(5 of 5)
Wrong Mike. Walters is not without her detractors. Some interview subjects find her distractingly nervous, overtalkative and strident. Harassed colleagues on the Today show sometimes complain that she may not suffer from ulcers but she sure is a carrier. CBS Washington Correspondent Connie Chung dismisses Walters as "an interviewer, a talk-show hostess; she does specials, not reporting, but we actually cover stories and then go back and report them." Members of the Washington press corps who have been with her on presidential trips report that she sometimes behaves like a star, not a reporter. She can be aloof, pushy—and ruinously overeager. When Betty Ford kicked off her shoes to dance in Peking, Walters took a microphone from a technician and dashed up to the First Lady for an interview. Trouble was, the mike and accompanying film crew belonged to CBS.
For every foe, however, there are more professional admirers and loyal friends. "She couldn't have been nicer to me," says Washington Post Reporter Sally Quinn, who flopped as Walters' chief rival on the CBS Morning News in 1974. Notes Walter Cronkite, "She has shown exceptional talent in interviewing. She's aggressive and studies her subject." Says Author and former TV Personality Barbara Howar, "She's worth a million dollars. I'm delighted." Some journalists find her a warm and thoughtful acquaintance but refuse to consider her a colleague. As one put it: "What do you say about a 'newswoman' who sells Alpo?"
For one of television's new rich, Walters lives a life of relatively inconspicuous consumption. She has an expensive wardrobe of Halstons and Adolfos, but owns neither real estate nor automobile ("I'm afraid to drive one"). Her roomy apartment near Carnegie Hall houses Daughter Jacqueline, 7½, for whom she shows an almost obsessive devotion, a live-in French governess and a Jamaican cook, who has a small apartment in the same building. The lady of the house often dines out, sometimes with Management Consultant John Diebold or Alan Greenspan, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Says she: "I tell Alan what terrible shape the economy is in."
Walters' own economy will be fairly inflation-proof for some time. Yet even though she has been making what most Americans would consider a handsome living for at least a decade, the world's highest-paid journalist says she does not feel rich. "I've never had real financial security," she says. "I've always had family obligations, and now I'm head of a household. I never asked for a million dollars. They're paying me this because this is what I'm worth. And I'm proud I'm worth it."