captioning funded by cbs and ford-- built for the road ahead. >> pitts: the day after we arrived in afghanistan, a roadside bomb claimed two more american lives. the bagram base held a fallen comrade ceremony for air force lieutenant roslyn schulte and army reservist shawn pine. service members by the hundreds stopped what they were doing and lined the street to pay their respects as the coffins were driven slowly from the base mortuary to the airstrip. these pictures are rarely seen on television, and were given to us so we could honor america's fallen heroes on this memorial day weekend.

>> stahl: the woolly mammoth is the first extinct animal to have its genome decoded, and some scientists believe that one day they may be able to clone one. that may seem like science fiction, but new breakthroughs in d.n.a. research may also help keep today's animals from going extinct. >> i feel like we're in the emergency room of the wildlife business, really. i don't want to see elephants in textbooks or... you know, the way we see dinosaurs. >> stah: so dr. dresser is storing skin samples of lions, gorillas, and hundreds of other species in something she calls a frozen zoo. so if any one of these animals were go to extinct, you could bring them back. >> in theory, i believe we can. >> i feel there should definitely be a dress. this should be a suit. >> safer: anna wintour is involved in every detail of "vogue": the clothes... >> i like the stripes. >> safer: ...editing the pictures and articles. she is decisive, impatient, and bears a look that says "i'm the boss, and you're boring."

>> i just thought that was a bit banal. should i do the faces of the moment, because that is what we have on the cover, or still keep thinking? >> keep thinking. >> i'm steve kroft. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm bob simon. >> i'm morley safer. >> i'm byron pitts. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories and andy rooney, tonight on this special edition of "60 minutes." my nasal allergies are ruining our camping trip. i know who works differently than many other allergy medications. hoo? omnaris. [ men ] omnaris -- to the nose! [ man ] did you know nasal symptoms like congestion can be caused by allergic inflammation? omnaris relieves your symptoms by fighting inflammation. side effects may include headache, nosebleed, and sore throat. [ inhales deeply ] i told my allergy symptoms to take a hike. omnaris. ask your doctor. battling nasal allergy symptoms? omnaris combats the cause. get omnaris for $11 at omnaris.com.

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♪ [ slap! slap! slap! slap! slap! ] [ male announcer ] your favorite foods fighting you? fight back fast with tums. calcium rich tums goes to work in seconds. nothing works faster. ♪ tum ta tum tum tums >> pitts: more than 130 americans have been killed so far this year in afghanistan.

most of them were killed by the deadliest weapon in the enemy's arsenal, the roadside bomb, or i.e.d., an improvised explosive device. on this memorial day weekend, we wanted to honor the american service men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice, and to remind you of the challenges our military faces every day. one of the biggest challenges is to find roadside bombs before they explode. as we first reported last fall, a small army of elite units called "task force paladin" carries out search and destroy missions looking for them. only volunteers are allowed to serve on paladin teams because their mission, and the weapons they're trying to find, are so dangerous. >> colonel jeffrey jarkowsky: it's been a terrorist tool of choice for many, many years. >> pitts: a terrorist tool? >> jarkowsky: absolutely. >> pitts: colonel jeffrey jarkowsky was in charge of task force paladin at the bagram airbase. "look at us-- we can kill, we can maim, we can destroy when we want to, and the americans can't stop us." >> jarkowsky: that's their intent, yes. >> pitts: the day after we arrived at bagram, a roadside

bomb claimed two more american lives. the base held what's called a fallen comrade ceremony for air force lieutenant roslyn schulte and army reservist shawn pine. service members by the hundreds stopped what they were doing and lined the street to pay their respects as the coffins were driven slowly from the base mortuary to the airstrip. this video was produced by the military for the family of lieutenant schulte, who shared it with us. in the week that we've been here, five americans have been killed by i.e.d.s. how does that hit you? >> jarkowsky: very hard. we take each one of these personally. and i think about their families. and every time we see one of these casualties, we look at what happened, both to see what did the enemy do, what did we do, how can we counter what the enemy has done. >> we'll have front team to the west, rear team to the east. over. >> pitts: to try to counter the bomb threat, paladin squads hit

the road every day looking for explosives. we spent ten days with a squad led by army captain dave foster. in less than an hour, they discovered their first bomb. it would not be the last. >> captain dave foster: the i.e.d. that we found had a 107- millimeter rocket connected to a command wire. as the team was doing dismount and ops, they found the command wire. a 107-millimeter rocket has approximately about eight pounds of explosives in the warhead. >> pitts: they spotted it near a family's home. staff sergeant max cabrera found and then disconnected the command wire, or detonation wire, disabling the bomb. despite the risk to himself, cabrera picked up the bomb, and, to avoid civilian casualties, he carried it behind that abandoned building and blew it up. >> sergeant max cabrera: you get scared, but when you got so many things going through your mind, you just don't even know what to concentrate on sometimes. >> pitts: you are scared? >> cabrera: yes, sir. everybody is. lets you know you're still alive.

