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American Morning

Peter Jennings Loses His Battle With Lung Cancer; Shuttle Crew Will Remain in Orbit for at Least Another 24 Hours

Aired August 08, 2005 - 08:30   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome back to a special split edition of AMERICAN MORNING. Coming up, we're remembering Peter Jennings. The ABC News anchor lost his battle with lung cancer late last night. Peter Jennings celebrated his 67th birthday just days ago. We're going to talk with three former colleagues just ahead.
First, though, let's get right back to Miles. He's at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, this morning -- hey, Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello again, Soledad. You know, there are no second chances on space shuttle landings. It is a glider, after all. And so they're very conservative about the weather decision, and that was what we saw this morning. Two opportunities, here, and Discovery remains in orbit for another 24 hours. We'll talk a little bit more about it with the astronaut they call "Too Tall" in just a little bit.

But first, let's check the headlines. Carol Costello with that -- Costello?

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you, Miles. Good morning to you.

Now in the news, a day in court for the suspects of the July 21st botched bombings in London. A British judge order them back to jail. Seven suspects were arrested in a series of raids after the bombing attempts on the city's transportation system. Another hearing will take place in November.

The former director of the U.N. oil-for-food program is stepping down in the midst of a scandal. Benon Savan is expected to be accused, today, of profiting from illegal oil deals while he was head of the $64 billion humanitarian operation. Savan calls the accusations scandalous and says he has done nothing wrong.

President Bush is set to sign a massive overhaul of the nation's energy policies. The legislation funnels billions of dollars to energy companies and includes tax breaks for new nuclear power plants. The president is breaking away from his working Texas vacation to fly to New Mexico to sign that bill.

And Wal-Mart is appealing a gender discrimination suit. More than 1.5 million workers, female workers, claim they were paid less than their male counterparts. Last year, a lower court judge approved class action status for the lawsuit. A federal appeals court in San Francisco is set to hear the appeal later today. And this is the largest such case in U.S. history -- Soledad?

S. O'BRIEN: We'll see how it ends up. All right, Carol, thanks.

Well, this morning, as we've been talking about, we are mourning the death of legendary ABC anchor Peter Jennings. He died last night at his home in New York City. He was 67 years old. Friends and colleagues around the world are remembering him fondly, including three CNN colleagues who worked with Peter Jennings at ABC News.

National security correspondent David Ensor worked with Peter Jennings for 18 years. Tom Foreman was the youngest correspondent at "World News Tonight," when at age 30, he began reporting for Peter Jennings. And Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr says Peter Jennings changed her life and her career when she worked at ABC News.

Nice to see you, guys. Thanks for talking with us. Such a tremendous shock, really, even though, I think, in many ways, we expected it, isn't it, David?

DAVID ENSOR, NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: We expected it, but somehow, it's come all too soon. I certainly feel a sense of personal loss of a friend. And I think the nation has lost a powerful advocate for coverage of the world around us. This is what peter was all about.

S. O'BRIEN: Tom, he was a reporter's reporter to a large degree. There are many anchor people who do not want to ever leave the desk. And he was sort of the antithesis of that.

TOM FOREMAN, CORRESPONDENT: Much to our chagrin, sometimes, because Peter took a tremendous interest in our reporting in the field all the time. He was constantly going over all the facts of everything you did.

You'd be standing by the side of some satellite truck in the wilds of Montana five minutes before going on the air, and you had been panicking all day, and you were hot and exhausted and you'd done everything, and suddenly the phone would ring, and it would be Peter asking about the third item in the fourth paragraph, saying, "Are you sure this is true? Because when I was in Montana five years ago, ten years ago, I talked to a guy who said this."

That was the kind of reporter he was. And I think, as much as you can never really drive an anchor out of the chair, he really always envied those of us who reported in the field because that's where he wanted to live.

S. O'BRIEN: Barbara, I have been so struck by something I didn't know about Peter Jennings, which was the degree to which he mentored people and helped people while being, I guess, very detail-oriented and holding people to a very high standard, also sort of made sure to bring them along, too.

BARBARA STARR, PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Soledad. There are many very important people today who will say very important things about Peter, who knew him much better than I did, much longer than I did. But Peter Jennings is 100 percent responsible for me ever being in front of a TV news camera.

I was working as the Pentagon producer at ABC news, about 1998 through 2001. It was in 2001, you'll remember, that Navy crew was coming back from China after being held in captivity for 11 days. My phone rang. It was Peter on the other line. And his words will be with me forever.

He said, "Hey, love." That's what he called the girls. The girls were "love," the guys were "mate." He said, "Hey, love, put on your show duds and go out there."

