Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
Former NYC Fire Commissioner Discusses 9/11 Documentary
Aired May 24, 2002 - 08:49 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.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: If you censor it too much, if you try to find too many euphemisms for what happened, then I think you rob people of the ability to actually relive it and therefore, motivate them to prevent it from happening in the future.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is one of the voices in the HBO documentary "In Memoriam" that premieres this weekend. The film includes video and photographs of more than 100 amateur and professional videographers and journalists. The result is a very up-close documentary filled with many graphic images of 9/11 never seen before. And while remaining true to the terrible events, even nine months later, is it too much too soon?
Then-Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen was part of the documentary. He joins us now in our New York studios.
Good morning.
THOMAS VON ESSEN, FORMER NYC FIRE COMMISSIONER: Morning.
ZAHN: Good to see you, sir.
I was at the screening with you the other night, and I don't think any of us was prepared for what we saw. It is -- it is a very brutal and honest look at what happened. When you saw it for the first time,...
VON ESSEN: I agree.
ZAHN: ... what did you think?
VON ESSEN: I agree. I saw it probably four times. I was trying to help them identify firefighters and situations and worked on actually taking some scenes out that we thought were too graphic. I remember a jumper that I thought you could almost identify if you knew what maybe your husband or your loved one was wearing that day. It was an unusual piece of clothing, and they took it out.
But it's real, and it's historical, and it's honest. So whether or not we're ready for it, I guess some people will be, some people won't be, and maybe you should not watch it if you think it's going to bother you, you know?
ZAHN: What the documentary attempts to do is take you, the viewer, through 9/11 chronologically. And I want to share a short clip with the audience now when one of your firefighters is grappling with the cold, hard reality of the loss of life at ground zero. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The reality is not going to come for a couple of days, when we start putting all the names together.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you feel right now?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Vengeful. Hurt. Total awe. I mean, think about it, look at this, and you just say to yourself why? There's no justification for this happening. None.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: And what he said there is so typical, I'm sure, of what you heard your firefighters tell you and the rescue workers.
VON ESSEN: Not just the firefighters -- everyone. The pain and the devastation, the thousands of people, this is an event that's been felt by more people than anything I've ever seen in my lifetime. Everyone seems connected to it, whether it's a friend, a relative, a friend of a friend or your immediate loved one. It's just been the most horrible thing any one of us could have gone through.
ZAHN: You were talking a little bit about some of the things that you all thought needed to be edited out, the picture of the jumpers and some of those images still remain. But for me, the one image that was the hardest to take is this image that we're going to play right now, of someone waving a white towel from high atop one of the towers. You're going to see this in a moment. I'm sure this is a scene that you saw replayed over and over again if you've had a tight closeup of any of the windows there. How hard was that shot for you to take? There's no place for that person to go.
VON ESSEN: No. And you know, we use the term jumper, and I don't think anybody jumped. I think the heat was so much that it drove people out the window. I don't think anybody -- I don't want to believe that a person made a conscious decision I'm going to jump. I think that the heat was just overwhelming and just pushes you, you know.
It's a horrible sight. The whole day is a horrible event, I mean, and it's something that I guess we should try not to forget. I don't know, I certainly will never forget it. I don't think most people will. We should try, I guess, to move on, but we can't forget it because we don't want these despicable humans to do it again to us, and we have to be prepared.
ZAHN: There's also some video that was shot at all different angles from, like as we said, amateur photographers who happened to be in the area capturing some of your firefighters as they left the scene right after the collapse. These men were such great heroes, weren't they?
VON ESSEN: Right until today, firefighters have been down there, until next week. And anyone you talk to, it's just been the most horrible experience they've ever had. And they just feel an obligation to the families of the 343 people we lost to keep going and the -- and the families of the whole 2,800 people, the civilians and the police officers. There's an obligation and a -- and a commitment by the firefighters and the police officers down at the scene to finish it out and to assure everyone that the maximum effort was made not just to rescue them the first couple of weeks -- which was our dream, to rescue as many people as possible -- but to recover as many remains as possible.
ZAHN: The other thing I think this documentary captured was the sense of fear and anxiety that people many miles away felt. And there's this one scene where you see a woman standing by on Staten Island across the river from the World Trade Center trying to figure out if someone she knew was already dead at that point. Let's watch that short image.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It disappeared in a cloud. It was an incredible sight.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my God, Jimmy Bearsland's (ph) wife. She works in the World Trade Center.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Probably 40,000 people.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's really hard.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can see the buildings in the smoke.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You see the buildings in the smoke?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. A couple of buildings are missing now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: Whether we're ready for this or not, what do you think we need to learn from this documentary?
VON ESSEN: Well, I think we must remember that there are people in this world that hate us, and we have to take that very seriously. We can't assume that there are a bunch of creeps hanging around in a cave; I think that they -- this was a brilliant attack from a -- from a perspective of trying to take down an enemy. We are their enemy. We have to assume that they are competent, vicious, terrible people that want to destroy us, and we have to prepare and stay together.
I see the politicians like fighting amongst themselves again. It just makes me sick to think that firefighters and police officers will be going into another situation somewhere in this -- in this country or somewhere else and people will not have done everything they could to prevent that -- to prevent that possibility. And I think that people should look in -- look in a mirror and ask yourself if you're doing everything honestly and as fast as you can to help the emergency service workers.
ZAHN: God bless you all. Thomas Von Essen, the former...
VON ESSEN: Thank you.
ZAHN: ... fire commissioner of New York. Good of you to drop by.
And once again, "In Memoriam" will make its debut on HBO over the weekend.
Good of you to drop by.
VON ESSEN: Thank you.
ZAHN: Good luck in your private life.
VON ESSEN: Yes.
ZAHN: No longer works for the city, but still works for Rudy Giuliani, I might add. Is he OK? Is he treating you OK?
VON ESSEN: He's treating me good. That's true.
ZAHN: Oh good.
VON ESSEN: What choice...
ZAHN: He has to say that, he works...
VON ESSEN: What else can I say...
(CROSSTALK)
ZAHN: Yes, exactly. Under threat of death or what else?
VON ESSEN: Is the tape rolling?
ZAHN: Yes, tape's rolling.
VON ESSEN: Uh-oh.
ZAHN: He loves his boss.
Rudy, he's with you.
VON ESSEN: Go Rudy! Go Rudy!
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
