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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Peter Jennings Profiled; Lung Cancer Examined
Aired August 08, 2005 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: Lou, thanks very much. Good evening, everyone. I'm Anderson Cooper. Tonight, the amazing life and tragic death of broadcast legend Peter Jennings. Tonight, we look at lung cancer, the "Killer Among Us".
It is 7:00 p.m. on the East Coast, 4:00 p.m. in the West. 360 starts now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): The final days of Peter Jennings.
PETER JENNINGS, "ABC NEWS" ANCHOR: Almost 10 million Americans are already living with cancer and I have a lot to learn from them. And living is the key word.
COOPER: His behind-the-scenes battle with cancer, his courageous struggle to live. What do you really know about lung cancer, how it spreads, what it does inside your body. Tonight, "Lung Cancer 101": What you need to know to protect yourself from the deadliest kind of cancer.
You've heard the warnings, know the risks, but do you really know what's inside that cigarette? Tonight, Jeffrey Wigand, the insider who blew the lid off big tobacco, reveals the secrets cigarette companies don't want to you hear; secrets that could save your life.
And, want to quit once and for all? Tonight, what works and what doesn't -- hypnosis, acupuncture, patches, gum? What you can do right now to save yourself from the cancer that killed a news legend.
Announcer: Live from the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is a special edition of ANDERSON COOPER 360: "Killer Among Us."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, good evening, everyone. By now you know that Peter Jennings has died. The story's been on television throughout much of the day. But the truth is, all of us here still find it hard to believe. When you think about Peter Jennings, he has been in our living rooms for more than 40 years, first as a reporter -- tough, brave, curious -- and then as an anchor -- smart, sharp, a natural.
Peter died yesterday at a his home with his family. He was 67 years old. And while we remember him tonight, in this next hour we wanted to learn more about what killed him. We wanted to give you information tonight that literally could save your life or the life of someone you know. I was stunned to learn that lung cancer kills more Americans every year than drug abuse, AIDS, car accidents, fire, suicide and murder combined.
Tonight, you're going to learn a lot more about this deadly cancer and about smoking and second-hand smoke and the secrets that big tobacco doesn't want to you know about.
Moments ago "ABC News" devoted much of its evening newscast to Peter. Here's some of how they remembered him.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHARLES GIBSON, ABC NEWS ANCHOR (voice-over): Tonight we remember Peter Jennings, the journalist, the leader, the American institution.
JENNINGS: Here in the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon -- In Jackson, Mississippi -- In the occupied West Bank -- This is St. Peter's Square in Vatican City.
GIBSON: No one did it quite like Peter Jennings. Fifty years in broadcasting, an enormous loss, an amazing legacy.
ANNOUNCER: From "ABC News," this is "World News Tonight" with Peter Jennings.
GIBSON (on camera): Good evening. I'm Charles Gibson.
Peter Jennings once began this broadcast, his broadcast, by saying, "we have seen the news and it is us." Tonight, the news is Peter. Would that it were not.
Our friend and colleague, the anchor of this broadcast for 22 years, died last night.
His was a courageous and relatively brief battle with lung cancer. Peter died at his home, here in New York. His wife Kayce, his two children Christopher and Elizabeth and his sister Sarah were with him. They told us today that it was remarkably peaceful at the end.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: That was the "ABC News" broadcast just a short time ago, Peter's broadcast as Charlie Gibson called it.
Aaron Brown, who before coming to CNN, spent many years at ABC working with Peter, joins me now. Aaron, it is hard to believe he's gone.
AARON BROWN, CNN HOST, NEWSNIGHT: I was -- this just sounds stupid. I was struck today by the incredible difference between knowing someone's going to die, as we have with Peter for some time, and their actual death.
I mean, I've known for months -- I guess we've all known for months -- that Peter was very sick and that this is not the kind of cancer that you win, you beat. But when the phone rang last night -- and it's just a very sad day.
Peter was a wonderful, tough boss, who taught me everything worth knowing about the work I do, and I miss him a lot. I said to somebody coming up, I said, I'm angry that I have at least six other things that I need to ask him about and I can't.