>> pitts: being scared lets you know you're still alive? >> cabrera: yes, sir. >> pitts: sergeant cabrera is 27. his home is on the island of saipan, in the west pacific. how much do you think it costs to make an i.e.d. in afghanistan? >> cabrera: maybe ten u.s. dollars. >> pitts: ten dollars? you could lose your life over... >> cabrera: ten dollars. >> pitts: what does it take to do that job, do you think? >> foster: a belief that you are making a difference, and a little bit of craziness. >> pitts: a little bit of crazy goes a long way in afghanistan. >> foster: yes, sir, it does. >> pitts: we were in eastern afghanistan-- khost province-- walking distance from the pakistan border, where many of the bomb makers are trained. their bombs are so powerful that paladin units have to travel in these specialized, highly armored million-dollar vehicles. this one, called a buffalo, has a large, claw-like arm that can dig for bombs in the road. another can snag trip wires lying across the road. >> you guys know the threat. there's a lot of stuff going on

up there. >> pitts: on this mission, the paladin squad was working with a michigan national guard unit to clear bombs from roads. there are 66 route clearance units like this in the country. specialist christopher parsons has been a guardsman for three years. >> specialist christopher parsons: i love the pressure, and it puts a lot of pressure on me to make sure i do my job correctly. >> pitts: what skill does it take to do your job? > parsons: honestly, i'm from michigan, so i love to hunt, and that helps a lot. >> pitts: so, whether it's hunting deer in michigan or hunting i.e.d.s in afghanistan, same skill set. >> parsons: roger. >> pitts: one of his commanding officers told us deer hunters like parsons make the best bomb hunters. with his sharp vision, he was able to find one with a trigger smaller than his index finger; it was a clothespin. 30 meters away, you're moving at what speed? >> parsons: about 10, 15 k. >> pitts: and you saw the clothes pin and thought what? >> parsons: i thought at first... when i thought trip wire right away. and so i just started looking more, and i saw the wire. >> pitts: on this day, parsons was helping the paladin team

clear a road so the base commander could drive safely to a meeting with a local official 12 miles away. outside a village, the buffalo stopped to dig for a bomb because the squad was attacked here just the week before. >> clear. >> pitts: no bomb. the convoy moved on. but six minutes later... >> buffalo hit. >> secondary [no audio]. >> pitts: the buffalo filled with smoke as two powerful bombs buried in the dirt road exploded, engulfing the vehicle in a huge cloud of dust. despite their training and experience, the squad never saw it coming. >> 3-6, 3-6-6, we're good, we're good. >> 10:00, there's a guy running. 10:00 west, 10:00, about our vehicle. >> look at the tree line, watch the tree line. >> shoot them sons of bitches. >> pitts: two bombers got away. the buffalo, which collapsed in a huge hole, lost its wheel and driveshaft. but all three soldiers inside survived. sergeant cabrera found the bomb detonation wires in the dirt

road. he and his partner, specialist joshua gross, told us the first bomb hit its target, but the second one missed. >> cabrera: this right here was the first explosion that went off. this right here was the second one. >> pitts: in this instance, did the trigger man make a mistake or were you guys just lucky? >> cabrera: trigger man made a mistake. >> specialist joshua gross: and we were lucky. we were lucky he made a mistake. >> pitts: lucky because the second bomb was designed to kill cabrera while he was out of his vehicle investigating the first explosion. something with your name on it? >> cabrera: yes, sir. >> pitts: meant to maim or kill you? >> cabrera: yes, sir. >> pitts: roadside bombs are also meant to prove to afghans the united states, with its superior military, still cannot protect its own troops or them. one soldier we talked to had been hit by i.e.d.s on the same road, within a half kilometer, three times. >> jarkowsky: right. well, the enemy is relentless in the way he employs these. and so, you can't stop.

ours is a fight of constant, consistent pressure where we have to be relentless, just as that enemy is. this is not a fast fight. >> pitts: it's warfare at a snail's pace. we averaged just two miles an hour. we stopped at a farm because captain foster thought there might be a bomb hidden in this field. as darkness fell, sergeant cabrera put on his 80-pound bomb suit and took what soldiers call the "long, lonely walk." he set off two explosive charges to clear the road. ( explosions ) but there was no bomb. the convoy moved on... ( explosion ) ...when another bomb exploded behind us. >> foster: looks like we got out of there in time. >> pitts: just before midnight, we made it safely to an old farmhouse turned military outpost. while his men slept, we talked with captain foster about a difficult 17-hour day. so did you accomplish your mission today?

