Between You And Mike Wallace

There's an old joke that goes like this: "You know it's going to be a bad day when you get to work and Mike Wallace is sitting on the front steps waiting for you."

Well, Mr. President, Mike Wallace is waiting for you.

The man from 60 Minutes is not sitting on the front steps of the White House. But Wallace says President George W. Bush is one person that he wants to meet but hasn't. At the end of his new book, "Between You And Me," he requests an interview directly, writing, "Hey, Mr. President, isn't it time to give this old man a break?"

For more than 60 years, the hard-hitting CBS newsman has interviewed a who's who of the famous and infamous. Now, in a new book, he provides a behind-the-scenes look at some of his memorable conversations in which he has, as he call it, established "a chemistry of confidentiality" with an interview subject.

He told The Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm that his conversations over the years have been a fantastic journey among "crooks, con men, presidents, dictators ..."

Wallace says some of the most interesting interviews were first ladies.

"Because they are a step away from power but, really, are they a step away from power?" he says. "Pillow talk. Most of the first ladies that I've talked to — and Morley Safer suggested that I talked to Martha Washington; I did not! — They have a lot of clout."

His fascination with first ladies goes back to a figure who towers above the rest, Eleanor Roosevelt. He interviewed her in 1957, many years after the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

"She became an important figure (in) human rights," Wallace says, "not just here but around the world. And then, she was the eyes and ears — and the legs — of Franklin Delano Roosevelt."

In that long-ago interview, Wallace reached a more personal side of the great lady when he asked about the opposition that she and her husband had met while in the White House.

"A good many people hated your husband," Wallace told Mrs. Roosevelt. "They even hated you."

"Well, there was a real core of hatred. The people who would call him 'that man,' " Mrs. Roosevelt replied. "And the man, I remember one man who rejoiced, actually, when he died."

Many years later, in 1991, Wallace had a rare interview with another great public lady, Barbra Streisand. She grew tearful on camera when Wallace told her that her own mother had said of her, "you haven't got time to be close to anyone." Streisand has refused Wallace's interview requests ever since.

Wallace's career as a newsman began in the 1940s when he was a radio newswriter and broadcaster for the Chicago Sun. He has been a correspondent for 60 Minutes since its premiere in 1968, making this his 37th season on the broadcast. In September 2003, he was awarded his 20th Emmy, a Lifetime Achievement award.

(Click on the link at left to read an excerpt from "Between You And Me.")