COOPER: There was something about him, working with him, working for him that he made you want to do better and you wanted him to like what you were doing, at least from -- that's what I found.
BROWN: Yes. I mean, I said to someone, someone asked me today what the best piece of advice I ever got from Peter was and it was to go to work for Peter. I mean, I actually asked him, what should I do here?
He said, I think you should work for "World News". And he challenged me to become a great reporter. And in the process of that, I think I learned to become a good one. And that I needed -- I needed to know that about me, to go on to do the things that I had set out to do.
COOPER: He was a mentor for you?
BROWN: He was very much a mentor to me. He -- this is a tough day in my life and a tough day around the NEWSNIGHT office. And it'll be a tough program to do tonight, to be honest.
COOPER: What do you think people don't know about Peter Jennings? I mean, when I talked to people, a lot of them, you know, they see him on television for half-an-hour a night. They don't realize he's there all day and that broadcast was Peter.
BROWN: I mean, the truth is, you know, we don't like to admit it, but if we wanted, we could do this job in about two-and-a-half hours. You know, you could you come in -- if you did the program at 6:30, you could come in at 4:00, slap a little makeup on, read the copy and write a little bit, sit down do the program and go out to dinner.
I never knew Peter -- I'm sure there were days. I never knew when he wasn't on the morning call at 9:00, read in. That means he probably read five papers by then.
When we used to travel, I used sit on the airplane and read airport mysteries. He'd be reading "Foreign Affairs Quarterly." He was the single most curious person I have ever known, about everything.
And I mean -- I remember him walking in the newsroom one day and saying in the way that anchors do to be honest, so we're going to do a series on design.
And we all looked around. And we went what? And he had read something about design and just wanted to know more and his relationship with viewers, I'm sorry to prattle on, was that, I learned this stuff today and I want to tell you more.
COOPER: Yes. And that came across every night. Aaron, thanks very much.
Later on tonight, we're going to also talk to David Westin, the head of "ABC News," about some very personal reflections about the last days of Peter Jennings.
Also, we're focusing this evening on the killer that claimed his life, lung cancer. According to the American Lung Association, more than 350,000 people in this country have lung cancer, and smoking is responsible for nearly 90 percent of those cases.
It is the deadliest of cancers, only about 15 out of 100 people with it are expected to live longer than five years. The question is, what exactly is this disease? What does it do inside the body? And why does it seem to kill so quickly? For that, we turn tonight to 360 M.D. Sanjay Gupta in Atlanta -- Sanjay?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, all of the numbers are startling. I hear them from you again and they are remarkable numbers. Lung cancer -- we haven't done so well in terms of treating and protecting people from this disease.
Peter Jennings is one of 160,000 people that will die this year from lung cancer. You already mentioned how great that number is compared to other diseases.
The biggest consideration here and the reason that the survival rates are so low is because of screening techniques are just not there. The guidelines just aren't there for lung cancer.
You mentioned breast cancer, for example. You've got mammograms. Prostate cancer, you've got PSA tests. Colon cancer, you've got colonoscopies. We haven't come up with a really good screening test and even a really good way of figuring out who needs to be screened yet.
And by the time people typically get diagnosed -- you can see what it looks like on a chest X-ray there. By the time it gets to this stage, it's typically already spread to other places in the body and the survival rates are abysmal, Anderson.
COOPER: Well, you know, when -- I mean, Peter, when we last saw him in April when he made that statement on television, that was four months ago. Does it move this quickly always?
GUPTA: It can. I mean, this was extraordinarily quick. And one thing I should point out and maybe it's already obvious, at the time that he told us, months may have already gone by where he already knew that he had lung cancer. We don't know exactly at what point he told us, told the world that is.
But, usually within the first year, just 10 to 12 months of survival for advanced stages. Eight out of 10 people within the first year will die and 15 percent by five years; only 15 percent will survive.
So, those numbers really are quite bad. Again, it has to do with the fact at the time of diagnosis, by the time someone goes to the doctor, who is not well, it's already at a pretty advanced stage, typically.
COOPER: What exactly are the symptoms?
GUPTA: Typically, one of the most common symptoms is just going to be cough. A persistent, sometimes bloody cough as well. Unintentional weight loss, that's something as well to look out for.
