TV & VIDEO - April 6, 1987

Andy Rooney, the resident curmudgeon on “60 Minutes,” has threatened to quit CBS if a writers’ strike does not end soon, staff members said Friday. It’s part of a running feud in which Rooney wrote a letter attacking CBS Inc. chief executive officer Laurence Tisch’s management of the network and CBS retaliated by transferring his two assistants, insiders said. “Until recently, CBS News had been basically a moral enterprise and secondly a business enterprise,” Rooney said. “And recently it has been turned into primarily a business enterprise and the moral enterprise has been lost.” Rooney has provided his acerbic commentary on “60 Minutes” only once since 525 writers, graphic artists and news assistants went on strike at CBS and ABC on March 2. Last week, he said he would not appear on the show until the strike was resolved.