CBS News history takes the Broadway stage

In March 1954, Edward R. Murrow and a team of CBS News journalists sat in a dark screening room. The mood was tense.

They watched an almost-final cut of an upcoming episode of their show, "See It Now," that would take direct aim at Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who had whipped up anti-communist hysteria in America. 

The staff was nervous to put it on the air. 

Murrow told them, "The terror is right here in this room. No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices."

On March 9, 1954, Murrow and his team made history. In the final monologue of their broadcast, Murrow spoke directly to camera and said these now-famous words.

"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our own history and our doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men."

Hollywood actor George Clooney will make his Broadway debut this month playing Murrow in the theatrical adaptation of "Good Night, and Good Luck," the 2005 film he co-wrote and directed about the Murrow and McCarthy saga.

Clooney told correspondent Jon Wertheim that he and his co-writer Grant Heslov were inspired to write the film by events surrounding the Iraq War.

"I felt like the Fourth Estate was abdicating much of its duty of questioning… the lead up to the [Iraq] War," he told Wertheim.

"I was looking backwards… when journalists were the Fourth Estate and they were standing up against all the other three estates. And in a time when we needed them very badly."

But Clooney said the themes of the film, the play, and the historic events that inspired them are timeless, and especially relevant today. 

"We're seeing this idea of using government to scare, or fine, or use corporations to make journalists smaller," he said. 

"When Murrow talks about... 'the terror is in this room,' he's talking about something that's happening right now."

The Broadway play portrays real CBS News journalists who worked on "See It Now," including Fred Friendly, Don Hewitt, Joseph Wershba and Shirley Wershba. 

"They set a high water mark of journalistic responsibility," Clooney said. 

"All of them ended up having significant careers as journalists, including the foundations of 60 Minutes."

Fred Friendly

Played by Glenn Fleshler in the Broadway show, Fred Friendly was the co-producer of "See It Now."

He was a literal right-hand man for Murrow, sitting next to his legs on set and tapping him with a pen to let him know when they were on the air.

Friendly and Murrow worked side-by-side, producing hard-hitting reports on McCarthy and the ripple effects of his anti-communist crusade. 

Murrow defended their work when they were under pressure from then-chairman of the board for CBS Willliam Paley, who was concerned that their corporate sponsor could drop them for their critical coverage of McCarthy. 

In their opening salvo against McCarthy and his agenda, Murrow and Friendly pursued a story about Milo Radulovich, a lieutenant in the Air Force reserves who was discharged.

The Air Force claimed that his father and sister were communist sympathizers, and that his relationship with them made him a "security risk."

He was told that he could get his job back if he denounced them. Radulovich refused. 

Murrow and Friendly sent a crew of "See It Now" journalists to Michigan, and they interviewed Radulovich. 

On Oct. 20, 1953, "See It Now" broadcast their coverage of the story, exposing the insufficient evidence in Radulovich's case. 

About a month after the broadcast aired, Radulovich was reinstated. 

Friendly would later say it was, "the first time any of us appreciated the power of television."

In the film, Clooney played Friendly. But for the Broadway play, he's the leading man, Edward R. Murrow. 

Wertheim asked why he didn't play Murrow in the original film. 

"Murrow had a gravitas to him that at 42 years old I wasn't able to pull off… as a director, I wouldn't have hired me to play that part," he told Wertheim. 

In the run-up to the play, Clooney said he hadn't thought of who would play Murrow until they started doing table reads. 

"Then I thought, 'OK, well, then it's worth trying.'" 

Don Hewitt

Don Hewitt, who would become a visionary producer for CBS News and eventually go on to create 60 Minutes, directed "See It Now."

Will Dagger, the actor who plays Hewitt in the play, told 60 Minutes how he researched the role and what he learned about him.

"I read his book… and I also watched a bunch of interviews with him," he told 60 Minutes producer Nathalie Sommer. 

"There is a twinkle that he has in his eye, and also a way that he uses his temper." 

"[See It Now] is his second TV job. And he's keeping his head down, and just trying to do his job well, and not let the pressure get to him."

Dagger was surprised to learn Hewitt installed TVs in Grand Central Terminal when John Glenn orbited the earth on Feb. 20, 1962, filming the audience's reaction to CBS's televised coverage.

"To give everybody a sense… that they're sharing this moment with all these people."

And in 1964, Hewitt produced and directed the first televised presidential debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

Before the debate began, Hewitt urged Nixon's team to let CBS News apply makeup and improve his appearance for television. Nixon refused, since Kennedy had also declined. 

Standing next to a sun-tanned Kennedy on the debate stage, Nixon appeared gray and haggard. Kennedy would go on to win the presidential election, boosted by his performance in that first debate. 

"It's kind of insane… what [Hewitt] was able to see, before anybody else saw it," Dagger told 60 Minutes.

Shirley and Joe Wershba

Joseph Wershba, played by Carter Hudson in the production, was a field producer and on-camera reporter for "See It Now."

In 1944, Wershba started his career at CBS News by working as a radio news writer. He met his wife Shirley there while working the overnight shift.

The couple would eventually work for Murrow at "See It Now." Joseph worked as an on-camera reporter for the show.

While working there, they had to keep their marriage a secret, due to CBS News anti-nepotism rules. 

Shirley Wershba is played by comedian, writer, and producer Ilana Glazer in the Broadway production of "Good Night, and Good Luck."

Glazer told Wertheim that Shirley was "a foremother of American journalism and American television."

"She and her husband Joe were such partners," Glazer told Wertheim. 

"They were not equals in the workplace yet… but every time Joe needs to figure something out, he goes to Shirley. He really relies on her thoughts and her ideas." 

Joe Werhsba would contribute critical reporting in "See It Now's" McCarthy coverage, interviewing Milo Radulovich for the first story in the series.

Wershba later wrote about an intense, confrontational encounter with Don Surine, one of McCarthy's investigators, at a time when their coverage of the senator was ramping up.

Surine presented him with a newspaper clipping that showed Murrow had attended a seminar of the Institute of International Education at Moscow University in 1935. 

Surine told Wershba that since expenses were paid to IIE by a Soviet student organization, that put Murrow and IIE "on the Soviet payroll." 

Wershba wrote, "I asked if I could show the photostats to Mr. Murrow. Permission granted. 'Mind you, Joe,' Surine said, 'I'm not saying Murrow's a Commie himself… but if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck-it's a duck.'"

Surine also implied that Murrow's brother, an Air Force general, could suffer consequences if the information came to light.

When Joe Wershba presented the photostats to Murrow, his face reddened and a grin came across his face. "So that's what they've got," he told the reporter. 

But if he looked concerned that day, he was certainly over it the next, according to Wershba.

"He drew his lips back and his large teeth looked ready to chomp a live bear. All he said was, 'The question now is, when do I go against these guys?' Ed Murrow in a suppressed rage was a terrible thing to behold."

Eventually, Shirley and Joe Wershba's marriage was revealed to their superiors at CBS, and Shirley was forced to leave her job for violating the anti-nepotism rules. 

Shirley would eventually return as a reporter and writer for "CBS Morning News," earning her an Emmy nomination. 

And Joe and Shirley Wershba would become co-workers at CBS again. They both produced stories for 60 Minutes. 

Joe Wershba produced two Emmy-winning reports with 60 Minutes correspondent Morley Safer. Shirley produced a story with Diane Sawyer. 

Joe Wershba died at the age of 90 in 2011.

Shirley Wershba is now 102. 

The video above was produced by Will Croxton. It was edited by Sarah Shafer.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this article stated that Shirley Wershba would attend the opening night of "Good Night, and Good Luck."