What is lung cancer? Typically, what is it? It is a cancer of some of the cells of the lung. You can see some of the lobes of the lung there. This is the heart sort of sitting in the middle. Sometimes you'll have cancer cells that'll -- that's the trachea. Sometimes the cancer cells will be right around the trachea, right around the bronchus, which is some of the cells in the lung and typically that cancer will develop in that area.
Anderson, again, with Peter Jennings, it was not operable. Sometimes these tricky areas of the lungs -- around some big blood vessels, for example -- and you just can't operate on them there.
COOPER: Sanjay, thanks. We're going to have you back a little bit later on the program, talking about detection and treatment, as well. Sanjay, later on 360.
Still to come, though, tonight, the death of Peter Jennings and the dangers of cigarettes, what manufacturers may know about the product and don't want you to know.
We're going to talk with Jeffrey Wigand, the insider whose conscience brought big tobacco to its knees.
Plus, are you destined to be a smoker and don't even know it yet? We're going to take a look what factors may make a person light up, especially kids.
And remembering the remarkable life of Peter Jennings -- and what a life it was. We're going to hear from some of the people who knew him best -- Barbara Walters and Tom Brokaw, Diane Sawyer, so many others.
Here's what President Bush said about Jennings today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He covered many important events, events that helped define the world as we know it today. A lot of Americans relied upon Peter Jennings for their news. He became a part of the life of a lot of our fellow citizens and he will be missed. May God bless his soul.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: We're going to have more on the death of Peter Jennings in a moment, along with information on lung cancer, how it is detected and the treatment options, information that could save the life of someone you love.
But first, Erica Hill tonight from HEADLINE NEWS joins us with the "World in 360." Good evening, Erica.
ERICA HILL, CNNHN ANCHOR: Hi again, Anderson, and welcome back.
We start off with a specific and credible threat leading the U.S. to shut down its embassy and consulates in Saudi Arabia through at least Tuesday. A State Department official says the threat mentioned a vehicle bombing sometime today, but there were no details on which location would be hit.
Tehran, Iran, where we're getting a double blow to diplomacy. Iran has resumed operations at a nuclear facility and rejected the European proposal to end its nuclear program. Tehran insists the uranium conversion at the plant is for peaceful purposes, mainly electricity. But the U.S. and several European countries fear Iran could be developing nuclear weapons.
In Washington, the feedback much different on nuclear talks with North Korea. A State Department spokesman says the U.S. is satisfied with how 13 days of six-party talks went on North Korea's nuclear weapons. The talks in Beijing ended over the weekend. They'll resume in three weeks.
And in London, England, terror suspects in court. A judge has ordered the four men charged with conspiracy to murder in the July 21, bombing attempt to stay behind bars until their hearing in mid- November. Another man wanted in the U.S. for conspiring to set up a jihad camp in Oregon will be back in court next week to face extradition.
And that's the latest at this hour from HEADLINE NEWS. Anderson, back to you.
COOPER: Erica, thanks. We'll see you again in about 30 minutes.
Still to come tonight on 360, more on the legacy of Peter Jennings. What a remarkable life this man had. He was a Canadian high school dropout. He became an American icon and an American citizen. We're going to talk with David Westin, president of ABC News, for some very personal reflections about these final months in Peter's life.
Also tonight, the cancer that killed Peter Jennings. What you need to know about it, how you can detect it, how it's treated. We're going to get answers from 360 MD Sanjay Gupta.
Plus the real "Insider", the man who exposed the secrets within the tobacco industry, talks one-on-one with us.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARBARA WALTERS, ABC NEWS: I never saw anyone work so hard, do so much homework. If I knew the name of a person in the parade, he knew the name of the horse. He was a stickler for detail. He pushed himself. He pushed us. He made us better. (END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUSSELL CROWE, ACTOR: We are in the nicotine delivery business.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And that's what cigarettes are for?
CROWE: Delivery device for nicotine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A delivery device for nicotine. Put it in your mouth, light it up, and you're going to get your fix.
