Barbara Walters crushed female journalists on her way to the top - stealing exclusive interviews and sabotaging her biggest rival and 'nemesis' Diane Sawyer, new biography reveals

She may have broken the glass ceiling for women journalists, but Barbara Walters crushed her female colleagues on the way up.

A new biography of the TV legend reveals that she saw other women - especially Diane Sawyer - as 'potential competitors' who had to be pushed aside so that she could ascend to the top.

Walters thought that 'another woman's gain could well be her loss' and she crushed rivals while she conquering NBC then ABC News.

Walters 'stole' exclusives from the likes of NBC's Andrea Mitchell, who foolishly let slip she had snagged an interview with Fidel Castro, only for Walters to bag her own with the Cuban leader - and persuade him not to speak with Mitchell.

According to The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters, by Susan Page, the Washington Bureau chief of USA TODAY, which will be published later this month, Walters 'rarely acknowledged' other female trailblazers in journalism out of fear it 'might somehow diminish her own achievements.'

A new biography on TV legend Barbara Walters reveals her callousness toward other women in the industry who she viewed as competition

Walters' biggest rivalry of all was with Sawyer, who became her 'nemesis' who she despised for being younger and better looking

In this 1991 ABC News photo, rivals Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters are pictured with their male counterparts 

Walters believed Sawyer was her greatest threat and despised her for being younger and better looking.

Her contempt for Sawyer was reciprocated, with the blonde once making the acid-tongued remark: 'I hate that woman. She knifes me any chance she can get'.

The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters by Susan Page is out April 23. Page is the Washington Bureau chief of USA TODAY whose previous books have been about Barbara Bush and Nancy Pelosi

Nevertheless, Walters, who died in 2022 at 93, inspired a generation of female journalists by becoming the first woman to co-host a morning TV show on NBC's Today in 1974.

Two years later she signed a $1million contract, a then-unheard of amount, to co-anchor the ABC Evening News, becoming the first woman to hold that position.

Walters stayed with ABC for decades and scored dozens of major interviews with world leaders and celebrities which redefined broadcast journalism.

Yet according to author Page, Walters' groundbreaking approach to the job was born of self-interest - not feminism.

That was especially the case in the early days of her career in the 1960s and 70s.

A 1972 article about her was titled: 'Barbara Walters for Women's Lib, But Not Violently' which Page writes summed up her attitude perfectly.

Walters did not align herself with female colleagues at NBC or ABC when they began to push for changes against sex discrimination.

Instead she was more focused on her career and only rocked the boat if it benefited her.

Walters even claimed in 1974 that she would have gotten the job 'with or without the women's movement'.

As Page writes: 'Barbara was determined to win the game, not to change its rules.

'The path she ended up clearing for women who followed her was, first and foremost, one that she was cutting for herself.

'She was focused like a laser on her own career'.

In 'The Rulebreaker', women from the beginning to the end of Walters' career speak about her naked ambition, even if it cost her the trust of female colleagues.

Walters interviewed Fidel Castro in 1977 - one of her most celebrated pieces

Page's most eye-popping anecdotes about journalistic skullduggery concern women like Andrea Mitchell, NBC's Chief Washington Correspondent and Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent. The pair are pictured together in 1991

In 2001 at a small dinner party Mitchell told Walters that she had an interview with Fidel Castro to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Walters organized her own sit-down with the Cuban leader and persuaded Castro not to talk to Mitchell. Pictured in 2002

After getting her 'dream job' on NBC's Today show as a researcher and writer in 1961, Walters began angling to take over from Anita Colby, a former model who briefly presented Today.

Walters was so determined to get ahead that 'if she couldn't get in through the door, she'd come through the window', Colby quipped.

Writing decades later in her memoir, Barbara cattily said that Colby, who became known as 'The Face' and appeared on the cover of Time magazine, was 'very much a lady but limited as a performer'.

Walters would stand off to the side while she was broadcasting and mouth words she had written for her.

'She was pining to be in my spot', Colby said.

Author Susan Page is the Washington Bureau chief of USA TODAY whose previous books have been about Barbara Bush and Nancy Pelosi

Even back then, Walters displayed a gift for cultivating contacts who could help her advance her career.

'I never saw anybody who covered so much territory,' Colby said.

One of Page's most eye-popping anecdotes about journalistic skullduggery concerns Andrea Mitchell, then NBC's Chief Washington Correspondent and Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent.

In 2001 at a small dinner party Mitchell told Walters that she had snagged an interview with Fidel Castro to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

'The disclosure turned out to be a mistake', Page writes.

The two women may have been friendly but, as Mitchell later admitted: 'Nothing gets between Barbara and a 'get', meaning a story.

Walters, who had interviewed Castro in 1977 for one of her early celebrated pieces, organized her own sit-down with the Cuban leader.

But that wasn't enough and she persuaded Castro not to talk to Mitchell as well, leaving her rival fuming.

By that point Mitchell had already arrived in Havana, only to find out - from reports in the New York Post - that Walters would be getting the only interview.

Another journalist who learned to be cautious about what she told Walters was ABC's Deborah Roberts, who worked with her on the network's show, 20/20.

