Fact, Fiction and ‘The Insider’: A Key Figure Comments

In your piece about “The Insider� (“Smoke Lingers as ‘The Insider’ Does a Slow Burn,� by Paul Lieberman and Myron Levin, Dec. 3), you report that the movie gives me credit for things I did not do. It does. I have always acknowledged that. But you also report that I should not be given credit for things I did in fact do. You do that because your reporters never asked me about these events, nor did they check their facts.

Case in point: the Unabomber story. You credit “CBS Evening News� correspondent Jim Stewart with the “scoop.� The fact is--and Andrew Heyward, president of CBS News, acknowledged this in a memo to the staff at the time--I was a principal reporter on this story. Further, I did make a deal with the FBI to hold the story for three weeks to a month, and reported that to executives at CBS News. At the end of that time period, another CBS News producer was alerted to what was happening and notified Jim Stewart, and we wound up running the story as the FBI reacted and decided to make the arrest. Afterward, the FBI acknowledged that CBS News had acted responsibly and held the story until they were ready.

Further, your story implies that I did not meet alone with representatives of the Hezbollah. That too is untrue. Jim Hougan did make the initial contacts for the interview, but I had one-on-one meetings with them too, and these meetings were key to Mike Wallace appearing on location.

And while it is true that I never met with a Wall Street Journal editor, I did--as the movie shows--recruit a private investigator, Jack Palladino, who did meet with the reporters involved. Palladino could have told you about this, if you had asked him.

The filmmakers who created “The Insider� are clear. It is not a documentary. Unfortunately, your article pretends to be nonfiction but does not in my opinion live up to the standards of basic reporting.

LOWELL BERGMAN

Berkeley

*

After a year of complaints from various groups that Hollywood turns out one cheap sex, crass comedy, violence-laden film after another, where is the support for a smart, dynamic, exciting film? Director Michael Mann and co-writer Eric Roth have done an exemplary job in translating a character-driven story, full of ideas and talking, into a compelling film of dramatic images, outstanding acting and entrancing music.

Yet the audience for the film is perceived as wanting the absolute assurance they’re going to be entertained and not have to think too hard. Well, I was entertained, as was everyone I’ve talked to who has seen the film. (And if this film constitutes thinking too hard, then the next millennium will be darker than the last.) But if the film is neglected by its audience, i.e., those who want to see “better� films, then next year, instead of another film like “The Insider,� we’ll have three more versions of “Big Daddy� to whine about.

WILLIAM COLE

Venice

*

At least “The Insider’s� filmmakers didn’t publish a K-12 study guide to glorify their artistic license. Nor has anyone denied the fact that CBS withheld timely release of its story on big tobacco. The front office overruled “60 Minutes.� So long as the film is not billed as a documentary, the artistic license taken may show controversial judgment, but that’s all.

By the way, has anyone ever told us how many hours of tape CBS shoots to get its 20-minute segments? And how it is edited?

WALT MEARES

Burbank

*

The movie fails to tell the real story of what sparked the new legal revolution against the tobacco industry and caused the companies to pay billions of dollars to settle the state attorney general lawsuits.

The fire that lit the fuse of public outrage was not the revelations of Wigand with the assistance of former “60 Minutes� producer Lowell Bergman. Instead, it was an award-winning investigative piece by another “60 Minutes� producer, Walt Bogdanich, who (then with ABC News) exposed tobacco manufacturers’ secret manipulation of nicotine to addict millions of Americans--more than a year before Wigand was interviewed.

Bogdanich’s startling report in February 1994 galvanized the Food and Drug Administration to open its historic tobacco investigation, prompted Congress to convene the hearing where seven tobacco chief executives lied under oath about nicotine addiction, and led to the filing of the first-ever class action on behalf of injured and addicted smokers.

What was Bogdanich’s reward? ABC’s brass sold him out when Philip Morris bullied them into settling a $10-billion libel suit, even though the network had reported the truth, and nothing but the truth, about the cigarette companies’ manufacturing practices. Bogdanich refused to sign ABC’s bogus apology, and his report still stands as the biggest story in the tobacco wars since the 1964 surgeon general’s report.

CLIFFORD E. DOUGLAS

President, Tobacco Control

Law & Policy Consulting

Ann Arbor, Mich.

*

If I were Don Hewitt, I’d be after Eric Roth and Michael Mann for grammar abuse. There I am, caught up in the drama and intrigue of the “to air or not to air� controversy, when the tension of the moment is shattered by the Hewitt character’s line “. . . they’re even talking to Mike and I.� I? I???

Even if Messrs. Roth and Mann didn’t know the difference, surely somewhere in the assemblage of actors, crew and the 812 people whose names appear on the movie’s credits, there had to be one lone individual who could differentiate between subject and object. This may be an insignificant quibble to the folks touting the movie, but I can assure you this glaring dissonance ruined what should have been a most climactic moment.

BERYL ARBIT

Encino

*

If there was ever a movie that was preordained not to have an audience, it is “The Insider.� It’s just a labored retelling of events that everybody already knows happened. The studio should have considered doing it as a low-budget direct-to-video release or perhaps an ultra-low-budget feature like “The Blair Witch Project.�

MATTHEW OKADA

Pasadena

*

Instead of asking top people in the industry why the film is not making much money, why don’t you take a poll from a cross-section of all the many people in L.A. who have seen the film? I saw the first 2 1/2 hours and I could not understand who all the characters were. I really stuck with it and concentrated, but I got lost so I gave up.

I knew who the Mike Wallace character was. The actor playing him was a bit stiff, which Mike Wallace is not--he comes over on TV as very relaxed and has a laid-back air about him, yet still getting his point over. But as for the other characters, God knows who they were.

SANDY ALLISON

Hollywood