CROWE: You're going to get your fix.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, that was a scene from the movie "The Insider" about big tobacco whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand. A decade ago, the former tobacco executive told the media that his past employer, cigarette maker Brown and Williamson, had developed ways to enhance the effects of nicotine, all while claiming the drug was not addictive.
Well, the lung cancer that killed Peter Jennings is almost certainly linked to tobacco, and Jennings himself admitted to being a smoker years ago. His death raises more questions about cigarettes and the dangers they present.
Joining me from Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, the whistleblower himself and founder of the nonprofit foundation Smoke-Free Kids, Jeffrey Wigand.
Jeffrey, it's very good to see you. What does the tobacco industry not want people out there to know about cigarettes?
JEFFREY WIGAND, FORMER TOBACCO EXECUTIVE: Well, I think there are a host of things they don't want people to know, particularly children. This is an industry that targets youth. It survives by getting somewhere around 3,000 children each day to light up and become part of the profit stream that they generate. They want to know...
COOPER: Now, you say they target kids. How do they do that? Because they say, look, we're spending billions of dollars in prevention efforts to stop kids from smoking, or to prevent them from ever getting smoking in the first place.
WIGAND: Well, I'm not so sure I'd let the tobacco industry develop prevention techniques, prevention strategies for our children. They've been targeting our children for at least the last four to five decades. What they don't want the kids to know is what they put in the product, what types of additives are used to make it easier to become more addictive, like flavors like licorice, chocolate, honey, and how they enhance the effectiveness of nicotine by manipulating nicotine from a fairly inactive state which is called pronative (ph) nicotine, to what is called free nicotine, much akin to what one would say freebase cocaine, to enhance the potency of nicotine.
We don't -- the general public doesn't understand or know that tobacco products are laced with 599 additives that we generally recognize as safe, but when used in tobacco, make it easier to start smoking, particularly children, and enhance the effectiveness of nicotine.
COOPER: What about, you know, low tar, light cigarettes? You say tobacco companies originated those really as an alternative to reduce harmful effects of smoking, or that's what they say. How much safer are these kinds of cigarettes? Are they any safer?
WIGAND: Well, first of all, no cigarette is safe. I mean, let's make that straight out, Anderson.
Low tar, light and mild monikers are actually mislabels. They in fact give assurances to those who want to be more conscious of their health concerns an alternative, like light beer, light cheese, light wine. Light cigarettes mean that you want to have less tar, less nicotine, when in fact, light cigarettes deliver equal to full- flavored cigarettes just as much tar and nicotine, if not considerably more.
So people who smoke light and mild cigarettes engage in a physical phenomena or behavioral phenomena called compensation. It means that their nicotine burden needs to be continually met, and that means they change the manner in which they smoke. They breathe it in deeper, they take deeper puff volumes. And that's...
COOPER: So they're taking a light cigarette and they think they're being healthier, but they're smoking it deeper, they're holding it in longer?
WIGAND: That's correct, Anderson. They are -- actually, the light and mild moniker that's on a cigarette or on a package of cigarettes is a definite misleading moniker or label.
COOPER: Jeffrey Wigand, it's good to talk to you. I appreciate you being on the program. Thanks, Jeffrey.
WIGAND: Thank you, Anderson. Have a good night.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): The final days of Peter Jennings.
JENNINGS: Almost 10 million Americans are already living with cancer, and I have a lot to learn from them. And living is the key word.
COOPER: His behind-the-scenes batting with cancer, his courageous struggle to live.
And want to quit once and for all? Tonight, what works and what doesn't. Hypnosis, acupuncture, patches, gum? What you can do right now to save yourself from the cancer that killed a news legend.
This special edition of 360, "Killer Among Us" continues in a moment.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: So many have lost so much to lung cancer. Those are just some of the famous people who have died over the years from lung cancer, the disease that yesterday took the life of Peter Jennings.
When he lost his battle -- and what a battle it was -- fellow journalists and viewers lost more than one of the big three network news anchors. We lost an inquiring mind, a man who needed to be at the center of the big story, and was for so many years, a man I was honored to work for in my first job at network news.
Peter Jennings spent his life covering the news and delivering it -- the only life, those who knew him say, he ever could have lived.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): It's hard to believe Peter Jennings is gone.