>> foster: yes sir. >> pitts: so, after mortars, i.e.d.s, this was a good day? >> foster: yes, sir. everybody came home safe. >> pitts: you seem a bit somber. or just exhausted? >> foster: no, it's... at the end of the day, knowing that all my soldiers are safe, that's when i sit down in a quiet time and thank god for watching over them. >> yeah, roger that. he said to pull forward. >> pitts: hours later, near the end of their mission, captain foster's men were attacked again. >> i.e.d.-- lead vehicle's been hit. >> pitts: around that bend in the road, the smoke in the distance meant that a massive bomb had exploded under the lead vehicle, just two miles from base. the vehicle appeared to have been totaled. all three men inside were injured. several men and a child in a car nearby were questioned and released. in this mission, the bomb squad encountered five bombs. one u.s. vehicle was damaged, another wrecked.

not a single bomber was captured or killed. colonel, how would you respond to those people who will look at the mission we went on and say, your troops went out to hunt bombs and they ended up being hunted; that they were hit by bombs, as opposed to finding them and defeating all those bombs? >> jarkowsky: we are not 100% successful in locating every i.e.d. before it detonates. we do have great success with that. on average today, over 60% of all i.e.d.s are found before they ever detonate. but the enemy gets a vote. he does have the opportunity to get a lick in. so in this mission, he got some licks in. >> pitts: do you ever think this is a fight you can't win? they go out, they place a bomb, you remove it. the next day, they put out another bomb. >> gross: right. i mean, i try not to think about it too much because it doesn't really help anybody, you know? >> pitts: what do you think? is this a fight you can win? >> cabrera: beats me. >> gross: i guess... i guess

winning, to me, is going home, really, after our deployment's done. >> cabrera: exactly. >> gross: is going home. >> cabrera: going home alive. >> pitts: that's how you measure success in afghanistan? >> cabrera: yes, sir. >> pitts: sergeant cabrera, specialist gross, and captain foster all did make it home alive when their tour ended. ( "taps" playing ) but in the past year, 16 other bomb squad technicians were not so fortunate. >> they are all patriots and they are all volunteers, and they are all doing the military's most dangerous job. >> pitts: earlier this month, they were all honored in a private ceremony during a memorial at eglin air force base in florida, where they had all been trained. like the thousands of service men and women before them, they will be remembered again on this memorial day weekend. two of the men were in the army. >> staff sergeant edmond lo. staff sergeant thomas rabjohn. >> pitts: eight were marines.

>> staff sergeant daniel l. hansen. gunnery sergeant john h. roy. staff sergeant mark a. wojciechowski. chief warrant officer ricky l. richardson. gunnery sergeant david s. spicer. master sergeant adam f. benjamin. staff sergeant aaron j. taylor. staff sergeant christopher eckard. >> pitts: the navy lost two men. >> explosive ordnance disposal technician second class tyler j. trahan. explosive ordnance disposal technician second class tony m. randolph. >> pitts: and there were four men from the air force. >> technical sergeant philip a. myers. staff sergeant bryan d. berky. technical sergeant anthony c. campbell, jr. technical sergeant adam k. ginett.

>> pitts: flags that had been flown over the memorial were given to family members of the 16 men. and their names were added to a wall that has the names of hundreds of bomb experts killed in the line of duty dating back to the second world war. pro wrning goods peening, the called the gulf oil spill the biggest environmental disaster the u.s. has ever had. gas fell to 2.74 this holiday weekend, that's down 14 cents in two weeks. and the shrek sequel won the weekend box office again, sex & the city 2 was second. i'm russ mitchell. cbs news. fishing at the shore. i'm breathing better... with spiriva.

