Sam Donaldson Interview (page: 8 / 9) ABC News Correspondent	Print Interview

With so many eyes watching you, and so many opinions out there, you're opening yourself up to criticism on a daily basis. How has criticism of your work affected you? How do you deal with criticism?

Sam Donaldson: I say to people...

Get the Flash Player to see this video. "If you want to be universally loved, if you want to win a popularity contest, don't get in the news business." At least not in the sense of being the front guy. Because there is no way you can report a story and have everyone say, "Well, that's fine, and I'm sure they did a great job." And particularly if you're covering politicians, because people invest their loves, and their hopes, and their hatreds in politicians. And when you stand on the north lawn of the White House talking about President X and you have to report that something went wrong that day, all of his fans says, "Well, of course, that's wrong. He couldn't have made a mistake like that, it's this vicious reporter."

[ Key to Success ] Integrity

Then they write you a nasty letter saying, "Get off his case." If he's a Democrat, they say it's because you're a Republican. If he's a Republican, they say it's because you're a Democrat. You take this criticism, but you don't let it deter you in doing the job that needs to be done. You can't bend with critics. "Oh, well, they don't like this so I better pull in my sails, or do it another way." That's not saying you ignore all criticism. Once in a while, I get a letter from someone and they'll be right. That was not the way to do it. Or I was factually inaccurate and they caught me. Or I mispronounced a word and oh, they're right there! The word police are there every second.

So you look at the criticism, you think about it. But if it's just people who don't like what you say because they don't like hearing it, don't pay any attention. You won't be the most popular person. You won't be universally loved, but I think you'll be respected, because you'll do the job that ought to be done.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. One of the fondest letters that I ever received, and I posted it on my door for years until it grew yellow with age, said to me: "Dear Mr. Donaldson, until today I thought of you as nothing more than a loud-mouthed ignoramus. But today, watching the David Brinkley program, I realized you had other despicable qualities as well." And they signed their name. I thought to myself, "Hey, there's a critic!" And I put it right up on the door. They're entitled to their view, but I didn't share it, naturally.

You yourself have said that you believe that you're perceived as being arrogant. How do you respond to that?

Sam Donaldson: I don't feel arrogant. I think a lot of people think I'm arrogant for several reasons. One, I'm intense. I'm not your avuncular, hale fellow, well met. I admire my friends, Walter Cronkite -- the greatest -- Charles Kuralt, Ted Koppel, people who make you feel comfortable, and they're not threatening at all.

And I'm sitting there, and I'm intense. When I start questioning someone on the Brinkley program, I'll get the bit in my teeth, and I'll get the fire in my eyes and you say, "Who is this guy? And why is he pressing that question? I mean, didn't the guy give an answer?" No. That's why I'm pressing him. He didn't give an answer. "But excuse me, sir, you did not answer that question." I think this comes across as arrogance. And second...

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I do believe you have to be self-assured. That doesn't mean cock-sure, in the sense that I think I'm always right. I don't. I know, frequently, when it comes to opinion matters, I'm often wrong. And once in a while I'm wrong in factual matters, although I try hard not to be. But I think you have to feel that you have some self-assurance. Why would you do something if you didn't believe in it? Why would you say something if you didn't think it was right? If you're arguing a public issue, why would you argue your side if you didn't believe in your side? And I think that too can come across as arrogance. "Who does he think he is? He thinks he's the smartest guy in the world." But the bottom line is, I don't feel that I'm better than my colleagues, or my audience. And I don't think of myself as arrogant, but I'm aware that other people do. And I regret that, but I'm me and I'm just going to have to go on being me.

[ Key to Success ] Courage

Have you ever had doubts about your work? Where did you get your confidence in your mastery of your profession?

Sam Donaldson: Well, I've never had any doubts about my ability to do the work that I was doing. Once in a while you get in over your head. If you get through it, you breathe a sigh of relief and say, "Wow, I really didn't have that together, but I made it." Once in a while you put a piece on the air that is a disaster for one reason or another. But you always want to work just a little bit ahead of your level if you can. Otherwise you don't advance.

One of the most awful moments I remember was in 1984. Ronald Reagan had gone with other world leaders to the beaches of Normandy to celebrate the 40th anniversary of D-Day. It was a big deal, and the whole day we were all over the beaches, from Pointe du Hoc, to Omaha Beach, etc. There must have been a hundred cameras doing video tape. There was a French pool, there was the British pool, there was the United States unilateral pool. ABC had individual cameras at various locations.

I had a couple of guys back in London who were supposed to be screening all these miles of tape. Well, I got back on the helicopter with other reporters. It was evening in Britain, but in the United States, it was late in the afternoon. We had about two and a half hours till air time. Now, this was the lead story on the ABC World News Tonight, and they gave me about six minutes. It was really a big deal. I got back and I sat down and said to the guys, "Okay, let me see the stuff from Pointe du Hoc." They started going through the cassettes and said, "It's not here."

