Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

Rumsfeld Lashes Out at Amnesty International; Iraqis Round Up Insurgents; U.N. Staffer Fired over Oil-for-Food; Expensive Homes Lost in Landslide; Hurricane Victims Still Rebuilding; Deep Throat: Hero or Villain?

Aired June 01, 2005 - 17:00   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.


WOLF BLITZER, HOST: Happening now: you're fired. That's what U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan tells a longtime U.N. staffer, the first dismissal in the U.N.'s oil-for-food scandal. Will he be the last?
Stand by for hard news on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): Phantom foe.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, CHAIRMAN OF JOINT CHIEFS: We do not know where he is right now.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF STATE: The current assumption is that he's in Iraq.

BLITZER: They may not know his whereabouts but they have a veiled warning for any country that may be sheltering al Qaeda's main ally.

Laguna landslide.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I got out safe. That's all I care about right now.

BLITZER: A hillside suddenly collapses. Dozens of expensive homes are damaged, destroyed or evacuated.

Love struck. Poets and songwriters have known it all along. Now, scientists say it's real. I'll speak with relationship expert Laura Berman.

ANNOUNCER: This is WOLF BLITZER REPORTS for Wednesday, June 1, 2005.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Hello from the CNN Center in Atlanta.

The Defense secretary went on the offensive today with a blistering attack on a human rights organization. What got Donald Rumsfeld so angry was last week's charge by Amnesty International comparing the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to the slave labor camps of the Soviet Union.

Let's go live to our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre -- Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, if you want to get Donald Rumsfeld's blood boiling, all you have to do is compare his prison facility in Guantanamo Bay to a Stalinist death camp.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): Amnesty International says the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has become the gulag of our times because it practices arbitrary and indefinite detentions.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld calls the characterization reprehensible.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Those who make such outlandish charges lose any claim to objectivity or seriousness.

MCINTYRE: The word "gulag" refers to forced labor camps run by the old Soviet Union, where millions of people were worked to death. It is inexcusable, Rumsfeld said, to equate such atrocities with a detention center for terror suspects.

RUMSFELD: It's also important to remember that the people being detained at Guantanamo are with good reason suspected terrorists. Many, if not most, have been systematically trained to lie and to claim torture.

MCINTYRE: In response, Amnesty International USA fired off an e- mail accusing Rumsfeld of courting Saddam Hussein 20 years ago when it was criticizing human rights abuses in Iraq.

The group's statement charged, "Donald Rumsfeld personally approved a December 2002 memorandum that permitted such unlawful interrogation techniques as stress positions, prolonged isolation, stripping and the use of dogs at Guantanamo Bay," and said "he should be held accountable, as should all those responsible for torture, no matter how senior."

The Pentagon disputes that any of the interrogation techniques approved for Guantanamo, if properly applied, constitute torture. And it says after 370 criminal investigations, fewer than one tenth of one percent of the U.S. military who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan have been found to have abused prisoners.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Amnesty International stands by its statement that the U.S. government is one of the leading purveyors and practitioners of torture. Donald Rumsfeld today said that was a slap against the men and women of the U.S. military, who he said are a force that have done more in the world to liberate people than anyone else that they have -- people that they have never met -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Jamie, the secretary also had something of a warning for both Syria and Iran. What was that all about?

MCINTYRE: Well, he didn't mention either country by name, but he said that any neighboring country to Iraq that gave haven or medical treatment to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would be associating itself with al Qaeda and somebody who has a lot of blood on his hands, he said. But he stopped short of saying what the consequences of that action would be.

The joint chiefs chairman, General Meyers, revealed that the reason the U.S. believes Zarqawi was wounded is that some of the postings on the web site ring true with other facts they know about what happened out in the west in the border with Syria. That's where they think Zarqawi was wounded.

BLITZER: Jamie McIntyre, thanks very much.

In Afghanistan at least 20 people died and twice as many were wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a mosque. The attack took place in the southern city of Kandahar. It came during the funeral for a pro government cleric who was assassinated Sunday.

The police chief of Kabul was reportedly among those killed in the bombing. There's been no claim of responsibility for the attack, but the provincial governor is blaming al Qaeda.

U.S. troops are letting Iraqi allies take the lead in Operation Lightning, a series of sweeps and round ups in Baghdad. But the insurgents are hitting right back. They struck once again today near the entrance to the main U.S. military complex in the capital.

Our senior Baghdad correspondent, Jane Arraf, looks at the crack down and the response.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Day three of Operation Lightning, the biggest Iraqi operation so far in Baghdad and Iraq.

The streets are relatively normal. Just outside of this military base, as we went out earlier today, a suicide car bomb, though. According to military officials here, 15 people were injured. No one killed but the suicide bomber.

Despite that, as we drove down that road, that airport road and other streets in Baghdad, life was relatively normal. The shops are open, despite warnings from the interior and defense minister that they were going to flood the city with 40,000 Iraqi soldiers and police.

It doesn't look as if there are 40,000. That number may have been slightly overestimated. But there are considerably more police apparent, more army.

We went out on a raid last night overnight with Iraqi army troops who were going house to house and searching entire neighborhoods as they cordoned them off with the help of U.S. forces. People there were cooperative. Iraqi forces say they rounded up 100 people in that area and others overnight, all of them suspected insurgents. Some of them, they believe who may have been involved in cells that are planting roadside bombs and launching kidnappings.

Jane Arraf, CNN, reporting from Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Thanks, Jane.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, are preparing the case against the former Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, and they are apparently seeking help from Iran. Saddam's regime was accused of committing numerous war crimes during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

In an interview earlier, Saddam's lawyer told me that prosecutors have traveled to the Iranian capital.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GIOVANNI DI STEFANO, SADDAM ATTORNEY: Wolf, let me tell you there has been, actually, an important development that we have heard today, that the Iraqi prosecutors and the investigative judges have left and departed for Tehran, for Iran, where they seek the assistance of the Iranian government to collect -- to collect and to bring any evidence, as we understand it, that the Iraqi government is far more keen now on bringing charges related to the Iran-Iraq war rather than any other charges that perhaps all of us had hypothesized.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Early yesterday the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, in an exclusive interview with CNN expressed hopes Saddam Hussein's trial will begin within two months.

The first dismissal stemming from the United Nations oil-for-food scandal was announced today. The secretary-general, Kofi Annan, has fired a long-time Security Council staffer.

Let's go live to the U.N. CNN's Liz Neisloss standing by with details -- Liz.

LIZ NEISLOSS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf.

It's months since the investigations into oil-for-food began, and there are several congressional investigations also underway, but today, as you say, for the first time, the United Nations announced that it has fired a staffer who was working on the oil-for-food program.

The staffer, Joseph Stephanides. Now, Stephanides is a long-time mid-level U.N. official who was helping to administer the work of the Security Council for the U.N., but also key for a critical period, he was helping manage the contracts under the oil-for-food program. He was dismissed over allegations that he tainted the competitive bidding process for a company to inspect goods entering Iraq. And that is Joseph Stephanides sitting behind the man with the glasses.

A spokesman for the U.N. explained the decision.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANE DUJARRIC, U.N. SPOKESMAN: After a thorough review of all aspects of the case the secretary-general has decided that Mr. Joseph Stephanides be summarily dismissed for serious misconduct in accordance with the U.N. staff regulations. Mr. Stephanides was advised accordingly yesterday and was separated from service with immediate effect.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEISLOSS: Now, the allegations about Stephanides come from a U.N. backed inquiry led by the tall man you see there, Paul Volcker.

The company that won the contract in question was Lloyd's Registry, a British company. Stephanides said the U.N. officials had already decided to award the contract when he placed a call to the British ambassador telling him to ask Lloyd's to lower their price to the U.N. And Stephanides said there was no plan to give the lower bidder, a French company, the contract because French companies already had major oil-for-food contracts, and that would have been politically impossible at the time.

Stephanides, Wolf, also told me that he plans to appeal. He says he's done nothing wrong.

BLITZER: Liz Neisloss, reporting from the United Nations. Thanks very much, Liz, for that report.

More news coming up. When we come back, a California landslide. Live pictures coming into us right now. A hillside collapses. More than a dozen homes come crashing down out of the blue. Hundreds of people are ordered to evacuate.

Hero or traitor? A day after Deep Throat's identity is revealed, how is this man, Mark Felt, being viewed?

