THE INSIDER

                         JIM COOPER
                   (sarcastic)
               You mean, "60 Minutes" is letting CBS
               corporate decide what is or is not news?
                   (beat)
               What's Wallace think about this, or
               Hewitt, or...?

                         LOWELL
               How prominent?  What kind of placement?

                         JIM COOPER
               Oh, c'mon, Lowell.  This is The New York
               Times.  I don't know...

                         LOWELL
               Well, until you do, all I can tell you is
               what you already know...they will not air
               an interview.

                         JIM COOPER
               Call me back in ten.

     Lowell hangs up.  Re-dials.

     INT. DEBBIE DELUCA'S APARTMENT - NEW YORK - LATE NIGHT

     Debbie answers, intercutting with above...

                         LOWELL'S VOICE (OVER)
               Debbie.  It's me...

                         DEBBIE DELUCA
               Hi.  What time is it?

                         LOWELL'S VOICE (OVER)
               Oh, it's late.

                         DEBBIE DELUCA
               That I know.  When are you coming back?

                         LOWELL
               I can't get out of here til mid-morning.
               I'll be in tomorrow night...
                   (beat)
               Listen, could you call a number for me,
               it's in Mississippi...

                         DEBBIE DELUCA
               Okay.  Hold on a second...  What is it?

     INT. NEW YORK TIMES - NIGHT

     Jim Cooper's workstation.  His phone rings.  He grabs it.

                         JIM COOPER
               Hello?
                   (beat)

                         LOWELL'S VOICE (OVER)
               Lowell.

                         JIM COOPER
               Alright, Lowell.  Page one.  Editorial's
               interested.  Let's talk.

     INT. MOTEL, LINCOLN, MONTANA - NIGHT

                         LOWELL
               Here's how it works.  You ask me
               questions.  I tell you if you're wrong.

                         JIM COOPER'S VOICE (OVER)
               Okay.
                   (pause)
               Lowell?

                         LOWELL
               Yeah?

                         JIM COOPER'S VOICE (OVER)
               You're sure you want to do this?

                         LOWELL
               Why?

                         JIM COOPER'S VOICE (OVER)
               Hey, it doesn't work?  You've burned your
               bridges, man.

                         LOWELL
               You ready...?

                         JIM COOPER'S VOICE (OVER)
               Okay...  About this whistle-blower...
               Did Mike and Don go along with the
               corporate decision?

     No answer.

                         JIM COOPER'S VOICE (OVER)(cont'd)
               Lowell?

                         LOWELL
               Did I tell you you were wrong?

                         JIM COOPER'S VOICE (OVER)
               No.
                   (beat)
               I'm assuming the cave-in begins with the
               threat of litigation from Big Tobacco.
               Are we talking...are we talking Brown &
               Williamson, here?

     MOVING CLOSER into the face of Lowell.  His gaze falters.
     His eyes go back to the motel TV mutely frozen on the show.
     Whatever he's seeing there, his gaze is steadfast.

     EXT. STREET, NEW YORK - 5:30 A.M.

     Newspaper box is loaded with The New York Times.

     EXT. HOTEL, NEW YORK - 5:30 A.M.

     Cab pulls to curb and a raincoated Man emerges.  We SEE he
     carries a copy of this morning's New York Times.

     INT. A HOTEL ROOM, NEW YORK - DAWN

     A suitcase is half-unpacked on the floor...a sleeping
     figure...  There's a knock.  Irritated, a sleeping Lowell
     gets up to answer it.  He looks through the security peep
     hole.  He opens it.  And Mike Wallace, a newspaper under his
     arm, is standing in the doorway.

                         MIKE WALLACE
               Did I get you up?

                         LOWELL
               No, I usually sit around in my hotel
               room, dressed like this at 5:30 in the
               morning, sleepy look on my face.

     There's an awkward quiet.  Mike enters.  He slows, looks
     around.

                         MIKE WALLACE
               How many shows have we done?  Huh?
               C'mon, how many?

                         LOWELL
               Oh, lots.

                         MIKE WALLACE
               Yeah, that's right.

                         LOWELL
               But in all that time, Mike, did you ever
               get off a plane, walk into a room, and
               find that a source for a story changed
               his mind?  Lost his heart?  Walked out on
               us?  Not one fucking time!  You want to
               know why?

                         MIKE WALLACE
               I see a rhetorical question on the
               horizon.

                         LOWELL
               I'm going to tell you why.  Because when
               I tell someone I'm going to do something,
               I deliver.

                         MIKE WALLACE
               Oh, how fortunate I am to have Lowell
               Bergman's moral tutelage to point me down
               the shining path.  To show me the way.

                         LOWELL
               Oh, please, Mike...

                         MIKE WALLACE
                   (beat)
               Give me a break!

                         LOWELL
               No, you give me a break!  I never left a
               source hung out to dry, ever.  Abandoned.
               Not 'til right fucking now!  When I came
               on this job, I came with my word intact.
               I'm gonna leave with my word intact.
               Fuck the rules of the game!  Hell, you're
               supposed to know me, Mike.  What the hell
               did you expect?  You expect me to lie
               down?  Back off?  What, get over it?

                         MIKE WALLACE
               In the real world, when you get to where
               I am, there are other considerations...

                         LOWELL
               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.

     He trails off.  They look at each other.

                         MIKE WALLACE (cont'd)
               Now, along the way I suppose I made some
               minor impact.
                   (beat)
               I did Iran-Gate and the Ayatollah,
               Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Saddam,
               Sadat, etcetera, etcetera.  I showed
               them thieves in suits.
                   (beat)
               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?
                   (beat)
               Does it give someone at my time of life
               pause?
                   (simply)
               Yeah.

     And the look on Wallace's face is "It did.  Whether it should
     or should not...what difference does that make?  It did."
     And we realize only now that he has not come to argue.

                         LOWELL
               Mike...in my...

                         MIKE WALLACE
                   (low)
               You and I have been doing this together
               for fourteen years.

     And he gives Lowell a copy of The New York Times.

                         MIKE WALLACE (cont'd)
               This is today's New York Times.
                   (beat)
               In it is the whole sordid story of what
               went on inside our shop.

     Lowell looks down at the page.  The headline is "'60 MINUTES'
     ORDERED TO PULL INTERVIEW IN TOBACCO REPORT."

                         MIKE WALLACE (cont'd)
               And in the editorial...  It accuses
               us...of betraying the legacy of Edward R.
               Murrow.

     Turning, he walks out and down the hallway.  Lowell looks at
     the newspaper.

     INT. THE COMMUTER HELICOPTER - MORNING

     The helicopter approaching Manhattan.  John Scanlon sitting
     with Hewitt, both of them reading The Wall Street Journal
     Wigand article.

                         DON HEWITT
                   (troubled)
               They conclude most of it seems pretty
               unsubstantiated...
                   (looking at him, sickened)
               You're full of shit, John.

     INT. COFFEE SHOP, NEW YORK - MORNING

     Lowell at a table littered with New York Times, New York
     Daily News, etc.  His phone rings...