And I said to him, "Are you sure?" And he pushed me out there in front of live television news audience. He is absolutely responsible. And I am not the only one. There are so many journalists around the country who can tell the same story. Cameramen, technical people. He mentored an awful lot of people. It is not very well known. He is responsible for my career, in my view.

S. O'BRIEN: David, I find it remarkable how sometimes you could just see him -- you sort of see it click in his head on camera when you're watching him. You could see him thinking. I mean, you could see how smart he was on TV as you watched him.

ENSOR: I think he was the best, personally, with no disrespect to anyone else, in our business. I think he was the best ad libbing anchor in the business. He could take a moving story, like the 9/11 story, and as new developments came in, weave them in his mind quickly into the rest of the story, figure out what the implications were, and ask intelligent questions, and make it all look seamless.

He was an extraordinarily talented television correspondent. But the thing that I'm going to miss the most is, I was looking forward to him retiring from the anchor position and becoming what I think would have been a powerful advocate for coverage of the world around us.

You know, there's so much market pressure that sometimes tends to drive television news downward in the tabloid direction. Peter would have been an advocate -- and I'm so sorry we've lost him -- for understanding the world around us. And never has that been more important.

S. O'BRIEN: I think you're right about that. Tom and Barbara, if you'll weigh in, too. What do you miss the most at the end of the day?

FOREMAN: I think that Peter was just a giant of, not just our business, but of our community in America. Here's a guy who's Canadian, but who fell in love with this country in every single way. He was criticized in this country because some people felt he was too elitist and too pretty and all of that.

The fact is, he overcame that time and time again through hard work. And this is one of the things that I think needs to be said about Peter Jennings. Here is a guy who was big, huge. Huge money, huge fame, but many nights when I would visit ABC in New York, I'd see Peter walking out at the end of a 14-hour day looking like a guy who had just worked hard all day. That's the kind of guy he was, and that's the legacy he left for an awful lot of us who were reporters.

STARR: And I think I would definitely agree with Tom and David. The thing I, personally, will miss the most is the phone will never ring again with that voice not on the other line saying, "Ten minutes before "World News" goes on the air. I have just one more question about your story."

And I think that what people must understand, Peter's legacy is not some nostalgic look back to the broadcast from Beirut, from Afghanistan, from Iraq, from all over the world. Peter, what we have lost, is the shining real light to the future of our profession, the voice for continuing good journalism, the voice for being a good reporter. Not being one of those shrill people out there in this so- called modern age. Just getting out there and telling the story.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, I know you guys are all feeling it today. David Ensor and Tom Foreman and Barbara Starr. Our condolences, of course, to you because you were colleagues, but also friends as well. Thanks, you guys. Appreciate it.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's head it back, now, to Miles O'Brien. He's at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Hey, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Hello, Soledad. It's a beautiful morning here as the sunrises over the shuttle landing facility here at the Kennedy Space Center. But earlier in the pre-dawn hours, when decisions were being made as to whether to bring home Discovery and her crew of seven, the weather was iffy, at best.

"Dynamic" is the term that NASA used. And as a result, two landing opportunities were waved off. The shuttle crew will remain in orbit for at least another 24 hours, perhaps returning here tomorrow morning. Maybe more likely at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

All that remains to be seen. There are a lot of family members, here. Certainly, the NASA management, and some veteran astronauts who are waiting, hoping to see Discovery come home this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: Scott Parazynski, thanks for being with us. This morning's decision, a conservative one, wasn't it?

DR. SCOTT PARAZYNSKI, NASA ASTRONAUT: It was conservative, but I think appropriately so. As you know, Niles, every flight that we fly, weather is a critical concern to us. And those final few thousand feet are really important for Eileen, as she's on the stick. She needs to transition from the heads up display that she has in front of her to the runway environment.

And about 2,000 feet, of course, she's doing a pre-flare (ph), and she's really transitioned to the ball bar and other navigational aids on the side of the runway, looking at her lineup on the runway. And to not have that available to her with a cloud deck potentially at 500 feet, that was -- I think it was the right call.

M. O'BRIEN: So when they heard in Mission Control it was, you know, 500 to 700 feet cloud deck, that gets people real nervous.

PARAZYNSKI: It does. Yes, the hair raises on the back of the neck. Of course, it was a very broken layer, very scattered. But, you know how weather forecasting goes. It's not a perfect crystal ball. So they were concerned at the time of landing that that still might be the case. And to punch through a cloud at 500 feet would have been a real surprise.

M. O'BRIEN: Let's talk about tomorrow. The thinking is, Discovery will come home somewhere tomorrow. Why? Walk us through that rationale?