JENNINGS: As some of you now know, I have learned in the last couple of days that I have lung cancer.
COOPER: Just four months ago, the startling statement that shocked the country -- simple, elegant, from the heart.
JENNINGS: On good days, my voice will not always be like this.
COOPER: None of us realized this was the last time we'd see Peter Jennings.
DIANE SAWYER, ABC ANCHOR: There were so many times that his heart and his emotions were there with us to comfort us, and to connect to us in critical times.
WALTERS: Part of it was skeptic -- was being skeptical, and a little part of it was insecurity. And there was something very, very vulnerable about Peter.
COOPER: Today, his colleagues remembering their friend, their mentor, the man whose life was lived in front of the lens.
JENNINGS: This is Peter Jennings at Musna (ph), on the Lebanese/Syrian border.
COOPER: Peter Jennings was born in Canada, but became an American citizen in 2003, and no one could have been prouder.
JENNINGS: This is Peter Jennings, ABC News, Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank. COOPER: A high school dropout, Jennings was hired by ABC News when he was just 26 years old. He took a turn in the anchor chair, but soon returned to the field. There were so many places he wanted to go, so many stories he was willing to risk it all to tell.
JENNINGS: He is 61 years old, this man. When the earthquake struck, he was outside his house.
COOPER: It's hard to imagine all the things Peter Jennings saw firsthand, the people he met, the life he lived.
JENNINGS: This is the very heart of the Rub Al-Khali, or as some people call it, the Empty Quarter. It is the third largest desert in the world, more than a million square miles. It is virtually all sand, and like so much of Saudi Arabia, underneath all the sand, there is oil.
COOPER: He was 45 when he returned to New York and to the anchor chair he would fill so well. He helped lead ABC News to number one in the ratings, and earned not only his colleagues' love, but his competitors' respect.
DAN RATHER, FORMER CBS NEWS ANCHOR: Peter took his work very seriously, but he did not take himself seriously. And he was a little uncomfortable with -- very uncomfortable with the word "star," and a little uncomfortable with the word "anchor," because he really did think of himself as a reporter.
TOM BROKAW, FORMER NBC NEWS ANCHOR: He cared so deeply about so many things, and he had such curiosity about life, politics, about this country.
COOPER: It was in this country, his adopted land, in New York, the city he loved, that Peter Jennings died Sunday.
When the end came, he was with his wife and with his children. When the end came, Peter Jennings was home.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: You just saw a little bit of the last time that we all saw Peter Jennings just four months ago, April 5. Seems hard to believe. At the end of "World News Tonight," Jennings told viewers that he was sick. He also said he hoped to return to the program. He never got that chance. We wanted to show you his final remarks in full.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JENNINGS: Finally this evening, a brief note about change. Some of you have noticed in the last several days that I was not covering the pope. While my colleagues at ABC did a superb job, I did think a few times I was missing out.
However, as some of you now know, I have learned in the last couple of days that I have lung cancer. Yes, I was a smoker until about 20 years ago. And I was weak, and I smoked over 9/11. But whatever the reason, the news does slow you down a bit.
I've been reminding my colleagues today, who have all been incredibly supportive, that almost 10 million Americans are already living with cancer and I have a lot to learn from them. And living is the key word.
The National Cancer Institute says that we are survivors from the moment of diagnosis. I will continue to do the broadcast. On good days, my voice will not always be like this.
Certainly, it's been a long time and I hope it goes without saying that a journalist who doesn't value deeply the audience's loyalty should be in another line of work. To be perfectly honest, I'm a little surprised at the kindness today from so many people. That's not intended as false modesty. But even I was taken aback by how far and how fast news travels.
Finally, I wonder if other men and women ask their doctors right away, OK, doc, when does the hair go?
At any rate, that's it for now on "World News Tonight." Have a good evening. I'm Peter Jennings. Thanks, and goodnight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: I spoke earlier today to David Westin, the president of ABC News.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON: David, how important was it for Peter to make that statement, to go on air and explain to viewers what was going on with him?
