew that something could possibly happen. I was pushing these guys as far as I could. I hated them. Anyway, it's a much better industry now than it was five years ago. To the extent that I pulled it down, I also think I should be credited for pulling it up. I shouldn't get all the credit in either case.

[Q] Playboy: You've had more than your share of sobering experiences during the past 20 years. What's your biggest regret?

[A] Rivera: I'm sorry that I wrote the book. That's my biggest regret.

[Q] Playboy: You are talking about your autobiography, Exposing Myself. Bette Midler was furious over your revelations of the sexual liaisons between the two of you. Have you spoken to her since then?

[A] Rivera: No. No. It would be inappropriate. We now talk through intermediaries. Besides, I have said I'm sorry in enough different ways. Even if what I said was true, truth is not always an absolute defense, certainly not against bad taste.

[Q] Playboy: What other changes would you make if you could do it all over again?

[A] Rivera: I look back to the Marilyn Monroe-JFK-Roone Arledge business and think about how undiplomatic I was, how I could have schmoozed that situation more effectively. I could have made the same points privately. I didn't have to embarrass the man who had basically been my rabbi for ten years. Anyway, they told me at the time that it would all work out for the good, which is what is said to terminal cancer patients. But in the long run, ABC News is poorer for my not being there. I think 20/20 is a less effective show because of my absence. You know, I recently visited Barbara Walters' show The View and she said to me, on the air, that they still miss me at ABC.

[Q] Playboy: You have admitted that you had a crush on Barbara when you were working there.

[A] Rivera: Barbara Walters was--and is--a very sexy babe. When she was at her most intimidating, that's what all the other men missed. All the other newsmen were scared shitless of her, and so resentful of her that they missed the point--she is a profoundly sensual, very female being with a great body. How can you look at Barbara Walters and not see those great tits? She is just a great dame who happens to be brilliant and formidable.

It's funny, but if there were a brilliant and formidable guy who was also a hunk, you wouldn't ignore his physical attributes. But with Barbara, because it was politically incorrect, and because she scared the shit out of everybody, nobody went there. It was as if she wasn't a woman at all--she was Barbara Walters! She was like NATO, like the UN--an institution, not a woman.

That was the difference between how I saw her and how everyone else saw her. I always saw her as a woman.

[Q] Playboy: What's your opinion of Diane Sawyer?

[A] Rivera: I really came to respect Diane Sawyer when she went to the West Bank and somebody spit at her because she's an American. She stood there and took it. She didn't have to. By the same token, Dan Rather didn't have to go behind the lines in Afghanistan--Gunga Dan and all that. He already had the anchor job. But he did it anyway. I have tremendous regard for those people today. The great successes--there's not an accident among them. You have to honor them. They are successful because they are special.

[Q] Playboy: What about Stone Phillips?

[A] Rivera: Stone Phillips is generally not regarded as a heavyweight, but watch what he does. A guy like me wants to hate Stone. He went to an Ivy League school, was a star football player and a fraternity boy, has a well-connected family. Every benefit in the world. The fact is, he has worked his ass off. He has tried his best to learn his craft. He's dogged. He's gracious. He's graceful. I think he's terribly underrated.

[Q] Playboy: Sam Donaldson.

[A] Rivera: A hell of a journalist. He is undaunted, unswerving. He can be awkward sometimes, especially in the early days of Primetime Live. But give him credit. He's rebounded from personal turmoil, his illness and all the rest. I like him, though many people don't. I would never sit and have a drink with him, because I could never be friends with him. But I admire him.

[Q] Playboy: Dan Rather.

[A] Rivera: Dan Rather is my favorite, as kinky as he is and as weird as he is. It turns out that a guy really did accost him and say, "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" So maybe my instinctive regard for the guy is well founded. But I've always liked the way he delivers.

[Q] Playboy: Peter Jennings?

[A] Rivera: I don't think of him much. I still think of him as little Petey, whose father put him on the air. But he has paid his dues, too.

[Q] Playboy: What do you think of Christiane Amanpour?

