CNN&Time

The White Line; The Insider; Flying High

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANNOUNCER: CNN & TIME. Tonight, Thin White Line: Your doctor tells you that you're suffering from a very serious illness.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN HAWLEY: It was diagnosed as large cell cancer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: You have surgery only to find out it may have all been a big mistake.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATHY SLOBOGIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Did either of them say to you there's no cancer, we made a mistake?

JOHN HAWLEY: No.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Would you know if you were the victim of a medical cover-up?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SLOBOGIN: Is there a code of silence in the medical profession?

ANNA POLK, FLORIDA AGENCY FOR HEALTH CARE ADMINISTRATION: I think it's long established.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: The Insider: During the Vietnam War, he may have been the best connected man in Saigon. But this trusted "Time" magazine correspondent was leading a double life as journalist and Viet Cong spy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHAM XUON AN, VIET CONG DOUBLE AGENT: You had to make a living.

JAY CARNEY, "TIME" CORRESPONDENT: You were a very admired journalist for American publications and you were also working for the revolution.

AN: Yeah.

How did you balance?

AN: No, nothing wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: From divided loyalties to the final hours of Saigon, the Vietnam War 25 years after from the reporter who saw it from both sides.

"Flying High": Is work getting you down? Then get up, way up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACK ASHBURNER, CIRCUS SCHOOL STUDENT: There's a lot of similarities between performing well in the workplace and performing well up on a trapeze.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Real challenges, real fears. Plunge into a new workout for the new economy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT CAMERON, SAN FRANCISCO SCHOOL OF CIRCUS ARTS, TRAPEZE DEPT.: I've heard people tell me after just trying once they had a buzz going for two weeks afterwards.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: CNN & TIME with Jeff Greenfield and Bernard Shaw.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CO-HOST: Good evening and thank you for joining us.

No one is infallible, of course, and luckily most of the time a mistake is hardly a matter of life and death. But when it comes to doctors, that is exactly what it can mean. In fact, it's estimated that medical mishaps kill as many as 98,000 Americans every year, more than breast cancer, car accidents or AIDS.

BERNARD SHAW, CO-HOST: Since the overwhelming number of medical mistakes first came to light a few months ago, the obvious concern has grown into a call for mandatory reporting of medical errors nationwide. But would that really change anything? A CNN & TIME investigation finds a code of silence in the medical industry, one that can shroud in secrecy even the worst mistakes. That story now from Kathy Slobogin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN HAWLEY: This rod here is about 100 years old. SLOBOGIN (voice-over): Sixty-four-year-old John Hawley was enjoying retirement from the navy until the night his wife rushed him to the local hospital two years ago.

JOHN HAWLEY: I had a shortness of breath, weak, couldn't hardly walk. So I went to the emergency. They took me to the emergency room about two o'clock in the morning.

SLOBOGIN: At Lawnwood Regional Medical Center in Fort Pierce, Florida, Hawley's lung tissue was biopsied and sent to the hospital's pathology lab for a diagnosis. What Hawley didn't know was that hospital staff had been complaining about repeated mistakes by pathologists there.

JOHN HAWLEY: It was diagnosed as large cell cancer.

SLOBOGIN (on camera): They told you it was serious?

JOHN HAWLEY: Yes. They told me that it was the fast growing kind and should be taken out as soon as possible.

LULA HAWLEY: I was devastated. We both was. My father died with lung cancer and it scared me to death. We just thought he was going to die.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): Hawley went into surgery in late January, 1998. Half of one lung was cut out.

(on camera): After the surgery, did you meet with your doctor and what did he tell you?

JOHN HAWLEY: I met with Dr. Lloyd (ph). He convinced me that they had got all of it. Dr. Nurano (ph), the surgeon, he convinced me that they had got all of it.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): The Hawleys went home believing he had had cancer and worried it might come back. In the eight months following surgery, Hawley made a number of follow-up visits to his physician, Dr. Perry Lloyd. Six times Dr. Lloyd recorded the original diagnosis of lung cancer. But medical records show that in a post- surgery biopsy, a different pathologist had made a startling discovery. There was no cancer. Hawley had apparently lost half a lung for no reason.

But Hawley says neither Dr. Lloyd nor the surgeon told him there had been no cancer in the first place.

