A new film starring Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford explores the notorious ‘60 Minutes’ piece on George W. Bush’s Texas Air National Guard record, and the anchorman’s subsequent fall.
It was the great Henry David Thoreau who once said, “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” And it’s the Thoreauian tenets of self-reliance—the pursuit of unvarnished truth and resistance to institutional authority—that motivates many in the journalism profession.
If James Vanderbilt’s new film Truth is to be believed, this quest led 60 Minutes producer Mary Mapes and veteran CBS News anchor Dan Rather to air the segment “For the Record,” which questioned then-President George W. Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. The controversial 60 Minutes piece aired on September 8, 2004, just two months before the presidential election, and ultimately led to the dismissals of Mapes, several other producers, and Rather forced into an early retirement.
Vanderbilt’s film is based on Mapes’ memoir, Truth and Duty: The Press, The President, and The Privilege of Power, so it provides a very sympathetic portrait of Rather (Robert Redford, charming) and his longtime producer Mapes (Cate Blanchett, electric).
The action opens in April 2004, with the chummy team of Mapes and Rather—she calls him “Dad,” he treats her like a daughter, reminding her to eat when she’s stressed—receiving acclaim for the airing of their exclusive 60 Minutes segment detailing torture and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.