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imagine that 10,000 years ago, right here in north america, there lived giant animals that are now the stuff of legends-- mammoths and mastodons, ground sloths and saber-tooth cats. they, and thousands of other species have vanished from the earth; and today, partly due to the expansion of one species-- ours-- animals are going extinct faster than ever before. the very definition of extinct means gone forever, but what if that didn't have to be? as we reported earlier this year, scientists are making remarkable advances that are bringing us closer than ever before to the possibility of a true animal resurrection. >> oh, my goodness, that's the biggest one! >> stahl: who wouldn't be dazzled by an animal like this-- the woolly mammoth... or the saber-tooth tiger... the irish elk... the giant sloth.

today, they exist just as bones in museums, alive only in our imaginations, and the recreations of artists and filmmakers. but what if that could change? in the age of d.n.a., we now know that these vanished creatures, like all life on earth, are ultimately nothing more than this, sequences of the four letters-- a, c, t, and g-- that make up the genetic blueprint or code of life. the codes for extinct animals were thought to have died along with them, until recently, when machines like this one at the smithsonian's d.n.a. lab started working magic. >> sean carroll: just the study of ancient d.n.a. only broke onto the scene 20 years ago or so-- the idea that we could harvest d.n.a. from extinct creatures, from fossil bones, learn something about the past. >> stahl: sean carroll, a professor of molecular biology and genetics at the university of wisconsin, says that, like so many things in the field of

d.n.a., the progress has been staggering. one surprising discovery has been the value of ancient hair. scientists recently discovered that the hair shaft seals d.n.a. inside it like a biological plastic, protecting it, and making hair a rich and plentiful source of genetic information. does that mean that you can take extinct animals... i mean, there's hair in museums? >> carroll: right, yeah. >> stahl: and get the genetic sequencing? >> carroll: possibly. and especially if those animals were preserved in any way, there's a good prospect of that. it's sort of like "c.s.i.," you know? how good is this forensic material? can you get good d.n.a. information from older and older and older material? that's pretty promising. >> stahl: so dusty old specimens that have been tucked away in the drawers of natural history museums like the smithsonian are suddenly potential treasure troves of genetic information. just a year and a half ago, using only a few clumps of woolly mammoth hair, scientists at penn state were able to

extract enough d.n.a. fragments to figure out most of its genetic sequence, making the woolly mammoth the first extinct animal to have its genome decoded-- which raises the question of whether resurrecting one of these creatures is really possible. scientists say one option would be genetic engineering-- take a living animal that's related to the mammoth, like the elephant, figure out all the places where its d.n.a. differs from the mammoth's, and then alter the elephant's d.n.a. to make it match. that's not possible just yet. but there may be another way: cloning. is it possible that we're going to get the full d.n.a. of the woolly mammoth and be able to clone it? >> carroll: yes, i think we'll be able to get much, if not all, of the woolly mammoth d.n.a. and the great advantage there is that a lot of the specimens are in permafrost. so they've sort of been conveniently frozen for us, which preserves d.n.a., preserves tissue better.

>> stahl: but for cloning, just knowing the d.n.a. sequence from hair isn't enough. you'd need an intact mammoth cell, which carroll says will be difficult to find, but not impossible. >> carroll: it could be a skin cell. it could be any particular cell that, hopefully, has been preserved well enough, stayed frozen for thousands of years. and to transfer the nucleus of that cell into, for example, an egg of an elephant. >> stahl: and they're close... >> carroll: close enough that... >> stahl: close enough. >> carroll: ...close enough that maybe the elephant could serve as a surrogate mother. it's called inter-species cloning, implanting d.n.a. from one species into the eggs of another. and anyone who wants to try it, with a mammoth or anything else, would be well-served to pay a visit to dr. betsy dresser in new orleans. tucked away on 1,200 acres of land that seem part serengeti, part high-tech medical facility, she ahd her staff at the audubon nature institute have been working quietly for years on the

science and the art of inter- species cloning. and she'll be the first to tell you that, even with living animals, it isn't easy. >> betsy dresser: you don't just clone some cells, and then all of a sudden you have a baby. i mean, there's so many scientific steps along the way-- knowing everything from hormones to the proper surrogate to, you know, length of pregnancy. >> stahl: length of pregnancy? >> dresser: yeah. because, see, we don't know how long a woolly mammoth... the gestation period. we can guess, but we don't know, really. >> stahl: but betsy dresser's work on inter-species cloning is focused on the future, not the past. rather than trying to resurrect extinct creatures, her goal is to keep the animals we have today from going extinct tomorrow. >> dresser: i feel like we're in the emergency room of the wildlife business, really. i don't want to see elephants in textbooks or, you know, the way we see dinosaurs. we're going to lose a lot of species if we don't do something about it. >> stahl: dresser and her team