(on camera): Did either of them say to you there's no cancer, we made a mistake?

JOHN HAWLEY: No. No.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): The surgeon, Dr. Nicholas Ianu (ph), did write in Hawley's medical records that there was no malignancy. In his notes he states, "This has been explained to the patient."

JOHN HAWLEY: He didn't explain it to this patient.

SLOBOGIN (on camera): You thought you had cancer this whole time?

JOHN HAWLEY: I sure did.

LULA HAWLEY: Nobody told us that he didn't have cancer.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): Hawley says it wasn't until he was contacted by an attorney who had heard about pathology problems at the hospital that he finally learned the truth.

JOHN HAWLEY: I was tickled to death for about 30 seconds. Then I got really mad. I figured that I went through all of this pain and then drug through everything and back for appointments to see the people that done it, they never mentioned a word to me. And I was pretty mad.

SLOBOGIN: Brian Glick (ph) was the attorney who contacted Hawley. He represents at least 17 former Lawnwood patients who allege they were misdiagnosed at the hospital and were never told by their doctors.

BRIAN GLICK: There are significant serious cases where people have had lungs, breasts, stomachs removed based on misdiagnosed pathology or have died as a result of it.

SLOBOGIN: Glick says some patients died when the pathologists failed to diagnose cancer. He says there was a conspiracy of silence among doctors at the hospital.

GLICK: They knew for quite a long period of time that there was a problem with the pathology in the hospital. It was their decision to sweep it under the carpet and, you know, with a sort of it happens in medicine and why open Pandora's box, just let it be.

JOHN HAWLEY: I have no respect for them anymore. To take part of your life and just not tell you. If they would have just said something to me, it would have made a lot of difference.

SLOBOGIN: Hawley is suing the hospital and five doctors involved in his treatment, including Dr. Lloyd, Dr. Ianu and the pathologist, Dr. Leonard Walker (ph). All the defendants declined to comment, citing the lawsuit.

Hawley says he has had trouble breathing ever since the surgery that removed half his lung.

JOHN HAWLEY: I picked a few oranges a while ago. By the time I got 'em picked up and walked in the house, huffing and a puffing. It slowed me down considerably. I can't do what I used to do if it requires any physical activity.

LULA HAWLEY: We'll never be the same. At this age when you think everything's going OK and then that comes up it's such a shock. SLOBOGIN: Injured patients are usually the last to know what's happened to them, according to Dr. Don Berwick (ph) of Harvard's Institute for Health Care Improvement.

(on camera): Do most patients today know when they've been injured through a medical error?

DR. DON BERWICK: No, most do not. We have research on that topic. We know that even when doctors are aware of errors causing injury, and usually they're not aware, only about one time in four, in some studies, are patients actually told that an injury has occurred, and I actually suspect the number is lower than that.

SLOBOGIN: Dr. Berwick was a co-author of last November's report that estimated up to 98,000 patients a year die from medical errors. The report made headlines around the nation. Even the White House has joined the effort to control medical errors.

WILLIAM J. CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you very much. Thank you. We also want to replace what some call a culture of silence with a culture of safety.

SLOBOGIN: This year, President Clinton proposed nationwide mandatory reporting of serious patient injuries.

CLINTON: Reporting is vital to holding health care systems accountable for delivering quality care.

SLOBOGIN: But the American Medical Association is opposed to mandatory reporting.

DR. NANCY DICKEY, AMA: We'll not make progress as long as this is a blame game, as long as the goal is to figure out who screwed up and either fire them or reprimand them or report them someplace.

SLOBOGIN: Dr. Nancy Dickey (ph) of the AMA says most injuries are not caused by negligence, but by competent doctors working in complex, sometimes flawed systems. She does acknowledge that doctors are reluctant to confess to mistakes for fear of lawsuits.

DICKEY: I believe the education process tries hard to identify errors and use them as learning experiences. Is there, on the other hand, an environment that oftentimes encourages silence? Unfortunately I think there is. I think there is the liability message that says don't tell anybody anything, lock the file down and pray that nobody sues you before the statute of limitations is over.

SLOBOGIN (on camera): Doctors, patients and experts say, in fact, there's a code of silence in the medical profession, a code that will likely undermine any new reporting laws and thwart efforts to stem the epidemic of medical mistakes.