And later, could you actually be crazy in live? A new scientific study just out says the drive for romantic love could be stronger than the will to live. I'll talk about it with relationship expert Laura Berman.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: A very dangerous situation unfolding right now in Southern California. These are live pictures you're seeing. A landslide has damaged or destroyed more than a dozen homes and threatening many more. It's happening in the wealthy community of Laguna Beach, about 50 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(NO AUDIO)

BLITZER (voice-over): The landslide that sent homes tumbling down intact smashed others to bits, and brought roads to a dead end in midair.

The first signs of trouble came just before dawn, when residents reported hearing... (NO AUDIO)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Candy that you eat, that crack.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pop Rocks.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you. That's exactly what it's like.

BLITZER: Sometime after 6 a.m., the ground gave way, sending panicked residents fleeing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We all knew (NO AUDIO) ...

BLITZER: Amazingly, as these million dollar homes plunged down the hillside, there were only a handful of minor injuries.

Now, with some homes barely clinging to hillside, and others snapped in two (NO AUDIO) the extent of the danger.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have geologists in the area that are trying to assess the perimeter of the damage, in other words, how far back it extends, but they're still -- it's dangerous up there. There are men and women working up there as the ground is moving.

BLITZER: (NO AUDIO) hillside community is no stranger to natural disasters. Four hundred homes were destroyed in the 1993 wildfire. In 1998, a rainstorm triggered a landslide that damaged 300 homes.

And although today's slide (NO AUDIO) weather it follows an exceptionally wet winter in California.

Officials are suggesting residents prepare for extended stays in temporary shelters. But for some, when they return is not that important.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I got out safe. That's all I care about right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: A shelter for evacuees has been set up at a nearby high school. The mayor says the city council will start work on seeking disaster relief right away. Still recovering. As the hurricane season begins officially today, we'll take you to one Florida community still rebuilding from last year's storms.

Secret revealed. We'll hear from the executive editor of "The Washington Post," the newspaper that gave voice to Deep Throat's inside information.

And later, celebrating CNN's 25th anniversary. I'll look back at one world changing event that I covered for this network.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Today marks the official beginning of the hurricane season, and while officials are urging preparedness, tens of thousands of people in Florida alone are still struggling or trying to recover from last season's four hurricanes.

CNN's John Zarrella has covered a lot of hurricanes for us and joining us now live from Punta Gorda in Florida. There was a big hurricane there a little bit less than a year ago -- John.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. Friday, August 13, Friday the 13th, Hurricane Charley, the first of the four last year, and the worst, category four, 145 mile an hour winds. They are still reeling here in Punta Gorda.

Where I'm standing is in the downtown neighborhood of Punta Gorda. Behind me here, this used to be a shopping plaza. It is gone now. Some new retail stores are going to be going in.

And in the distance back there is Main Street: River City Grill, some other dining establishments. That's been rebuilt.

But two hours after the hurricane struck, we were in here last August, and what it looked like was a whole different scene. You could see power lines were down. Buildings had been badly beaten on that street. So in less than a year they've done remarkable job bringing that area back.

But throughout the state of Florida, it is going to take many, many years for people to recover.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZARRELLA (voice-over): Wayne Sallade's message is simple. Just try to relax.

WAYNE SALLADE, CHARLOTTE COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGER: We are sitting on a tinderbox of emotions in this state right now. Everybody is skittish.

ZARRELLA: The man who has been the Charlotte County emergency manager for 18 years delivered his sermon during one of three stops on his day-long hurricane caravan, preaching preparedness and dispelling myths. SALLADE: Tornadoes is Dorothy in Kansas in the "Wizard of Oz," not in Hurricane Charley.

ZARRELLA: Sallade is focused on getting people ready for this hurricane season. The problem is many folks like Miriam Caruthers are still living last year's nightmare.

Ten months after Charley and $16,000 later, all she has is a new roof and drywall. The rest of the house remains gutted. While she waits for work to be done, she lives in a FEMA trailer right outside her bedroom window.

(on camera) You're looking right out this window.

MIRIAM CARUTHERS, HURRICANE VICTIM: Right out that window. We wash and eat and cook over there.

ZARRELLA: So you've been living in there all this time?

CARUTHERS: Yes. Yes, sir.

ZARRELLA: How much longer are you going to have to -- hurricane season is here.

CARUTHERS: Tell me about it. I don't even want to hear about that.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): Caruthers, a grandmother who has lived here for more than 20 years, is one of nearly 27,000 people in Florida still living in FEMA-provided housing. Many are in mobile home cities set up by the agency. Affordable housing is scarce and is the biggest post-hurricane issue facing the state.

Across Florida blue tarps still cover thousands of roofs. Building materials are in short supply. All people can do is try to be patient.

Painting landscapes keeps Miriam Caruthers' blood from boiling.

(on camera) Snow and it's not like a hurricane in Florida, is it? A little bit of a different setting.

CARUTHERS: Yes.

ZARRELLA: I don't see you painting any of those.

CARUTHERS: No, I'm not.

ZARRELLA: She doesn't use canvas either. Caruthers paints on pieces of drywall left over from the work her contractor did finish.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZARRELLA: Now, this hurricane season is expected to be at least as active as last year, so the word is prepare now -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Good advice. John Zarrella reporting for us. Thanks, John, very much.

He's a hero to some and a villain to others. How will history judge the man who came toward to say he's Deep Throat?

Plus, the body of a lynching victim exhumed. What the FBI hopes to learn about the crime against Emmett Till.

And later, the Google guys just keep getting richer and richer and richer as their stock value keeps on climbing. But will the Google bubble burst? Our Mary Snow standing by. She'll take a closer look.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back.

Identifying Deep Throat. Decades later, do people view Mark Felt as a hero or a traitor? We'll take a closer look. First, though, let's get a quick check of some other stories now in the news.

Federal investigators have exhumed the body of Emmett Till in Chicago. He's the African-American teenager whose 1955 murder in Mississippi helped galvanize the civil rights movement. Two white men now dead were acquitted of the crime. The body will be autopsied for clues and possibly new charges.

The head of the Securities and Exchange Commission is stepping down. William Donaldson says he'll leave within the month. He was appointed by President Bush two years ago, in part to bolster faith in the stock market following a series of high-profile corporate scandals.

The future of the European Union is uncertain after Dutch voters today voted down the proposed E.U. constitution. Exit polls show 63 percent said no just three days after the measure also lost decisively in France. E.U. rules require the constitution to be approved by all 25 member nations.

President Bush says the disclosure of the identity of the Watergate source known as Deep Throat caught him by surprise. As we told you yesterday, the former No. 2 official of the FBI, Mark Felt, confirmed that he was the one who helped "The Washington Post" report on the scandal that led to Richard Nixon's resignation as president.

Speaking to reporters today, President Bush sidestepped a question on whether he felt that Felt should be considered a hero or a turncoat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's hard for me to judge. Learning more about the situation. All I can tell you is that it was a revelation that caught me by surprise, and I thought it was very interesting. I'm looking to reading about him, reading about his relationship with the news media. It's a brand new story for a lot of us who have been wondering a long time who he was. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: For more on whether Mark Felt provided a valuable public service or acted improperly, we turn to our senior political analyst, Bill Schneider. He's joining us from our Washington studio -- Bill.

BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, OK. We know who Deep Throat was. Now the debate begins. Was he a hero?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK JONES, GRANDSON OF W. MARK FELT: But as he recently told my mother, "I guess people used to think Deep Throat was a criminal, but now they think he's a hero."

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Apparently, one person who changed his mind about Deep Throat was Deep Throat.

TIM NOAH, SLATE.COM: I asked him, I said well, would it be such a terrible thing to be Deep Throat? And he said, "Yes, it would be." It's a terrible thing to do to the FBI, to leak details of a criminal investigation.

SCHNEIDER: If you want to impugn Mark Felt's character it's not so hard to do.

HOWARD KURTZ, HOST, "RELIABLE SOURCES": He lied about his role being Deep Throat. He later was indicted for other Watergate related activities.

SCHNEIDER: Felt's motives may not have been so pure.

DAVID GERGEN, FORMER NIXON ADVISOR: This was a fellow who was also trying to get even with Richard Nixon for not appointing him as director of the FBI, that there was a revenge factor here.

SCHNEIDER: Felt's critics say if he saw wrongdoing in the White House he had other options.

CHARLES COLSON, FORMER NIXON WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: He could have walked into Pat Gray's office, the director of the FBI, and said, "Here are things that are going on in the White House that need to be exposed. The president needs to know about this."

SCHNEIDER: Oh, come on, says this author who has written a history of the FBI.

RONALD KESSLER, AUTHOR, "THE BUREAU": The fact is that Nixon was trying to cover up this whole investigation. He was trying to suppress it. That is certainly why Mark Felt cooperated with Woodward.