are trying to increase the populations of endangered animals by putting their d.n.a. into the eggs of their non- endangered relatives. >> dresser: this cat's going to act as a surrogate mother, and so here's the surgery... >> stahl: on the day we visited, they were laparoscopically removing eggs from an ordinary housecat, then sending the eggs down the hall to have the housecat d.n.a. literally sucked out of them. ooh, tell me what's happening. >> dresser: what she's doing is she's removing the d.n.a. from this domestic cat egg. and she can see it by what we call fluorescing it. it becomes just very blue, and so now she knows where it is. and now, you'll see her go in there and be able to remove it. >> stahl: she's taking out all the genes? >> dresser: right. >> stahl: once the housecat d.n.a. is out-- that's it being deposited outside of the egg-- they will replace it with the d.n.a. of an endangered arabian sandcat, a completely different species, gathered from a tiny piece of skin.

>> dresser: and there you see it being inserted into the domestic cat egg. >> stahl: and you made that from just skin? >> dresser: just from skin cells, right. >> stahl: an electrical pulse starts the egg dividing, and, if all goes as planned, the now sandcat embryo will be put back into the domestic cat to grow to term. it's worked before, with african wildcats. these two are both interspecies clones-- so normal, they even mated the old-fashioned way and produced kittens. >> dresser: eight kittens, altogether. we had a couple litters. >> stahl: and they're totally healthy and they're african wildcats. >> dresser: totally african wildcats, totally healthy. and it said to us, "hey, this works." and now that we know we can do it, we can say to the world, "these animals do develop. they do reproduce naturally. and we can use this as a tool for endangered species." >> stahl: is she hissing at us? >> dresser: yeah, she's hissing at us. >> stahl: and dresser is working her way up.

her next inter-species cloning project will use this non- endangered caracal cat as a surrogate mother for an endangered lynx; and after that, the eland antelope as a surrogate for its endangered cousin, the bongo. you know, there are still people who get nervous at the idea of cloning. they think there's something wrong about it. >> dresser: i'll tell you what-- if i have to choose cloning or extinction, i'm going to choose cloning. but i want to be darn sure that i know how to do it. and if we don't do it while we have the animals, now, to be able to learn how to do it, then we're not going to have a choice. it's not going to be an option. >> stahl: so to keep her options open while she's mastering inter-species cloning, she's also putting as many animals as she can on ice, literally. dresser is the keeper of a new kind of zoo-- a frozen zoo-- where she's collecting tiny skin samples from thousands of different animals, representing hundreds of species, and is

storing them at 343 degrees below zero in tiny canisters inside these tanks filled with liquid nitrogen. >> dresser: we've got lions and tigers, we've got gorillas and rhinos. we've got little frogs. all of the animals... >> stahl: so, everything... >> dresser: ...that people know in zoos. >> stahl: ...from this size to this size. >> dresser: to this size, exactly. >> stahl: so, how long can a piece of skin be viable? >> dresser: we think these cells can sit here for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. >> stahl: so if any one of these animals were to go extinct, you could bring them back? >> dresser: in theory, i believe we can. >> stahl: in other words, it's kind of a noah's ark. >> dresser: yeah. >> stahl: it's not a zoo, it's an ark. >> dresser: it's an ark. ( chuckles ) truly. >> stahl: do you think we're at the stage where we should be taking every single wild animal, even if they're not endangered, and putting them in a frozen zoo? >> dresser: yes. i absolutely do. >> stahl: every single one? >> dresser: what have we got to lose? i think we should put every species in that we can, while we have the opportunity. >> stahl: which raises the

question, with so many living animals today threatened, why think about resurrecting extinct ones, like the mammoth? to bring the woolly mammoth back-- we don't have enough space for the big animals we already have. >> carroll: these projects, like the woolly mammoth, they inspire people to think about the meaning of what we're doing here. and why would you invest years and years of your life in trying to bring back a woolly mammoth, or taking care of them if you did? >> stahl: that's an excellent question. >> carroll: i think it would fire up people's imaginations. and i think, somewhere, there's a nine-year-old girl watching this program and listening to this saying, "that's what i want to do. i want to bring back these creatures that are extinct. or i want to protect creatures that are now threatened from going extinct." so, in many ways, i think the woolly mammoth can sort of be, you know, a poster animal for a general effort of being more conscious of our activities on the planet. >> stahl: no one has yet found the intact cell it would take to resurrect that poster animal, but in siberia three years ago,

a reindeer herder discovered a remarkably well-preserved one- month-old baby mammoth that had lain frozen in permafrost for 40,000 years. its d.n.a. was in better shape than any previously found, raising hopes that between new finds and new technology, it may just be a matter of time. ♪ ♪ a day once dawned ♪ ♪ and it was beautiful ♪ ♪ so, look, see the sights ♪ that you learned [ male announcer ] at&t covers 97% of all americans. get your grad or dad the exclusive samsung strive for just $19.99. only from at&t.