(voice-over): Eighteen states already have mandatory reporting laws. Florida, where John Hawley lives, has one of the toughest laws in the country yet Hawley's case was never reported. Critics say the Florida law is routinely ignored. RAY McEACHERN, ASSOCIATION FOR RESPONSIBLE MEDICINE: It is not working. The law has been a scofflaw.

SLOBOGIN: Ray McEachern heads a patient advocate organization in Florida. He started the group after his own wife, Pat, was partially paralyzed when a doctor pierced her aorta with a catheter. The McEacherns were awarded $1.8 million in damages.

McEACHERN: Doctors are definitely not reporting their errors. In fact, in my own wife's medical error, one of the questions asked by our attorney in the lawsuit was doctor, did you report this error as required by law? And he said no. When we asked, when our lawyer asked why, he said because no one handed him a report form.

POLK: Typically doctors do not report errors.

SLOBOGIN: Anna Polk oversees Florida's reporting system for the state's Agency for Health Care Administration. Doctors, nurses and other hospital workers are supposed to report serious errors to hospital administrators who are supposed to report them to the state. But Polk estimates that less than 10 percent of the errors that occur are actually reported.

(on camera): So it's vastly underreported?

POLK: Yes.

SLOBOGIN: But this is a state law?

POLK: Yes.

SLOBOGIN: What's happening here?

POLK: A lot of things. There are concerns about litigation, always concerns about litigation. There is an ongoing taboo among medical professionals that you just don't tell on each other and that just doesn't happen.

SLOBOGIN: Is there a code of silence in the medical profession?

POLK: I think it's long established and most people who work in health care or all people who work in health care have acknowledged for a very long time that there is such a thing.

UNIDENTIFIED DOCTOR: To put it bluntly, at some of these smaller institutions, it's like the Mafia's running it.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): This doctor, from another part of Florida, is afraid of retaliation and insisted on anonymity. He says other doctors could put him out of business by refusing to refer him patients.

UNIDENTIFIED DOCTOR: It's basically, you know, you scratch my back, I scratch your back. If you don't scratch my back or you step out of line, well, we will persecute you.

SLOBOGIN (on camera): Why are you breaking that code of silence?

UNIDENTIFIED DOCTOR: Because I've just had it.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): When CNN & TIME returns, you'll hear how doctors enforce the code of silence and how one hospital lost the fight to hold its doctors accountable.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SHAW: Doctors making serious mistakes and hiding them from their patients. It happens more often than you might think.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRUCE ABERNATHY: I got to see a side of this industry that many people don't see and I don't like what I saw. I don't like it at all.

SHAW: Medical mishaps, unnecessary surgery and nobody says a word. What's going on?

SLOBOGIN: What happens if you bring these concerns to the hospital administration?

UNIDENTIFIED DOCTOR: I have.

SLOBOGIN: And what happened?

UNIDENTIFIED DOCTOR: Absolutely nothing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SHAW: Part two of The Thin White Line next on CNN & TIME.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GREENFIELD: Medical mistakes and the code of silence that covers them up. Kathy Slobogin continues our investigation now with a doctor who is breaking his silence for the very first time, a doctor so fearful of retaliation that he insisted we mask his identity.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED DOCTOR: I have just had it with, you know, myself and my colleagues.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): This Florida doctor is speaking out about medical mistakes he says are routinely covered up. In just one hospital where he works, he says at least 25 patients were seriously injured in the last year alone.

UNIDENTIFIED DOCTOR: Patients that have bad outcomes, have to return to surgery within 30 days, abscesses, perforations, losing legs.

SLOBOGIN (on camera): Did they ever find out about it? UNIDENTIFIED DOCTOR: A lot of times the patients don't know because it's all how you present a case. You present something to a family like well, that's one of the complications that can happen or that's an expected complication or grandma or grandpa was old and it's their time or whatever it is. You know, sometimes family don't know.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): This doctor practices at two hospitals, one small, one large. He says many smaller hospitals don't report medical mistakes that injure patients because it might cut into their profits.

UNIDENTIFIED DOCTOR: They're a business and if they report some of these problems that can harm some of the physicians who do business there, then those physicians will take their patients elsewhere, therefore hurt them financially.

SLOBOGIN (on camera): What happens if you bring these concerns to the hospital administration?

UNIDENTIFIED DOCTOR: I have.