DAVID WESTIN, PRESIDENT, ABC NEWS: I don't think I can properly express how important it was to him, Anderson. Peter actually had intended to do the entire broadcast that night. That was his wish. But his voice was failing him at that point. And I talked to him in the afternoon, and he said, well, I really want to do this statement. Let me read it to you. And we talked about it for a minute or two -- I really want to do this statement, let me tape that and see how that goes and then I'll decide whether I can go on with the broadcast.
And I was with him here -- I mean, he was just six feet away from where I am now -- when he taped it. He did it a couple of times and his voice, as you can tell from the tape, was not what he wished it to be, and he took off the microphone and stepped down and said to me, I think maybe I better not do the broadcast.
And I said, I think that's a great decision. Peter, you should go home. But he was determined to talk to his audience and to be straight with them and honest with them and open about his situation and what was going on.
COOPER: He fought with enormous courage. WESTIN: Yes, enormous courage. I mean, Peter did everything with enormous courage. No one ever accused him of lacking courage or tenacity. And he went into this last battle or assignment with all the courage he'd shown in so many different situations, supported all the way by his wife, Kayce Freed and by his children Lizzy and Chris. And he knew what the odds were. No one fooled him about that. He was very clear-eyed about it. At the same time, he was determined that he was going to do everything within his power to bead those odds.
COOPER: Ted Koppel said that he was a surprisingly sentimental man.
WESTIN: It's a side of Peter we only saw every once in a while on the air. Those of us who knew him better -- and Anderson, you knew him well -- could see the sentimental side behind the scenes. He had great integrity. He had very high standards. He was very demanding of himself and all the rest of us, including me.
COOPER: He was tough.
WESTIN: He was very tough. And I'll tell you, I nominally was his boss. I think most of the time, he thought -- and was right -- that I worked for him, which is the way it should be. But with that great tenacity and strength, also came a very soft, sensitive, caring soul, and a good friend, and a great colleague, a great husband and father, and in many ways a wonderful man.
COOPER: I was always struck by -- I mean, a number of things about him and I learned a number of things from him. But I remember my first election in '96 at ABC News, watching Peter live on the set. And there was no teleprompter. He was just speaking. And the viewer would never have known it. I mean, it was flawless. And I remember looking, watching it and just thinking, man, I will never be able to do, you know, even half of what he is doing.
WESTIN: Well, each has their own style and each their own abilities. And it's not fair to compare anyone with another. I will say sometimes Peter was almost too good, because people thought he was reading all that, and so often, as you say, he was not. He could weave together in a special event a live breaking news event like an election or like a war or like 9/11, we certainly saw it. He could weave together various strains of the story coming from disparate places around the world and start to put it into a comprehensible narrative so that all of us in the audience could start to make sense of it.
COOPER: Yes. You talked about him being -- always being a student. Ted Koppel earlier remarked that because Peter dropped out of school, really for the rest of his life he was a voracious reader, he was a student. And on his trips, he would always bring an extra suitcase that was filled with books, just because he loved learning.
WESTIN: I think personally Peter had two great benefits of the fact that he never really completed formal education. On the one hand, it gave him a thirst for knowledge and an openness that never left him. He was always a student and always learning and relished that. On the other hand, it also allowed him to have some skepticism about the received wisdom of academia or government or whatever, because he'd never gone to Princeton, he'd never gone to Harvard. And he had skepticism about whether these professors really knew what they were talking about.
COOPER: That's certainly true. The last time I saw him in person was in the airport in Baghdad. And for me, I think that's the way I always want to remember him, because he had gotten himself somehow -- and I'm still trying to figure out how -- into the courtroom where Saddam Hussein was appearing for the first time. And as he was flying out, he had this sort of Cheshire Cat grin on his face. He was never happier than when he was in the field.
WESTIN: No, that's -- as I say, he thought of himself first and foremost as a reporter. And he was very proud of getting in there for the indictment of Saddam Hussein. And if you recall, about 24, 36 hours before, he also was one of only about two people who were there for the turnover of sovereignty from the Americans to the Iraqis. So he had had two big coups.