SCHNEIDER: It's easy to say, well, both sides committed wrongs, no heroes, no villains. NOAH: You kind of have a law breaker breaking a whistle -- sorry, blowing a whistle on a law -- on a law breaker, so no one's really a hero here.

SCHNEIDER: CNN got lots of messages from viewers who took a larger perspective. This one wrote, "in all the talk about motives and honor, no one has ever said that anything he said wasn't true."

This viewer urged the sense of proportion, "saying he was somehow dishonorable is like a bank robber attempting to get his case thrown out by claiming the arresting officer had to jaywalk to cuff him."

At least one figure from the Nixon White House believes most Americans will see the larger picture.

LEONARD GARMENT, FORMER NIXON WHITE HOUSE ATTORNEY: Every secret deserves a decent burial. And I think that this particular secret will probably receive a state funeral.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER: Could it be that two wrongs do make a right? You might say that when people feel the wrongdoing by one side endangers the republic -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Bill Schneider, thanks very much for that report.

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. "The Washington Post" being scooped, effectively, on the identity of "Deep Throat." A secret the newspaper had kept more than 30 years. I talked about that earlier today with "Washington Post" executive editor Leonard Downey.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Leonard, thanks very much for joining us. Walk us through yesterday. It was a very tumultuous day in the history of "The Washington Post." You were out on some sort of corporate retreat when word broke of this story. Tell us what happened?

LEONARD DOWNEY, WASHINGTON POST: Yes. I was in Saint Michael's, Maryland, about two hours away at this company retreat. And I was actually giving my presentation about some changes we were making in the newspaper when my cell phone started ringing. And -- so I turned it off, because I was giving this presentation.

And then members of the hotel staff kept bringing notes by to me, saying my assistant was calling, editors were calling, they were going to stay on the line until I talked him. But I persisted in giving my presentation. And then Don Graham's cell phone rang. And he went outside to take it. And he motioned through the windows in the door that I better come.

BLITZER: Don Graham, the publisher of "The Washington Post."

DOWNEY: He's the CEO of The Washington Post Company, yes. And so I ended my presentation. Went outside. Found out what was going on. Immediately called Bob Woodward, called Ben Bradlee. And we started to talk about how we were going to react to this.

And the first step was for me to get back here to Washington. I drove back very fast. And read the piece in "Vanity Fair," consulted again with Ben who was in his office here with Bob Woodward who had come in to the office from his home. And we decided it was time for the newspaper to confirm this, because the family had now relieved us of our confidential obligation.

BLITZER: Because as you know initially Woodward and Bernstein put out a statement saying they weren't going to comment, they were not going confirm or deny anything, because their obligation was to wait until "Deep Throat" was dead. But that changed in the course of a few hours.

DOWNEY: Yes. When it became clear -- I mean, they didn't know how to react initially. So, that's why they said what they said. And they wanted to study the pieces, as did I. And we wanted to decide whether, in fact, "Deep Throat" and his family had now in effect released us from that promise of confidentiality.

We decided that's, in fact, what had taken place. And that was ratified later in the day when the family brought Mark Felt out to face the cameras. And when then his daughter and grandsons held a press conference.

BLITZER: Initially, I was under the impression you were hesitating, "The Washington Post" was hesitating -- and we're showing our viewers that picture, when they brought him to the doorway and he waved smiling -- that he might have been under duress to go ahead and confirm this by his children and grandchildren, that he himself was reluctant to do so.

Did you manage to get any independent word from Mark Felt directly that the obligation to keep that bond of confidentiality had been broken?

DOWNEY: No. Our decision was based on what the family had clearly decided to do, and the family's lawyer had clearly decided to do. And we did not -- we did not attempt to reach Mark Felt at that point.

As you know, Bob had a lot of conversations with Mark Felt in recent years in person, on the telephone, and we concluded we understood what the family had done here. And we no longer had to observe our confidentiality agreement.

BLITZER: So what happens in terms of the history right now? Knowing that the No. 2 official at the FBI was, in fact, one of the key sources that "The Washington Post" had -- Woodward and Bernstein had, specifically Bob Woodward -- what does it say to you looking back? You didn't know Mark Felt's identity for sure until, what, somebody in the afternoon said to you, either Ben Bradlee or Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein -- they finally confirmed it to you? Or did you get indications earlier? DOWNEY: Actually, I was told -- I was informed by Bob a couple months ago when he was concerned about Mark Felt's advancing age. You remember, he had said on television that "Deep Throat" was growing old now. So, I decided it was time to have a contingency plan for when "Deep Throat" died, because it could be any day, or any year.

So, bob invited me to come to his house and read some of the things he had written down about his relationship with "Deep Throat." And that's when I learned for the first time it was definitely Mark Felt. That was a couple months ago.

BLITZER: And tomorrow, Bob Woodward is going to have his first person account in the paper tomorrow, is that right?

DOWNEY: That's correct.

BLITZER: We'll be reading that.

Len Downey, as usual, thanks very much for spending a few moments with us, talking about "Deep Throat."

DOWNEY: You're quite welcome.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And this important programming note. The CNN primetime exclusive tomorrow, the two men who kept "Deep Throat's" identity secret for three decades, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward will sit down with Larry King in their first live primetime interview. Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward tomorrow night, 9:00 pm Eastern only here on CNN.

Let's take a look at other news making headlines around the world.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): More than 22,000 people have been arrested in Zimbabwe. In an ongoing crackdown the government says is aimed at black market trading and other crimes. Most of those arrested are street vendors in urban areas. Opposition leaders say the government is trying to force the poor to the countryside where they can be more easily controlled.

Bali protests: Indonesia shut its embassy in Australia after receiving an envelope containing what officials describe as a biological agent. Officials link the incident to outrage over the conviction in Bali of an Australian woman on drug charges.

Marriage bliss: A British couple say the key to a long marriage is to never sleep on an argument. Percy and Florence Aerosmith should know. Guinness World Record says the Aerosmiths celebrating their 80th wedding anniversary, now hold the record for the world's longest marriage.

And that's our look around the world. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Congratulations to them.

Good times, meanwhile, over at Google where the company's stock continues to soar. Why Wall Street is taking a second look at the little search engine that could.

Also, crazy -- literally crazy in love. There's new scientific research out today shedding some light on why romance can make us act and feel just plain weird.

Plus, CNN at 25. I'll show you why 1991 was such a memorable year for me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: And, this just in to CNN, the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas reportedly underwent heart angioplasty surgery today in a Jordanian hospital. Citing a top aide to Mahmoud Abbas, the Associated Press is now reporting, the prime minister -- the president -- was actually taken to a hospital in Amman after complaining of fatigue.

The Palestinian Authority president then went -- underwent -- the procedure to clear out clogged coronary arteries. The procedure is described as successful. The 69-year-old Mahmoud Abbas is wrapping up a long trip abroad. He was in Washington only last week. He's expected back in the West Bank tomorrow, as planned. Once again, reportedly successful surgery for the Palestinian leader.

Other stories just coming into CNN, trading on the New York Stock Exchange was halted four minutes early today. The closing bell rang at 3:56 p.m. Eastern. An announcement over the public address system indicated there was a problem with telecommunications. There were no details immediately released. Stock Exchange spokesperson contacted by CNN could not say exactly what happened. Stay with CNN for updates as they become available.

It grew out of a dorm room to become one of the hottest companies on the web or anywhere, but some are wondering whether the good times at Google can last. CNN's Mary Snow is in New York and has been looking into the story. She's joining us live. Mary?

MARY SNOW, CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK: Hi there, Wolf.

Google has become a darling on Wall Street even though it had plenty of nay-sayers along the way. Today, the stock closed at $288, its highest level yet, and the question on Wall Street is, will it continue to soar or start to slip?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW (voice-over): Call it the search engine that could. When Google went public last August, Wall Street was skeptical of an internet stock starting near $100. Now, it's closing in on $300 a share, and investors can't seem to get enough.

DARREN CHERVITZ, JACOB ASSET MANAGEMENT: Five years ago this was the company that was generating hardly anything in sales and today it's the company worth $80 billion more than Disney, more than Merck, more than most of the market right now.

SNOW: Industry watchers say most of that money comes from internet ad sales in offerings like gMail, innovations that stem back to a Stanford dorm room where company founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin started cooking up ideas before launching Google in 1998. Analysts say at first, the company didn't gain respect, but they point out, that may have worked to the company's advantage.

TOM TAULLI, CURRENTOFFERINGS.COM: Google was able to build an empire while everyone else was doubting, and it wasn't until it was too late for companies like Microsoft that they figured out that Google was on to something big.