I suddenly realized that things had not been catalogued. We had miles of cassettes and no one could find anything. I had in mind a little bit of what I think the story should be, but I had to see the tape, I had to see the sound bite., My notes say Reagan said this or that, but we need to see exactly. And of course, we have to give it to the editor to edit.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. We got within 35 minutes of air, and of this six minutes we'd only edited about three minutes, and I saw disaster looming. Now, the entire network that day depended on this story, from me. I had this great support team, but in some senses they dropped the ball. It wasn't their fault. It's too long to explain. And all the money that ABC had spent to send us all over here and all the potential audience loss! Because if we weren't going to get on the air, that audience knew how to get to CBS and NBC within the press of a finger on that clicker. And I'm thinking to myself, "Wow, does everything depend on me." But you know, that energizes me. We got it done. And again, I couldn't have done it alone. We got on the air at the last minute, but I breathed a great sigh of relief, because that was skating right on the edge of not just, "Okay, the spot wasn't very good," or "It didn't work out." That was disaster. And for me it would have been a personal disaster, because would they have blamed my producers? No, and they shouldn't. Would they blame the cameraman? No, no. "Hey, Sam, how come you didn't produce?" And it was so important.

But that's exhilarating too. Talk to the skydivers, the mountain climbers, the great athletes. When you skate on disaster and win, wow do you feel good! Of course, if you lose, you drop right over. But you have to have confidence.

If you panic at that moment that I've just described and say, "It's 35 minutes to air, we can't find anything!" If you just throw up your hands and start making up excuses, so that, when the rockets come in from New York, "Where is that story?" you say, "It's this guy's fault!" -- you're lost.

I've talked to pilots who've brought airplanes in through dangerous storms, when the tail has almost fallen off. They're sitting there on the controls and they've got passengers. One false move, not being able to do it quite right, and that plane is going to crash, and everybody's going to die, including the pilot.

Now there are two ways you can go. You can throw up your hands and cry to mama, or you can sit there and try to figure out how to do it. I'd rather do the latter. Wouldn't anyone? I've been very fortunate so far in life. I've been able to do the latter in this business.

What do you think is your greatest achievement, personally and in the business?

Sam Donaldson: I haven't done the kinds of stories of Woodward and Bernstein did, Watergate. I can't claim to have reformed the business in major ways. I have done some things that I am proud of, and I've done some stories that I'm proud of.

Many people ask me, "What's the most interesting interview you've ever done?" Usually it's the last interview that I've done. I'd come up with a big name that people knew: Anwar Sadat, or Ronald Reagan, or Margaret Thatcher. Now for the last couple of years I know how to answer that question. It's a name no one's ever heard of, but I think it's one of the best pieces of work I've every done.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. In 1994, with the help of a lot of people, I went down to Bariloche, Argentina. And I encountered a man that I knew was going to be walking down a street at a certain hour, with two cameras, to talk to him. He was 80 years of age, he was a kindly looking grandfather figure, he'd just come from a school where, as was his wont, he had been helping with children. And I said, "Erik Triebke?" "Yes," he said. I identified myself: Sam Donaldson of American television. I said, "You were the number two Gestapo chief in Rome in World War II." "Yes," he said. And I said, "You participated in the massacre of 335 Italians, will you tell me about it?" I don't know whether to this day the man did, but he stood right on the street corner, he told me about it.

I thought I was in the movies. All my life I had seen Curt Jurgens and other actors playing Nazis saying, "I was just following orders." I'm standing on the street corner and the man explains to me why they shot all of these Italian civilians in the back of the head. He was just following orders, he said. "It was not a crime, I was just following orders." I thought it was a crime, I told him so. We argued back and forth. Eric Triebke had done this. He'd done such a good job that in the last year of the war he worked for Adolf Eichmann. He deported six to seven thousand Jews to their deaths in the death camps.

There he was, living under his own name, a pillar of the community in Bariloche. We talked for about 15 minutes, arguing back and forth. I said, "By all conventions, by all humanity, this is a crime." "Well," he said, "it wasn't then. You did it in Vietnam." I said, "Yes, but it wasn't national policy. And when we caught our soldiers who did those things in Vietnam, we tried them, we sentenced them."

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I got a little unprofessional and I said to him, I said, "Herr Triebke, many people think you should be executed for your crimes." Well, you saw something in his eyes. At that point, he thought maybe talking here in front of these cameras wasn't the brightest thing in the world. Perhaps he shouldn't be doing this. So he moved to his car and he looked up and he got in the car and he said, "You are not a gentleman." I said, "I'm not a gentleman? At least I'm not a mass murderer. I mean, there's something to be said for me." He drove off. Italy immediately asked for his extradition. And after a year and a half, Argentina extradited Erik Triebke to Italy.

As you and I speak, he's standing trial. I think he'll be convicted. There's no death sentence in Italy, so he'll simply spend the rest of his life in jail. I must confess to you, I hope he lives a long life. As Rabbi Hier said, he wasn't conscripted. He did it voluntarily. He liked Hitler's policy. Kindly looking old man!

I said to him, "Are you sorry for what you've done?" He said, "Yes, I'm very sorry." And I said, "Old men are sorry for the things they do when they're young, but shouldn't old men have to pay for the things they do when they're young." "Well," he said, "it was not a crime." I want him to pay. I hope he will pay. I think that's one of the best pieces of work I've ever done. It may not win any awards, but it fulfills me.

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