By Michael Gartner
Remembering the life
of Tim Russert
Tim Russert didn’t want to be on television. He was a senior executive — an
inside guy, a go-to guy, an idea
guy — when I joined NBC News as
president in 1988. He had a background
in politics, and a few months
after I signed on I asked him
to head the Washington bureau.
He didn’t want to leave New York
and thought he was being shoved
aside, but he very reluctantly
agreed.
In Washington, he quickly re-established
old contacts — he had worked for
Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
and he seemed to know half the
town — and increasingly the morning
news conferences at NBC were filled
with his inside stories of this,
his analyses of that and his predictions
of this and that. He was always
right.
“Tim,” I said to him one day
a year or so later, “the news
call isn’t supposed to be more
interesting than the news shows.
We’ve got to get across on the
air the stuff you’re telling us
every morning. You should be on
the air.”
No way, he said.
Eventually, he agreed to go
on the “Today” show periodically
to talk politics with his equally
knowledgeable friend Al Hunt and,
later, as an occasional panelist
on the sagging “Meet the Press”
show, but Russert remained mainly
an inside guy, an unseen face,
a choreographer of coverage.
Finally, I told him he should
be — had to be — the moderator
of “Meet the Press,” which wasn’t
doing well.
No way, he said again.
We argued. We debated. We fought.
He raised objections, I shot them
down. At the end, he said, “Look,
I can’t do it. I’m ugly.” Well,
I said with a laugh, I can’t argue
that one — he had a chubby face
that looked like it was made out
of Play-Doh — but I’m not looking
for a handsome guy, I’m looking
for a smart one. Finally, he agreed,
and in 1991 he became moderator
of the show.
I had some sweatshirts made
up with his picture on the front.
“Tim Russert,” they said, “Not
just a pretty face.” He was, eventually,
amused.
He was made for the job. His
training from the Jesuits had
sharpened his mind, his lessons
from his father had instilled
his values, his life in politics
had widened his knowledge and
his training as a lawyer had honed
his questioning. The show was
almost an overnight success, and
soon we expanded it to a full
hour. Then he and it took off.
He used old-fashioned tools
in a new-fashioned industry. He
used a chalkboard like a coach.
He put words — words, of all things!
— on the screen to make his point.
He was as tough as he was fair,
as demanding of himself as he
was of his guests. He prepared
for each show as if it was a final
exam.
Most of all, he was believable.
That face turned out to be what
my father called “an affidavit
face.” You looked at him, and
you just knew he was telling you
the truth.
The show made him rich and famous.
I don’t know how rich, but a few
years ago, when he signed a new,
long-term contract with NBC, he
called me up to tell me, and he
remembered his reluctance about
taking the job. He laughed, and
he said: “I thank you. My wife
thanks you. My son thanks you.
And my unborn grandchildren, however
many there will be, thank you.”
It must have been a good deal.
But no matter how rich and famous
he became, he always came across
on television as a nice guy —
who couldn’t like a guy who loved
Buffalo and who wished his dad
Happy Father’s Day on the air?
— but he was more than nice. He
was kind, he was caring and he
was generous.
A few years ago, I called him
and asked if he’d make a big speech
in Des Moines, where I live. It
was part of a lecture series at
Drake University. I knew he was
in great demand, I said, but I
asked if he’d do it as a favor
for me. “They’ll pay you $30,000,”
I added. He didn’t think twice.
“I’ll do it under one condition,”
he said. “The $30,000 goes to
that program for kids that is
Christopher’s memorial.”
Christopher was one of my sons,
and he idolized Tim. Christopher
died in 1994, at age 17, from
an initial attack of juvenile
diabetes. I had left NBC by then,
but within hours of Christopher’s
death the phone rang at home in
Des Moines. It was Russert. I
was in tears, and he seemed to
be, too. He expressed his deep
sorrow, and then he said: “Look,
if God had come to you 17 years
ago and said, ‘I’ll make you a
bargain. I’ll give you a beautiful,
wonderful, happy and healthy kid
for 17 years, and then I’ll take
him away, you would have made
that deal in a second.”
He was right, of course, that
was the deal. I just didn’t know
it.
As it turns out, there was a
similar deal — the terms were
58 years — with Tim.
We just didn’t know it.
But we — his family, his friends,
his guests and his viewers, all
of us so enriched by him — would
have made it in a second. CV
(Michael Gartner of Des Moines
wrote this column for USA Today.
He was president of NBC News from
1988-1993. We are reprinting it
with permission.)
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