Not Just Another Pretty Face   

Irving R. Levine, in his fifth decade as a journalist, is an NBC mainstay-- thanks to substance, not glitz.

It was the middle of the 1993-94 NBA basketball season, and "NBC Nightly News" was featuring a piece on basketball wunderkind Shaquille O'Neal's investment portfolio. As the story wound to its conclusion, the six-foot-tall network correspondent was seated next to the seven-foot-plus center on the team bench.

"What do you want to do when you finish your career?" the reporter asked.

"I want your job," O'Neal replied.

"My job?" deadpanned the reporter.

Then, over video of O'Neal shooting free throws, came the wrap up: "With his kind of money, he could have the whole network. Irving R. Levine, NBC News, Orlando."

When O'Neal slams his last dunk he could very well have enough money to buy a network, but it's unlikely that he--or many other aspiring journalists--could replace Levine.

When you look up the word sui generis in the dictionary, you'll find Levine's photo. He's clearly not the typical, blow-dried television reporter: He has a resonant voice, but Peter Jennings he's not. His bow tie may be reminiscent of Frank Sinatra in the 1940s, but the resemblance ends there. He has piercing blue eyes, but he has never been mistaken for Paul Newman. And as ex-NBC correspondent Carl Stern, director of public affairs at the Justice Department, says, Levine "not only doesn't use hair spray, he doesn't use hair."

No matter. Now in his fifth decade as a reporter, Levine, who will turn 72 in August, has outlasted most of his contemporaries. When he talks about covering a war in Asia, he's referring to Korea, not Vietnam. And in a time when many broadcast journalists change jobs as frequently as foreign correspondents change money, he has stuck with the same network for more than 40 years, about half of that time reporting from overseas.

His admirers say his staying power is due to the fact that he has worked hard to develop a spare, tight style that makes economics easy to understand. He's often called to enlighten a television audience that has a limited background in such subjects. He's grabbed so much air time over the years that a CBS News president once said all NBC had for correspondents was a bunch of guys named Irving. In response, Levine's colleagues made up a button stating, "Irving, NBC News."

Levine's high profile has also made him the butt of good-natured barbs.

In 1989, CBS' "Murphy Brown" aired a show in which former CBS News anchor Linda Ellerbee and Murphy Brown were reminiscing about the time they competed for the anchor job at "FYI." Brown admitted that she had placed an ad in Ellerbee's name in Soldier of Fortune magazine. Ellerbee then confessed that she had started the rumor that Murphy "had the hots for Irving R. Levine." Levine made a cameo appearance on the show the next week.

More recently, when David Letterman held a press conference to announce that he was leaving NBC for CBS, he praised his old network and tweaked its economics correspondent. "What I will miss most are the back rubs from Irving R. Levine," he said. "The man is a master."

Back rubs aside, Carl Stern says Levine has lasted because the public appreciates his character.

"The middle initial," Stern says, "the bow tie, the lack of stylishness, the idea that he's a little old fashioned, with just a little bit of a twinkle. In his quiet way, he stands out in a crowd. You don't forget him. And at NBC News he represents continuity and institutional memories."

Levine, born to immigrant parents from Russia, grew up just outside of Providence, Rhode Island. He stayed home for college, attending Brown University, and worked at the Providence Journal on weekends. He joined the Army in 1943, traveling to the Philippines and Japan as a photographer, but did not engage in battle. After the war, he attended Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and then, in the summer of 1947, took a job on the foreign desk of the New York-based International News Service. His goal was to go abroad.

"I had wanted to be a foreign correspondent since high school," says Levine, "but INS was not the most generous outfit. The only way to go overseas was to pay your own passage."

Which he did. He traveled on the Queen Mary to Paris, then jumped at the chance to be the only INS correspondent in Vienna. It was 1949, the beginning of the Cold War. On one occasion, Levine ventured into the Soviet zone of Austria to follow up a story and was arrested. He was held and questioned by Soviet officers for about six hours.

In late 1950, when the United Nations sent troops to Korea, he put in for a transfer. He wanted to cover the war.

Like some wire service correspondents, Levine supplemented his income by stringing. NBC Radio was his only outside client. At one point, U.S. troops--and the NBC staff reporters covering them--were delayed from landing at Inchon. Levine, who was on the Korean peninsula, filled in for several days. The $50 NBC Radio paid per piece was considered big money.

"I always thought they looked at the $50 a broadcast," says Levine, "and decided it would be cheaper to hire me full time. And that's how I went to work for NBC." In 1951, he started doing television reports.

Following the Korean conflict, Levine became the first U.S. television correspondent accredited by the Soviets. NBC Radio listeners heard his broadcasts as well, including a weekly program called "This Is Moscow," which brought listeners the sights and sounds of the Soviet capital.

Levine spent four years there and wrote a book called "Main Street U.S.S.R." He was apparently glad to leave. Transferred to Rome in April 1959, he reported: "Advice to tourists. If you really want to enjoy your trip to Italy spend four years in Russia first. I did, and I'm enjoying my first days in Rome more than I thought possible."

Robert Mulholland, European field producer for the "Huntley-Brinkley Report" in 1964, remembers helping Levine polish his on-camera skills. He also remembers Levine's unusual sign-off.

"If you were putting together a one-minute Levine spot," Mulholland says affectionately, "you knew the copy had to end at 54 seconds because 'Irving R. Levine, NBC News, Rome' took six seconds. He was the only guy who could make Rome into three syllables."

