Hewitt was a notoriously temperamental boss at 60 Minutes.    (Photo: Jeffrey Smith)

One afternoon several months later, Andrew Heyward left the CBS Broadcast Center, crossed West 57th Street, entered the BMW car-dealership building where 60 Minutes had its headquarters, flashed his CBS News badge to front-desk security, rode the elevator to the ninth floor, and proceeded left past the dull-gray-carpeted reception area, with its facsimile of the 60 Minutes stopwatch on the wall across from a Ben Shahn drawing of TV antennas, toward Room 177, Hewitt’s corner office.

Heyward had picked this March day in 2002 to begin the delicate matter of removing from his job the man who had been running 60 Minutes for the previous 34 years. Heyward wanted to tell Hewitt his proposal for the future. It called for the next season to be Hewitt’s last as executive producer, and for Phil Scheffler to leave a year earlier—by June 2002. For several years, there had been a clause in Hewitt’s contract allowing CBS News to remove him as executive producer of 60 Minutes at the corporation’s discretion; Heyward now wanted to exercise that contractual right. Heyward’s plan was to replace Hewitt and Phil Scheffler with Jeff Fager of 60 Minutes II. This meeting was to begin that process.

However, this was not the plan Don Hewitt envisioned, at least not now. Not yet. When he’d signed his most recent contract with CBS, he told one correspondent that he would leave when it expired; at that point, he would be 79 years old. But now that he had passed his 79th birthday, he’d shown no inclination toward leaving anytime soon. Anyway, Hewitt had his own successor in mind—Josh Howard, who’d been the senior producer (the show’s third in command) since 1996. The genial Howard had begun at 60 Minutes as a producer for Mike Wallace, and had also worked on the CBS Evening News With Dan Rather and even served a stint at New York’s local WCBS affiliate. He had many friends throughout CBS News, in part because he was one of those people who always seemed on the verge of a chuckle.

Heyward believed he had a legitimate case for Hewitt’s removal. As a corporate manager, he needed to prepare responsibly for the transition of power that was inevitable, given Hewitt’s age. It was clear that Hewitt was slowing down in the afternoons. Knowing this, correspondents and producers vied to schedule screenings of their pieces earlier in the day; by 4 p.m., Hewitt was frequently yawning, if not asleep. On top of everything else, he remained as intractable and difficult as always, at least from management’s point of view. For example, he had never been willing to discuss in detail with CBS a clear and definitive plan for a handover of authority at 60 Minutes.

Making matters more complicated for Heyward was the astonishing longevity of everyone at 60 Minutes. As a group, they defied science with their amazing looks and health. Wallace, at 83, looked and acted like a man twenty years younger. Morley Safer drank and chain-smoked (Rothman Specials), but at 71 years old looked vital. Andy Rooney—born in 1920—in some ways looked better than any of them; his thick shock of white hair and his remarkable analytical mind continued to define his persona. Lesley Stahl and Ed Bradley (she of the leather miniskirt, he of the earring) had both just celebrated their 60th birthdays and still traveled the world with the energy of far younger reporters. Steve Kroft, at 56, remained the kid of the bunch, a fact that regularly amazed him as he approached retirement age. He too smoked—Merits—and sometimes enjoyed a glass of wine with lunch. But the median age of a 60 Minutes viewer hovered near 60. To a generation raised on journalists like Tabitha Soren and John Norris on MTV, the 60 Minutes crew looked like the guests at their parents’ 50th-anniversary party.

Like most of the American news media, television now focused its attention on finding and nurturing young talent; but at 60 Minutes, there had rarely been any attention paid to finding someone under the age of 50 (or 60, for that matter) who could one day lead the show after Hewitt died. “I want to die at my desk” was rapidly becoming his catchphrase.

With Hewitt’s new work schedule, though, that was starting to seem unlikely. He had always gone to his house in Bridgehampton for long weekends, but the weekends were getting even longer, and the workdays were getting shorter. It was rare to find Hewitt in his office on a Friday or a Monday, making the notion of dying at his desk at best a figure of speech.

On the day that Heyward came to finally hash out the 60 Minutes succession plans, he and West walked into Hewitt’s office and sat down in the overstuffed black leather armchairs that Hewitt kept directly opposite his large, immaculate glass desk. Heyward seemed ready, at last, to act for the sake of the show’s future—and his own.

There was no disputing that 60 Minutes had become less profitable in recent years, primarily because of the huge salaries paid to the show’s biggest stars. That included Hewitt’s own salary, close to $6 million a year by one estimate. Wallace’s salary reportedly hovered in that vicinity. Ed Bradley had reached the salary A-list after his 1993 flirtation with ABC News, and Safer’s salary was estimated at $3 million. Stahl and Kroft were believed to earn between $1 million and $2 million. Then, of course, there was the healthy expense account for each correspondent; this included first-class airfare (often on the Concorde) as well as high-end hotels and transportation. Add to these fixed costs the highly paid producers of 60 Minutes, who earn anywhere from $100,000 to $400,000 a year, depending on seniority and importance. Stories themselves typically cost a minimum of $70,000 to produce, and could cost as much as double that, depending on location. With 24 producers working behind the scenes, the total salary allotment for 60 Minutes amounted to an estimated two-thirds of the show’s annual budget—double that of other TV newsmagazines.