SNOW: And it's grown bigger. Now Wall Street firm predicts the stock can hit $350, a prediction that stirs memories of the late 1990s when internet stocks were soaring before the stock market high-tech bubble burst.

ESTHER DYSON, RELEASE 1.0 NEWSLETTER: Oh, I'll admit it gives me the willies. I -- you know, this is a really, really great company, but it's -- it's only human.

SNOW: And observers urge caution since betting on the stock means peering into an unknown market of ideas.

MATTHEW RHODES KROPF, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: There's an empty hole that nobody knows what's out there. Nobody knows how big the market is. Nobody knows what they might create. I -- you know, they should be skeptical.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: And analysts point out one big difference between Google and a lot of the internet companies that failed in the 1990s, is that Google is a big money-maker. Last year its sales were about $1 billion. Wolf?

BLITZER: All right, Mary Snow with that information. Thanks, Mary, very much.

We'll take another quick break. When we come back, a new scientific study says new love can look a lot like mental illness. That story -- that's coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back.

They say love is in the air, but is it also in the brain? A new study in the "Journal of Neurophysiology" says brain scan images show romantic love is a biological urge, but different than sexual arousal. Researchers say -- listen to this -- scans of love-smitten brains show activity similar to brains experiencing hunger, thirst or even drug craving, and they say the patterns change as infatuation deepens into long-term attachment.

Let's get some analysis, what this all means. We're joined by Laura Berman. She's in Chicago. She's a sex educator, relationship expert and host with her sister Jennifer of "Berman and Berman" on the Discovery Health Channel. Laura, thanks very much.

Well, what is -- what have we learned from this new scientific study?

LAURA BERMAN, RELATIONSHIP EXPERT: Well, it's really interesting. I mean, the whole idea of crazy in love really does hold true. I mean, we've known forever when people are in that deep, initial, passionate, love stage, they have obsessive thoughts about the person. They do irrational and crazy things. They act in an obsessive-compulsive way.

We now know from these brain studies that the dopamine center of the brain that becomes highly active during the stage in a relationship -- which is the reward center, as you said. It's the center that lights up and that's active and triggers hunger, addictions, so it's the same thing with love.

BLITZER: Basically, there's a whole chemical reaction, a chemical change in the body, as someone falls in love, and the chemistry, if you will, creates these different kinds of urges.

BERMAN: That's right. And it also, you know, explains love. It feels really great to be in that initial love, feeling that infatuation and that passion when you've found a passionate love for first time, and that initial stage of the relationship is something a lot of couples struggle with regaining on some level later in their relationship because they miss that intensity.

BLITZER: Well, what happens to that kind of initial love, the chemical reaction, the chemical change in the body, as the relationship matures? According to the study, the chemistry changes.

BREMAN: Yes. It's the -- really, what starts to happen is a much deeper attachment center of the brain starts to become more active. It's really with the familiarity and the security and the commitment of a relationship, your brain chemistry actually seems to start to change. It also, you know, makes sense, because on some level, none of us would be able to get anything done if we were stuck in the infatuation stage indefinitely. I mean, you can't think about -- in many cases, you can't think about or do anything else but think about the person and be with that person.

So, because our bodies can't sustain itself at that level with familiarity and commitment, comes a deeper attachment. What's commonly known as the attachment stage of the relationship. And we've now started to see some evidence that the brain chemistry changes along with that, which explains a lot.

BLITZER: So, for when...

BERMAN: The other key is...

BLITZER: Laura, what we've been saying over the years when two people meet and they go back and see their friends and ask was there any chemistry there, literally that's what we're talking about, chemistry.

BERMAN: Right. We're talking about that brain chemistry.

And then the trick is how do you kind of keep that chemistry alive in a long-term relationship. And at lot of couples I work with, I actually apply this prince. And help them keep those dopamine centers of their brains stimulated by doing novel activities together, new and exciting activities. And thrill seeking behaviors will stimulate those centers of the brain.

So, if you're a staid, boring relationship that's got an little stale, f you do something scary you might trigger those centers again.

BLITZER: So, when the Righteous Brothers wrote those words, "you've lost that loving feeling," they knew what they were talking about.

BERMAN: They knew. They may not have knew how to get it back, though. So, now they know.

BLITZER: Laura Berman, as usual, thanks very much for helping us better understand this relationship.

BERMAN: Sure.

BLITZER: Appreciate it very much.

BERMAN: Happy to be here.

BLITZER: Looking back on a powerful period in world history, and My personal experiences. We'll get to that.

First, former President Bill Clinton reflecting on CNN's 25th anniversary.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM CLINTON, FRM PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My most memorable moments watching CNN are the things which made the network great. Breaking news. The instantaneous photographs of the tsunami problem. The Challenger exploding. The first Gulf War. The South African election. I'll never forget that.

In the last few years, I've come to enjoy a lot of the in depth coverage more. I think the way that you handled the tsunami helped to generate a lot of the charitable contributions to explode. By simply explaining to people on a very factual, straightforward way what a tsunami was, how people were affected by it, what they could do about it, it was very powerful.

And CNN has shaped the world more than anybody knows the world of news. Not only did it provide an instantaneous reporting instrument, it changed the way the evening news was put on. And it changed the way the morning newspapers were written.

I remember things that were, by and large, things that were breaking in the moment, both sad and wonderful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: CNN went on the air for the first time 25 years ago today. Every year since then, it's seen its share of historic events. But to me, 1991 was particularly memorable.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): For CNN, the 1991 Gulf War to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein's forces was certainly a turning point. But for the 20th Century, what happened in August of that same year may have been even more important.

The Soviet Union was then still in business, though under Mikhail Gorbachev and his reform policies, the Cold War was clearly easing. The Berlin Wall had fallen some two years earlier.

In Moscow, not everyone was happy about those trends, especially the hardlined Communists. In August, 1991, those old-timers, led by elements of the KGB, plotted a coup against Gorbachev while out of town on a summer vacation.

(on camera): I happened to be on my summer vacation as well in Hilton Head, South Carolina when I first got that call from our Washington bureau. Get back to the Pentagon right away, they said. I was then CNN's military affairs correspondent.

(voice-over): Shortly after returning to Washington, CNN's president, Tom Johnson, called me and asked if I wanted to go to Moscow to cover the coup. I boarded a plane right away.

But by the time I reached the Soviet capital, the coup had collapsed. Gorbachev was back in Moscow and in charge. The coup plotters had been arrested.

Within hours of my arrival, Johnson, who flew over to Moscow to personally direct our coverage, arranged an interview for me with the new Soviet defense minister, Air Marshall Yevgeney Shaposhnikov. He, together with Boris Yeltsin, was seen as one of the heroes in defeating the coup.

We did that interview live on CNN and CNN international. He spoke through an interpreter, and promised to work hard to permanently end the Cold War and improve relations with the United States and the west. YEVGENEY SHAPOSHNIKOV, SOVIET DEFENSE MINISTER (through translator): I would like to avail myself of this opportunity and to express my confidence that our relations, I mean the relations between the military leaders of our countries, will continue, become more profound and will be strengthened.

BLITZER: As encouraging as his words were during that live interview, what he said to Tom Johnson and me afterwards, off camera, was even more encouraging.

(on camera): As CNN's military affairs correspondent, I had come to the interview seeking permission to visit some Soviet military bases that always had been off limits to westerners, especially journalists. I presented Shaposhinkov with a relatively long list, hoping he would approve one or two bases.

(voice-over): To my amazement, and to the shock of several of his generals, he approved them all.

This is the gist of what he said to us. Mr. Blitzer, CNN is our friend. If it had not been for your cameras showing the world what was happening on the streets of Moscow during the coup, the plotters would have won.

Shaposhnikov then got personal. And noted that he, as the commander of the Soviet Air Force, had refused orders by the coup plotters to bomb the anti-coup protesters led by Yeltsin.

If the coup had succeed, he said, looking at me and his own worried generals, we would have been sent to Siberia or worst.

He then thanked us for CNN's coverage, and wished me luck on my visit to those Soviet military bases.

One footnote, at the end of December that same year, I returned to Moscow to help cover the collapse of the Soviet Union. I was in Red Square when the old communist flag went down for the last time. It marked the end of 74 years of communist rule over Russia and the other former republics of the Soviet Union. The world had changed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And I remain obviously very proud of having been part of CNN's historic coverage, truly one of the most important stories of the 20th Century.

Remember, tonight CNN will celebrate 25 years of bringing you news from around the world, defining moments, 25 stories that touched our lives. That begins 8:00 pm Eastern tonight.