COOPER: It was an honor to learn from him for the short time that I was there. And I think a lot of us in the business feel that way, as well. You know, David, obviously, the reporter in me wants to ask about what happens now. I'm not going to ask that question because I don't think it's appropriate on this day. But where -- I mean how does ABC News go on after Peter Jennings?
WESTIN: Well, you're very tactful and I appreciate it. I mean, there will come a time when we address all that, but I agree today is not the day. And we need to be respectful of Peter and his family. But one of the legacies Peter left here -- and I'll draw an exception with you, Anderson, because you left us, although...
COOPER: Foolishly.
WESTIN: ... who knows in the future. Yes, well, I don't know about that. But Peter had great regard for you, as you know, Anderson.
But one of the legacies he left here was not just the standards that he set and the lessons he taught us, but also the people. He brought along a lot of people, both in front of the camera and behind the camera, and nurtured them and worked with them, and gave them experience in the field.
And I think if Peter were here right now -- and goodness knows, I wish he were -- but if he were here right now, he would say, fortunately, we have a number of very talented, very able people who have learned, to some extent, from Peter Jennings to carry on the tradition, which we are absolutely committed to do, perhaps feeling it even more-so today than on other days.
ANDERSON: I find it impossible to believe he is actually gone. But David, I appreciate you joining us. Thanks.
WESTIN: OK. Thank you, Anderson.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: That was David Westin, the president of ABC News.
Coming up next on this special edition of 360, "The Life and Death of Peter Jennings," are you destined to be a smoker? Is that possible? The signs that you might get hooked one day. Are there personality types that make you a smoker? We'll look at that.
Plus, if you're addicted, how to quit. What works and what doesn't.
Also tonight, if it leads to lung cancer, the treatment options that are available to you. We'll look at all that as we take a look at the life and legacy of Peter Jennings.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GIBSON: That's Peter's chair. Has been for 22 years -- and in many ways, still is. Peter Jennings, as you may have heard, died last night from lung cancer. And that is the chair from which he has anchored "World News Tonight" for such a long time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: ...its deadliest form. Welcome back to this special edition of 360, the "Killer Among Us." Tonight as we remember Peter Jennings, we look at what took his life, lung cancer.
It is the most common cancer after skin cancer. But why is there no equivalent mammogram; no colonoscopy to spot lung cancer? And once it's detected, we wanted to know what are the treatment options?
360 MD Sanjay Gupta, joins us now from Atlanta. Sanjay, you mentioned earlier in the hour, there are not any set guidelines for lung cancer screening -- who should get screened and what are the best available tests.
GUPTA: Yes. There's not any guidelines. We did talk to several doctors about this, but the people who should get screened for sure are people who've had a previous history of cancer, certainly of the lung, but perhaps the windpipe, the kidney as well.
Anderson, a lot of people are getting full-body C.T. scans. You may remember you and I actually went ahead and got full-body C.T. scans as part of a story that we were working on a few months ago. These scans can run anywhere from $400 to $1,000s. These are becoming more popular.
But the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association don't recommend this as a general screening school tool. There just hasn't been shown to be a significant benefit to that as of yet.
Take a look at some of the images here -- you know, C.T. scan versus a chest X-ray. I think a picture is worth a thousand words here.
That's a C.T. scan that you're seeing there. All that around the red, you can see that, that's all a tumor. You can just get a size of how big that is. That's inside someone's chest. The film that you saw just before that was an X-ray.
There are good ways of diagnosing this, but unfortunately we still don't know who is best to get screened. We don't know if we can get a C.T. scan of everybody. For now, just the people who've had a previous history of cancer.
COOPER: Well, that's alarming. I mean, what's the course of treatment? What new drugs are there out there? How effective are they?
GUPTA: You know -- again, I mentioned earlier -- and it's tough for doctors to talk about this sometimes, because we haven't come really far in terms of treating lung cancer.
Let me give you an example. There's been a lot of excitement about a couple of drugs recently called Tarceva and Avestin. And we talked about the survival for lung cancer being 10-12 months. Well, these drugs can improve your quality of life and add about two months of overall survival.
Is that a lot? You know, depends how you look at. Two months, if your survival is only 10 months, then sure. Two months in the scheme of things, a lot of people don't think that's that impressive as of yet.
