FIRST PERSON

Bob Schieffer On Days Of Gavel-To-Gavel Coverage

As Told To Lisa Caruso

Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2008


First PersonBroadcast journalists remember the days when they covered the conventions live from gavel to gavel--and they had real news to report and big scoops to score.
• Bob Schieffer
• Dan Rather
• Cokie Roberts
• Ted Koppel

At the 1972 Republican convention in Miami Beach, Sammy Davis Jr. was performing--apparently he was a [Richard] Nixon supporter--and he came out on stage and grabbed Nixon and gave him a big bear hug! I swear it looked like Nixon was going to jump out of his shoes. I don't think he had ever been touched by a black person before. He looked like someone had goosed him. The look on his face!

During the 1980 Republican convention, there was a big story going around that Reagan was going to pick [former President] Ford as his vice president, and Walter [Cronkite] lured Ford up to the anchor booth and was interviewing him. Ford was in there with Walter expounding on the story, and it just brought the whole convention to a dead stop. Everybody was looking up at the CBS anchor booth wondering, "What's President Ford saying to Walter Cronkite?" Barbara Walters, who is one of the best in the business, was at ABC at the time. And she went up to the booth and started banging on the door, saying, "Let me in, let me in!" We were all wondering what she would do if she actually got in--interview Ford on CBS? It was one of the great scoops of all time.

One of my favorite moments at a Republican convention was in New Orleans [in 1988] with Jim Baker, who was George [H.W.] Bush's campaign manager. That's the convention when Bush shocked everyone by picking Dan Quayle to be his running mate. Jim Baker literally came out on the convention floor and found three or four of us out there and announced that Dan Quayle was not his idea. What he actually said was, "This was the president's personal choice," but what he really was saying was, "Don't blame me for this."

I love conventions. Any time you get this many politicians in one place at one time, and there's that much whiskey, you're going to find out something you didn't know.

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