[A] Rivera: Fabulous--and sexy. So incredibly appealing. She's exactly my type. She's got big balls, that woman.

[Q] Playboy: What's your take on the supposed rivalry between Amanpour and Diane Sawyer?

[A] Rivera: Christiane Amanpour is a seasoned war correspondent. Diane Sawyer is a socialite who wrote for President Nixon and then became a news correspondent who suddenly had to risk her dignity, even her physical safety. Christiane has seen it all and has been everywhere. Diane could have stayed on Fifth Avenue or Park Avenue, or at Regine's or Elaine's. She didn't have to go to the West Bank to put herself at risk. That's what made the event extraordinary. I wouldn't credit Christiane with having any more courage than Diane. Someone who is fearless doesn't necessarily have great courage, he or she is just fearless. Someone who is afraid and does it anyway, that's what I call a person of great courage.

[Q] Playboy: You have said you want to be regarded among the wise men of your generation, a respect you feel you've never been accorded. Do you think you should have made some compromises along the way to earn it?

[A] Rivera: I don't think my personal style has changed much. I don't think my message has changed. I don't think my personal philosophy has changed. I am basically the same person I was when I was 26 years old.

When I was at the University of Arizona, I didn't have a mustache and I cut my hair short. I wore Weejun knockoffs and khaki pants and madras shirts. And still, nobody bought me as another white kid. I tried and it didn't work. So maybe getting rejected from all those fraternities was the lesson I needed about trying to fit in. I may never fit into that establishment. But, thankfully, my audience is not the establishment.

[Q] Playboy: Last fall, you left your syndicated afternoon show to concentrate on your prime-time CNBC show. Some suggest that Dr. Jekyll had finally banished Mr. Hyde. Is that how you see it?

[A] Rivera: Look, I want to be a newsman. Having a live, nine o'clock program gives me a platform to talk about breaking news in a way that is free-flowing and spontaneous. I can easily and effectively say to people, "Here's what happened and here's what I think about it." But I'll continue to be independent. I'll continue to be an outsider. I'll continue to be the only minority anchor in prime time. My voice--because it's a different voice and because it's a courageous voice--will have resonance.

[Q] Playboy: Stop right there. Clearly, you're sincere, but isn't your choice of words--"different voice," "courageous voice"--a bit melodramatic? When you speak like that, some people who follow your career, even some of your fans, roll their eyes and think, There he goes again.

[A] Rivera: I am dramatic. I tend to say things in apocalyptic terms. Take what's been going on with President Clinton in Zippergate. It happened on Wednesday, January 21. During the next three days, every major commentator in the country, including Sam Donaldson and George Stephanopoulos, was talking impeachment. Some suggested it would happen as soon as the following Wednesday or Thursday. On Monday night, the 26th, I went on the air and said, "I like his chances." I was the only one in that firestorm of condemnation who said that. Why? Precisely because I am a minority. I was the only one in that crew who was listening to urban radio. When Hillary Clinton showed up in Harlem to make a speech at a day care center, I watched how adoringly the people of Harlem received her. I knew then that the accusers were taking this ride without the heart of the country. They were so caught up in the allegations, they didn't understand that the American people would not pillory this man for doing something that virtually every adult has done to some degree: Illicit sex. Lies. These simple people, the grass roots, the heart of the earth, saw that this was a chump charge. And I was the first one to see it.

[Q] Playboy: NBC made you a newsman in a highly publicized contract negotiation that was covered by all the papers. How did it unfold?

[A] Rivera: Television management is not terribly individualistic. They tend to go with trends. It just happened that, as this contract was expiring, all the things I had worked so hard to do had come to fruition. There was an almost simultaneous recognition--and, ironically, NBC was the last to realize it--that I was, for lack of a better phrase, a hot commodity.

I had inquiries from several different areas in media--radio, television and even television ownership. But ultimately it came down to my old boss and ally [Fox News chief executive officer] Roger Ailes believing that he saw something the others didn't and making a bold play for me.

[Q] Playboy: What did Ailes say to get your attention?

