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• Face the Nation bio on Mr. Schieffer
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Tavis: I'm pleased to welcome respected and award-winning journalist Bob Schieffer to the show tonight. Next week at Arizona State University, Bob Schieffer will moderate the third and final Presidential debate. But this week, he's out with a new book looking at the storied history of CBS' "Face the Nation." The book also features a DVD of compelling moments from the show. Here's a sample.

Bob Schieffer: In the early hours of yesterday morning, this was the scene in a studio of television station CMQ in Havana, Cuba. The revolution is over, and the studio is jammed with newspaper photographers, armed guards...studio technicians, armed rebel fighters. From this studio in Havana, you are about to see Fidel Castro, leader of the successful rebel forces who overthrew the dictatorship of General Batista. And now, by television tape-recording, you will see Fidel Castro "Face the Nation."

Tavis: The book is called "Face the Nation: My Favorite Stories From the First 50 Years of the Award Winning News Broadcast." Bob Schieffer joins us tonight from New York. Mr. Schieffer, nice to have you on, sir.

Schieffer: Well, thank you very much, Tavis.

Tavis: Congratulations to "Face the Nation" and CBS. 50 years of this. And you started, as I recall, reading--I wasn't around then, so I recall reading that you started with Senator Joe McCarthy. Was he on, what, the first show?

Schieffer: Senator Joe McCarthy was the first guest. Now, Tavis, I have to tell you I wasn't the moderator 50 years ago.

Tavis: Yeah.

Schieffer: Although a lot of people think I was. But yes. Isn't that amazing that the first guest on the broadcast was Joe McCarthy and it was the Sunday before the Senate began debating whether he should be censured? Like many others who have come after him, he thought he could come over onto the program and go over the head of the Senate and make his case to the American people. But basically what happened was the senators got so mad at what he said on "Face the Nation" that it really just speeded up their decision to censure him. He accused the Senate of having a lynching bee, said some other fairly outrageous things about senators. They didn't like it at all, and it really hastened his downfall. But the amazing thing about it to me was a year later when CB--when "Face the Nation" celebrated its first anniversary, who but Joe McCarthy sent a statement and congratulated them on a year of broadcasting? Nobody to this day knows why he did it, but he did.

Tavis: Well, we know you couldn't have been hosting 50 years ago. You're not yet 50 yet, so you couldn't have been around 50 years ago. Let me ask you, speaking of "Face the Nation," about the last interview of one of my heroes, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., gave to CBS, "Face the Nation," I believe around 1967.

Schieffer: Yeah. You know, it was very interesting. Martin Luther King Jr. appeared on the broadcast once a year for the last four years of his life. The amazing thing was that "Face the Nation" and the other networks were so slow to pick up on the civil rights movement and its importance. Like a lot of white America, they didn't want to recognize what was going on out there, but he--When King was on the broadcast, he was so dignified. He was--he was so terrific in talking about what the movement was and what he meant--what it meant, and where it was all going. Amazingly, the questioners did not always understand what it was about, even then. A lot of the time when he'd appear on the broadcast, the questions he would be asked were, number one, aren't you moving too fast, and number two, how many communists are in your organization? He was once questioned what he thought of communism, and he gave one of the greatest explanations of what was wrong with it that I've ever heard, and we do have that on the DVD. It's one of the things I really treasure about the DVD.

Tavis: Speaking of things that you treasure, I know this is an impossible question, because there's a whole book written on this, but give me just one or two right quick before I talk about these debates. Give me one or two of Bob Schieffer's favorite moments from the first 50 years of "Face the Nation."

Schieffer: You know, anytime you have a president on, whoever that president is, that's always a big moment, and those are always very interesting interviews to do. I've interviewed several presidents over the years--Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, President Clinton--on "Face the Nation." That's always fun. But I guess, Tavis, if I would have to pick out one broadcast that I'm proudest of, it was the one we did on the Sunday after 9/11. We expanded the broadcast to two hours. This was a terrible time. It was the hardest story any of us had ever covered, because it was about us as well as other people. And at the end of that day, at the end of that Sunday broadcast, I felt like we'd really done a good job. That's the one I'm most proud of, I would say.

Tavis: Some years ago, you added your own commentary at the end of the show, and while it is, of course, labeled as commentary, is there something you can share with me about a particular commentary, a particular line in a commentary that you, being the journalist that you are, and the folk at CBS had to quibble about whether you were going to say this or not say it or how you were going to say it?

Schieffer: You know, they never--I'm never questioned about the commentaries. When the people at CBS News hear them, they hear them with the rest of the American people, the ones that are tuned in to "Face the Nation." I guess I should tag them, "I'm Bob Schieffer, and we'll find out if CBS News approves of this message." But they give me complete free rein to say whatever I choose to say. I would have to say that my favorite commentary is the one three or four years ago on Election Eve. I wound up the commentary by saying, "Go vote. It'll make you feel big and strong." And I have repeated that one on every Election Eve since, because that, for me, really sums up what voting is all about it. It does make you feel big and strong. You don't even have to have a reason. I tell people, you know, when I do a story on television, I have to have evidence, I have to have facts to back up that story. If you don't want to vote for somebody just 'cause you don't like their looks, you're perfectly welcome to do that, and that's legal. And sometimes I guess maybe I might even vote against somebody for some reasons like that. We can tell people who we vote for. We don't have to tell them. We can have a good reason, we don't have to have a good reason, but it's our right as citizens, and it makes you feel really good when you cast that ballot. So that's my favorite commentary, I guess, and it's really one of the things I feel about being a good citizen.