Based in Europe, Levine covered most of the major overseas stories of the era. These included the military revolt in Algeria, the Berlin blockade and the launching of Sputnik. He also covered Italian politics, the death and selection of popes, and day-to-day Roman life, which led to another book, "Main Street Italy." He married Nancy Cartmell Jones in 1957, and they had three children while living there.

By 1970, the responsibilities and lifestyle of a foreign correspondent had changed, and Levine's career reached a crossroads. Reporting from overseas was no longer an engaging, somewhat cushy assignment, with several days to reflect on each story before filing. "It used to take all day to complete a call from Moscow to New York," Levine remembers. "The correspondent was a reporter, the bureau chief and producer. Advances in communications and technology ended the isolation of the foreign bureau, and brought limitations to some of the improvising and independence. That meant some of the glamour was gone as well."

Elda Guglielmetti, Levine's longtime bureau manager, remembers that Levine was uncomfortable with the new pressures. The job had become vastly more complicated--and rushed. Now a correspondent might come back from an assignment in one country and be ordered immediately to board a flight out to another.

Questions arose, too, about Levine's management style. He was perceived by some as being imperious. "In a small bureau over the years," says Bill Corrigan, then NBC News general manager, "personalities and egos tended to clash, and small slights were magnified."

At the end of 1970, NBC News reassigned Levine from his beloved Rome to Washington, D.C. He had been abroad for most of his 23 years in journalism, 10 in Rome.

"It was time for Irving to come home," recalls Reuven Frank, then president of NBC News. "Eventually reporters start to represent the people in the country where they're assigned. That wasn't the case yet with Irving, but it was time for a change."

Washington was the only NBC News bureau with more than two correspondents, and some considered it to be a dumping ground for unassigned reporters. There was speculation that Levine, who had no specific assignment, was being shunted aside.

In January 1971, then-Washington Bureau Chief Frank Jordan scheduled a lunch with Levine to discuss his assignment. Jordan remembers approaching the meeting with some discomfort. "He was one of the best known NBC correspondents," Jordan says, "but he represented a potential problem. I didn't know what I was going to do with him."

Levine went to the lunch with at least one idea. He had reported from all over the world, so a job as State Department correspondent seemed reasonable. "I told him that wasn't going to happen," says Jordan. "We already had someone there."

Jordan thought Levine's options were limited. He couldn't see Levine as a general assignment reporter. After all, he thought, Levine was more than a journeyman reporter. The science beat was a possibility, but not one Levine found attractive.

Two decades later, several people are quick to claim credit for combining economics with the labor beat for Levine. The list includes Reuven Frank, then-NBC News Vice President Richard Wald, former "NBC Nightly News" Executive Producer Wallace Westfeldt, Jordan and Levine himself. All say they thought it might be a good fit, although Jordan says it represented quite a challenge. He compares it to bringing a New York Times foreign correspondent home and assigning him to the financial page.

When the subject came up, Jordan says Levine demurred, in his very polite, very civil way. Westfeldt pressed the idea, telling him economics was an area that needed to be covered. Frank says he told Levine he thought he'd turn into a good economics reporter. Jordan says Levine figuratively swallowed hard and agreed to take the assignment.

Labor and economics was not a coveted beat. Plus, there was uncertainty all around. Although Levine had studied some economics in college and had some understanding of the world economic scene, could he turn the subject into good television? And how long would NBC News air notoriously dry economic stories before pulling the plug?

"Levine plunged in with energy and aplomb," Jordan remembers. "He put on his bow tie, learned about economics and found ways of making that complicated subject understandable to a mass television news audience."

The "Nightly News" Washington producer in 1971 was Christie Basham. "When Irving began bringing me economics stories," she says, "I didn't understand them. Nobody did then. I told him if he could make me understand them, the viewer would too. And he did. He taught me economics."

The breakthrough, Levine says, came on August 15, 1971, when President Richard Nixon announced wage and price controls. It was an extraordinary step for a Republican president. Then came the oil embargo, and the economics beat took off. Irving R. Levine, veteran foreign correspondent, sent to Washington without any clear assignment, was at the center of the action. And he was experienced enough to know how to run with it.

Today Levine is the dean of television economic reporters and is still prolific. His annual output, which includes a weekly commentary piece on CNBC and reports for "NBC Nightly News," "Today" and "News at Sunrise," averages 120 stories, placing him among the top 20 network correspondents for volume.

Levine still goes through newspapers each morning wearing tissue-paper-thin gloves to protect his fingers. When he works the phones he's able to get through to news sources like Labor Secretary Robert Reich without difficulty. He squirrels away footage for economics stories, rather than relying solely on the NBC tape library. A courtly figure around Washington, he takes news sources to lunch at places like the exclusive Cosmos Club.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, he can take pride in the fact that the other networks have increased their economics coverage. There's even a reporter at CNN, Myron Kandel, who sounds a bit like Levine.

After so many years and so many stories, has the magic of television begun to wear thin for Levine? Is he thinking of retiring? "Before I think of that," he says, "first I want to outlast the three Bs: Brinkley, [George] Burns and Bob [Hope]."

A final question: What does the "R" stand for? Raskin. But when he's asked, and he says he's asked all the time, he tells people it stands for "Radio." He adds he may change it to "T" for "Television"--if he decides TV is here to stay.