[A] Rivera: When Roger said, "It's not about money, it's about self-respect," he hit a real chord in me, because for me it was all about that: my personal vision of where I am and should be at this stage of my life. He said, "You should be the lead man in a news organization that respects you and backs you whether you're hot or in a jam. It's about people recognizing that, despite all the sideshows, you've been a journalist for a generation now."

I just said, "Wow, you got it right--I'm going." But then my agent, Jimmy Griffin, called and asked if I would take a phone call from NBC News president Andy Lack. I said, "What for?" He said, "Hear him out." So Lack started talking, talking and talking, and finally I said, "Andy, let me ask you a question: Am I going to be a news correspondent for NBC?"

He said, "Well, you'll have access to all of the NBC News resources...."

And I said, "Andy, am I going to be an NBC News correspondent or am I not going to be an NBC News correspondent?" Well, he fumbled around that issue for about 45 minutes. Finally I said, "Andy, you've made all your points, I've made all my points. Let's say goodbye and leave this as gentlemen."

[Q] Playboy: Why was it so important to you to be an NBC News correspondent?

[A] Rivera: When I worked for Eyewitness News at WABC-TV in New York in 1973, my first overseas assignment was in Chile. Augusto Pinochet had just led a CIA-sponsored coup that had overthrown Salvador Allende, the first democratically elected president of Chile. Eyewitness News asked me to go down and interview Pinochet. So I did the piece and signed off, "Geraldo Rivera, ABC News, reporting." Victor Neufeld, who later became the executive producer of 20/20, said, "No, you can't sign off 'Geraldo Rivera, ABC News.' It's 'Geraldo Rivera, for ABC News,' because you're not an ABC News correspondent." It was something I became hyperconscious of. So when Andy Lack was trying to sell me his bill of goods, it wasn't playing at all because I had been there 20 years earlier.

[Q] Playboy: But eventually Lack did come through. The deal not only makes you an NBC News correspondent, but also lets you keep your CNBC show, while guaranteeing you four prime-time news specials as well as featured appearances on the Today show. The only stipulation was that----

[A] Rivera: I had to give up the talk show.

[Q] Playboy: Right. Had the daytime talk show been on the table before?

[A] Rivera: I had already said that, if the salary got to a certain number, I would take the hit and get rid of the talk show.

[Q] Playboy: After all the negotiating, how does it feel to be a correspondent for NBC News?

[A] Rivera: I feel, in a sense, that I've joined the army again. Like all those 50-year-old guys who became paratroopers because they had to get involved in World War Two. It's like a government job, in that sense. But it's a huge deal.

[Q] Playboy: How do you think the job change will go over with the public?

[A] Rivera: You'll see a wave of all the old Geraldo haters who have been quiet. It has already started in the press. I'd forgotten how bitchy it can get. I'd forgotten how interested everyone is in "What did he get? What did she get?"

I said to Andy Lack last week, "Until I get to work, all they're going to talk about is you, me and the deal. As soon as I get to work they'll talk about the stories, and that will be fair." I told him that he'll have all the Geraldo hate stories, but that there won't be a single name attributed to any of the negative comments. That's the way they work. Chickenshits. Network chickenshits.

[Q] Playboy: Doesn't a guy like you enjoy the challenge of that kind of a confrontational environment?

[A] Rivera: I certainly don't shirk from it. Pick a fight with me, and you're picking a fight with the tar baby. I'm the worst possible person. Take, for example, Richard Cohen, the columnist for The Washington Post. I can't wait to say, "Isn't he the sissy who had an affair?" I don't give a shit if you publish it. He's the sissy who got involved with Peter Jennings' wife. He called me a "virus" infecting the body of the news. Howard Rosenberg of the Los Angeles Times is an archenemy I haven't heard from in years. Today he weighed in.

[Q] Playboy: What did he write?

[A] Rivera: I didn't read it. I started to but then I stopped because I didn't want to have a motive for murder. If he's ever killed, I don't want to be a suspect. I'll have O.J. do it. Even though, in my heart, I have a lot to prove to an institution and to history, contractually I have nothing to prove. All I have to do is show up for work for six years and they have to pay me. So long as I don't commit any felonies.

