CBS to Rather: Good Night, And Good Luck

The official end of a TV news anchor era: From left, NBC's Tom Brokaw, CBS's Dan Rather and ABC's Peter Jennings in 2004. "We made each other better, I think, by being so competitive," Brokaw recalled. (By Gregory Bull -- Associated Press)

Dan Rather is a free man. After an appropriately acrimonious final round of legal wrangling, his 44 years with CBS News came to an end yesterday -- or will come to an end today. Or will end Friday. There's a bit of confusion on that point.

Those who have followed the awkward exit of Rather from his position first as anchor of the "CBS Evening News" last year, then as a CBS News employee this year, often ask a simple question: How could a network for which Rather has done so much and served so loyally treat him so shabbily as the curtain falls?

Some think there is a strange personal grudge against Rather by CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves, who was quoted diplomatically in a CBS news release yesterday as saying of Rather, "The unique mark he has left on his craft is indelible." Others think there is intense pressure on CBS News President Sean McManus to clear Rather and all remnants of him from the premises in preparation for the arrival of Katie Couric, the former "Today" show host who will anchor the "Evening News" this fall and has a growing reputation in the business as the neediest diva on the block.

An explanation from one of Rather's many supporters inside the company: "We're dealing with a bunch of classic idiots."

Reached at his home in New York, Rather did not sound rattled. It is unlikely he will make an appearance at the fly-infested CBS News building on New York's West 57th Street this week; the contents of his office -- including the family Bible that was always opened to a different verse -- have been removed and will be sent to him. As of Friday, officially, Dan Rather and CBS News will no longer be one.

Now that the smoke has cleared from a final skirmish, Rather says he and his wife, Jean, and one or two of their children are headed for a retreat in the Catskills that has been in the family for decades. Then the couple will head to Alaska because Dan loves to fish there, and because the air is so clean. Especially when compared with the air on the Upper West Side.

CBS will pay Rather, either by lump sum or biweekly paychecks, through November, when his contract is officially up. Since he makes $12 million a year, that was worth arguing about, and CBS executives did argue until Monday. As most of those who follow such events know, Rather was removed as anchor of the "CBS Evening News" a year short of his 25th anniversary after the airing of an apparently flawed "60 Minutes II" report on George W. Bush's alleged special treatment while in the Texas National Guard. Rather was the correspondent on that report. One producer lost her job, others are suing.

Don Hewitt, executive producer of "60 Minutes," and Mike Wallace, its most famous correspondent, huffed and puffed and declared that Rather should resign. Dan Rather is not the resigning type. Wallace has since apologized.

Although the CBS farewell statement issued yesterday was mostly bland and laudatory, it was updated later in the day on the CBS Web site after Rather's statement was released; a small blog war ensued. "In response to the [Rather] statement," said the Web site, "a CBS spokeswoman said: 'We value and respect Dan's tremendous career at CBS News. Despite the fact that we couldn't reach an agreement that satisfied everyone, we wish him all future success.' "

Rather was reassigned after the Bush report to join the correspondents on "60 Minutes" and "60 Minutes II," a then-successful spinoff of the original classic news program. If "60 Minutes II" went off the air, the agreement said -- and it did go off the air -- Rather was to join "60 Minutes," where he'd earlier made a major mark as an investigative reporter, full time. But Rather discovered in fairly short order that he was a correspondent in only a token, perfunctory way.

He contributed a mere seven reports to the shows over the past year and a half, Rather said Monday. "From 18 to 22 is the norm."

Some of his detractors claimed this was poetic justice because Rather, on ascending to the anchor chair March 9, 1981, supposedly banished his predecessor, Walter Cronkite, from ever appearing on the program and even from doing other reporting work for CBS News. But one of Rather's supporters said yesterday that, first of all, Rather would hardly have had the authority to "ban" Cronkite from the airwaves and, second, Cronkite hosted a series, "Universe," in prime time on the network.