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>> safer: she is said to be the

most powerful woman in fashion, and she does nothing to dispel that belief. her name is anna wintour, a name that strikes terror in some, loathing in others, and transforms yet others into obsequious toadies. she was the inspiration for the novel and movie "the devil wears prada." for 22 years, this divorced mother of two has been editor of "vogue," the last word in sophisticated fashion and fantasy. when we first broadcast this story a year ago, the recession had begun and anna wintour was responding with a call for austerity. flaunting one's wealth was no longer chic. her legions of readers heeded the call for a good five or ten minutes. spending, like greed, is good again, and the aura of mystery surrounding the 60-year old wintour remains palpable. she is a paparazzi and gossip column magnet. every twitch, every frown, every suppressed smile is recorded.

she's been portrayed as darth vader in a frock or, less harshly, as "nuclear wintour." or is she really just peaches and cream with a touch of arsenic? the blurb on your unauthorized biography reads "she's ambitious, driven, needy, a perfectionist. an inside look at the competitive 'bitch eat bitch' world of fashion." accurate? >> anna wintour: i am very driven by what i do. i am certainly very competitive. what... what else? am i needy? >> safer: ah... >> wintour: i'm probably very needy, yes. a bitch? >> safer: perfectionist? >> wintour: perfectionist? >> safer: well, let's try bitch, first. >> wintour: well, i hope i'm not. i try not to be. but i like people who represent the best of what they do, and if that turns you into a perfectionist, then maybe i am. >> safer: high above times

square, anna wintour oversees a small army of girls-- coifed, skinny, beautiful, and running scared, the worker bees whose job it is to inspire women to dream. the pages of "vogue" conjure up a never-never land of beauty, of the sweet life. fantasy after fantasy comes to life on page after glossy page. under anna wintour's direction, "vogue" has been hugely successful. >> wintour: "vogue" is the best of everything that fashion can offer, and i think we're the leader in the field. we point the way. we are, you know, a glamorous girlfriend. >> safer: but the glamorous girlfriend, like "vogue" readers, is facing leaner times. >> wintour: i do want to make the point that september really has to be about value, but we don't want to give up completely the dream and the fantasy. but i also feel like we need to have a sense of being more grounded. >> safer: wintour is involved in every detail of the magazine-- the clothes, editing the

pictures and articles. she is decisive, impatient, and bears a look that says "i'm the boss, and you're boring." yeah, i just thought that was a bit banal. >> should i do the faces of the moment, because that's what we have on the cover, or just still keep thinking? >> wintour: keep thinking. >> safer: an editor is, in the final analysis, a kind of dictator. a magazine is not a democracy. >> wintour: it's a group of people coming together and presenting ideas, from which i pick what i think is the best mix for each particular issue. but in the end, the final decision has to be mine. >> safer: meet miranda priestly, the beastly editor in "the devil wears prada"-- meryl streep as anna incarnate. >> meryl streep: is there some reason that my coffee isn't here? has she died or something? >> safer: i've heard that miranda priestly is just a teddy bear compared to anna wintour. >> wintour: it was entertainment. it was not a true rendition of what happens within this magazine. >> safer: i understand that, but where people made comparisons

with you-- that coldness, that anna must not be spoken to when she's on the elevator. >> wintour: oh, yeah. i heard that. you're not allowed to get in the elevator with me. >> safer: well, you can get on, but just keep your mouth shut? >> wintour: that's a complete exaggeration. i mean, i guess in response, i can only say that i've had... i have so many people here, morley, that have worked with me for 15, 20 years, and, you know, if i'm such a bitch, they must really be a glutton for punishment, because they're still here. >> safer: well, i wouldn't use the word "bitch"; i would say a certain coldness. >> wintour: well, we're here to work. we're here to work. there's on-duty time and off- duty time, and, in the end, we're drawn together by our passion for the magazine and our respect and friendship for each other. and if one comes across sometimes as being cold or brusque, it's simply because i'm striving for the best. >> andre leon talley: it's not like a tea party here. we work very hard. >> safer: andre leon talley, "vogue's" editor at large.

