thank you for having us.
what? i can't conduct an interview from back there.
will you tell him that when i conduct an interview, i sit anywhere i damn please!
you! i'm talking to you!
good, well ask him if arabic is his second language.
no. . that's got my heart started.
sheikh fadlallah, thank you so much for seeing us. are you a terrorist?
a servant of god? really.
americans believe that you, as an islamic fundamentalist, that you are a leader who contributed to the bombing of the u.s. embassy.
"president assad of syria said that difficult obstacles remain but that his country, quote, 'looks forward to a great, long peace with israel.'"
you eating with us?
bring a tie so they'll let us in the front door.
what "seven dwarfs?"
well, it isn't "cigarettes are bad for you".
no shit.
am i missing something here?
he's got a corporate secrecy agreement? give me a break. this is a public-health issue, like an unsafe airframe on a passenger jet or. some company dumping cyanide into the east river. issues like that? he can talk, we can air it. they've got no right to hide behind a corporate agreement. pass the milk.
what do you mean?
oh, torture? great ratings.
even if he gets the defense team, will he go for it?
how are the rooms? comfortable?
thank you got saying that.
yeah, well, questions will go toward what work you did there, why you were fired. and others will deal.
who are these people?
you heard mr. sandefur say before congress that he believed nicotine was not addictive?
all of us did. there was this whole line of people. whole line of ceos up there all swearing.
and that's what cigarettes are for?
a delivery device for nicotine. put it in your mouth, light it up, and you're gonna get your fix.
you're saying that brown & williamson manipulates and adjusts the nicotine fix, not by artificially adding nicotine, but by enhancing the effect of nicotine through the use of chemical elements such as ammonia.
and you sent the document forward to sandefur?
in other words, you were charging sandefur and brown & williamson with ignoring health considerations consciously.
and on march 24, thomas sandefur, ceo of brown & williamson had you fired. and the reason he gave you?
and, do you wish you hadn't come forward? you wish you hadn't blown the whistle?
good.
i like that.
no, no, we're fine.
after we corroborate it. that's why we've never lost a lawsuit and run a classy show. anything else?
you said "on this one." what about "this one"?
how grace?
sure. don't worry, we call the shots around here.
what?
lowell.
lowell.
lowell!
i'm with don on this.
i took off on tisch. i took off on corporate. they'll know they're not going to see everything on sunday night.
do me a favor, will you? spare me, for god's sake. get in the real world. what do you think? i'm going to resign in protest? to force it on the air? the answer is "no." i don't plan to spend the end of my days wandering in the wilderness of national public radio. that decision i've already made.
you cut it! you cut the guts out of what i said!
time? bullshit! you corporate lackey! who told you your incompetent little fingers had the requisite skills to edit me! i'm trying to band-aid a situation, here, and you're too dim to.
"mike?"
"mike?" try "mr. wallace." we work in the same corporation doesn't mean we work in the same profession. what are you gonna do now? you gonna finesse me? lawyer me some more? i've been in this profession fifty fucking years. you and the people you work for are destroying the most-respected, the highest-rated, the most-profitable show on this network!
". thousands of documents from inside the tobacco industry have surfaced over the past year, documents that appear to confirm what a former"
". us surgeon general and the current head of the food and drug administration have been saying. we learned of"
". a tobacco insider who could tell us whether or not the tobacco industry has been leveling with the public"
". that insider was formerly a highly- placed executive with a tobacco company"
". but we cannot broadcast what critical information about tobacco, addiction and public health he might be able to offer. why? because he had to sign a confidentiality agreement with the tobacco company he worked for"
"the management of cbs has told us that knowing he had that agreement"
". if were to broadcast an interview with him, cbs could be faced with a multibillion-dollar lawsuit"
"the fact is, we are not allowed even to mention his name or the name of the company he worked for and, of course, we cannot show you his face.  '. and your confidentiality agreement with.  is still in force?'"
"so, what are they gonna do? sue you for making this appearance?"
"the former executive has reason to bet on being sued, for major cigarette manufacturers"
you disappeared on me. how long you staying?
alright. what did you think?
did i get you up?
how many shows have we done? huh? c'mon, how many?
yeah, that's right.
i see a rhetorical question on the horizon.
oh, how fortunate i am to have lowell bergman's moral tutelage to point me down the shining path. to show me the way.
give me a break!
in the real world, when you get to where i am, there are other considerations.
i'm not talking celebrity, vanity, cbs. i'm talking about when you're nearer the end of your life than the beginning. now, what do you think you think about then? the future? "in the future i'm going to do this? become that?" what "future"? no. what you think is: how will i be regarded in the end? after i'm gone.
you and i have been doing this together for fourteen years.
you fucked up, don.
no, that's fame. fame has a fifteen- minute half-life.  infamy. lasts a little longer.
we caved. it's foolish. it's simply dead wrong. now, this is what we're going to do. we're going over to black rock.
"cbs management wouldn't let us broadcast our original story and our interview with wigand because they were worried about the possibility of a multi-billion dollar lawsuit against us for tortious interference.  but now things have changed."
"you wish you hadn't blown the whistle?"
that canada story? still interest you?
bullshit.
c'mon, it all worked out. you came out okay in the end.