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Interview with Norman Mailer, Lawrence Schiller, "Into the Mirror"

Aired April 30, 2002 - 10:38   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: FBI traitor Robert Hanssen, will be sentenced on May 10 in what has been called the most dangerous and damaging spy case in U.S. history. One reason Hanssen was able to get away with espionage for 15 years -- a lot of people didn't know who he was, and he projected the image of a devout Catholic, devoted family man, and staunch patriot.

An amazing and intimate portrait of the master spy emerges in the new book, "Into the Mirror." It is based on an upcoming made-for-TV movie, which in turn is the result of exhaustive interviews with people very close to Robert Hanssen. The book and screenplay bring together writers Lawrence Schiller and Norman Mailer, and they are joining us from New York. Gentlemen, good morning, a pleasure to have both of you with us.

LAWRENCE SCHILLER, AUTHOR, "INTO THE MIRROR": Good morning.

KAGAN: Looking through the book -- I felt -- and Norman, I'll start with you. I felt like I was reading a novel, one of your novels.

NORMAN MAILER, SCREENWRITER: Is this for me?

KAGAN: Yes. That's for you.

MAILER: Well, you see, Larry built his novel on my screenplay. So to a certain extent, you can say it is mine, to wit, most of the dialogue is mine. But Larry took that keel (ph) -- the film script, and put a great many facts in with it, plus a great deal of description and characterization and made a novel out of it.

KAGAN: So this isn't a case -- Larry, this isn't a case of, don't let the facts get in the way of a good story. I mean, this does present the story as you were able to glean it from these interviews -- incredible interviews you were able to get.

SCHILLER: We spent five months interviewing people all around the world. We went to Russia to interview the handlers of Hanssen. Members of his immediate family. Retired FBI agents. And out of that we found an incredible story, and we laid the foundation for this amazing screenplay that Norman wrote. The screenplay was then novelized into a book. And the reason you use the word "novelization" because, even though it's based on facts, is that once you enter a character's mind -- a character you have not interviewed because of Mr. Hanssen's plea bargain agreement, we were not allowed to interview him, then...

KAGAN: Or his wife, right? She also isn't allowed to talk.

SCHILLER: Or his wife. Yes. But we interview immediate members of his family. I interviewed her brother, Hanssen's children...

KAGAN: His best friend. Didn't you have access to his best friend?

SCHILLER: We went to Germany and we interviewed Jack Hoschouer who was his closest friend, and also the subject of parts of the book. Hoschouer was the gentleman that Hanssen dealt with in relationship to his wife. You know, they -- Hanssen videotaped the most intimate...

KAGAN: This is the weird -- this is the weird sex stuff that is coming out already. We are getting right to it, aren't we?

SCHILLER: Well, I mean, the point is that Hanssen videotaped the most intimate moments with his wife, and those videotapes...

KAGAN: Did she know that was happening?

SCHILLER: No. She didn't. She didn't know any of this was happening until, in essence, the investigation started after her husband's arrest.

KAGAN: OK. Besides the kind of weird sex stuff that was taking place, and some of the kind of strange stuff we learned soon after the arrest, in doing those interviews, what was kind of the most fascinating thing that you felt that found out about this man?

SCHILLER: Well, the most fascinating thing that drew me to the book was how he could betray his whole family, how he could cast a shadow upon them that they might never be able to get out from underneath. He, like many other FBI agents, were very well trusted. He rose to the highest level of the FBI, a G-15 level. He didn't steal secrets from the United States government. He had access to CIA documents, the National Security Council documents, the FBI, so it was all across his desk. When he was in the budget division, he analyzed the budgets in preparing the next year's budgets, and therefore he knew where the money was being spent, and he had the information.

KAGAN: So what you are saying is he didn't have to go searching, looking for this stuff. This stuff was brought to him. It couldn't have been really any easier.

SCHILLER: He had the right to have that material, and he had the right to access the computers that contained the material that wasn't on paper, and he gave it to the Soviets, which is just mind boggling because his own position in life had always been anti-communist. He was a member of Opus Dei, a very religious order of the Catholic Church, and that organization is so anti-communist.

KAGAN: He seemed to break a lot of personal rules, but Norman, he also broke a lot of spy rules. If you look at it, there were a lot of rules he broke, and yet, he wasn't caught, and he left a lot of clues. It should have been so easy to see him. How was this missed for so long?

MAILER: Well, I think -- you see, he's a man of opposites. On the one hand, he was enormously careful in his spy work. On the other hand, he loved riding the edge so that -- as I say, on the one hand, he never met any of the KGB people personally, because that was a true precaution. His feeling was that if any of them ever went over to the United States' side, they would be able to turn him in, and a good many KGB men were being picked up one way or another by the CIA or the KGB -- or the FBI and pulled over to America. So that was a precaution.

On the other hand, particularly toward the end, he got very wild with the Internet. He would put stories on the Internet using his own name and his wife's name, and then write sort of semi-pornographic descriptions of what they did. Now, any FBI man could have turned into that Internet just by chance and seen it, and I think probably Hanssen's defense would have been, someone is trying to pin something on me. You see, he loved playing the edge.

KAGAN: Quickly, this is going to be a television movie, as we said. Who are you looking at to play Bob Hanssen?

SCHILLER: Well, we are talking to a number of actors. John Hurt is one of them.

KAGAN: John Hurt, good choice.

SCHILLER: William Hurt -- excuse me.

(CROSSTALK)

KAGAN: William Hurt.

SCHILLER: William Hurt is one of them.

MAILER: Boy, you're in trouble, pal.

KAGAN: I know. Guess what, his agent is on the phone, you can't have him. If he doesn't work out, we thought of some other suggestions for you, just in terms of looks.

SCHILLER: Right, thanks.

MAILER: Oh yes. Who?

KAGAN: Craig T. Nelson, they guy who played "Coach." Craig T. Nelson.

SCHILLER: Oh, that's right. Sure.

KAGAN: And -- this is kind of a stretch, but Kelsey Grammer.

SCHILLER: Kelsey Grammer. Right. KAGAN: If he could pull off the drama thing, he could maybe get the look.

SCHILLER: That's true.

KAGAN: If you need any casting help, you call us here at CNN.

SCHILLER: All right, I will. Thank you.

KAGAN: Good luck with the book. Lawrence Schiller and Norman Mailer. Once again, it is called "Into the Mirror," and it is a fascinating look at their interviews that they were able to do with people so close to Bob Hanssen, who, once again, will be sentenced on May 10. Gentlemen, good to see. Thank you so much.

MAILER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

SCHILLER: Thank you.

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