Roberts told  Page that Walters would always be asking her: 'What are you working on?'

Roberts says: 'I was hesitant to say because if it was an idea she liked, next thing I know my story would be shut down and Barbara would be doing it'.

The author writes, 'Another woman's gain could well be her loss' in part because there were so few opportunities for women back then

Men like Harry Reasoner, Walters' co-host on Today, (pictured in 1976) did not escape Walter's relentless pursuit of a story

Another journalist who learned to be careful about what she told Walters was ABC's Deborah Roberts who worked with her on the network's show, 20/20. She was hesitant to share with Barbara her projects. Roberts is pictured with husband Al Roker 

Walters' most intense rivalry,  however, was with Sawyer, who she first met in 1972 on Richard Nixon's press tour of China. Sawyer was then Nixon's assistant press secretary.

Looking at a photo of that event decades later, Walters couldn't resist gloating that while she was in the middle of the photo, Sawyer was off by the edge of the frame.

Walters 'couldn't resist the comparison, the competition, not from the very start, not later at the height of her career, not ever,' Page writes.

Walters thought that Sawyer 'had it easy' as she went from working for Nixon to being a reporter at CBS and then first female reporter for 60 Minutes, the network's investigative show.

Walters by comparison had to slug it out at PR firms, writing advertisement sections for Today and elbow her way in front of the camera.

Sawyer was 16 years younger than Walters and a former beauty queen. Walters, while immaculately presented, knew she wasn't in the same league.

'If someone had built to order the woman most likely to set off Barbara Walters, she would have looked a lot like Diane Sawyer', Page writes.

Sawyer was hired by ABC in 1989 when Walters was on 20/20. Sawyer was to host Primetime Live which was strikingly similar in style and substance.

ABC saw it as a coup - Walters saw it as a 'betrayal.'

One ABC executive broke the news to Walters who said it was 'terrific.' Half an hour later she called back to say: 'Now I've thought it over I'm totally opposed to her.'

The move sparked unflattering comparisons among ABC staffers to the 1951 movie 'All About Eve' in which an aging Broadway star, played by Bette Davis, is undone by her younger assistant.

Walters first met Sawyer in 1972 when Sawyer was Nixon's assistant press secretary. Looking at a photo of that event decades later, Walters couldn't resist gloating that while she was in the middle of the photo, Sawyer was off by the edge of the frame

Sawyer hated Walters back, once making the acid-tongued remark: 'I hate that woman. She knifes me any chance she can get'

Three different ABC veterans claim, 'Diane will stab you in the back. Barbara will stab you in the front'

As Sawyer puts it in the book, there were 'no rules' for getting big interviews, so Walters kicked things off by trying to steal Sawyer's first guest Thomas Root, a lawyer who survived a mysterious crash in his private plane.

Walters even dispatched one of her producers to the hotel where Root was staying to try and pry him away from Sawyer, but she failed.

But Walters was undeterred and called Sawyer's second guest, the actress Katharine Hepburn, at her apartment when Sawyer's crew were already there setting up for an interview.

Hepburn went ahead with the interview and ignored Walters.

The 'most explosive' showdown was over a previously unreported fight to get an interview with Bill Clinton in 1996 as he pursued a second term in the White House, but before the Monica Lewinsky scandal

With Walters and Sawyer fighting with the White House for an exclusive, it became so much that Roone Arledge, the top ABC executive overseeing them both, wanted to tell the White House to call the whole thing off.

Tempers cooled and the interview went to Walters but she had to write a mea culpa - of sorts.

Across three pages she said that the 'only top ABC correspondent never to have interviewed President Clinton is me, so we would have expected ABC News to have asked for us to have priority', with the word 'never' underlined to make the point.

Walters insisted in the memo she and Sawyer had a 'wonderful relationship' and that she would 'hate for her to have the impression I (tried to) deliberately undercut her'.

That wasn't fooling anyone.

The 'most explosive' showdown was over a previously unreported fight to get an interview with Bill Clinton in 1996 as he pursued a second term in the White House, but before the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Walters would eventually nab the sit-down with Lewinsky 

Three different ABC veterans told Page the same thing: 'Diane will stab you in the back. Barbara will stab you in the front'.

Ira Rosen, an Emmy-award winning producer on Primetime Live, tells of one extraordinary occasion where Walters got into an elevator with him and Sawyer.

Walters announced: 'People say we don't get along, they should see us now', reaching for Sawyer's hand.

Sawyer laughed and said: 'I know. I don't understand that'.

The second Walters walked out of the elevator, Sawyer turned to Rosen and said: 'I hate that woman. Don't believe a word she says. She knifes me any chance she can get.'

In 2014 when Walters retired from The View, the chat show she co-created and served as a third act of her career, dozens of female journalists and TV presenters came on stage to thank her for inspiring them to get into the industry.

Oprah Winfrey, Robin Roberts, Tamron Hall, Savannah Guthrie, Katie Couric and others all paid tribute to Walters, who proudly said that they were her 'legacy'.

The reality, however, was a bit more complicated than that.