SLOBOGIN: And what happened?

UNIDENTIFIED DOCTOR: Absolutely nothing.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): This doctor says at his hospital the peer review committees charged with monitoring problem doctors actually protect them. He says colleagues tell him the same problem exists at other hospitals.

UNIDENTIFIED DOCTOR: And a lot of these small hospitals sometimes it's the same physician's friends are on the peer review or they themselves are on the peer review committee and a lot of times nothing is done.

SLOBOGIN (on camera): Do I understand you to be saying that sometimes the people doing the peer review are the same physicians whose work is being reviewed?

UNIDENTIFIED DOCTOR: They're on the committees or their friends are in that peer review committee.

SLOBOGIN: Is there a conflict of interest there?

UNIDENTIFIED DOCTOR: Oh, definitely. Definitely.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): John Hawley lost half a lung at Lawnwood Hospital in Fort Pierce, Florida after being wrongly diagnosed with cancer, according to post-operative records. CNN & TIME has learned that at the peer review meeting on his case, one surgeon said that Hawley's case should not be reported to the state because it might set a precedent of reporting the removal of healthy organs. The doctors decided Hawley's case was non-reportable.

CNN & TIME has also learned that at the time of Hawley's surgery, another pathologist at the hospital had already complained to the peer review committee about serious errors he believed were made by Hawley's pathologist, Dr. Leonard Walker, and another pathologist, Dr. John Manarsik (ph), errors in at least 20 cases, including some where cancer was missed or organs were removed unnecessarily.

Doctors Walker and Manarsik declined CNN and "Time's" request for an interview.

(on camera): How did the peer review committee at the hospital respond to the problems?

ABERNATHY: They didn't.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): Bruce Abernathy served as chairman of the hospital's board of trustees. He says the doctors in charge of peer review at Lawnwood had a long history of ignoring problems.

ABERNATHY: It was passed from one committee to another, stonewalled, never responded to and I think this pathology issue was similar to many other issues.

SLOBOGIN: The board tried to suspend the pathologists, Walker and Manarsik, from Lawnwood but it was blocked by a court injunction. The judge said the suspension had violated the hospital's bylaws.

(on camera): You had two doctors that you felt were a serious problem in terms of patient safety. You tried to get rid of them and you were blocked. They're back on staff.

ABERNATHY: They're back on staff.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): Meanwhile, Anna Polk's state agency got wind of the problems at Lawnwood and began an investigation. In an 83 page report, the agency found serious pathology issues involving misdiagnosis. It cited at least 30 questionable cases and said the medical staff had blocked attempts to ensure patients' safety. Peer review, it said, was essentially non-existent.

POLK: We found instances where individuals who were involved in the injury circumstances were actually sitting on the peer review committee.

SLOBOGIN (on camera): Of their own injuries?

POLK: Yes.

SLOBOGIN: Is that legal?

POLK: Well, it's contrary to statute.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): The national organization that certifies hospitals, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations, also inspected Lawnwood and downgraded its rating to conditional, a rating given to less than one percent of hospitals in the country. Not only that, the College of American Pathologists revoked its certification of Lawnwood's pathology lab. ABERNATHY: There is no peer review being conducted at our facility. Now, that's what they said and they said it in report after report after report.

SLOBOGIN: Abernathy and the hospital's board of trustees took the unprecedented step of removing the medical executive committee, the committee elected by hospital doctors which is supposed to ensure that peer review takes place. But once again, the board of trustees was blocked by a court injunction. The judge said that only the doctors who elected the medical executive committee could remove it.

JIM BEASLEY (ph): I don't think there's a problem with patient care at Lawnwood any different than an average hospital in this country.

SLOBOGIN: Jim Beasley represented the medical executive committee in its fight against the hospital's board of trustees.

BEASLEY: I think it was a power play on behalf of the hospital. The hospital board is trying to exert control over the medical staff.

SLOBOGIN (on camera): Were there problems affecting patient safety at Lawnwood?

BEASLEY: Little or none.

SLOBOGIN: This hospital had a state agency come in and issue an 83 page report saying there were all kinds of problems. The joint commission came in and downgraded the hospital. The College of American Pathology came in and decertified the lab. Aren't those indications of problems?

BEASLEY: These were primarily pretextual. It was, frankly, a setup between the hospital and the regulatory agencies.

