A Mother and a Journalist : Television: To Meredith Vieria, ’60 Minutes’ is just a part-time job.

When Meredith Vieria went to an elegant Manhattan restaurant last spring with Don Hewitt, the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” to discuss signing on as a correspondent on the weekly newsmagazine, she brought along a third party to help with the negotations.

Vieria, after all, would be only the eighth anchor (and, after Diane Sawyer, only the second woman) in the 21-year history of “60 Minutes.” A 36-year-old former anchor on “West 57th,” Vieria also represented something of a new generation on the popular program, where the average age of Mike Wallace, Morley Safer and Harry Reasoner (65) belies their story-chasing enthusiasms.

Present at the lunch with Vieria was not an agent but her infant son, Ben.

“Don was pretty cool about it, although he kept saying protectively, ‘Shouldn’t he be in a crib?’ ” Vieria recalled, laughing.

“I took Ben to all of our meetings because I wanted to make the point that Ben was going to come first with me,” said Vieria, who gave birth to her child a year ago this month following three miscarriages. “ ’60 Minutes’ represents the best tradition in TV news, but I wasn’t going to do it unless I could make an arrangement for part-time work.”

The idea was unorthodox, but the arrangement was made. Vieria and fellow “West 57th” reporter Steve Kroft, 44, were named the new reporters on “60 Minutes.” And the producers agreed to have Vieria do about 10 pieces a year instead of the customary 20. Her first story several weeks ago, an investigation into how surplus zoo animals end up on game-hunting ranches, has led to an inquiry into practices at the San Diego Zoo. Her second story was on discrimination in employment agencies.

Vieria officially began work in September, but her first piece did not air until January. “We wanted to have several pieces to choose from so that we could see what would fit with the flow of stories in a particular broadcast,” Hewitt explained.

In a medium where women often feel forced to become “news nuns,” as one young female TV producer put it, Vieria is multi-sided. She covered breaking stories as a reporter for “The CBS Evening News” and won Emmys for investigative pieces on “West 57th.” But what interests her most are stories about children and others who are not powerful.

“I’d rather do a piece about Romanian orphans than cover the fall of the Berlin Wall,” she said. “Meredith is funny and sexy and smart, and she’s without a doubt the most honest person you’ll ever meet in network news,” said one CBS News producer. “I hope the guys who run the network are smart enough not to screw around with that.”

Vieria, who wore sweatpants and jeans around “West 57th,” seems genuinely apprehensive at the prospect of becoming a star-journalist on “60 Minutes.”

“When I did my first story for ’60 Minutes,’ the people being interviewed had no idea who I was--they thought Morley Safer was coming. After it aired, somebody said that I looked like Crystal Gayle with my shoulder-length hair, which made me wonder whether I ought to cut my hair. I bought some new clothes because I’ve joined a pretty dapper group here, but I don’t want to be thinking about my hair or my nails. What I enjoy as a reporter is bringing somebody else out--I’m not doing my job if I’m center-stage in a story.”

“I’ve been impressed with her work since she was a local reporter for the CBS station in New York,” says Mike Wallace, who lent his support to the hiring of Vieria as well as that of Kroft. “There’s a fresh-eyed, open quality to her reporting. She obviously wouldn’t have gotten the job if she weren’t a first-rate reporter, but she has that quality that makes you interested when she is on that screen.”

Whereas Kroft is described by staffers as extremely intense in his approach to the new job, Vieria is said to be hard-working but laid-back. She doesn’t wear her baby on her sleeve, but she was not apologetic when Hewitt had to step over some toys when he came by her office to talk the other day. Ben, now a blond-haired 1-year-old, was paying a visit to her spacious office, which was once occupied by Walter Cronkite.

“Don and everyone here have been great about Ben,” Vieria says. “I used to bring Ben in more, but now that he’s almost walking, it’s hard for me to work while he’s around, and it’s not really fair to him.”

Vieria shares child care with her husband, Richard Cohen, a former CBS producer who is now a free-lance journalist. “Richard and Ben have breakfast together in the morning, which is great with me because I’m not an early-riser. Since I’m not punching a clock, I can spend time in the morning with Ben or sometimes trade off with Richard on one of us coming home at noon.”

With flexible hours and part-time help, Vieria knows that she has many advantages over other working women, and men. Still, she notes, it’s a balancing act.

Graduating with a degree in English from Tufts University in 1975, Vieria went into broadcasting after her journalism instructor suggested that her voice would be good for radio. She was offered a job at WCBS in New York in 1979. Her reporting caught the eye of CBS News brass, and she became a Chicago-based reporter for the network in 1982.

She made the A-list of correspondents favored by Dan Rather for reporting on “The CBS Evening News.” But when CBS executives wanted her to become an anchor on the “West 57th,” she didn’t want the job.

“I had no interest in a magazine show; I wanted to continue being a correspondent for the evening news,” Vierra recalls. “Dan encouraged me to do it, saying that sometimes you should help out the company. I’m glad I made the choice to do ‘West 57th’--now I can’t imagine going back to the evening news.”

Vieria met her husband when he came to Chicago to do a story for “The CBS Evening News.”

“All of us in the bureau were on the road so much that when we were in the office, you literally could wrap yourself up in a comforter and watch Bugs Bunny cartoons, which is what I was doing one day when Richard walked in,” she recalls. “I think he was in total shock that I was employed by CBS. I criticized the piece he was doing as typically ‘New York’ and uninformed about Chicago. I think I must have presented an immediate challenge to him since we were both somewhat sarcastic. When he sent me a Bugs Bunny cartoon book in the mail, I knew it was love.” The couple were married in 1986.

One of the unusual aspects of Vieria’s esteem among CBS News executives is that Cohen left CBS in March, 1988, after clashing with management and has been publicly critical of the network. Cohen had been producer of “The CBS Evening News’ ” coverage of the 1988 presidential campaign when, according to sources at the network, he ran afoul of Rather after saying in a newspaper interview that the anchor had made mistakes in his controversial interview with then-Vice President George Bush.

“If Richard had felt that he couldn’t handle my being at the network, I would’ve left,” Vieria says. “CBS has been very good to me, and I’m sure they wish Richard would not comment on network news. But I admire him enormously. I don’t think it’s a good idea for any organization when you can’t allow people to speak their minds.”