Andy Rooney: Man Of Letters

CBS News' Andy Rooney has a new book out titled Sincerely, Andy Rooney.

It is a selection of letters that he has written over the years. He talks about it on The Early Show on Friday.

Anyone who reads this book will have a very clear idea of who Rooney is and what makes him tick besides 60 Minutes.

Rooney has written about 7,500 letters in the last 40 years. "I didn't keep copies of hundreds of them, and some of them are dull," he wrote in an article in August in anticipation of this book coming out.

In the book's preface, he wrote that a person is much less guarded about what he writes in a letter than what he says in public:

"There are a lot of unguarded comments I've made in these letters. There are some little bombs that may go off, and I'm not sure which letters will cause the explosions. I'm doing this anyway - putting the letters in print anyway - because it's satisfying fun," he says.

Although this is a book of letters, it's similar to an autobiography. It also has the flavor of a history book about the United States, popular culture and just ordinary everyday things that many may have overlooked - but not Rooney.

Here are some highlights of the book:

To the IRS

"If you come to my home to see my office there, bring your own coffee because I wouldn't want to be accused of trying to bribe a tax agent with a cup of that."

"The last item you want me to justify is 'Uniforms, Equipment and Tools.'...Writers do not wear uniforms."

On communism

He unknowingly attended a banquet dinner that turned out to be a fund raiser for the Communist Party.

"I didn't want to call attention to myself by being the only piker in the crowd and offered a table low of $25. It was months before I knew 'The Barsovie Hospital' dinner was a Communist Party event."

"For some reason my name never surfaced, and the $25 didn't buy me an entree to any list of 'subversives.'"

He wrote that by the time he went to work for Arthur Godfrey at CBS in 1949, Sen. McCarthy was on a rampage to purge the news entertainment business from communists.

"A serious Democrat could easily have been swept up by McCarthy's broad broom, and I was lucky it missed that $25 check."

And Rooney mentions one friend, Lester Cole, who went to prison as one of "The Hollywood Ten."

"For many years, when I had been asked if I had signed the non-communist oath at CBS during the blackliting scandal, I had told people that I had refused. It turns out that I was not so brave as my memory of myself."

About the business of writing

Rooney wonders why critics sometimes say that a good actor is trapped in a bad show, but they never say the same thing about writers.

"They say, in effect that the writing is terrible.Â… The answer in my mind is that acting is a lot easier than writing, and critics never seem to understand that." p. 29

Most of the letters in this book are undated, but there's one to Don Hewitt, the executive producer of 60 Minutes in December 1983.

"I'm asking you to reconsider the way I am introduced at the top of the broadcast."

"Doesn't seem like enough as a way of noting that I'll be on. My name should be mentioned....Let me know what you decide. I haven't quit in years."

Rooney gets more letters than he can answer, as many as 300 a day from viewers. Ten percent of the letters that he receives is what he calls "nut mail," and sometimes he responds just for the fun of it.

In response to someone who wanted him to run for president, he writes, "Thanks for your offer to initiate a campaign for the presidency on my behalf. I'd take you up on it but I like to mow my own lawn."

On religion

He questions why there are only two religious symbols on the graves at Arlington Cemetery.

"If I had been killed in Normandy, a not unlikely possibility, my grave would have erroneously indicated that I was Christian or Jewish, and I am neither. There must have been others like me."

He also writes about being influenced by a professor when he was a sophomore in college. As a result, he seriously thought about becoming a "conscientious objector" and refusing to serve in World War II.

"More than weakness and fear than from conviction, I reluctantly registered and was drafted at the end of my junior year in August of 1941. Two and a half years later, on April 12th, 1944, I entered the concentration camp at Buchenwald. It was the most devastating day my self-esteem ever suffered because I realized, finally, what an idiot I had been." p. 97

On World War II

There is a letter about a pilot who died at the controls of a B-17 and the friend and co-pilot who flew him back to the base.

"I don't agree with your contention that the absence of cowardice is heroism. Cowardice would be turning and running, which wasn't an option for an infantryman.Â…A lack of fear isn't heroism either.Â…I prefer to reserve the word brave for more special cases like when a man knowingly risked his life to do a good thing for someone else." p. 103

On recipes

Someone who asked Rooney to submit a recipe in a "celebrity cookbook" learned the hard way that he doesn't like books ike this.

She took his recipe for Baked Potato Ice Cream seriously without testing it and put it in her book.

But, there appear to be good recipes for eggnog (p. 255) and making homemade ice cream (p. 256) and oatmeal (p. 259).

And fans

"It's foolish, rude and presumptuous of you to expect me to write to one young woman in Kirkwood, Missouri, and give her my life story."

"I never thought it was a good idea to talk to children as if they were children. I like to talk to them as if they were people and that's the way I'm going to talk to you in this letter about your letters....Your letters were not very good because none of you had an idea of your own.Â…I didn't like the colored decorations you put on your letters either. I thought it made them look like kindergarten work.Â…You shouldn't have to attract attention to the words by decorating them with hearts and flowers."

"Am I being too hard on you? I think you can take it. I like you and I like getting your letters."

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