SLOBOGIN: Why would a state agency be part of a setup?

BEASLEY: That's a really good question. I wish I knew the answer to that.

POLK: I think we have a great deal to do without working at creating bogus situations. I presume that it's a part of their defensive action to attempt to, you know, discredit the process in some way.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): Polk says the state agency continues to monitor the situation at Lawnwood. The hospital, to protect its patients, now has every pathology slide reviewed by an outside doctor at a cost of $75,000 a month.

(on camera): Is Lawnwood unique in the kinds of problems it had?

POLK: There are pieces of Lawnwood everywhere out there.

SLOBOGIN: Lawnwood's not a fluke?

POLK: I would like to say that it is but I suspect it isn't.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): Last March, after six years serving on Lawnwood's board of trustees, Bruce Abernathy resigned in frustration.

(on camera): How do you feel about the fact that the two pathologists are back at the hospital practicing?

ABERNATHY: I'm appalled by it. I've never been so frustrated in my life. I got to see a side of this industry that many people don't see and I don't like what I saw. I don't like it at all.

SLOBOGIN: How long is a doctor who keeps making mistakes able to stay in business?

UNIDENTIFIED DOCTOR: It could be for several decades in the sense of being protected. They can be indefinitely in practice until they're finally caught.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GREENFIELD: Just how good are hospitals at reporting problem doctors? Well, the government says that two thirds of the nation's hospitals haven't reported a single adverse incident involving a physician in the last eight years. If you'd like to find out how your local hospital rates in overall performance, go to CNN & TIME online at cnn.com/cnntime and click on our link to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations.

We'll be back in a moment.

ANNOUNCER: Next, the Vietnam War, 25 years after the fall of Saigon, a look back at the rumors and intrigue from the man who seemed to know it all.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARNEY: So you'd hear gossip about...

AN: Gossip all kind of things.

CARNEY: Military?

AN: Military, political and sex stories.

CARNEY: Sex stories?

AN: Yeah, sex.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: As CNN & TIME continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SHAW: Welcome back to CNN & TIME. April 30, 1975, the fall of Saigon, the end of the Vietnam War. "Time" magazine's U.S. correspondents had already been evacuated. The job of covering the conflict's final hours left to Pham Xuon An, a Vietnamese national. And why not?

An was a well respected and trusted journalist, widely considered the best connected man in Saigon. An was so tuned in, many just assumed that he worked for the CIA. Those suspicions were partly correct. An was leading a double life, he was a spy, but not for the Americans, rather for the Viet Cong.

In his first television interview ever, Pham Xuon An talks with CNN & TIME's Jay Carney about divided loyalties and Vietnam 25 years after.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARNEY: So you'd cross the street, go to the coffee shop, and trade information?

AN: No, just -- they call it the rumor mill.

CARNEY: So you'd hear gossip about...

AN: Gossip, all kinds of things.

CARNEY: ... military?

AN: Military, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and sex stories.

CARNEY: Sex stories.

AN: Yes.

CARNEY (voice-over): He was known among his colleagues as the go-to guy, the "Time" magazine correspondent who seemed to know everyone in Saigon, and from his perch in the Continental Hotel, he kept his finger on the pulse of a nation at war.

(on camera): The military briefings were over here?

AN: Yes, at the Rex.

CARNEY: At the Hotel Rex, yes.

AN: Yes.

CARNEY (voice-over): Seen as one of the most knowledgeable members of the press, Pham Xuon An helped shape the way America viewed Vietnam and the increasingly unpopular war like few others could. He was a magnet for young American journalists trying to understand his country and its many mysteries.

AN: They were looking for stories so you had to tell them good story and true story. Not to fool them, because you could destroy their career because they were beginner. CARNEY: Even Saigon's most experienced correspondents turned to An for help to get the inside story.

Stanley Cloud was Saigon's bureau chief in the early 1970s.

STANLEY CLOUD, FMR. SAIGON BUREAU CHIEF: He knew more people and knew more about the kinds of things that American journalists were interested in, in Vietnam than any other Vietnamese journalist I knew, and I think that anyone knew. I mean, he -- An was in a class by himself.

BARRY HILLENBRAND, "TIME" MAGAZINE: He developed sources, he got to know people.