I've already heard that Tom Brokaw said I wasn't going to be on the show, I wasn't going to substitute anchor for him and I wasn't going to do special reports for the show.

[Q] Playboy: And, knowing what Brokaw said, that's OK by you?

[A] Rivera: Yes, that's his deal. I'm not going to get involved in the jousting. Let them go through whatever angst they have to go through. Data talks and bullshit walks. I've always thought the stories and their commercial effects spoke for themselves.

[Q] Playboy: Former NBC correspondent Arthur Kent also weighed in on your NBC contract: He said, "A lot of my colleagues at the news division are up in arms over it. In a few years, there will be no real news in America."

[A] Rivera: Arthur Kent is an empty leather jacket.

[Q] Playboy: Is it just sour grapes on his part?

[A] Rivera: Of course it is. He was famous as the Scud Stud for about ten minutes. He didn't even get 15.

[Q] Playboy: A little while ago you stood outside on your balcony and looked through the trees to the peaceful Navesink River, and you said, "This is a nice place to grow old." You have two lovely homes, a great young family and plenty of money. Does having young children, at this stage of your life, temper your sense of adventure?

[A] Rivera: What it clearly does is limit the occasions where that's even a consideration. I mean, you just don't go to war as often as you used to when you have a three-year-old and a five-year-old and a talk show----

[Q] Playboy: Not to mention, what, 15 dogs?

[A] Rivera: That's why I knew Simpson did it, by the way. From the very first minute.

[Q] Playboy: What?

[A] Rivera: That Akita didn't bite him. There's only one reason the Akita didn't bite O.J. Simpson: because Simpson was the alpha male, and I know about being the alpha male. Do you think that huge Akita would have stood by with his head under his leg when his mistress was being slaughtered on the front steps of her house? It would never happen. The Akita was the real lie-detector test. There's only one man on earth that dog would not have attacked, and it was the alpha male in the family. Simpson had bought that dog. He had raised that dog. In effect, he had sired that dog.

[Q] Playboy: Why wasn't this theory ever presented in court? Was it just too off-the-wall?

[A] Rivera: It was never presented at trial because everyone was so intimidated by the defense. The Dream Team was so formidable that these civil servants didn't stand a chance. Anything they did would be questioned in a hostile environment; besides, the jury was predisposed, so the prosecution probably never could have won.

[Q] Playboy: Marcia Clark is now your colleague at NBC and a regular on your show. Do you feel comfortable saying she never had a chance?

[A] Rivera: I don't think it was Marcia's fault. She was up against a century of relationships between the LAPD and the African American community of Los Angeles. She couldn't have made the cops appear believable to that particular audience no matter what she said or what she did. They could have had a confession. They could have shown a videotape of O.J. Simpson stabbing this woman, and he still would have gotten an acquittal with that jury.

[Q] Playboy: You said you won't write a book on the Simpson case. But if you did, what would the blurb on the back cover say?

[A] Rivera: "O.J. Simpson was blessed by his athletic prowess. He is now doubly the luckiest man alive. He is a brutal double murderer who doesn't have the good sense to keep his mouth shut. He's an arrogant man who doesn't love anyone. Not his children. Not his slain wife. Nobody but himself." I only wish that, in a different context, we could settle it man to man, because he's a creep and he needs to be punished.

[Q] Playboy: It's said that you have a personal fantasy about having a bar fight with O.J. Simpson. Who wins?

[A] Rivera: First of all, I have to be careful what I wish for because my wishes have a way of coming true. But in the fantasy, I'm at the second or third table in the bar--the place I sit after I've already gone past the point of no return in terms of self-discipline and adult responsibility. I'm never sloppy about it, but I get very cavalier. It's smoky and it's late and I've got half a buzz on. Then Simpson comes in. Al Cowlings is almost always with him, and Cowlings is huge. In the dream it varies, depending on how aggressive I feel. I say something--but more often Cowlings says something, and sometimes Simpson says something. Then there's almost no conversation after the initial burst. It's the kind of fight that is stopped before anyone is mortally injured, but it's still a serious bar fight. And it settles things between us.