Thanks very much for joining us. "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" starts right now. Kitty Pilgrim standing by for Lou -- Kitty.

END

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


Aired June 1, 2005 - 17:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, HOST: Happening now: you're fired. That's what U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan tells a longtime U.N. staffer, the first dismissal in the U.N.'s oil-for-food scandal. Will he be the last?
Stand by for hard news on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): Phantom foe.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, CHAIRMAN OF JOINT CHIEFS: We do not know where he is right now.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF STATE: The current assumption is that he's in Iraq.

BLITZER: They may not know his whereabouts but they have a veiled warning for any country that may be sheltering al Qaeda's main ally.

Laguna landslide.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I got out safe. That's all I care about right now.

BLITZER: A hillside suddenly collapses. Dozens of expensive homes are damaged, destroyed or evacuated.

Love struck. Poets and songwriters have known it all along. Now, scientists say it's real. I'll speak with relationship expert Laura Berman.

ANNOUNCER: This is WOLF BLITZER REPORTS for Wednesday, June 1, 2005.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Hello from the CNN Center in Atlanta.

The Defense secretary went on the offensive today with a blistering attack on a human rights organization. What got Donald Rumsfeld so angry was last week's charge by Amnesty International comparing the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to the slave labor camps of the Soviet Union.

Let's go live to our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre -- Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, if you want to get Donald Rumsfeld's blood boiling, all you have to do is compare his prison facility in Guantanamo Bay to a Stalinist death camp.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): Amnesty International says the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has become the gulag of our times because it practices arbitrary and indefinite detentions.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld calls the characterization reprehensible.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Those who make such outlandish charges lose any claim to objectivity or seriousness.

MCINTYRE: The word "gulag" refers to forced labor camps run by the old Soviet Union, where millions of people were worked to death. It is inexcusable, Rumsfeld said, to equate such atrocities with a detention center for terror suspects.

RUMSFELD: It's also important to remember that the people being detained at Guantanamo are with good reason suspected terrorists. Many, if not most, have been systematically trained to lie and to claim torture.

MCINTYRE: In response, Amnesty International USA fired off an e- mail accusing Rumsfeld of courting Saddam Hussein 20 years ago when it was criticizing human rights abuses in Iraq.

The group's statement charged, "Donald Rumsfeld personally approved a December 2002 memorandum that permitted such unlawful interrogation techniques as stress positions, prolonged isolation, stripping and the use of dogs at Guantanamo Bay," and said "he should be held accountable, as should all those responsible for torture, no matter how senior."

The Pentagon disputes that any of the interrogation techniques approved for Guantanamo, if properly applied, constitute torture. And it says after 370 criminal investigations, fewer than one tenth of one percent of the U.S. military who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan have been found to have abused prisoners.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Amnesty International stands by its statement that the U.S. government is one of the leading purveyors and practitioners of torture. Donald Rumsfeld today said that was a slap against the men and women of the U.S. military, who he said are a force that have done more in the world to liberate people than anyone else that they have -- people that they have never met -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Jamie, the secretary also had something of a warning for both Syria and Iran. What was that all about?

MCINTYRE: Well, he didn't mention either country by name, but he said that any neighboring country to Iraq that gave haven or medical treatment to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would be associating itself with al Qaeda and somebody who has a lot of blood on his hands, he said. But he stopped short of saying what the consequences of that action would be.

The joint chiefs chairman, General Meyers, revealed that the reason the U.S. believes Zarqawi was wounded is that some of the postings on the web site ring true with other facts they know about what happened out in the west in the border with Syria. That's where they think Zarqawi was wounded.

BLITZER: Jamie McIntyre, thanks very much.

In Afghanistan at least 20 people died and twice as many were wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a mosque. The attack took place in the southern city of Kandahar. It came during the funeral for a pro government cleric who was assassinated Sunday.

The police chief of Kabul was reportedly among those killed in the bombing. There's been no claim of responsibility for the attack, but the provincial governor is blaming al Qaeda.

U.S. troops are letting Iraqi allies take the lead in Operation Lightning, a series of sweeps and round ups in Baghdad. But the insurgents are hitting right back. They struck once again today near the entrance to the main U.S. military complex in the capital.

Our senior Baghdad correspondent, Jane Arraf, looks at the crack down and the response.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Day three of Operation Lightning, the biggest Iraqi operation so far in Baghdad and Iraq.

The streets are relatively normal. Just outside of this military base, as we went out earlier today, a suicide car bomb, though. According to military officials here, 15 people were injured. No one killed but the suicide bomber.

Despite that, as we drove down that road, that airport road and other streets in Baghdad, life was relatively normal. The shops are open, despite warnings from the interior and defense minister that they were going to flood the city with 40,000 Iraqi soldiers and police.

It doesn't look as if there are 40,000. That number may have been slightly overestimated. But there are considerably more police apparent, more army.

We went out on a raid last night overnight with Iraqi army troops who were going house to house and searching entire neighborhoods as they cordoned them off with the help of U.S. forces. People there were cooperative. Iraqi forces say they rounded up 100 people in that area and others overnight, all of them suspected insurgents. Some of them, they believe who may have been involved in cells that are planting roadside bombs and launching kidnappings.

Jane Arraf, CNN, reporting from Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Thanks, Jane.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, are preparing the case against the former Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, and they are apparently seeking help from Iran. Saddam's regime was accused of committing numerous war crimes during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

In an interview earlier, Saddam's lawyer told me that prosecutors have traveled to the Iranian capital.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GIOVANNI DI STEFANO, SADDAM ATTORNEY: Wolf, let me tell you there has been, actually, an important development that we have heard today, that the Iraqi prosecutors and the investigative judges have left and departed for Tehran, for Iran, where they seek the assistance of the Iranian government to collect -- to collect and to bring any evidence, as we understand it, that the Iraqi government is far more keen now on bringing charges related to the Iran-Iraq war rather than any other charges that perhaps all of us had hypothesized.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Early yesterday the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, in an exclusive interview with CNN expressed hopes Saddam Hussein's trial will begin within two months.

The first dismissal stemming from the United Nations oil-for-food scandal was announced today. The secretary-general, Kofi Annan, has fired a long-time Security Council staffer.

Let's go live to the U.N. CNN's Liz Neisloss standing by with details -- Liz.

LIZ NEISLOSS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf.

It's months since the investigations into oil-for-food began, and there are several congressional investigations also underway, but today, as you say, for the first time, the United Nations announced that it has fired a staffer who was working on the oil-for-food program.

The staffer, Joseph Stephanides. Now, Stephanides is a long-time mid-level U.N. official who was helping to administer the work of the Security Council for the U.N., but also key for a critical period, he was helping manage the contracts under the oil-for-food program. He was dismissed over allegations that he tainted the competitive bidding process for a company to inspect goods entering Iraq. And that is Joseph Stephanides sitting behind the man with the glasses.

A spokesman for the U.N. explained the decision.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANE DUJARRIC, U.N. SPOKESMAN: After a thorough review of all aspects of the case the secretary-general has decided that Mr. Joseph Stephanides be summarily dismissed for serious misconduct in accordance with the U.N. staff regulations. Mr. Stephanides was advised accordingly yesterday and was separated from service with immediate effect.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEISLOSS: Now, the allegations about Stephanides come from a U.N. backed inquiry led by the tall man you see there, Paul Volcker.

The company that won the contract in question was Lloyd's Registry, a British company. Stephanides said the U.N. officials had already decided to award the contract when he placed a call to the British ambassador telling him to ask Lloyd's to lower their price to the U.N. And Stephanides said there was no plan to give the lower bidder, a French company, the contract because French companies already had major oil-for-food contracts, and that would have been politically impossible at the time.

Stephanides, Wolf, also told me that he plans to appeal. He says he's done nothing wrong.

BLITZER: Liz Neisloss, reporting from the United Nations. Thanks very much, Liz, for that report.

More news coming up. When we come back, a California landslide. Live pictures coming into us right now. A hillside collapses. More than a dozen homes come crashing down out of the blue. Hundreds of people are ordered to evacuate.

Hero or traitor? A day after Deep Throat's identity is revealed, how is this man, Mark Felt, being viewed?

And later, could you actually be crazy in live? A new scientific study just out says the drive for romantic love could be stronger than the will to live. I'll talk about it with relationship expert Laura Berman.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: A very dangerous situation unfolding right now in Southern California. These are live pictures you're seeing. A landslide has damaged or destroyed more than a dozen homes and threatening many more. It's happening in the wealthy community of Laguna Beach, about 50 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(NO AUDIO)

BLITZER (voice-over): The landslide that sent homes tumbling down intact smashed others to bits, and brought roads to a dead end in midair.

