Barbara Walters: A Personal Reflection

In 28 years at ABC News, I’ve had exactly two experiences with any substance with Barbara Walters—two instances separated by a quarter of a century, on opposite ends of the planet. They couldn’t be more different. One was an example of the blurring of news and entertainment; the other, an example of Walters’ skills as an interviewer, in the latest of her many meetings with foreign dictators.

Both experiences spoke volumes about Walters and the way she worked.

Kicking the tires

In the mid-1980s, Walters co-anchored (with Hugh Downs) the ABC News magazine 20/20 — which in those days devoted considerable time to long-form investigations. I was a production assistant for a feature on US aircraft maintenance procedures; Walters was a correspondent. What I do remember was a moment at the United Airlines maintenance facility at the San Francisco airport, where we filmed a complete disassembly and inspection of the DC-10. Walters had just finished an interview with a man in charge of maintenance inspections.

The last order of business was for the crew to film Walters walking around the plane. She came to the cameraman and said, “Make sure you grab my legs” – which he did. And so it was audiences came to see Walters kick the tires of an airplane with her high heels.

I was young, just a few years out of college, and I thought it was a stupid stunt. But the piece was deadly serious and important, and many people (even in those pre-social media days) remembered the moment. She felt it helped to add such a touch to make sure viewers were drawn in to the rest of the story.

“Special Opportunity”

A quarter of a century later, in November 2011, I was called to a meeting with Walters for what was described as a “special opportunity” for ABC News. I was then the editor-in-chief for international news; Walters was 82 years old and most of her work involved the daytime talk show “The View.” I had no idea what a “special opportunity” was, and I couldn’t imagine how her world and mine could intersect.

It turned out that she had met the Syrian ambassador to the UN for dinner. This was quite a lot during the so-called Arab Spring uprisings; leaders were overthrown in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen, and Syria was rocked by protests and repression and the start of what would be a long civil war. ABC anchors Diane Sawyer and Christian Amanpour pushed for an interview with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. But now the Syrians – through the UN envoy – were offering Walters the interview.

A “special opportunity,” indeed.

All I could think was that Walters was semi-retired and—despite her iconic status and experience interviewing world leaders—hardly the most likely candidate to travel to a difficult and potentially dangerous date.

At that first meeting for the trip, Walters admitted as much. “I haven’t been to Damascus in a long time,” she said dryly. We went over the practical and security questions involved, but Walters was also clear (as if there was any doubt) that he wanted to do the best interview possible, and for that he wanted a crash course on Assad and Syria and the current situation.

She had met Asad twice before. Decades earlier, she interviewed Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. So I figured she knew the region, knew the training and could prepare in a day or two and be in good shape.

But Barbara Walters didn’t work that way. For all I knew of Walters’ skills as an interviewer, I had no idea the meticulous manner in which he prepared. And as it happened, we had a few weeks before the agreed date. A few weeks for the “crash course”.

On at least half a dozen afternoons in November, I got the call, “Can you come to Barbara’s office?” It seemed whenever a new crisis flared up and I felt like I shouldn’t be leaving my desk.

I soon learned that my role—besides arranging the various details of the trip—would be to sit for mock interviews and play the role of Assad.

ABC producer Rob Wallace came with me to Walters’ office. “Don’t you know about cards?” he asked. Walters writes potential questions on index cards, slowly building up a large pile, and during our sessions she arranges and rearranges them like a card player shuffling a deck. But there was nothing accidental about it. In retrospect, it was more like a chess player’s vision for interview, thinking about different questions and potential answers and counters. And she knew she was up against a tough opponent.

Until then, Assad has pushed back the Syrian uprising with brute force; a UN report found that the regime killed more than four thousand civilians that year, including 300 children. But I knew that Assad was unlike other dictators in public—often soft-spoken, even reasonable in the few interviews he had given. Sitting across from Walters in her office, I had to do my best to mimic Assad’s answers and demeanor as she went through these cards and fired her questions at me.

She was both remarkably thorough and insecure, I thought. Perhaps she always was; perhaps it was also because it was the sunset of her career, and indeed it had been some time since she had been in Damascus or any other eye of a global storm. She may also have been conscious of the notion that the interview was offered to her – rather than Amanpour or Sawyer – because she would ask the lighter, daytime TV questions (if true, a terrible misjudgment on the part of Assad’s advisers). And she wanted to nail him.

Journey to Damascus

The preparation and shuffling of the cards continued all the way to Damascus and the interview in early December.

Two things stand out in my memory.

The first is that – after you are tired of all the preparation (“Are you sure should we do this again?” I had asked her in one of the last sessions in her office)—it was immediately clear that all the planning had been worth it.

From the moment the cameras rolled, Asad had this gentle demeanor, occasionally giggling and apologizing when he mispronounced or misunderstood a word. “I’m sorry, my English is doctor’s English, political English,” he told Walters at one point. And from the start, Walters focused on all the critical questions (and there were many), followed through sharply and relentlessly, and never let go.

That was my impression at the time, and it was supported by the fury of the president’s aides soon after. They complained that Walters was too blunt and asked us to cut several questions and answers from the interview. Naturally we ignored the request.

When I heard the news of her death, I dug up the transcript to refresh my memory. If anything, she was sharper and harder than I remembered.

To take just one example, in several places Assad said he knew nothing about the killings of civilians and played no role in ordering the crackdown. Walters stepped back.

Walters: Well, I’ll give you some examples and you can tell me if you’ve seen them, these are some of the images and the stories, some of the images that I saw, a 13-year-old boy who was arrested in April, a month later his body is returned to his family with torture marks. A famous cartoonist you know who was critical of you, badly beaten, his arms broken. A singer, a famous singer who wrote a popular song calling for your banishment, he was found with his throat slit. You’ve seen these pictures, haven’t you?

Assad: No, but I, I…

Walters: Is this news to you?

Assad: They are not my forces, they are military forces that belong to the government.

Walters: OK, but you are the government.

Assad: I don’t own them. I’m the president. I don’t own the country, so they are not my powers.

Walters: No, but you have to give an order?

Assad: No no no. We have, in the constitution, in the law, the mission of the institution to protect the people to oppose any chaos or any terrorists, that is their job, according to the constitution to them – to the law of the institution.

Walters: The repression was without your permission?

And so on — topic after topic. I noticed that he skips over some of his cards, rearranges others as he goes, and asks new questions when necessary. For nearly an hour, she fired back — at the lack of accountability for the killings, Syria’s international isolation, Assad’s promise of elections and promises to allow other journalists to visit. And more. Towards the end she asked, “Do you sometimes wish you were still an ophthalmologist?” and I couldn’t help but think, after an hour of grilling from Walters, that maybe he did.

When the interview aired, David Kenner c Foreign policy spoke for many.

“Anyone who made snide comments about Walters’ lack of qualifications to conduct this interview should eat crow (including me),” Kenner wrote. “Walters pressed him on all the hot-button issues: the government’s crackdown, his growing isolation and the effect of sanctions on Syria’s economy… Overall, it’s hard to see what Assad gained from the interview.” He appeared callous, at times incoherent and delusional about the support he still enjoys in Syria.

Thank you note

I was grateful for the opportunity to go with Walters to Syria, and I told her so. Back at my desk in New York, I found myself wondering when the afternoon would be interrupted by a call for another Assad-Walters exercise.

Christmas fell only a few weeks after our return from Damascus. I found a small package on my desk in late December. A lovely blue scarf and card with a short note.

“Thank you very much for all your work. You make a pretty good dictator! All the best, Barbara.”