he's worked with anna for decades. what kind of boss is she? >> talley: let's say that anna can be... i think that's her armor, to intimidate, to give the people the sense that she is in charge. >> wintour: i have been asking to see those books-- like, this week, okay, is your deadline. >> talley: she is not a person who's going to show you her emotions, ever. she's like a doctor-- when she's looking at your work, it's like a medical analysis. some of us can't cope with that; we need to be loved. >> safer: fat chance of that, says "vogue" creative director grace coddington, another veteran colleague. >> grace coddington: i think she enjoys not being completely approachable, you know. just her office is very intimidating, right? you have to walk about a mile into the office before you get to her desk. and i'm sure it's, you know, intentional. >> safer: have you ever seen her looking less than perfect? >> coddington: no. >> safer: never.. >> coddington: never-- hair's always... >> safer: that must take terrific discipline? >> coddington: i think she's a very disciplined woman.

>> safer: also a very pampered one. conde nast, her publisher, picks up the bill for her hair and makeup every day of the week, and her rumored $200,000-a-year clothing allowance. you made yourself the personification of "vogue." i mean, look at you-- not a hair out of place. do you feel that that's your mission in life, to appear perfect? >> wintour: it's very important to me that i look good when i go out publicly. i like looking at my clothes rack in the morning and deciding what to pick out. i enjoy fashion. morley, i mean, i wouldn't be in this job if i didn't. >> safer: why the sunglasses? >> wintour: well, they're seriously useful. i mean, i can sit in a show, and if i'm bored out of my mind, nobody will notice. and if i'm enjoying it, nobody will notice. so i think, at this point, they've become, you know, really armor. >> safer: wintour was born in london, the daughter of charles wintour, editor of the "london evening standard." he was a tough-minded intellectual.

anna dropped out of high school at 16. >> wintour: i wasn't academically successful. and maybe i've spent a lot of my career trying to make up for that. >> safer: your father, who i knew only slightly in england, he had a tough reputation. >> wintour: yes. "chilly... chilly charlie." >> safer: not unlike yours. and his reporters were scared of him. >> wintour: yes. but look what he created. i mean, he created a great, great newspaper. and i certainly did learn this from him-- people respond well to someone who's sure of what they want. >> safer: and anna wintour is nothing but sure. that's most apparent when, twice a year, her majesty takes her place at the ready-to-wear fashion shows in new york, paris and milan, where she sits in judgment of the work of the world's most eminent designers. to an outsider, these shows are another planet-- part dazzling, part "rocky horror show." models who seem as angry as they are emaciated, wearing clothes

fit for a cadaver, and shoes that make stilettos seem sensible, and a legion of camp followers-- and campy followers-- chasing the celebrities du jour and the people who dress them. >> wintour: you come here to be inspired. you come here to see the best of the best. and one just wants to rush back and put it in the pages of the magazine and translate it as fast as you can to the reader. >> safer: it's a planet where wintour feels comfortably at home; where she acts as a cheerleader, powerbroker and consultant. what bores you? >> wintour: mediocrity. if you see a collection that is... that you feel a designer has been lazy or taking inspiration from other designers, it doesn't as much bore me as anger me. >> safer: neither "vogue" nor anna will openly criticize designers; she just omits them from the magazine. death by anonymity. it's the kind of power that makes designers like karl lagerfeld, who this season

favors the dracula look, sing her praises. >> lagerfeld: she is the most famous fashion journalist in the world. she says what she thinks-- that's why some people think sometimes she is a little tough. but i like tough people, and i like tough woman. she has to give a cold image to keep things going. that's not that easy, huh? it's like running a mad house, a fashion magazine. >> safer: when she drops in on a designer, it is make-or-break time. >> nicholas ghesquiere: and it goes with belt. >> safer: nicholas ghesquiere of balenciaga is anxious to please. >> anna: light. >> ghesquiere: yeah, i'm trying. >> safer: do you keep her in mind when you're working on a new collection or a new design? >> ghesquiere: there is always a moment when you question if anna will like it or not, for sure. i think any designer who says the contrary would lie. >> safer: john galliano, who designs for dior, who some might think needs a better tailor, calls wintour his fairy godmother.