The first signs of trouble came just before dawn, when residents reported hearing... (NO AUDIO)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Candy that you eat, that crack.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pop Rocks.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you. That's exactly what it's like.

BLITZER: Sometime after 6 a.m., the ground gave way, sending panicked residents fleeing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We all knew (NO AUDIO) ...

BLITZER: Amazingly, as these million dollar homes plunged down the hillside, there were only a handful of minor injuries.

Now, with some homes barely clinging to hillside, and others snapped in two (NO AUDIO) the extent of the danger.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have geologists in the area that are trying to assess the perimeter of the damage, in other words, how far back it extends, but they're still -- it's dangerous up there. There are men and women working up there as the ground is moving.

BLITZER: (NO AUDIO) hillside community is no stranger to natural disasters. Four hundred homes were destroyed in the 1993 wildfire. In 1998, a rainstorm triggered a landslide that damaged 300 homes.

And although today's slide (NO AUDIO) weather it follows an exceptionally wet winter in California.

Officials are suggesting residents prepare for extended stays in temporary shelters. But for some, when they return is not that important.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I got out safe. That's all I care about right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: A shelter for evacuees has been set up at a nearby high school. The mayor says the city council will start work on seeking disaster relief right away. Still recovering. As the hurricane season begins officially today, we'll take you to one Florida community still rebuilding from last year's storms.

Secret revealed. We'll hear from the executive editor of "The Washington Post," the newspaper that gave voice to Deep Throat's inside information.

And later, celebrating CNN's 25th anniversary. I'll look back at one world changing event that I covered for this network.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Today marks the official beginning of the hurricane season, and while officials are urging preparedness, tens of thousands of people in Florida alone are still struggling or trying to recover from last season's four hurricanes.

CNN's John Zarrella has covered a lot of hurricanes for us and joining us now live from Punta Gorda in Florida. There was a big hurricane there a little bit less than a year ago -- John.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. Friday, August 13, Friday the 13th, Hurricane Charley, the first of the four last year, and the worst, category four, 145 mile an hour winds. They are still reeling here in Punta Gorda.

Where I'm standing is in the downtown neighborhood of Punta Gorda. Behind me here, this used to be a shopping plaza. It is gone now. Some new retail stores are going to be going in.

And in the distance back there is Main Street: River City Grill, some other dining establishments. That's been rebuilt.

But two hours after the hurricane struck, we were in here last August, and what it looked like was a whole different scene. You could see power lines were down. Buildings had been badly beaten on that street. So in less than a year they've done remarkable job bringing that area back.

But throughout the state of Florida, it is going to take many, many years for people to recover.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZARRELLA (voice-over): Wayne Sallade's message is simple. Just try to relax.

WAYNE SALLADE, CHARLOTTE COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGER: We are sitting on a tinderbox of emotions in this state right now. Everybody is skittish.

ZARRELLA: The man who has been the Charlotte County emergency manager for 18 years delivered his sermon during one of three stops on his day-long hurricane caravan, preaching preparedness and dispelling myths. SALLADE: Tornadoes is Dorothy in Kansas in the "Wizard of Oz," not in Hurricane Charley.

ZARRELLA: Sallade is focused on getting people ready for this hurricane season. The problem is many folks like Miriam Caruthers are still living last year's nightmare.

Ten months after Charley and $16,000 later, all she has is a new roof and drywall. The rest of the house remains gutted. While she waits for work to be done, she lives in a FEMA trailer right outside her bedroom window.

(on camera) You're looking right out this window.

MIRIAM CARUTHERS, HURRICANE VICTIM: Right out that window. We wash and eat and cook over there.

ZARRELLA: So you've been living in there all this time?

CARUTHERS: Yes. Yes, sir.

ZARRELLA: How much longer are you going to have to -- hurricane season is here.

CARUTHERS: Tell me about it. I don't even want to hear about that.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): Caruthers, a grandmother who has lived here for more than 20 years, is one of nearly 27,000 people in Florida still living in FEMA-provided housing. Many are in mobile home cities set up by the agency. Affordable housing is scarce and is the biggest post-hurricane issue facing the state.

Across Florida blue tarps still cover thousands of roofs. Building materials are in short supply. All people can do is try to be patient.

Painting landscapes keeps Miriam Caruthers' blood from boiling.

(on camera) Snow and it's not like a hurricane in Florida, is it? A little bit of a different setting.

CARUTHERS: Yes.

ZARRELLA: I don't see you painting any of those.

CARUTHERS: No, I'm not.

ZARRELLA: She doesn't use canvas either. Caruthers paints on pieces of drywall left over from the work her contractor did finish.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZARRELLA: Now, this hurricane season is expected to be at least as active as last year, so the word is prepare now -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Good advice. John Zarrella reporting for us. Thanks, John, very much.

He's a hero to some and a villain to others. How will history judge the man who came toward to say he's Deep Throat?

Plus, the body of a lynching victim exhumed. What the FBI hopes to learn about the crime against Emmett Till.

And later, the Google guys just keep getting richer and richer and richer as their stock value keeps on climbing. But will the Google bubble burst? Our Mary Snow standing by. She'll take a closer look.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back.

Identifying Deep Throat. Decades later, do people view Mark Felt as a hero or a traitor? We'll take a closer look. First, though, let's get a quick check of some other stories now in the news.

Federal investigators have exhumed the body of Emmett Till in Chicago. He's the African-American teenager whose 1955 murder in Mississippi helped galvanize the civil rights movement. Two white men now dead were acquitted of the crime. The body will be autopsied for clues and possibly new charges.

The head of the Securities and Exchange Commission is stepping down. William Donaldson says he'll leave within the month. He was appointed by President Bush two years ago, in part to bolster faith in the stock market following a series of high-profile corporate scandals.

The future of the European Union is uncertain after Dutch voters today voted down the proposed E.U. constitution. Exit polls show 63 percent said no just three days after the measure also lost decisively in France. E.U. rules require the constitution to be approved by all 25 member nations.

President Bush says the disclosure of the identity of the Watergate source known as Deep Throat caught him by surprise. As we told you yesterday, the former No. 2 official of the FBI, Mark Felt, confirmed that he was the one who helped "The Washington Post" report on the scandal that led to Richard Nixon's resignation as president.

Speaking to reporters today, President Bush sidestepped a question on whether he felt that Felt should be considered a hero or a turncoat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's hard for me to judge. Learning more about the situation. All I can tell you is that it was a revelation that caught me by surprise, and I thought it was very interesting. I'm looking to reading about him, reading about his relationship with the news media. It's a brand new story for a lot of us who have been wondering a long time who he was. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: For more on whether Mark Felt provided a valuable public service or acted improperly, we turn to our senior political analyst, Bill Schneider. He's joining us from our Washington studio -- Bill.

BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, OK. We know who Deep Throat was. Now the debate begins. Was he a hero?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK JONES, GRANDSON OF W. MARK FELT: But as he recently told my mother, "I guess people used to think Deep Throat was a criminal, but now they think he's a hero."

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Apparently, one person who changed his mind about Deep Throat was Deep Throat.

TIM NOAH, SLATE.COM: I asked him, I said well, would it be such a terrible thing to be Deep Throat? And he said, "Yes, it would be." It's a terrible thing to do to the FBI, to leak details of a criminal investigation.

SCHNEIDER: If you want to impugn Mark Felt's character it's not so hard to do.

HOWARD KURTZ, HOST, "RELIABLE SOURCES": He lied about his role being Deep Throat. He later was indicted for other Watergate related activities.

SCHNEIDER: Felt's motives may not have been so pure.

DAVID GERGEN, FORMER NIXON ADVISOR: This was a fellow who was also trying to get even with Richard Nixon for not appointing him as director of the FBI, that there was a revenge factor here.

SCHNEIDER: Felt's critics say if he saw wrongdoing in the White House he had other options.

CHARLES COLSON, FORMER NIXON WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: He could have walked into Pat Gray's office, the director of the FBI, and said, "Here are things that are going on in the White House that need to be exposed. The president needs to know about this."

SCHNEIDER: Oh, come on, says this author who has written a history of the FBI.

RONALD KESSLER, AUTHOR, "THE BUREAU": The fact is that Nixon was trying to cover up this whole investigation. He was trying to suppress it. That is certainly why Mark Felt cooperated with Woodward.

SCHNEIDER: It's easy to say, well, both sides committed wrongs, no heroes, no villains. NOAH: You kind of have a law breaker breaking a whistle -- sorry, blowing a whistle on a law -- on a law breaker, so no one's really a hero here.

