Mike Wallace: Who are these people? Lowell Bergman: Ordinary
people under extraordinary pressure, Mike. What the hell
do you expect? Grace and consistency?
Agent: Do you have a history of emotional problems, Mr.
Wigand? Jeffrey Wigand: Yes. Yes, I do. I get extremely
emotional when assholes put bullets in my mailbox!
Jeffrey Wigand: I have to put my family's welfare on the
line here, my friend! And what are you puttin' up? You're
puttin' up words! Lowell Bergman: Words? While you've been
dickin' around at some fucking company golf tournaments,
I been out in the world, giving my word and backing it up
with action.
Lowell Bergman: You'd better look into it, because I'm getting
two things: pissed off and curious.
Mike Wallace: Will you tell him that when I conduct an interview,
I sit anywhere I damn please!
Jeffrey Wigand: Fuck it. Let's go to court.
Mike Wallace: What do you think? I'm going to resign in
protest? To force it on the air? The answer is "no." I don't
plan to spend the end of my days wandering in the wilderness
of National Public Radio.
Mike Wallace: "Mike"? Try "Mr. Wallace." We work in the
same corporation, doesn't mean we work in the same profession.
What are you gonna do now? You gonna finesse me? Lawyer
me some more? I've been in this profession fifty fucking
years. You and the people you work for are destroying the
most-respected, the highest-rated, the most-profitable show
on this network!
Mike Wallace: You cut it! You cut the guts out of what I
said! Eric Kluster: It was a time consideration, Mike...
Mike Wallace: Time? Bullshit! You corporate lackey! Who
told you your incompetent little fingers had the requisite
skills to edit me?
Jeffrey Wigand: I'm just a commodity to you, aren't I? I
could be anything. Right? Anything worth putting on between
commercials. Lowell Bergman: To a network, probably, we're
all commodities. To me? You are not a commodity. What you
are is important.
Mike Wallace: Fame has a fifteen-minute half-life. Infamy
lasts a little longer.
Mike Wallace: In the real world, when you get to where I
am, there are other considerations. Lowell Bergman: Like
what? Corporate responsibility? What, are we talking celebrity
here? Mike Wallace: I'm not talking celebrity, vanity, CBS.
I'm talking about when you're nearer the end of your life
than the beginning. Now, what do you think you think about
then? The future? In the future I'm going to do this? Become
that? What future? No. What you think is "How will I be
regarded in the end?" After I'm gone. Now, along the way
I suppose I made some minor impact. I did Iran-Gate and
the Ayatollah, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Saddam, Sadat,
etcetera, etcetera. I showed them thieves in suits. I've
spent a lifetime building all that. But history only remembers
most what you did last. And should that be fronting a segment
that allowed a tobacco giant to crash this network? Does
it give someone at my time of life pause? Yeah.
Lowell Bergman: You pay me to go get guys like Wigand, to
draw him out. To get him to trust us, to get him to go on
television. I do. I deliver him. He sits. He talks. He violates
his own fucking confidentiality agreement. And he's only
the key witness in the biggest public health reform issue,
maybe the biggest, most-expensive corporate-malfeasance
case in U.S. history. And Jeffrey Wigand, who's out on a
limb, does he go on television and tell the truth? Yes.
Is it newsworthy? Yes. Are we gonna air it? Of course not.
Why? Because he's not telling the truth? No. Because he
is telling the truth. That's why we're not going to air
it. And the more truth he tells, the worse it gets!
Richard Scruggs: I know what you're facing, Jeff. And, I
think I know how you're feeling. In the Navy I flew A-6's
off carriers. In combat, events have a duration of seconds,
sometimes minutes. But what you're going through goes on
day in and day out. Whether you're ready for it or not,
week in, week out. Month after month after month. Whether
you're up or whether you're down. You're assaulted psychologically.
You're assaulted financially, which is its own special kind
of violence because it's directed at your kids. What school
can you afford? How will that affect their lives? You're
asking yourself, "Will that limit what they may become?"
You feel your whole family's future's compromised, held
hostage. I do know how it is.
