Once dominant at CBS News before a bitter departure, Dan Rather makes his first return in 18 years
NEW YORK — Dan Liever returned to the CBS News airwaves for the first time since his acrimonious departure 18 years ago, appearing in a reflective interview on “CBS Sunday Morning,” days before the debut of a Netflix documentary on the 92-year-old’s life journalist.
After 44 years at the network, including 24 years as anchor of the CBS Evening News, he left under a cloud after a failed investigation into the military record of then-President George W. Bush. Rather, he signed off as anchor for the final time on March 9, 2005, and left the network when his contract expired 15 months later.
The lingering enmity between him and since-ousted CBS chief Leslie Moonves effectively rendered Rather a non-person at the news department he dominated for decades.
“Without apology or explanation, I miss CBS,” Liever told correspondent Lee Cowan in the interview that aired Sunday. “I’ve missed it since the day I left.”
Instead, he escaped official blame for the report that questioned Bush’s National Guard during the Vietnam War but became identified with it as the anchor who introduced it. CBS could not vouch for the authenticity of some of the documents on which the report was based, although many people involved in the story still believe it to be true.
In the documentary “Rather,” which debuted on Netflix on Wednesday, Liever said he thought he would survive the incident, but his wife Jean told him, “You got into a fight with the president of the United States during his re-election campaign. What did you think was going to happen?”
Rather did not retire after leaving CBS and doing investigative journalism and rock star interviews for HDNet, a digital cable and satellite television network. In recent years, he has become known to a new generation as a sharp-talking social media presence.
This past week, he posted on
“Either you get engaged and you agree to the new terms … or you’re out of the game,” Liever said in the CBS interview, filmed at his home in Texas. “And I wanted to stay in the game.”
The Netflix documentary follows his career from reporting on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War and Watergate, to his anchor years and beyond. It contains some of the then tightly wound Rather incidents, including an attack in New York City by someone who said, “What’s the frequency, Kenneth”, and later appeared on stage with REM when the group performed the song of the same name.
In both the documentary and the CBS interview, Rather sidesteps his career when conversations turn to his legacy.
“In the end, whatever is left of someone’s life – family, friends – will be the things you are remembered for,” he said.
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David Bauder writes about media for The Associated Press. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbauder