Return to Transcripts main page

DIPLOMATIC LICENSE

Current Events at the United Nations

Aired December 19, 2004 - 21:00:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Yesterday was yesterday and we are here today and tomorrow is the future.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Press freedom is under assault and journalists increasingly are being called on to put their lives literally on the line to report news.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD ROTH, CNN ANCHOR: Once again for U.S. forces overseas, the enemy is elusive and quite dangerous. It's not an organized army, something West Point endlessly drills for.

In Iraq, like Vietnam, it's called an insurgency. The number of fighters, though, far less than in Vietnam. But the risk of dying is ever- present. And driven to be in the middle of all of this are reporters and photographers.

Seeing women reporters covering combat may not surprise you these days, but in the 1960s and early 70s, seeing woman journalist under that helmet was a shock to the male media and the military. The drama of that time is captured in a book called "War Torn: Stories of War From the Women Reporters Who Covered Vietnam."

The Vietnam War was a seminal moment for the United States and for the women who cover the action, and as the book explains, you didn't have to look hard to find that action. Take the Tet Offensive, January '68. The enemy gets into Saigon, even to the U.S. embassy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Vietnam, New Years, with half the garrison at Saigon on-leave for the holidays, the Vietcong struck. Cong units drove onto the grounds of the United States embassy and the presidential palace. South Vietnamese forces were caught by surprise as guerillas fought in the streets of 26 Vietnamese provincial capitals and seized control of Hua (ph), the second city of Vietnam.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: One of the authors of the book "War Torn" wrote, "To this day, Vietnam taunts, haunts and still mystifies me." That author is Jurate Kazickas, who was a freelance journalist arriving in Vietnam in 1967. Arriving there in 1972 is another of the women authors of "War Torn," Edith Lederer. As the wire services like to say, she's well-traveled, working in several continents and still working for the Associated Press right around the corner from me at the United Nations.

Jurate, was Vietnam any place for a woman?

JURATE KAZICKAS, AUTHOR: Well, we thought so. We thought it was the big story -- I t was an important story and very much wanted the opportunity to cover it.

But, you know, it was tough, because the military wasn't quite prepared for having a woman on the battlefield and we really had to argue and push our way into some situations, but we did.

ROTH: Now, watching Edith Lederer for the AP at the United Nations now, I find that hard to believe, that someone could keep her out. Edie, what experiences did you have? You came a few years later, after Jurate.

EDITH LEDERER, AUTHOR: I really was one of the beneficiaries of Jurate and a number of our other co-authors who were there in the 1960s. They were the ones who really fought the hard battles of getting the generals to let women go onto into the battlefield and actually stay overnight and cover and report on the war.

So I had it a little easier, but it was still really a man's world when we were there.

ROTH: Jurate, what were some of the experiences in dealing with those men? You went out into the field. You read these pages. It's pretty gripping. You feel that there could be a mortar attack on you and the hundreds of men you're with, as the only woman, at any moment.

KAZICKAS: Well, you know, the military argued that we would be a distraction, that somehow the soldiers in the middle of battle would be staring at us, which was not true, because the instinct for self- preservation, and these men were professionals.

Sometimes they treated us like we were there to entertain the troops. I remember once I was at a firebase and the colonel asked me to walk around and pose for pictures with the men, and, you know, it was really demeaning to us as professionals.

ROTH: But it's very touching, as you are on this long march to, I think, the Laotian border. You talked about people exchanging glancing with you and then you're lying under the moon, I think, and fingers are almost touching. You talk about sexual tension, and this is obviously not when the fighting was going on, but it must have been heartbreaking, as you write, to know that many of these men were not coming back.

KAZICKAS: It's true. I can't diminish the fact that there were so few of us -- we were a rarity, I mean, I'm thrilled now that women were 50 percent of the press corps in Iraq, that that opportunity is made available to them.

But in those days, we were unique and it wasn't easy to always kind of maintain your professionalism.

ROTH: Edie, you were in Saigon and you did go out on a lot of run outs. You eventually ended up in Cambodia. What was it like back in the capital city? Many of us who were not old enough to really be out there let alone watch all of the newscasts, was Saigon really the crazy place that everybody described?

LEDERER: I always call Saigon sort of a schizophrenic capital because during the day, for journalists like myself, we would go out into the field, go out on combat missions, go and look for the action, end up in ditches getting dirty. You'd come back to Saigon in the evening, go file your story, and often you would then go jump into a long dress and go to a diplomatic cocktail party.

I think people worked very hard, but they also played very hard.

ROTH: How were you -- how were your perspectives changed? When you got to Saigon, you had been, as you said, covering anti-war demonstrations in San Francisco for the AP and then you arrive plunk in combat. You even had to fire a gun in preparation for going over there. And you were there for about eight months. What was it like?

LEDERER: Well, one of the things that really struck me was that even though I had covered police beats and seen people being killed, that was not such a novelty to me.

When I first went out and saw the real destruction that war does on innocent civilians, I think it really brought home to me as a young woman for the first time the real tragedy of war. And in my life I've gone on to cover many other wars and that has always stayed with me.

I think one of the things that people forget is that almost 90 percent of the victims of war, according to the United Nations, are innocent women, children and men.

ROTH: I think one of you also saw a village being burned by American soldiers.

KAZICKAS: Well, that did happen. You know, the famous quote, we had to destroy the village to save it, but I think I echo what Edie said, that war is terrible. It is gruesome, it is disgusting, it is brutal. And I think we all came away from that saying that it has to be a last resort.

There isn't anybody who has seen a war who willingly really does want to go back into it.

ROTH: Knowing all of that, maybe you didn't know it then, but you certainly had experiences when you were a child fleeing Lithuania and damage in World War II. Why did you go there? What led you to Vietnam?

KAZICKAS: Well, you know, I am still asking myself that question. And I think all of us who ended up in the war had a little bit of a sense of adventure, a streak of adventure, wanting to do something different.

And as I said earlier, it was a huge story. And it was our generation. It was kids my own age. Some of the -- I was 23. The kids there were 18, 19 years old, and it was the most important story.

ROTH: Now, to get there, to finance this journey, you appeared on "Password," which is a television show in the United States --

KAZICKAS: It's coming back I understand.

ROTH: -- where they always whisper, "The password is."

Now, could the password for you have been crazy? What as -- your parents didn't exactly support this journey.

KAZICKAS: No, actually -- no, they didn't, but they understood that I was starting out on my career and they basically said we're not paying for you to go there. So I won my $500 for a one-way ticket to Saigon and stayed two years.

ROTH: Edie, you wrote that what you wanted to do at the AP was to be a foreign correspondent, but as you write, you didn't put down war correspondent.

LEDERER: That's really true, but at the AP at that time, it was particularly difficult, because we had a foreign editor who wouldn't allow women on the foreign desk, and that was really the requirement for going overseas.

So it was really a dream. And when I got a phone call out of the blue from the then-president of the AP, Wes Gallagher (ph), asking if I would go to Vietnam, I was shocked because it was so far out of the realm of possibility.

But, like Jurate, I couldn't say no because it was the biggest story of our generation, and there I was in San Francisco, covering the anti-war demonstration.

ROTH: A little time, a lot of questions. How were you treated, though, in the field? It seemed like a lot of soldiers were certainly glad to see you and then at other times you were very worried about being the female jinx, you might say, for an operation.

KAZICKAS: Well, you know, sometimes you couldn't win. If you got into combat, it was my fault. And if you didn't get into combat, it was also my fault because, you know, somehow a woman being there -- but I think on the whole the young soldiers were very, very kind towards me and really would say you paid your own way to come here? You must be nuts, you know. So I really appreciated it.

ROTH: Edie, I can't believe the amount of relationships that were going on. I don't know whether I expected a war story, but every page almost in everybody's chapter it's "I'm with a major" and "Now I'm with a colonel," and what was the quote about relationships that was told to you shortly after you arrived?

LEDERER: Yes. When you're in Vietnam, never accept any relationship that you had during the war as what would be on the outside.

ROTH: Jurate, how did the war change the rest of your life?

KAZICKAS: Well, like I said, it certainly made me really so concerned about anybody going to war, sending anybody into war that is not really justified.

ROTH: I mean, one of the most vivid memories -- I don't mean to cut you off -- but Captain Binham (ph), who ended up getting killed, who you were admiring his skills and then you had to leave because your military escort got sick.

KAZICKAS: Yes, yes. And, you know, I think that Vietnam War really has stayed with me all of the time. I think it was a defining moment in all of our lives and, you know, it's a clich‚ but it's true, you really do appreciate everything about our country, our life, our democratic system.

ROTH: Edie, final thoughts from you. Especially when you watch some of the glamorous female journalists in Iraq, do you look at the set saying, "Oh, if they only knew what it was like, how hard it was"?

LEDERER: I guess my final thought would be that it defined all of our lives. It defined our generation. It made us all realize that we have to do more and do better to try and prevent future Vietnams.

ROTH: Thank you both. Their book, of course, with seven other women "War Torn: Stories of War From the Women Reporters Who Covered Vietnam.

Women journalists are still on the frontlines and not only on the battlefield. Injustice, human rights abuses, corruption: some of the stories women seek to inform the world about today.

Coming up, awards for courage in journalism, next on DIPLOMATIC LICENSE.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, it's a passion, and it's like love. You don't ask too much when you feel desperately in love with someone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Today I think both journalists and U.N. staff can pledge that you may vilify us and murder us and disappear us, but you will never be able to stop us from our duty to help make the world a better place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Remembering dead or missing journalists. The recent ceremony at the U.N. Correspondence Club with President Tony Jenkins presiding.

Last year, one of the United Nations' best journalists, Elizabeth Neuffer of the "Boston Globe" was killed in a car accident in Iraq. In 1998, Neuffer won a Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women's Media Foundation. The group honors women journalists who risk their lives and believes no press is truly free unless women share an equal voice.

People with guns, though, don't exactly read the group's charter.

The 2003 (sic) winners were honored in New York City for their work from Ukraine to Guatemala.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: The women of courage whom you will meet today know very well what it is to face threats and violence in the name of press freedom. Each of them has shown bravery in reporting the news, even when it meant risking their lives, their health and at times even the lives and well-being of their families.

There heroines share a passion for telling the truth.

BARBARA WALTERS, ABC NEWS: For nearly 50 years, Magdalena Ruiz has been the voice and conscience of her country. She has been Argentina's outrage and she has been Argentina's hope.

MAGDALENA RUIZ, ARGENTINEAN JOURNALIST: I feel more than ever part of my (UNINTELLIGIBLE) working in the defense of the rule of law, the human rights and the search for the truth.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ukraine is a dangerous place to be a journalist. Those who dare to criticize the government or expose corruption often face persecution, harassment and physical threats. She has endured threats to herself and her family. She has been attacked because of her work. Yet she continues to pursue the hard-hitting stories that make a difference in her community and in her country.

TATYANA GORYACHOVA, UKRAINIAN JOURNALIST (through translator): To me, this international award is a gift of my destiny, of my fate, for the hard life I have lived, for the 16 hour working days, for nights without sleep.

NEAL SHAPIRO, NBC NEWS: Collectively, they have faced war, governments who wanted to silence their independent voices, physical attacks, exiles, threats to their lives and the lives of their families.

We are all the beneficiaries of their courage, because every time they report a story, they illuminate the world in which we live.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In New York, as well as in Moscow, Grozny, Managua, and Kabul, Anne Garrels has set a singular standard. A journalist of fantastic humor as well as intelligence, panache, bravery, and there is no imitating or parodying her.

ANNE GARRELS, JOURNALIST: In closing, I can only repeat the words of my friend Elizabeth Neuffer, "If I have been courageous, it is because of the example set for me by those I've met along the way."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She has dedicated her life to uncovering the truth about the atrocities committed by death squads in the past and the gross human rights violations that continue today in Guatemala. Marielos Monzon has challenged the evil in her country and because she keeps writing about the unfinished past and the continuing horror, she risks her life and the lives of her children. There are many who would like to silence her. It is dangerous to be a reporter in Guatemala.

MARIELOS MONZON, GUATEMALAN JOURNALIST (through translator): And I am here today to say to those who want to silence us, hide our history and bury us in terror, that we are not afraid.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROTH: One of the unseen dangers for journalists and the people they cover in crises would have to be landmines. The United Nations has many programs geared toward teaching the next generation how to recognize the threat of landmines.