SCHNEIDER: CNN got lots of messages from viewers who took a larger perspective. This one wrote, "in all the talk about motives and honor, no one has ever said that anything he said wasn't true."

This viewer urged the sense of proportion, "saying he was somehow dishonorable is like a bank robber attempting to get his case thrown out by claiming the arresting officer had to jaywalk to cuff him."

At least one figure from the Nixon White House believes most Americans will see the larger picture.

LEONARD GARMENT, FORMER NIXON WHITE HOUSE ATTORNEY: Every secret deserves a decent burial. And I think that this particular secret will probably receive a state funeral.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER: Could it be that two wrongs do make a right? You might say that when people feel the wrongdoing by one side endangers the republic -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Bill Schneider, thanks very much for that report.

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. "The Washington Post" being scooped, effectively, on the identity of "Deep Throat." A secret the newspaper had kept more than 30 years. I talked about that earlier today with "Washington Post" executive editor Leonard Downey.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Leonard, thanks very much for joining us. Walk us through yesterday. It was a very tumultuous day in the history of "The Washington Post." You were out on some sort of corporate retreat when word broke of this story. Tell us what happened?

LEONARD DOWNEY, WASHINGTON POST: Yes. I was in Saint Michael's, Maryland, about two hours away at this company retreat. And I was actually giving my presentation about some changes we were making in the newspaper when my cell phone started ringing. And -- so I turned it off, because I was giving this presentation.

And then members of the hotel staff kept bringing notes by to me, saying my assistant was calling, editors were calling, they were going to stay on the line until I talked him. But I persisted in giving my presentation. And then Don Graham's cell phone rang. And he went outside to take it. And he motioned through the windows in the door that I better come.

BLITZER: Don Graham, the publisher of "The Washington Post."

DOWNEY: He's the CEO of The Washington Post Company, yes. And so I ended my presentation. Went outside. Found out what was going on. Immediately called Bob Woodward, called Ben Bradlee. And we started to talk about how we were going to react to this.

And the first step was for me to get back here to Washington. I drove back very fast. And read the piece in "Vanity Fair," consulted again with Ben who was in his office here with Bob Woodward who had come in to the office from his home. And we decided it was time for the newspaper to confirm this, because the family had now relieved us of our confidential obligation.

BLITZER: Because as you know initially Woodward and Bernstein put out a statement saying they weren't going to comment, they were not going confirm or deny anything, because their obligation was to wait until "Deep Throat" was dead. But that changed in the course of a few hours.

DOWNEY: Yes. When it became clear -- I mean, they didn't know how to react initially. So, that's why they said what they said. And they wanted to study the pieces, as did I. And we wanted to decide whether, in fact, "Deep Throat" and his family had now in effect released us from that promise of confidentiality.

We decided that's, in fact, what had taken place. And that was ratified later in the day when the family brought Mark Felt out to face the cameras. And when then his daughter and grandsons held a press conference.

BLITZER: Initially, I was under the impression you were hesitating, "The Washington Post" was hesitating -- and we're showing our viewers that picture, when they brought him to the doorway and he waved smiling -- that he might have been under duress to go ahead and confirm this by his children and grandchildren, that he himself was reluctant to do so.

Did you manage to get any independent word from Mark Felt directly that the obligation to keep that bond of confidentiality had been broken?

DOWNEY: No. Our decision was based on what the family had clearly decided to do, and the family's lawyer had clearly decided to do. And we did not -- we did not attempt to reach Mark Felt at that point.

As you know, Bob had a lot of conversations with Mark Felt in recent years in person, on the telephone, and we concluded we understood what the family had done here. And we no longer had to observe our confidentiality agreement.

BLITZER: So what happens in terms of the history right now? Knowing that the No. 2 official at the FBI was, in fact, one of the key sources that "The Washington Post" had -- Woodward and Bernstein had, specifically Bob Woodward -- what does it say to you looking back? You didn't know Mark Felt's identity for sure until, what, somebody in the afternoon said to you, either Ben Bradlee or Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein -- they finally confirmed it to you? Or did you get indications earlier? DOWNEY: Actually, I was told -- I was informed by Bob a couple months ago when he was concerned about Mark Felt's advancing age. You remember, he had said on television that "Deep Throat" was growing old now. So, I decided it was time to have a contingency plan for when "Deep Throat" died, because it could be any day, or any year.

So, bob invited me to come to his house and read some of the things he had written down about his relationship with "Deep Throat." And that's when I learned for the first time it was definitely Mark Felt. That was a couple months ago.

BLITZER: And tomorrow, Bob Woodward is going to have his first person account in the paper tomorrow, is that right?

DOWNEY: That's correct.

BLITZER: We'll be reading that.

Len Downey, as usual, thanks very much for spending a few moments with us, talking about "Deep Throat."

DOWNEY: You're quite welcome.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And this important programming note. The CNN primetime exclusive tomorrow, the two men who kept "Deep Throat's" identity secret for three decades, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward will sit down with Larry King in their first live primetime interview. Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward tomorrow night, 9:00 pm Eastern only here on CNN.

Let's take a look at other news making headlines around the world.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): More than 22,000 people have been arrested in Zimbabwe. In an ongoing crackdown the government says is aimed at black market trading and other crimes. Most of those arrested are street vendors in urban areas. Opposition leaders say the government is trying to force the poor to the countryside where they can be more easily controlled.

Bali protests: Indonesia shut its embassy in Australia after receiving an envelope containing what officials describe as a biological agent. Officials link the incident to outrage over the conviction in Bali of an Australian woman on drug charges.

Marriage bliss: A British couple say the key to a long marriage is to never sleep on an argument. Percy and Florence Aerosmith should know. Guinness World Record says the Aerosmiths celebrating their 80th wedding anniversary, now hold the record for the world's longest marriage.

And that's our look around the world. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Congratulations to them.

Good times, meanwhile, over at Google where the company's stock continues to soar. Why Wall Street is taking a second look at the little search engine that could.

Also, crazy -- literally crazy in love. There's new scientific research out today shedding some light on why romance can make us act and feel just plain weird.

Plus, CNN at 25. I'll show you why 1991 was such a memorable year for me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: And, this just in to CNN, the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas reportedly underwent heart angioplasty surgery today in a Jordanian hospital. Citing a top aide to Mahmoud Abbas, the Associated Press is now reporting, the prime minister -- the president -- was actually taken to a hospital in Amman after complaining of fatigue.

The Palestinian Authority president then went -- underwent -- the procedure to clear out clogged coronary arteries. The procedure is described as successful. The 69-year-old Mahmoud Abbas is wrapping up a long trip abroad. He was in Washington only last week. He's expected back in the West Bank tomorrow, as planned. Once again, reportedly successful surgery for the Palestinian leader.

Other stories just coming into CNN, trading on the New York Stock Exchange was halted four minutes early today. The closing bell rang at 3:56 p.m. Eastern. An announcement over the public address system indicated there was a problem with telecommunications. There were no details immediately released. Stock Exchange spokesperson contacted by CNN could not say exactly what happened. Stay with CNN for updates as they become available.

It grew out of a dorm room to become one of the hottest companies on the web or anywhere, but some are wondering whether the good times at Google can last. CNN's Mary Snow is in New York and has been looking into the story. She's joining us live. Mary?

MARY SNOW, CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK: Hi there, Wolf.

Google has become a darling on Wall Street even though it had plenty of nay-sayers along the way. Today, the stock closed at $288, its highest level yet, and the question on Wall Street is, will it continue to soar or start to slip?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW (voice-over): Call it the search engine that could. When Google went public last August, Wall Street was skeptical of an internet stock starting near $100. Now, it's closing in on $300 a share, and investors can't seem to get enough.

DARREN CHERVITZ, JACOB ASSET MANAGEMENT: Five years ago this was the company that was generating hardly anything in sales and today it's the company worth $80 billion more than Disney, more than Merck, more than most of the market right now.

SNOW: Industry watchers say most of that money comes from internet ad sales in offerings like gMail, innovations that stem back to a Stanford dorm room where company founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin started cooking up ideas before launching Google in 1998. Analysts say at first, the company didn't gain respect, but they point out, that may have worked to the company's advantage.

TOM TAULLI, CURRENTOFFERINGS.COM: Google was able to build an empire while everyone else was doubting, and it wasn't until it was too late for companies like Microsoft that they figured out that Google was on to something big.

SNOW: And it's grown bigger. Now Wall Street firm predicts the stock can hit $350, a prediction that stirs memories of the late 1990s when internet stocks were soaring before the stock market high-tech bubble burst.

