The Insider Page #32

MIKE WALLACE:

Did I get you up?

LOWELL:

No, I usually sit around in my hotel

room, dressed like this at 5:30 in the

morning, sleepy look on my face.

There's an awkward quiet. Mike enters. He slows, looks

around.

MIKE WALLACE:

How many shows have we done? Huh?

C'mon, how many?

LOWELL:

Oh, lots.

MIKE WALLACE:

Yeah, that's right.

LOWELL:

But in all that time, Mike, did you ever

get off a plane, walk into a room, and

find that a source for a story changed

his mind? Lost his heart? Walked out on

us? Not one f***ing time! You want to

know why?

MIKE WALLACE:

I see a rhetorical question on the

horizon.

LOWELL:

I'm going to tell you why. Because when

I tell someone I'm going to do something,

I deliver.

MIKE WALLACE:

Oh, how fortunate I am to have Lowell

Bergman's moral tutelage to point me down

the shining path. To show me the way.

LOWELL:

Oh, please, Mike...

MIKE WALLACE:

(beat)

Give me a break!

LOWELL:

No, you give me a break! I never left a

source hung out to dry, ever. Abandoned.

Not 'til right f***ing now! When I came

on this job, I came with my word intact.

I'm gonna leave with my word intact.

F*** the rules of the game! Hell, you're

supposed to know me, Mike. What the hell

did you expect? You expect me to lie

down? Back off? What, get over it?

MIKE WALLACE:

In the real world, when you get to where

I am, there are other considerations...

LOWELL:

Like what? Corporate responsibility?

What, are we talking celebrity here?

MIKE WALLACE:

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.

He trails off. They look at each other.

MIKE WALLACE (cont'd)

Now, along the way I suppose I made some

minor impact.

(beat)

I did Iran-Gate and the Ayatollah,

Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Saddam,

Sadat, etcetera, etcetera. I showed

them thieves in suits.

(beat)

I've spent a lifetime building all that.

But history only remembers most what you

did last. And should that be fronting a

segment that allowed a tobacco giant to

crash this network?

(beat)

Does it give someone at my time of life

pause?

(simply)

Yeah.

And the look on Wallace's face is "It did. Whether it should

or should not...what difference does that make? It did."

And we realize only now that he has not come to argue.

LOWELL:

Mike...in my...

MIKE WALLACE:

(low)

You and I have been doing this together

for fourteen years.

And he gives Lowell a copy of The New York Times.

MIKE WALLACE (cont'd)

This is today's New York Times.

(beat)

In it is the whole sordid story of what

went on inside our shop.

Lowell looks down at the page. The headline is "'60 MINUTES'

ORDERED TO PULL INTERVIEW IN TOBACCO REPORT."

MIKE WALLACE (cont'd)

And in the editorial... It accuses

us...of betraying the legacy of Edward R.

Murrow.

Turning, he walks out and down the hallway. Lowell looks at

the newspaper.

INT. THE COMMUTER HELICOPTER - MORNING

The helicopter approaching Manhattan. John Scanlon sitting

with Hewitt, both of them reading The Wall Street Journal

Wigand article.

DON HEWITT:

(troubled)

They conclude most of it seems pretty

unsubstantiated...

(looking at him, sickened)

You're full of sh*t, John.

INT. COFFEE SHOP, NEW YORK - MORNING

Lowell at a table littered with New York Times, New York

Daily News, etc. His phone rings...

LOWELL:

Yeah.

INT. A CITY BUS, NEW YORK - MORNING

Broadway backgrounds streak past Debbie DeLuca's head as she

rides, talking on a cell phone, The Wall Street Journal in

her hand.

DEBBIE DELUCA:

...front page. There's a picture of

Wigand. Article's entitled, "Getting

Personal," by-lined to Suein Hwang and

Milo Geyelin. Wait, hold on a second,

Lowell.

Debbie hits "call waiting."

DEBBIE DELUCA (cont'd)

Yeah. Yeah, sure. I'll see if I can

find him. Hold on...

(beat; to Lowell)

Yeah, Don's looking for you...

LOWELL:

Good.

DEBBIE DELUCA:

The sub-heading is, "Brown & Williamson

Has a 500-Page Dossier Attacking Chief

Critic."

It quotes Richard Scruggs calling it "the

worst kind of an organized smear campaign

against a whistle-blower."

INT. COFFEE SHOP, NEW YORK - MORNING

EXTREMELY CLOSE Lowell.

DEBBIE DELUCA'S VOICE (OVER)

"...a close look at the file, and

independent research by this newspaper

into its key claims, indicates that many

of the serious allegations against Mr.

Wigand are backed by scant or

contradictory evidence..."

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