CARNEY: Barry Hillenbrand, the "Time" correspondent, was in Saigon from 1972 to 1974.

HILLENBRAND: Basically I think the people knew that he could be trusted and I think that was the essential characteristic.

CARNEY: The trust An inspired allowed him to soak up information about the war as well, information that unbeknownst to his American colleagues and employers he also shared with the Viet Cong.

AN: I transmitted a report. Subject: intelligence. You analyze things, depending on the priority. During the war, number one priority was the military situation, and number two is political situation, because it is the people warfare. You had to be very concerned about the population.

CARNEY: Only after Saigon fell to the communists in 1975 and his American colleagues had fled did An reveal a mystery of his own, that throughout the war he had straddled a murky line where news gathering overlapped with the gathering of intelligence. Like any good spy, An went to great lengths to cover his tracks as a Viet Cong agent.

AN: Particularly as a journalist, the smell of intelligence could be smelled a kilometer way. So the journalist always suspected by any government, democratic or socialist, particularly socialist, authoritarian government. So you had to be very careful about that. If you make a small mistake, you could be discovered.

CARNEY: It was in the late 1940s when Vietnam guerrillas battled French colonial troops for independence that An first joined the revolution. He says his patriotic duty and his thirst for justice led him to sign on as an agent for the Vietnam rebels.

AN: After independence, what could you do? You have to rebuild a country. Which way to go, capitalism, or feudalism, or socialism? So socialism is very appealing, because it promised you social justice.

CARNEY: After the French defeat in 1954, young Vietnamese like An thought they had won independence. But Vietnam was partitioned. The north became a bastion for nationalists and communists under Ho Chi Minh. And Cold War fear of communist expansion led the United States to come to the aid of the teetering pro-Western government in the south. Meanwhile, An was developing a love for the country that would soon become his side's great enemy.

AN: I used to watch American movie and then one day, my father said, oh, the most beautiful women in the world were French. My mother said, no, the most beautiful one were the American girl. I ask her, how do you know about it? We haven't seen any American girl in Vietnam. She said, no, I know where for sure. Well, where, where do you see? From the movie, she said, all right, one of these days when you grow up, I hope you marry one American girl.

CARNEY: An never married an American, but he traveled to America in the 1950s, studied, and worked a short stint for a newspaper in California where he began to learn the values of American journalism.

AN: They emphasize very strongly about ethical press. And as a reporter, you should get the story right, correct, fast, but not make mistake by giving wrong story. The second thing you have to check, the second thing is, if you work for any organization you should keep the story exclusive.

CARNEY: That appreciation of how the Western press worked, coupled with his access to inside sources, allowed An to make invaluable contributions to "Time" magazine throughout the war.

HILLENBRAND: I asked An, how did you learn about this, or what did -- what was really happening, and he explained it was a double or triple back channel intelligence by which the South Vietnamese had put in false information over the radio and that was reported -- picked up by somebody else and then leaked to the news agencies, et cetera. An knew all about it. This is the sort of thing that he was indispensable for and he really did always understand these things.

CARNEY (on camera): How did you influence the reporting in "Time" magazine?

AN: No, you cannot influence. You are not supposed to do it. If they ask you to do this, you do this. If they ask you, for instance, to cover the story about military story, you just go ahead and file a military story -- very objective.

HILLENBRAND: The thing about An which is very difficult to explain for someone who in the end was really a spy is that he had this kind of honesty and loyalty. He had a loyalty to -- for example, to journalism. He had great loyalty to us as individuals and to us and to "Time" magazine in particular. I have the feeling over the years and all the times that he helped me out, and the stories, and the advice, and the information that he fed me, I have the feeling that everything he gave me was honest.

CARNEY (voice-over): When "Time" magazine correspondent Robert Sam Anson disappeared in Cambodia in 1970, An put out an urgent alert to save his colleague's life.

AN: I cannot stand the cry of women and children. And then when he was captured in Cambodia, his wife came here and in her arm she had a baby, a boy, Sam. The other one was a daughter about 4, 3 years old. The tear came out like this. So, I promised her, I told her this, if Bob is still alive, I can bet that he will be released in one month. At same time, I sent a message, urgent message to release him if he's still alive and captured by the Vietnamese in Cambodia.