Tavis: I have no interest in belaboring this point, but since you raised putting stories on the air that you have to have facts to back up, you know where I'm going with this. Let me ask you as a long-time veteran journalist on CBS, how this Dan rather story of what CBS knew and when they knew it and how the story got on the air with regard to Mr. Bush's service or lack thereof, how has that affected the news operation at CBS?

Schieffer: Well, it's like somebody kicked us in the gut, to be quite honest about it, Tavis. You know, those of us who have worked at CBS for a long time, even those who have not worked at CBS for a long time, we love CBS. It's a part of our life. It's a great news organization. We made a bad mistake here. We've admitted it. We're bringing in people from the outside that can help us figure out a way that it will never happen again. But I have to tell you in the meantime, we've just got to go ahead and take our lumps here until we can find out what went wrong, and I assure you when we do, we'll fix it, because all of us are determined that this is never going to happen again. What happened here is that a source Dan Rather trusted lied to him, and it really comes down to that. Now, what we've got to do is figure out whether we took all the safeguards we should have taken, whether we followed the right procedures. But we're going to find that out. We're going to get this thing back on track, and we're going to have to do it one day and one story at a time to regain our credibility. You can't just get it back by flicking--like as if you were flipping on a light switch.

Tavis: That is as earnest and frank and forthright an answer as one could expect, and I would expect no less from you, Bob Schieffer. Let me switch gears right quick and ask you to share with me something you probably shouldn't, but I'm just curious anyway to ask this question. When you were watching the first debate between Kerry and Bush, since you're going to moderate the last, tell me something that you probably shouldn't tell me about what you wrote down. What occurred to you? What were you thinking when you saw that first debate that you had to try differently or wanted to go a different route or--What were you thinking when you saw the first debate?

Schieffer: Well, I tell you what I was thinking. I was thinking what a good job Jim Lehrer did as the moderator. Jim and I are very good friends, and we talked about all of this in the weeks leading up to these--in these debates. I thought Jim did a terrific job, because these rules are very difficult to get in follow-up questions for the moderator. But Jim managed to do that. I thought he kept it on target. I thought he--the way he prioritized his time, making sure that there was plenty of time to talk about the issues that needed to be talked about. And that's what I made notes about is, you know, to keep it on track and not let them get off track and get into these recorded announcements that they--that all politicians have. We've got to figure out how to, you know, find out why it is they believe what they believe, and I thought Jim did a very good job in the way he framed those questions. You need to be very, very specific in the questions that you ask, and you got to keep it moving along. I thought he did a good job of knowing when to extend the discussion and when to go on to something else.

Tavis: There are two schools of thought here, and I'm not sure which one is appropriate. You tell me from your vantage point, from the prism through which you look. On the one hand, the story was, the news was, the spin was that everybody was going to watch the first debate because it was the first one, number one, and number two, because it had to do with foreign policy. Given our situation with Afghanistan, Iraq, that makes sense. On the other hand, if we are to believe the polls, that people vote pocketbook issues, they're concerned about domestic issues, the one that you're moderating, the last debate, because it is covering domestic issues and because it is the last time we'll see these guys face to face before Election Day, face the nation, no pun intended, for the last time which each other before Election Day, there might be more riding on that last debate. You have any thought about which one is more important?

Schieffer: I think--Well, I think they're all important. And traditionally, you're absolutely right. Traditionally people tune in to watch that first one. But because this first one was so compelling--and I don't think you'll find anybody who will say that it wasn't compelling, because it was--I think you're going to see a larger audience out there for all of these debates. I think you're going to see a bigger audience for the vice presidential debate than--than would be expected. But I think it's going to come down, Tavis--It's going to come down to safety. Which of these men do the American people feel most confident of, who are they most comfortable with in time of a crisis, because we have a crisis going on right now. And while the Iraq war is the number one issue out there, I think in the undercurrent here, people still are very interested in the economy. They're interested in jobs. They're interested in their schools. So the war is, without question in my mind, anyway, the most important issue here, but I think it's going to make people even more interested in these other issues, these pocketbook issues. I think we're going to see a larger audience than we've ever seen for the final debate, frankly.

Tavis: All right, here's the exit question. Just between you and me, just between the two of us, you feeling any pressure?

Schieffer: Well, yeah. I mean, I told somebody the other day, you know, I woke up in the middle of the night, and I was doing the debate, and we were an hour into the debate, and I'd run out of questions, and I said, "Well, fellas, I don't have any other questions. You have anything you'd like to say?" It's a daunting assignment, but I'm thrilled to death to be there. I mean, I'm very honored, and I guess it's like if you're a ballplayer, you want to be up there with the bat in your hand if it's two out in the bottom of the ninth and the bases are loaded. So I'd just as soon be there as somebody else there, but it is. It's almost scary when you stop and think about how many people will be out there, but I hope I'll be able to do a good job, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Tavis: Well, I have no doubt that you will, and I can't imagine that Bob Schieffer would ever run out of questions. I know there are a number of your guests over the years on "Face the Nation" who wished you had run out of questions, but I suspect that won't be the case next week. We look forward to seeing you moderate the third and final debate. Bob Schieffer, all the best to you.

Schieffer: Thank you. Thanks so much, Tavis.

Tavis: Glad to have you on. Up next on this program, actor Hill Harper from "C.S.I.: New York." Stay with us.