[Q] Playboy: You have a full gym in your home and you own a boxing gym in New York City. Are you secretly in training for a real bout with Simpson?

[A] Rivera: I can take care of myself. He's big, though. Simpson is a big person. But I just don't think he's very tough without a knife. And you can tell him I said so. My experience has been that men who abuse women generally have no balls.

[Q] Playboy: Wasn't there also talk about a pay-per-view boxing event between you and Joey Buttafuoco?

[A] Rivera: Yeah.

[Q] Playboy: You're always picking public fights with the bad guys. What's going on here?

[A] Rivera: I tend to reduce things to "Oh, yeah? Put 'em up." I'm very basic and retro in that sense.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think that's one of the reasons people question whether you have a wise man's temperament?

[A] Rivera: I'm not particularly embarrassed by it, if that's what you're asking. I'm sure I've had more fights than any other millionaire in America [laughs].

[Q] Playboy: Let's discuss race, which you call the number one issue facing the country today. You also say it's the least covered story. Why?

[A] Rivera: I'm not an alarmist about great social trends, but I see a real fracture happening here. I don't think the white media understand at all how alienated black people are from the whole scene. They are separate and unequal in a way that is every bit as dramatic and egregious as the days before Brown vs. Board of Education. What's happening now is that black people are getting their own media and their own universities. They interrelate with whites only to the extent that they have to, in pragmatic terms. But there is definitely a true and profound movement apart between whites and blacks. With Hispanic people, it's a bit more ambiguous. The separation tends to be about language, or the differences between black Hispanics and white Hispanics. It's more complicated. But there's a separation happening in the Hispanic community--which, by the way, is the fastest-growing minority and will be the largest in ten to 15 years.

And then you have the Farrakhan phenomenon, the Promise Keepers, the born-agains and, of course, the Republicans and the Democrats. There are very few people who can speak to all the disparate groups. Now, maybe it's my ego talking--maybe it's overinflated self-importance or maybe it's just ambition--but I feel that I am uniquely situated to be a bridge between the various communities, to cut through the bullshit, to be a truth speaker. To have an impact. So while I can understand that outsiders might view my ambition as rewriting my epitaph, I do have a grander vision.

[Q] Playboy: But you're at a point in your career where you can actually coast. A lot of people like you would take it easy. Isn't that the temptation? Why be so motivated now?

[A] Rivera: Because I think I can affect the beginning years of the next millennium. I'm as comfortable on 125th Street as I am on Park Avenue. I don't think there are a lot of people who can make that statement. And I don't think there are a lot of people who can back up that reality. People who are like me--in this increasingly fractured United States--are going to be more and more important. I don't know. Maybe I overstate my importance. But I have had a couple of hits. And maybe I can have a couple more.

[Q] Playboy: Do you honestly feel we're a more fractured society than we were 20 or 30 years ago?

[A] Rivera: It's crazy, man. It is crazy. Go to any student union in the country, in any so-called integrated university. Black kids, white kids, and almost never the twain shall meet. Black dorm. White dorm. Gay dorm. Lesbian dorm. It's amazing.

[Q] Playboy: But doesn't it seem odd that after generations of assimilation, and a few decades of integration----

[A] Rivera: It's absolutely over. There are fouler things said privately now in black groups and in white groups--about each other--than at any time since the goddamn Civil War. In fact, the Civil War is still going on. It's impossible to overstate how serious this is.

[Q] Playboy: How did we get to this place?

[A] Rivera: Oh, I saw it years ago. I saw it in the Young Lords. I saw the raw bitterness of those kids. But it really came to me during the Simpson trial, when I saw the knee-jerk reactions on both sides. People were choosing sides along racial lines. It was as basic as that. People chose sides and refused to be swayed by the facts.

Were you so inclined, you could track the TV viewing habits of black America and white America to chronicle the growth of the schism. There is virtually no correlation between the top ten programs in black America and the top ten programs in white America. I don't think there's a black person in the country who watched Seinfeld, or a white person who watches New York Undercover.