CARNEY: Anson was released. And in the final chaotic hours before the fall of Saigon, An even helped an old friend who commanded South Vietnam's secret police to get away. It was this kind of personal loyalty that aroused suspicions about An among the victorious communists he had served.

HILLENBRAND: And I think this has probably been one of An's great, great troubles in recent years is that he did like Americans and he admits it, that he did like Americans, and he even liked the South Vietnamese officers with whom he worked and got information from.

CARNEY: For the past 25 years, An has been barred from practicing journalism. He spent much of that time under virtual house arrest. But the authorities seemed to have eased up recently, enough so that the old insider, now age 72, felt he could share his full story with CNN & TIME.

AN: Because this is the last time. I'm too old now. This is perhaps I consider as the French way of saying, the last song of the swan, le dernier chant du cigne.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SHAW: Even today, Pham Xuon An remains connected to the United States. His eldest son attends the University of North Carolina, an education that has been paid for by some of An's former colleagues in the news media.

We'll be back in a moment.

ANNOUNCER: For more on the 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, read "Time" magazine this week.

Coming up, fashionable fitness. If your work out is played out, take a swing at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ED ANDREWS, MEDIAPLEX: Man, that is a rush. Just climbing the ladder is a rush.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Taking a leap of faith, as CNN & TIME continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: Next on CNN & TIME, it's not your everyday company picnic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PROFESSOR JENNIFER CHAPMAN, SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, BERKELEY: It has elements of speed and urgency that are perfectly suited to the competitive world of dot.coms.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: A three-ring workout for the fast-forward workplace, when CNN & TIME continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GREENFIELD: It was the way generations of small-town Americans put their dreams of bright lights and big-city adventures into words: I'm going to run off and join the circus. Today, that is exactly what some young, high-tech professionals in San Francisco are doing, not to flee from their jobs but to become better at them.

Take a flying leap now with Art Harris.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ASHBURNER: As soon as you leave the board for the first time, the very split second you let go and you're flying free, inside, you know, you have this excitement, this welling up, telling you, OK, this is really a major step forward.

ART HARRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As good as he looks up in the air, Jack Ashburner (ph) isn't really a circus performer. He's a high-tech consultant in Silicon Valley.

ASHBURNER: It's very high stress, very computer oriented and a lot of demanding hours.

HARRIS: He has two degrees from MIT, but he's still in school -- circus school.

After work, he drives an hour to an aging high school gym in San Francisco's old hippie section, Haight-Ashbury.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's it, beautiful -- hold it, hold it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Criss-cross on the first one, but not on the second one.

HARRIS: In 1984, the San Francisco School of Circus Arts began teaching Chinese acrobatics, trampoline, the flying trapeze.

Peggy Ford runs the non-profit circus school.

PEGGY FORD, SAN FRANCISCO SCHOOL OF CIRCUS ARTS: Initially, the people who came from the community were families and children.

HARRIS: Nine of those original alumni have gone all the way to the world renowned Cirque du Soleil. But now the school's training a new breed of student, like Jack Ashburner, from the world of high- tech.

ASHBURNER: There's a lot of similarities between performing well in the workplace and performing well up on a trapeze, your willingness to try something new, to take a risk.

We don't seem to be dropping to many packets today, which is nice.

To go out there and do your best and to style and smile, like they say in the circus.

FORD: A lot of people have told us that coming here and climbing up the ladder and leaping into space has made them feel like they could really try something that was initially frightening or daunting.

HARRIS: Wendy Lewis (ph) specializes in information technology for a brokerage firm. After two years in circus school, she still recalls conquering her fear of a new trick.

WENDY LEWIS, CIRCUS SCHOOL STUDENT: And I'm going back to the basics, remembering what my instructors tell me in the beginning: OK, focus, concentrate, all the techniques. So that was how I break through my fear barrier.

HARRIS: And she says she was able to use lessons learned on the trapeze at work.

LEWIS: I was a programmer, and I came across this defect in the software. And I could not figure out what the problem was. Then I remember, OK, no, the other night, you know, you broke through the fear barrier. You went back to basics. And I found the problem. So that was amazing.

HARRIS: A traditional company might take these employees on a picnic or a golf outing -- not so common in Silicon Valley says business school professor Jennifer Chapman.

CHAPMAN: The golf analogy doesn't have the creativity and speed components that are required for organizations that are going to successfully compete in the new economy.

