Horace Greeley may have had it right for his 19th-century compatriots, but the proper direction for the ambitious voyagers of this century has too often been eastward. Just ask New Mexico’s own Samuel Andrew Donaldson.

No one asked her, but Chloe Hampson Donaldson thinks she knows why her son strayed from the straight and narrow path: “Sam was always an obedient child until he went back east.”

Politicians make the trek, and budding journalists have similar experiences. Happiness was not to be Sam Donaldson’s until he had retreated within the beltway before there was a beltway to hunker down within. There, still wet behind the earphones, he went to work for a Washington television station in 1961; and there, still a loyal Westerner, he cast a vote for Barry Goldwater in 1964.

Three years was apparently not enough for Washington to work its magic on a fledgling newsman who barely eight years earlier had organized the Young Republicans of El Paso and welcomed a campaigning Richard Nixon to west Texas. However, a quarter of a century of the Washington high life has turned Chloe Donaldson’s “obedient child” into an institution, obedient only to deadlines and his network bosses.

What happened? Twenty of his Washington years Mrs. Donaldson’s second son spent in the employ of ABC News, 10 under the direction of Roone Arledge, erstwhile boy wonder of televised sport. The result? Sam Donaldson, unknown neophyte, has been transformed into Sam Donaldson, veteran celebrity. Hence this book.

We Americans pride ourselves on either the absence of an American class system or in its fluidity. In truth, in America there are two classes: celebrities and all the rest of us. Andy Warhol notwithstanding, 15 minutes in the limelight doesn’t really count. Twenty years among the stars does. It also destroys.

We Americans also pride ourselves on our treasured personal freedom. In truth, in America there are the free and the unfree—not only are the celebrities denied the all-American pleasure of bellying up to an all- American bar, in full assurance of their all-American anonymity, but they are also doomed to act out whatever role their public has assigned to them.

The producers of This Week With David Brinkley understand typecasting. So does Sam: “David Brinkley is the leader. George Will is the intellectual. I am the district attorney. . . . Because of David, no one leaves offended. Because of George, no one gets away with delivering fuzzy arguments. Because of me, no one gets a free ride.”

Everyone has a role to play, and the play must go on. Is the ordinary Washington pol genuinely terrified of an assault in the form of a Donaldson-held microphone thrust before him? Sam would have us believe so, but the nature of his business makes it doubtful. Any public figure worth at least a dash of salt is not shaking at the sight of Sam Donaldson. They know the value of free TV exposure, and they know that a game is being played. One wonders if Sam does.

Ronald Reagan, the actor, was often the victim of typecasting. But Sam Donaldson, ill-mannered reporter and TV star, is just as typecast and just as much an actor as President Reagan was—or is. The only difference may be that Donaldson has the less firm grip on the reality of his (non-Hollywood) lot—perhaps the shout ought to be “hold on, Mr. Donaldson, hold on.”

About the time Sam Donaldson came to Washington, Daniel Boorstin wrote The Image (subtitled “a guide to pseudo-events in America”). “Pseudoevents” are called into being by the media; they have no independent reality. News, according to Boorstin, was not being reported on such shows; it was being created.

Donaldson gives no hint of any awareness of Boorstin’s insight. He simply asserts what to him is both obvious and commendable: This Week With David Brinkley is a success precisely because it is a newsmaker. A month after the program debuted, its reputation was “established” when Muammar Qaddafi was given air time to deny that a Libyan hit squad was headed for Washington and label President Reagan a liar. The result was a “banner headline” in the Washington Post. What more could a Sam Donaldson ask for?

A few years later an appearance by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos produced what Donaldson can only describe as a “remarkable moment.” Daniel Boorstin might agree but would be deeply troubled by what actually transpired. In response to a George Will query regarding the possibility of advancing the scheduled date for Filipino elections, Marcos instantly called a “snap election.”

A pseudo-event (the Brinkley show) called into being a historical event—was the result hard news or manufactured news? And what of Marcos’ role? Did he act on impulse? Did he use the panel—or did the panel use him? Should the media applaud themselves for becoming not only part of newsmaking but also part of the newsworthy result? None of these questions seem to trouble Mr. Donaldson.

Those who do have questions of Mr. Donaldson will be much disappointed as they whip through the froth of his memoir. Why did a young Sam Donaldson decide to become a television reporter in the first place? What qualifications, aside from sheer ambition, did he bring to his chosen field? How has television news, not to mention Sam Donaldson, matured—or at least changed—over the past quarter century? Is Donaldson himself an Exhibit A for those who believe that life as a network talking head draws one both eastward and leftward? Do celebrityhood and television subtly, but inevitably, corrupt the process of news gathering and news dissemination?

Such questions are neither asked nor answered. Television, already intruding into living rooms and bedrooms, may play an intrusive role in policymaking itself. TV reporters are free to barge into the private lives of public figures. But Sam Donaldson, the television journalist, apparently refused to intrude upon the recesses of his own mind when he sat before his word processor.

Donaldson can never be accused of engaging in “happy talk” on the evening news. But he forgets that “nasty talk” can be just as superficial. With him as memoirist, what we have seen and heard is apparently all we are ever going to get.

 

[Hold On, Mr. President, by Sam Donaldson (New York: Random House) $17.95]