Do you know what black people call the United Paramount Network? The United Plantation Network. They know what's going on. They know what's in the minds of the white owners of UPN. And I forget what they call the Warner Bros. Network, but it's something equally pejorative. You now have conscious decisions being made by moguls in Hollywood to niche programs in a way that would do credit to Jim Crow. And I think sociologists are missing this. Television is really leading the way to neoracism. It's awful.

And that's too bad. Separation is a fact of American life. People are choosing to be segregated. I think forced integration is sophomoric. If you want to integrate, you do it. If you don't, you don't. I don't know. Do black people read Playboy? Is there a black editor of Playboy? Is there an urban Playboy? Urban is the code word now. What does urban mean, anyway? It's bullshit. What they mean is black. What is this "talking to the urban audience"? Fuck you, urban. Urban means black.

[Q] Playboy: Do you talk with your good friend and business partner Quincy Jones about this?

[A] Rivera: Quincy is great. He stood by me through that Simpson bullshit. And you don't know the tenth of it. It was very--I don't want to say scary, because I don't get scared, and I would never admit it if I did. But I was living in a pressure cooker. Friends stopped being friends. People were saying I betrayed them. It was an amazingly conflict-filled time in my life. It was horrible. And Quincy never wavered. Not for one minute. Thank God for the Quincys of the world.

Anyway, my point is that white people and black people are farther apart than they have ever been. And unless we recognize that they have absolutely separate experiences and should be judged accordingly, then we have no chance as a nation. That's going to be one of my big crusades.

[Q] Playboy: And you don't see the president doing anything to help at this point? You've given up on Clinton?

[A] Rivera: As much as I like the guy, he went to Akron, Ohio for a town meeting on race, and it seemed like there were three or four black guys, and there were no Latinos. Everybody else was a white college student. What is that? If they wanted to have a race dialogue, they should have shown my confrontation in the Washington Cathedral after the O.J. Simpson verdict. That's the reality of race, not what the president did. His was jive.

[Q] Playboy: Not confrontational enough?

[A] Rivera: The big, telling remark was when he said: "You want to do away with affirmative action? Well, what about Colin Powell?" That was as provocative as he gets on race relations? That was the daring comment of the night? Give me a break. How about black mothers who are afraid to let their kids go home on the subway, not because of the crooks but because of the transit cops? Because the cops may feel threatened by them and shoot them for no reason other than that they look menacing. That's what it's all about, not Colin Powell.

[Q] Playboy: Let's talk a bit about drugs. Last year, you did a show from one of the more notorious drug locations in New York City: 173rd Street in Washington Heights. Didn't you feel the slightest bit at risk being there?

[A] Rivera: I lived there. I feel at home there. I could walk anywhere in New York and be received as an ally, a neighbor, a friend. That's one of my greatest achievements. My first New York apartment was down on Avenue C. Places where others might need a police escort, I'm welcome, even by the people I'm exposing. It's funny. They say, "Oh, come here to take a picture of the crack den." There's no hostility at all. It's, "How nice of you to stop by." And it's not just New York. I get the same reactions in other communities. Los Angeles. Chicago. Miami. Dallas. Houston.

[Q] Playboy: Do you see the irony in that? You're not exactly a guy from the hood anymore.

[A] Rivera: But they know I'm a square shooter. Even if I went to a skinhead place--if it wasn't a particularly confrontational setting--they wouldn't beat me up. It would be, "Hey, it's Geraldo."

[Q] Playboy: That gives you a leg up on your competition. How do you think your peers would fare in that environment?

[A] Rivera: Give me a break. Can you imagine Peter Jennings on 173rd Street for three minutes without six bodyguards? It wouldn't happen. There's no one else. Not even Mike Wallace, God bless him, who is a far better reporter. Most of the African American reporters wouldn't go there, either. It's just that they're not comfortable in that milieu. And I'm absolutely comfortable.

When I ride the subways, I'm like a frigate on patrol, you know?

[Q] Playboy: Haven't you been reporting on drugs throughout your career?