PARAZYNSKI: Well, of course, the consumables do exist for an additional day. But you just always like to have a bit of extra runway ahead of you. I think the -- even though the ability to extend an extra day does exist, the conservative thing is to bring them back home.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: That was veteran astronaut Scott Parazynski telling us about the decision this morning to wave the shuttle off, as it is termed. Chad Myers, last night, I was going to fly my little plane down here, and I ended up on Delta, because it was a terrible, terrible raft of thunderstorms all the way from Georgia all the way down through Florida. I decided it wasn't safe for me to fly. I wonder if that is what, kind of, laid the ground work for the weather we saw here this morning.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Without a doubt, the outflow from those storms, Miles, the down draft, the humidity, the rain on the ground that was evaporating, that all had to do with the cloud deck that you had there this morning. Cloud deck over Philadelphia and Trenton, back into Lakewood, even into Long Branch, and for that matter, Wildwood seeing a little bit of cloud cover, today.

And severe weather popping up around some of these storms. Lightning and thunder. No real wind and hail, but we're going to have to watch that later on today. There you see lightning right there, live, just to the north and east of Pittsburgh, not that far from Dubois (ph).

And then down to the south, Atlanta, cloud deck for you. No airport delays in Atlanta, right now, but Newark, you have 30 minutes. Philadelphia, 30 minutes. And Minneapolis, 30 minute airport delays.

We've been talking about Irene over the weekend, in case you've been gone. That's it. That is it. Nothing really left of Irene except the name. It is still a tropical storm. Winds are 40. And it's going to make a big right hand turn, a big buttonhook, if you used to play sideline or flag football, and that is not going to affect anyone. Not going to affect Bermuda either. Partly cloudy skies across a lot of the country, today. The heat from the sunshine pops up a couple of showers and thunderstorms from D.C. southward, right through the Carolinas. Not even out of the question for a shower in New York. There's just not much out there right now. It's mainly to the south of the city. Boise 90, and even to San Francisco, around 70.

Back to you, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Another beautiful day in San Francisco.

MYERS: I know.

S. O'BRIEN: Chad, thank. Still to come this morning, Andy is minding your business. He's going to tell us why the new energy bill could bring back memories of Y2K tech problems. That's up next on AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. Remember the Y2K scare? Hard to believe it was so long ago.

ANDY SERWER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

Well some technology experts worry that a little confusion could result from the energy bill, which President Bush signs today. Andy Serwer is minding your business. It's going to be as bad as, I think it's fair to say, chaos that ensued during Y2K?

SERWER: It's not going to be that bad. And it's interesting. We're not really sure how this is going to play out, but here's what Soledad is referring to. The energy bill contains a provision that will extend daylight savings time by one month. And this will go into effect in 2007.

Now, the question is, how will this impact internal clocks in cell phones, in VCR, in DVR recorders? So consider this. Say you set your DVR to record your favorite show. It recorded an hour later. That's no good. Cell phone usage, also. In terms of giving you free weekend hours, that could be really screwed up.

Electric meters reading your utilities, that could be messed up because you have peak hours, and that sort of thing as well. So these are the kinds of things that technologists have to work on. A lot of the software, Soledad, goes back to 1987. It's sort of antiquated stuff. But as you will remember about Y2K, there was a lot of sturm und drang, but at the end of the day...

S. O'BRIEN: Nothing happened.

SERWER: ... nothing really happened. And I think some of that has to do with the fact that people address these problems before they come into effect. We have a lot of lead-time, now. So I think we can rest easy on this one.

S. O'BRIEN: Can I ask you a topic on a totally different question?

SERWER: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: I know that you've worked with Peter Jennings, as well. Obviously, in the wake of his death, we're talking to a lot of people who knew him. I was surprised what a mentor he was. You knew what a great journalist he was, but I didn't realize the degree to which he really, hands-on helped people.

SERWER: And that was true with me, Soledad. I worked with him, briefly, a couple years ago at ABC. And he would go through scripts with me that I wrote, you know, word by word, line by line, not only for the content, but also how to accentuate certain words, really to think about what you were saying.

He cared passionate about his job. He cared deeply about the news. I think we've heard that earlier this morning from some comments (ph). He had some strong opinions, he wasn't shy about sharing them. Just one, kind of, amusing anecdote. I wrote a script that included a French phrase, and he told me, he said, "As a Canadian, I think I'm qualified to tell you that you are unqualified to use French on our air." He did not like my pronunciation at all. So he was really, kind of, fun to work with in that sense.

S. O'BRIEN: Probably excellent advice too.

SERWER: I don't use it anymore at all. I took his advice. Never have since.

S. O'BRIEN: Never again, right. Andy, interesting. Thanks a lot.

SERWER: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, a much closer look at the successful race against time to save the crew of that Russian mini-sub. Their stories up next, on AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: It was a close call at sea for a Russian submarine crew. Russian officials are expressing their gratitude to Britain, saying the Royal Navy's help was crucial in the sub rescue. The seven-man crew spent more than three days trapped on the Pacific Ocean floor, and their air was running low. Senior international correspondent Matthew Chance, live for us, in Moscow this morning.