ESTHER DYSON, RELEASE 1.0 NEWSLETTER: Oh, I'll admit it gives me the willies. I -- you know, this is a really, really great company, but it's -- it's only human.

SNOW: And observers urge caution since betting on the stock means peering into an unknown market of ideas.

MATTHEW RHODES KROPF, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: There's an empty hole that nobody knows what's out there. Nobody knows how big the market is. Nobody knows what they might create. I -- you know, they should be skeptical.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: And analysts point out one big difference between Google and a lot of the internet companies that failed in the 1990s, is that Google is a big money-maker. Last year its sales were about $1 billion. Wolf?

BLITZER: All right, Mary Snow with that information. Thanks, Mary, very much.

We'll take another quick break. When we come back, a new scientific study says new love can look a lot like mental illness. That story -- that's coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back.

They say love is in the air, but is it also in the brain? A new study in the "Journal of Neurophysiology" says brain scan images show romantic love is a biological urge, but different than sexual arousal. Researchers say -- listen to this -- scans of love-smitten brains show activity similar to brains experiencing hunger, thirst or even drug craving, and they say the patterns change as infatuation deepens into long-term attachment.

Let's get some analysis, what this all means. We're joined by Laura Berman. She's in Chicago. She's a sex educator, relationship expert and host with her sister Jennifer of "Berman and Berman" on the Discovery Health Channel. Laura, thanks very much.

Well, what is -- what have we learned from this new scientific study?

LAURA BERMAN, RELATIONSHIP EXPERT: Well, it's really interesting. I mean, the whole idea of crazy in love really does hold true. I mean, we've known forever when people are in that deep, initial, passionate, love stage, they have obsessive thoughts about the person. They do irrational and crazy things. They act in an obsessive-compulsive way.

We now know from these brain studies that the dopamine center of the brain that becomes highly active during the stage in a relationship -- which is the reward center, as you said. It's the center that lights up and that's active and triggers hunger, addictions, so it's the same thing with love.

BLITZER: Basically, there's a whole chemical reaction, a chemical change in the body, as someone falls in love, and the chemistry, if you will, creates these different kinds of urges.

BERMAN: That's right. And it also, you know, explains love. It feels really great to be in that initial love, feeling that infatuation and that passion when you've found a passionate love for first time, and that initial stage of the relationship is something a lot of couples struggle with regaining on some level later in their relationship because they miss that intensity.

BLITZER: Well, what happens to that kind of initial love, the chemical reaction, the chemical change in the body, as the relationship matures? According to the study, the chemistry changes.

BREMAN: Yes. It's the -- really, what starts to happen is a much deeper attachment center of the brain starts to become more active. It's really with the familiarity and the security and the commitment of a relationship, your brain chemistry actually seems to start to change. It also, you know, makes sense, because on some level, none of us would be able to get anything done if we were stuck in the infatuation stage indefinitely. I mean, you can't think about -- in many cases, you can't think about or do anything else but think about the person and be with that person.

So, because our bodies can't sustain itself at that level with familiarity and commitment, comes a deeper attachment. What's commonly known as the attachment stage of the relationship. And we've now started to see some evidence that the brain chemistry changes along with that, which explains a lot.

BLITZER: So, for when...

BERMAN: The other key is...

BLITZER: Laura, what we've been saying over the years when two people meet and they go back and see their friends and ask was there any chemistry there, literally that's what we're talking about, chemistry.

BERMAN: Right. We're talking about that brain chemistry.

And then the trick is how do you kind of keep that chemistry alive in a long-term relationship. And at lot of couples I work with, I actually apply this prince. And help them keep those dopamine centers of their brains stimulated by doing novel activities together, new and exciting activities. And thrill seeking behaviors will stimulate those centers of the brain.

So, if you're a staid, boring relationship that's got an little stale, f you do something scary you might trigger those centers again.

BLITZER: So, when the Righteous Brothers wrote those words, "you've lost that loving feeling," they knew what they were talking about.

BERMAN: They knew. They may not have knew how to get it back, though. So, now they know.

BLITZER: Laura Berman, as usual, thanks very much for helping us better understand this relationship.

BERMAN: Sure.

BLITZER: Appreciate it very much.

BERMAN: Happy to be here.

BLITZER: Looking back on a powerful period in world history, and My personal experiences. We'll get to that.

First, former President Bill Clinton reflecting on CNN's 25th anniversary.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM CLINTON, FRM PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My most memorable moments watching CNN are the things which made the network great. Breaking news. The instantaneous photographs of the tsunami problem. The Challenger exploding. The first Gulf War. The South African election. I'll never forget that.

In the last few years, I've come to enjoy a lot of the in depth coverage more. I think the way that you handled the tsunami helped to generate a lot of the charitable contributions to explode. By simply explaining to people on a very factual, straightforward way what a tsunami was, how people were affected by it, what they could do about it, it was very powerful.

And CNN has shaped the world more than anybody knows the world of news. Not only did it provide an instantaneous reporting instrument, it changed the way the evening news was put on. And it changed the way the morning newspapers were written.

I remember things that were, by and large, things that were breaking in the moment, both sad and wonderful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: CNN went on the air for the first time 25 years ago today. Every year since then, it's seen its share of historic events. But to me, 1991 was particularly memorable.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): For CNN, the 1991 Gulf War to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein's forces was certainly a turning point. But for the 20th Century, what happened in August of that same year may have been even more important.

The Soviet Union was then still in business, though under Mikhail Gorbachev and his reform policies, the Cold War was clearly easing. The Berlin Wall had fallen some two years earlier.

In Moscow, not everyone was happy about those trends, especially the hardlined Communists. In August, 1991, those old-timers, led by elements of the KGB, plotted a coup against Gorbachev while out of town on a summer vacation.

(on camera): I happened to be on my summer vacation as well in Hilton Head, South Carolina when I first got that call from our Washington bureau. Get back to the Pentagon right away, they said. I was then CNN's military affairs correspondent.

(voice-over): Shortly after returning to Washington, CNN's president, Tom Johnson, called me and asked if I wanted to go to Moscow to cover the coup. I boarded a plane right away.

But by the time I reached the Soviet capital, the coup had collapsed. Gorbachev was back in Moscow and in charge. The coup plotters had been arrested.

Within hours of my arrival, Johnson, who flew over to Moscow to personally direct our coverage, arranged an interview for me with the new Soviet defense minister, Air Marshall Yevgeney Shaposhnikov. He, together with Boris Yeltsin, was seen as one of the heroes in defeating the coup.

We did that interview live on CNN and CNN international. He spoke through an interpreter, and promised to work hard to permanently end the Cold War and improve relations with the United States and the west. YEVGENEY SHAPOSHNIKOV, SOVIET DEFENSE MINISTER (through translator): I would like to avail myself of this opportunity and to express my confidence that our relations, I mean the relations between the military leaders of our countries, will continue, become more profound and will be strengthened.

BLITZER: As encouraging as his words were during that live interview, what he said to Tom Johnson and me afterwards, off camera, was even more encouraging.

(on camera): As CNN's military affairs correspondent, I had come to the interview seeking permission to visit some Soviet military bases that always had been off limits to westerners, especially journalists. I presented Shaposhinkov with a relatively long list, hoping he would approve one or two bases.

(voice-over): To my amazement, and to the shock of several of his generals, he approved them all.

This is the gist of what he said to us. Mr. Blitzer, CNN is our friend. If it had not been for your cameras showing the world what was happening on the streets of Moscow during the coup, the plotters would have won.

Shaposhnikov then got personal. And noted that he, as the commander of the Soviet Air Force, had refused orders by the coup plotters to bomb the anti-coup protesters led by Yeltsin.

If the coup had succeed, he said, looking at me and his own worried generals, we would have been sent to Siberia or worst.

He then thanked us for CNN's coverage, and wished me luck on my visit to those Soviet military bases.

One footnote, at the end of December that same year, I returned to Moscow to help cover the collapse of the Soviet Union. I was in Red Square when the old communist flag went down for the last time. It marked the end of 74 years of communist rule over Russia and the other former republics of the Soviet Union. The world had changed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And I remain obviously very proud of having been part of CNN's historic coverage, truly one of the most important stories of the 20th Century.

Remember, tonight CNN will celebrate 25 years of bringing you news from around the world, defining moments, 25 stories that touched our lives. That begins 8:00 pm Eastern tonight.

Thanks very much for joining us. "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" starts right now. Kitty Pilgrim standing by for Lou -- Kitty.

END

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