[A] Rivera: I have chronicled the war on drugs more intimately than anybody, and I challenge anyone to dispute that. I've been in opium mills in the tribal territories on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. I've been in the Golden Crescent--Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. I've been all over goddamn South America. I've tracked the French Connection. I've been to every crack den in Washington Heights and Harlem.

Nobody knows more about drugs than I do. And I have come to the conclusion that we have lost. That's something I've only had the courage to say in recent months, but I'm going to say it much more often now. We have expended the nation's treasures, the nation's blood. And we have fucking lost. It is time finally to admit that a junkie is going to get whatever a junkie wants, no matter what you do. Stop this canard. Take that money and put it into rehab programs. Put it into educational programs. Put it into treatment programs. People are going to do what people are going to do.

That's the kind of position I'm going to take in the next millennium. Hugh Downs has said it. William F. Buckley has said it. I'm going to say it over and over again. Drugs should be legalized and taxed. Marijuana for sure, but drugs generally. It's so silly: Robert Downey Jr. going to jail for six months? Exactly who did he hurt? But, no, put the cuffs on him and take him away. Bend him over. Let Bubba fuck him in the showers. During his sentencing, he said that he started using when he was eight. That's how cool that was. Right, that's cool. You're a great actor, now you're going to jail.

[Q] Playboy: Have you met him?

[A] Rivera: I hung out with him when he was doing Natural Born Killers. He seemed like such a nice guy. He was frail. He didn't seem like most of the junkies I've known.

[Q] Playboy: OK. we've covered the really important topics--race and drugs. What about sex?

[A] Rivera: Sex is fun. If it weren't fun, there would be no problem.

[Q] Playboy: You had quite a reputation, much of it chronicled in Exposing Myself, of being a dashing young international journalist stud. But a few tabloid reports to the contrary, you have been laying relatively low. How much have you changed?

[A] Rivera: The difference between me and Robert Downey Jr. is that he just could not give up drugs. And I could give up extramarital sex. Both are, if not addictions, fascinations and learned behavior. I love sex and I love flirting. Flirting is still very much a part of my essence. I'm not made for a monogamous world. Monogamy is an Anglo concept. To most Latin European men, or Iberian men, the whole notion is hopelessly archaic. It's not that I disagree with it philosophically. It's just that under the rules I choose to live by--because they are the rules of the game I'm playing, the game of life in Anglo Saxon America--you are not allowed to cheat. And my wife wouldn't permit it. She wouldn't be married to me if I did. So you make choices and you sacrifice.

It's not that I don't want it. It's not that I don't have my fantasies or remember the good old days. But you have to choose between that life and this life--you can't compromise. You can't make a deal, as I'm very clever at doing in most other aspects of my world. Because the deal is, you either fuck around or you're married. Those are the only two choices.

[Q] Playboy: What about the tabloid rumors linking you with Denise Brown?

[A] Rivera: I know the Denise Brown rumors aren't true. So, no matter what they said, it was only making me a bigger man. No one could say, "Aha, gotcha!" I never got her, so they couldn't get me. You know, there have been very few women who have said bad things about me. Actually the only bad things that have been said about me publicly have been by women I made the mistake of mentioning in my book. I broke the oath, which was my mistake. But I had a great run.

[Q] Playboy: So you're down to fantasy now?

[A] Rivera: Everybody dreams of screwing whoever the babe of the moment is. But the fact is, there's always a babe of the moment, so you could screw all day long every day--especially if you're rich and famous. Nobody says no anymore; it doesn't matter who they're married to. It's almost as if I should get some extra credit for not screwing around.

[Q] Playboy: All this talk sounds suspiciously like the sexual reappraisals of a middle-aged man.

[A] Rivera: Am I going to live to be 108? I'm way past middle age. I've got one foot in the grave. Luckily, my dick hasn't joined my foot. Sure, I have a lot of reflections. And am I concerned about the final chapter? Do I seriously care about a legacy or an impression? Yes. I care deeply.