>> galliano: oh, my goodness, in all my success, i mean, without her support, i certainly wouldn't be at the house of dior today. >> bernard arnault: she has an eye; to have an eye is key. >> safer: bernard arnault, who has a better tailor and owns dior, is the chairman of l.v.m.h., the largest luxury conglomerate in the world. when wintour recommended to the richest man in france that he hire galliano, it was implicit that "vogue" would feature galliano's designs. >> arnault: when i hired john, i discussed at length with her. obviously, at the time, it was a risk, because he was not as well-known as he is today. but i was comforted by anna about what he could do, and finally i took the risk. >> safer: that gives you a remarkable kind of power-- much more power than any mere editor- in-chief of a magazine normally has. >> wintour: well, we can advise, morley. we can't dictate.

and obviously, in the end, those gentlemen will make... are very capable of making up their own minds. >> safer: but they have the remarkable habit of going along with your ideas. >> wintour: well, we can only point them in that direction. >> safer: she does even more; she helps choose the next generation of designers. for example, this young man, alexander wang. >> wintour: so what do you have to show us? >> safer: it's a mutually beneficial relationship that gives "vogue" an inside track on the next hot designer. >> wintour: and how much is that one, alexander? >> wang: this one retails for $1,200. >> wintour: it's very reasonable. >> safer: reasonable?! perhaps if you happen to have a $200,000 clothing allowance. but for sheer glitz, nothing beats the soiree at new york's metropolitan museum. >> wintour: thank you so much for everything. >> safer: every year, anna organizes a benefit which, so far, has raised nearly $60 million for the museum's costume institute. when anna calls, the fashion houses are only too eager to

cough up as much as $250,000 a table. this year, there's a certain nervous splendor to this recession procession. nevertheless, the want-to-be- seen show up in hordes. tonight, the rag trade rules. a night to flaunt it, whatever it is. anna in total control, despite the rumors that, in these really thin economic times, and after 21 years on the throne, her days may be numbered. are you thinking that it may soon be time to pack it all in? >> wintour: not at all. to me, this is a really interesting time to be in this position, and i think it would be, in a way, irresponsible not to put my best foot forward and lead us into a different time. >> safer: do you see, out there in these outer offices, some young upstart quietly taking the

measure of this office? >> wintour: probably several. >> safer: but when the time comes, will you go quietly? >> wintour: certainly. very quietly. >> welcome to the cbs sports cup date presented by lipitor. >> at the innap liss 500 dar onfran the keyee took the checkered flag. at the french open roger federer advanced to the final. venus williams was up set. in baseball on the hills of the perfect game the phillies were shut out 1-0. for more sports news and scores log on to cbssports.com. . that was a rough time. my doctor told me i should've been doing more for my high cholesterol. ♪ you should've listened. you're right.

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>> safer: now, andy rooney. >> rooney: tomorrow is memorial day, the day we have set aside to honor, by remembering, all the americans who have died fighting for the thing we like most about our america: the freedom we have to live as we please. no official day to remember is adequate for something like that. too formal. it gets to be just another day on the calendar. no one would know from memorial day that richie m., who was shot through the forehead coming onto omaha beach on june 6, 1944, wore different color socks on each foot because he thought it brought him good luck. no one would remember on memorial day that eddie g. had promised to marry julie w. the day after he got home from the war, but didn't marry julie because he never came home from

the war. eddie was shot dead on an un- american desert island, iwo jima. for too many americans, memorial day has become just another day off. there's only so much time any of us can spend remembering those we loved who have died. but the men-- boys, really-- who died in our wars deserve at least a few moments of reflection during which we consider what they did for us-- they died. we use the phrase "gave their lives," but they didn't give their lives; their lives were taken from them. there is more bravery at war than in peace, and it seems wrong that we have so often saved this virtue to use for our least noble activity-- war. the goal of war is to cause death to other people. because i was in the army during world war ii, i have more to remember on memorial day than most of you. i had good friends who were killed. charley wood wrote poetry in high school. he was killed when his piper cub

was shot down while he was flying as a spotter for the artillery. bob o'connor went down in flames in his b-17. obie slingerland and i were best friends and co-captains of our high school football team. obie was killed on the deck of the "saratoga" when a bomb that hadn't dropped exploded as he landed. i won't think of them any more tomorrow, memorial day, than i think of them any other day of my life. remembering doesn't do the remembered any good, of course; it's for ourselves, the living. i wish we could dedicate memorial day not to the memory of those who have died at war, but to the idea of saving the lives of the young people who are going to die in the future if we don't find some new way-- some new religion, maybe-- that takes war out of our lives. that would be a memorial day worth celebrating. >> pelley: i'm scott pelley. we'll be back next week with another edition of "60 minutes."

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