Circus arts is a perfect analogy because it has elements of speed and urgency that are perfectly suited to the competitive world of dot.coms.

CAMERON: The same kind of people that are willing to take a risk and maybe take stock options instead of, you know, getting a big paycheck, they're risk takers.

HARRIS: Scott Cameron heads the circus school's trapeze department.

CAMERON: The flying trapeze is inherently scary at first. I've heard people tell me after just trying once that they were -- that they had a buzz going for two weeks afterwards where they just, you know, they had dreams about flying and they just had a -- two weeks of endorphins.

HARRIS: Two years ago, Jack Ashburner says he was burned out at work. Then he saw a performance of Cirque du Soleil. It struck such a chord with the former college gymnast that he went online to find a circus school and began his climb.

ASHBURNER: I remember gripping on to the bars as tight as I could to make sure I wasn't going to fall off. Then you start moving on to the more exciting tricks. We ended up by doing a trick which involved two rotations during the swing. It's very disorienting. And I'm the only person in the gym that they've let do this out of -- short of the instructors.

HARRIS: And the flying trapeze, he says, helps when he has to wing it at work pitching the products.

ASHBURNER: I don't know what they're going to say. I don't know what they're going to ask. And you have no idea who these people are, doctors and Ph.D.s that have done this for years. You can be right, but sometimes that's just not good enough. You've got to be entertaining and you've got to be convincing and you've got to be confident.

HARRIS: The school's already hosted more than a dozen companies from the Bay Area's booming dot.com world, and more are scheduled. Today, it's Mediaplex, which designs Internet ad campaigns.

At an old-line company, Scott Page (ph) might have been called a human resources director. But his business card reads "director of karma."

SCOTT PAGE, MEDIAPLEX: Good karma is a positive feeling around the office. Part of my direction here is to kind of keep people alive and get them to think out of the box. And any opportunity where they can face challenges that they wouldn't normally do is good for them personally and for the company in general. We're changing the way people advertise, so we're going to change the way people work.

HARRIS: That's why, Page says, he takes everyone from the secretary to the CEO on offbeat adventures.

PAGE: The circus school definitely presents a lot of interesting challenges outside of the normal ropes course. It certainly is an adrenaline-charged company picnic.

HARRIS: Brian Fisher (ph) came to Mediaplex from an advertising job with "The Wall Street Journal."

BRIAN FISHER, MEDIAPLEX: Not that "The Journal" is like -- they're great people. But I'm just telling you that we probably wouldn't have gotten our group on the trapeze.

The advertising technology business is just being created as we speak, so we're out there flying all the time, trying to get ahead of the next guy.

HARRIS: Up next is Ed Andrews. He's an accountant -- and he's not so sure he can jump.

ANDREWS: It's really a big challenge -- amazing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good job, Ed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Way to go. And the hat didn't fall off either.

ANDREWS: Man, that is a rush. Just climbing the ladder is a rush. My whole body is shaking. I think my whole central nervous system is a little rocky from the last trapeze.

I think you get the adrenaline, the excitement from the height and swinging from your legs.

HARRIS (on camera): Were you a little afraid?

ANDREWS: I think I was definitely a lot afraid.

PAGE: That was a great example of someone who literally has a known fear of heights. And for him to overcome his fear in such a great attitude was good to see. And he was one who needed some -- a lot of challenging.

HARRIS (voice-over): The day after circus school, accountant Ed Andrews is still flying high.

ANDREWS: the fear is gone, but I think the excitement and the adrenaline will always be there.

PAGE: facing the challenge of stepping off that board, flying through the air, if you can accept that willingly, that you can accept a change in this ever-changing industry we're in. It's fast-changing, evolving. Either change or die.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GREENFIELD: The dot.com world isn't the only place where they're looking for new ways to motivate employees. Experts say that more traditional Fortune 500 companies are also interested in so-called "adventure training." Of course, that can still include the potato salad at the old-fashioned company picnic.

And that's this edition of CNN & TIME. I'm Jeff Greenfield.

Bernie, see you next week.

SHAW: Thanks, Jeff.

Coming up next, "COLD WAR." Tonight, China and the conflict that divided the world.

I'm Bernard Shaw, and for everyone at CNN & TIME, good night.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com