[Q] Playboy: Let's wrap up. When you took us across New York Harbor in your powerboat, you kept repeating, "Never relax." It's interesting that your hobbies--sailing, powerboating--aren't exactly passive pursuits.

[A] Rivera: That's true. I don't want to overpaint it. I mean, I'm not one of those extreme sports people. But I enjoy a good ride. I'm very respectful of the ocean--or the mountain, or the sky--but I'm not a sissy about it. You know, the first boat I ever had I stole.

[Q] Playboy: You stole it? What kind of boat was it?

[A] Rivera: A runabout.

[Q] Playboy: And it was stolen?

[A] Rivera: I saw it and I couldn't afford it, so I stole it.

[Q] Playboy: Did you give it back?

[A] Rivera: No. I felt bad about it. I almost got caught stealing it. But I never gave it back. This was a long time ago.

[Q] Playboy: You were busted once, though, weren't you?

[A] Rivera: Yes. For stealing the tires of a 1955 Oldsmobile in West Babylon. Me, my friend Frankie DeCecco and another kid. Frankie is dead so I'll name him, but the other one I won't name. Anyway, we stole the whole Oldsmobile. We took it joyriding and then abandoned it--none of us wanted to keep it. We knew we'd get arrested for auto theft. But we kept the tires.

[Q] Playboy: Just the tires?

[A] Rivera: Great tires. Not that they fit on any of our cars. They were just cool tires. We stashed them someplace and forgot all about them.

[Q] Playboy: How did you get caught?

[A] Rivera: I remember being called to the station house with my father. I had no clue what for. I went into the interrogation room and there were the four Oldsmobile tires. They had these electric blue rims. I knew exactly what they were the second I saw them. The policemen said almost nothing. My dad asked, "Did you steal them?" He was--I could cry telling the story--the most honorable man who ever lived. He had worked like a slave his whole life to give us a better life. Getting up at 4:30 every morning to work in the kitchen of this fucking defense plant. And I couldn't lie to him. So I said yes. He was so brokenhearted that I resolved right there that I would never, ever do anything that would embarrass him again. It was such a profound moment that I remember it photographically. It definitely pulled me away from a place I might have gone.

[Q] Playboy: You have pretty strong feelings about your dad.

[A] Rivera: I grew up mad at my father because he was so humble and had so little. I always had an attitude in that sense. But the one thing he always had was pride and self-respect--which demanded respect. I don't want to idealize him; he had his flaws. But he loved his children. He loved my mother. He worked hard. He sacrificed the way working-class people sacrifice every day, striving so his children would have better than he did. That moment in the police station crystallized for me that his moral code was admirable and desirable. And because it was honorable, it was my moral code of choice. Until that moment, I was drifting toward punkhood.

[Q] Playboy: You used to run with the rock-and-roll crowd--Jagger, the Allman Brothers, Paul Simon. Your current situation seems about as far from that life as you can get.

[A] Rivera: Ah, I don't think so, really. I'm friends with Jon Bon Jovi and hang out with him. C.C. was at the Stones concert yesterday. It's just that we understand the need for family and a base, and some semblance of domestic tranquility and trust. Someone to watch your back. Some sanctuary. Knowing that in all the chaos there is a place of relative tranquility gives me great strength. It's kind of like the Bat Cave. You know, the Bat Cave with kids [laughs].

[Q] Playboy: And a wife.

[A] Rivera: Oh, when I lie down with her, it's like sleeping with the crystal of power. It's so safe. Besides everything else--sexual and the rest of that--it's so comfortable and so confidence-building. It's almost like recharging a battery. And you go forth from here, to do . . . whatever.

Good and bad, I'm definitely strengthened by spending time here. It's a great place to be.

The network news business is more hypocritical today than it has ever been. It's absolute bullshit.

Jerry Springer is the most shameful man in America. I look at him and see Geraldo at his worst.

There's only one reason the Akita didn't bite O.J.: because Simpson was the alpha male, and I know about being the alpha male.

It is time finally to admit that a junkie is going to get whatever a junkie wants, no matter what you do.

I love sex and I love flirting. Flirting is still very much a part of my essence. I'm not made for a monogamous world.