CBS Considers Special Series on Gulf Crisis

NEW YORK — CBS officials have discussed the possibility of a late-night series of specials on the Persian Gulf crisis similar to those that led to ABC’s “Nightline” 11 years ago, a CBS News spokesman said today.

“It’s not definite at this point,” spokesman Tom Goodman said.

Speculation about that began after anchorman Dan Rather’s interview with Saddam Hussein on Wednesday. Excerpts of the interview, conducted at midnight in Baghdad, were incorporated into a late-night Wednesday special co-anchored by Leslie Stahl and Charles Kuralt.

Rather’s interview with Hussein, whose Aug. 2 takeover of Kuwait sparked the gulf crisis, was the first by a U.S. network anchorman since the crisis began.

Similar specials are “being considered, but we’re taking it a day at a time at this point,” said Goodman, adding that one was being planned for Thursday night, also co-anchored by Stahl and Kuralt.

While CBS executives have discussed the possibility of a regular late-night news series and “anything’s a possibility, I think it’d be premature to say that it will happen,” he said.