"The guy was scared. Many people on the verge of an interview try to back out and then come back again. I harbored no hard feelings about that," Mike Wallace said to me.
Dean said to Renate, "Please help me to say no," and then the three women went to the restaurant. Half an hour later, Dean came back in, grinning sheepishly. "I've agreed to do the interview," he said.
In the end, Renate was impressed with the undertaking and Wallace was deeply impressed by Renate. He felt in her a profound solidity. She was a considerable woman.
The 60 Minutes crew shot a huge amount of footage over three days. They shot around the Alexanderplatz, near the Berlin Wall, in Schmockwitz. They shot film of Renate, Dean, and Sasha. Wallace generously let me look at the out-takes. It was compelling stuff.
Towards the end of the three days, the Reeds and the 60 Minutes people were shooting in the Reed house in Schmockwitz. Renate spoke with great passion to Wallace about Dean and his causes.
"You are just as eloquent and just as much an idealist as your husband," said Wallace.
Then Dean talked about Germany. Dean insisted that travel was not a priority for most people. Wallace asked why he thought so many East Germans wanted to go to the West and Dean was silent. Wallace told him that ten to fifteen thousand East Germans emigrated every year and that a million more wanted exit visas and that the East Germans traded political prisoners with the West for hard currency every year, like cattle, at between $15,000 and $40,000 a head. Dean said he was unaware of such exchanges.
Dean asserted that there was freedom to worship under Communism and he and Wallace talked about his career. Dean grew a little testy.
"I don't like being called the Johnny Cash of Communism," he said. "I'm Dean Reed."
"But you know what it means."
"I know that it means they're trying to say that Dean is as famous there as Johnny Cash is here... They call me the Red Sinatra as well. It bothers me because I'm not the Red Sinatra... I'm Dean Reed and I'm a very very popular man."
Dean told Wallace how much he missed America. He said he stayed in East Germany because he loved Renate.
Wallace asked, "Why do you become the captive of the women with whom you have spent your time?"
"Aren't we all captives of our women, Mike?"
"The main motivation of your life is what?" Wallace asked.
"Love," answered Dean.
"We've heard your cowboy songs. We've heard various songs. Would you sing 'My Yiddishe Momma'?"
"That is one of my favorite songs, Mike. I've sung it, for my mother, in every country of the world. My mother is not Jewish, but I think this song is one of the most beautiful songs of all time for a mother," said Dean.
"I understand you had some difficulties with that song in the Soviet Union."
Dean nodded. On Dean's second tour in the Soviet Union, a little man who said he was from the Ministry of Culture told Dean it was forbidden to sing "Yiddishe Momma." Dean told him that Lenin would rollover in his grave if he had heard him say that because no Marxist could be anti-Semitic and, though he, Dean, did not agree with Zionism, he loved the Jewish people. He had even said this to Yasser Arafat.
He told him, "Yasser, I always include 'Yiddishe Momma'."
"That's OK, Dean," Arafat said. "I have nothing against the Jewish people."
So Dean told the little man from the Ministry of Culture that if he was forbidden to sing "Yiddishe Momma" he would leave the Soviet Union and never return. Mme. Furtseva, the Minister of Culture, who had once tried and almost succeeded in getting the Beatles a Soviet date, came to see him a few days later.
"Dean, it was all a terrible mistake," she said. "Of course, you can sing anything you want to in our country." She added, "If anybody ever tells you to change something that you say or do, you come to me and I'll hit them over the head."
"You sang it?" Mike Wallace said to Dean.
"I sang it. And I continue singing it," Dean said, "I do it a cappella."
"Oh, perfect. Do it a cappella," said Wallace.
"Can I sing it 'Yiddishe Poppa' and sing it to you?"
"You can," Wallace said.
That night, when they talked, Dean told Dixie that he had sung for Mike Wallace and that Wallace had cried. "We did three days' shooting," Dean said. "Then he came into the house and we shot for four hours. "You know, Mr. Reed, I wasn't expecting a man as intelligent as you," Mike had said. "We're going to do the portrait of you now, twenty minutes from Dean."
Dixie thought it was neat.
In his office at CBS, Mike Wallace scanned a letter from Dean.
"He concludes by saying, 'And maybe we can also solve the problem of the "Yiddishe Poppa,'" Wallace said.
"What does that mean?" I said. I wanted to hear Wallace's version.
"I'm a non-practicing, non-religious Jew. A bad Jew." Wallace smiled. "I was incredibly moved and I nearly burst into tears. After that, frankly, the piece was really a valentine to Dean. Sitting there in East Berlin with this cowboy from Colorado... there was this terrific yearning in him to come home."
The 60 Minutes piece was scheduled to go out the following fall, so Dean put it at the back of his mind after Mike Wallace left Berlin. In the six weeks that followed Wallace's visit, Dean was increasingly busy, preparing his movie, recording music, on the road playing concert dates.
There were more calls and letters between Schmockwitz and Colorado. In March, Dean wrote to Johnny, "Sorry if I don't write. There are TV shows and films. I'm damn tired and I feel old at times... Fifty will be coming along... Keep your fingers crossed for Mike [Wallace], ex-Mack the Knife." To Dixie, he wrote, "60 Minutes is not finished yet. Did I tell you? I spoke to Mike Wallace. They're gonna hold it until the fall, when they will have the biggest public," said Dean. It was early April.
"Beautiful," said Dixie.
As usual, Dixie and Dean bantered and giggled down the phone.
"'You have a beautiful day," Dixie would say.
"Have a nice week," said Dean.
"Say, I love me," Dixie said, signing off.
On April 20, 1986, 60 Minutes went on the air with the piece about Dean Reed. For one reason or another, maybe scheduling, it was not held over until the autumn but went out in April. That night, Dean was fast asleep in Moscow and had no idea that the piece was on the air.
I was at home in New York, watching 60 Minutes that night. Johnny and Mona Rosenburg sat in their living room in Loveland, glued to the TV. The title of the piece on Dean came up. It was called "The Defector." Sweet Jesus, thought Johnny. Dear God.
The resonant voice of Mike Wallace began the piece: "When we think about Americans who defect to the other side of the Iron Curtain, we usually think about traitors or spies. Dean Reed is neither. Colorado born, American bred, he now lives in East Berlin, just because he likes it better over there. An entertainer who's become the Soviet version of a superstar. He sings. He acts. And he speaks with what seems to be genuine conviction to the Soviet line. The Kremlin has even rewarded him with their Konsomol, Lenin Prize. There is just one thing missing for him. He yearns to duplicate his success behind the Iron Curtain with a similar success back home."
There were shots of Dean's concerts. There were lovely shots of Dean and Renate in matching sheepskin jackets, walking hand in hand in the woods near their house and talking with Mike Wallace. When Dean sat down with Mike Wallace to talk, Wallace asked, "You equate Ronald Reagan with Joseph Stalin?"
"I equate the possibilities of Ronald Reagan with Stalin. I say he has the possibilities to do the same injustices and much more, by incinerating this planet through an atomic war."