Matthew, are they going to have to wait for a full investigation before they can really know how that sub actually got stuck?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I think they are, Soledad. In fact, they've already called a military investigation to try and determine why it was that this submarine became snagged at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean floor.

A lot of questions being asked about this, circumstances of this situation. Obviously, Russians extremely relieved that this undersea rescue operation, led by Britain on the ground, it seems, came to a successful conclusion.

But questions being asked about, for instance, why Russia did not have the right kind of equipment to save its own people from an ordeal that could, so easily, have ended in disaster.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHANCE (voice-over): They endured frigid temperatures and darkness for three long days, trapped deep in the Russian Pacific. Back on dry land, the seven crew of the stranded mini-submarine have been undergoing medical checks. "It was cold, very cold," said the seaman.

This was the moment few Russians had dared hope for. The stranded vessel cut free after intensive work by a British rescue team. Russian television broadcast these images, then the reactions of family members anxiously waiting for news.

ELENA MILASHEVSKAYA, WIFE OF RESCUED SAILER (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): I was ready to dance. I was crying. I was so glad, so happy to hear they're fine.

CHANCE: And for Russian officials, a major success too. Their early call for international assistance off this remote and military sensitive far eastern seaboard now vindicated.

SERGEI IVANOV, RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTER (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): I want to thank you all very much. I've already spoken to my colleagues, the British defense secretary as well as my Japanese counterpart, and have thanked them for their assistance, for their helping hand. Now we all know what the solidarity of the sea means. Not just in words, but in deeds.

CHANCE: It was Thursday morning the Russian craft became tangled in abandoned fishing nets and a mesh of deep-sea antennae off the remote Kamchatka peninsula. British specialists, arriving ahead of teams from the United States and Japan, launched an undersea robot to cut the mini-submarine free, an intensive operation that took 3 1/2 hours.

Underwater footage shows how the British submersible was maneuvered, using cameras and lights, by specialist operators on the surface, its powerful cutting equipment severing debris to free the Russian sub.

IAN RICHES, BRITISH COMMANDER: Elated. I think that's an understatement at the moment, with the team over the moon that we have got these guys out alive. And we just want to meet them.

CHANCE: These have been tense days in Russia, the crisis renewing bitter memories of the Kursk tragedy five years ago. 118 Russian sailors died on board a nuclear submarine marooned in the freezing waters of the Arctic. Back then, the Russian military refused outside help until it was too late. The dramatic and happy events of recent days, showing, with a little help, the best of outcomes can be achieved.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHANCE (on-camera): So this is a crisis that has shown just what international cooperation can do, actually making a difference in saving these seven lives. But it's also underlined, just again, how dilapidated the once Russian Navy now is. Back to you, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, and as you mentioned, they don't have the ability to do their own deep-sea rescues. So does that change, then?

CHANCE: Well, certainly, that's what the Russian naval authorities and the Russian government were coming under pressure to do. They've taken the first step, as I mentioned, of launching this military inquiry as to the exact circumstances.

But they've already indicated, Russian officials, that is, that they intend to buy a couple of these undersea robots that performed the task at the hands of the British team. So hopefully, in the future, they'll be better equipped. Certainly, that's the impression they want to give off.

S. O'BRIEN: All right. Matthew Chance, for us, from Moscow this morning. Matthew, thank you for the update.

We've got Miles O'Brien at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. We're going to get more from him in just a moment.

But first, Miles, I want to ask you a question. Now that the landing today has been scrubbed, what are they doing up in space? What are they doing down on the ground?

M. O'BRIEN: Well, the first thing is, it takes a long time for the crew to get ready to come back to Earth, and so, to back out of that whole process takes a long time too. And among the -- you know, they wear those pressure suits, those orange suits that you see at launch. They wear those for reentry as well. That's a whole process.

They, you know, shut things down like the galley and the toilet. So things have to get restarted. The payload bay doors, which are the radiators, get reopened. There's this whole -- it's many hours, actually, of work. And they're probably still working through that now, getting toward the end of that. And then it's noses against the glass time, I think, pretty much, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: That would be the thing to watch, right? All right. Miles is going to have more from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida just ahead. Because, of course, day shuttle landing has been delayed. What are the options now? Stay with us. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Nearly four months after announcing his battle with lung cancer, longtime ABC News anchor Peter Jennings is dead at the age of 67.

Not taking any chances, NASA delays the landing of the space shuttle Discovery for at least another day. Weather concerns are behind the decision. So what does tomorrow's forecast look like? We'll take a look on this AMERICAN MORNING.

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