At the United Nations in March, some children took landmine action into their own hands. They raised $70,000 by collecting pennies. Nan Annan, the wife of Secretary-General Kofi Annan accepted a check for the $70,000 to be handed over to the U.N.'s Mine Action Service. The drive was called "Pennies for Peace: Making Change Work." Over a million pennies have been collected by the youngsters from Marin County, California. The goal: convert minefields in Afghanistan and elsewhere into schools and playgrounds. A penny and lots more for their thoughts.

Many children around the world survive on mere pennies for food and shelter with no help from their governments. At the United Nations, they are more than happy to encourage individual efforts to contribute to peace. Ambassadors, jazz greats and actors turned out for an opening of an exhibition called Building a Culture of Peace for the Children of the World. They started it all out kind of the way we begin all our DIPLOMATIC LICENSE show meetings.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want you to do me a favor, please. I want you all to give each other a hug. Now doesn't that feel good. I think so. Arms are for hugging. Arms are for hugging, not killing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) peace is not a distant dream. The challenge begins in our own hearts.

(MUSIC)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We reject the use of the bomb and the bullet and all of the techniques of violence. We dedicate ourselves to working with our neighbors near and far, day in and day out, to building a peaceful society in which the tragedies we have known are a bad memory and a continuing warning.

PATRICK DUFFY, ACTOR: We're dedicated not just to the children of the world, but to the inherent capability of people, of the thing that exists in every individual, to help children of the world.

(MUSIC)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROTH: There is an old show biz adage that says don't follow children or animal acts. We've already told you about the children. Here come the dogs. They don't give speeches or linger in the cafeteria at the United Nations. The security dogs, though, sniff for trouble at headquarters in Manhattan. Some are actually shy, take it from me. They're certainly under a lot more pressure these days in the terrorism environment. Despite this, I've never seen a dog take a smoke in front of the Security Council.

The dogs are there to warn of any threat to the huge volume of VIP visitors to the United Nations and New York, but even the pooch patrol couldn't rescue a journalist and some Security Council ambassadors from some mild bemusement earlier this year.

First, the reporter. The Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was in New York, appearing at the Council on Foreign Relations, and it showed why traveling with your own cabinet ministers helps to quickly respond to the media's hot pursuit of a reaction to a story about Iran made on the other side of the globe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your defense minister last month made some very strong comments about Iran, citing it as a grave national security threat to Turkey. Do you agree with that assessment, and if so, why? Iran.

TAYYIP ERDOGAN, TURKISM PRIME MIN. (through translator): Our minister of national defense is here. He didn't say anything like that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was reported in the press that way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This question myself I have to answer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: The Turkish defense minister said actually he had referred to overall global nuclear concerns on Iran, not a specific threat to his country.

Then there was a visit to the United Nations by Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili. He studied at Columbia University in New York and was even an intern at the United Nations. Does that make you feel old?

Anyway, the Georgian president once participated in a model U.N. conference. At these types of model U.N. events, each person playacts as a different delegate from another country. So the future president of Georgia was the ambassador from France, a story he told with great relish to the current Security Council when he made his first appearance there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKHAIL SAAKASHVILI, GEORGIAN PRESIDENT: What I did the first day, I sharply attacked the position of the Soviet delegation with great internal joy at that moment. Next day I managed to veto a resolution proposed by the U.S. delegation. So I didn't mean to in any way show France as aggressive and an inconsiderate member of the Council, but some people at that time -- it was 1989 -- told me that I behaved very much and I sounded very much like real French, so it was a great honor.

So now the second time, I am much wiser and much more constructive and I am happy to be here as someone who I am, the president of my country, Georgia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Since then, the unsmiling Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov has gone on to graduate himself to the post of foreign minister. The Georgian president who earned his model U.N. stripes as the French ambassador says he will have to wait a few years more to have his country join France and others in the expanded European Union.

Well, today's program probably will move some of you to write to us. If the feeling fails to subside, you can e-mail us at Diplomatic.License@CNN.com. It is advisable if you are on certain medications to not get in contact with us. Talk to your doctor first.

That's DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth, in New York. Thanks for watching.

END

TO ORDER VIDEOTAPES AND TRANSCRIPTS OF CNN INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMING, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE THE SECURE ONLINE ORDER FROM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com