So, we have made some progress in terms of combating lung cancer, treating lung cancer. A couple of the newest drugs get you about that much benefit though, Anderson.
COOPER: How do you get enrolled in a clinical trial, though, for these new drugs?
GUPTA: You know, we -- I have a special I've been working on called "Taming the Beast," looking at cancer. And that specific question was something I was interested in as well.
There is a Web site, for example, out there -- and I think we can put it up on the screen. Cancer.gov/clinicaltrials. This is an important Web site. It's a very good Web site. If you are someone with cancer, if you're someone who's been given a terminal diagnosis of cancer, you can go to the Web site, punch in the kind of cancer that you have and find out what clinical trials are going on around you. It might help. It might help you, Anderson.
COOPER: Bottom line, don't smoke if you can. Sanjay...
GUPTA: Can't emphasize that enough. Absolutely.
COOPER: Yes. We're going to have more on Peter Jennings's life and his legacy. Plus, tips on ways to see if you or your child may become destined to become a smoker and it might help your child not smoke in the first place. First, Erica Hill from HEADLINE NEWS, has the latest headlines. Erica, good evening.
HILL: Hey, Anderson.
Low marks tonight, for President Bush in a CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll. It was just released today and they found just 45 percent of those polled say they actually approve of Mr. Bush's handling of his job. Fifty-one percent say they're dissatisfied. The approval rating, it's just one percentage point higher than his lowest. The slump seems to be tied directly to the war in Iraq.
Cape Canaveral, Florida. Another try tomorrow. NASA scrapped this morning's scheduled landing of the Space Shuttle Discovery due to cloudy skies which threatened visibility. Plans to welcome home Discovery, though, early tomorrow morning. If Florida's weather still doesn't cooperate, however, NASA may try land in California or even in New Mexico.
Chicago, Illinois, now, where the publisher of two of the largest African-American magazines has died. John H. Johnson, founder of "Ebony" and "Jet" magazine, passed away today. The cause of his death was not made public. John H. Johnson was 87.
And in Waco, Texas. No equipment? No problem! Little Leaguers from Bryant, Arkansas, have now won their first two games in the Little League World Series qualifying tournament. All this, after all their equipment was stolen. Parents and friends have quickly arranged for the team to have new equipment for the games. Police, though, are still searching for those stolen items. They're actually valued at five to $6,000, Anderson.
COOPER: That is low, low, low. Erica, thanks. We're going to see you again in abut 30 minutes.
Coming up next in this special edition, does your personality or your child's personality make you or them more likely to smoke? We've got some surprising answers.
Also tonight, kicking the habit. What works, what does not. We're going to give you the facts on the ways to stop smoking.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JENNINGS: I love doing programs with kids. Kids have given me -- my own very much included -- have given me a window on the world. And they always enable adults to look over their shoulder, because kids sometimes ask the questions that we are too embarrassed to ask. So, I love doing -- but I've had a long career as we've acknowledged tonight. So, I've had a lot of great experiences.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, according to the Centers for Disease Control, 45.8 million Americans smoke cigarettes and 80 percent started the habit before turning the age of 18, which is remarkable. If you're concerned about your own child, you'll want to hear this next report. There may be some tell-tale signs to spot future smokers before they even light up.
Joining us for more is Dr. Nancy Snyderman, vice president for Johnson & Johnson, and a former medical correspondent for ABC News. Nancy, thanks very much for being with us.
DR. NANCY SNYDERMAN, VP, JOHNSON & JOHNSON: You're so welcome. Nice to be here.
COOPER: What -- are there personality traits that might lead people to smoke?
SNYDERMAN: For years, doctors have looked for sort of an addictive personality. That hasn't panned out, but there are some neuroses, and sometimes cigarette smoking seems to follow certain thrill seekers. But boy, what you alluded to with teenagers is unbelievably true. Because there's something in that brain that just loves that nicotine, snaps it up. It goes to this pleasure center.
If you talk to teenagers who are smoking when they are in high school, three out of 100 will say, I won't smoke again in 10 years. Three out of five are smoking in 10 years.
COOPER: That's incredible.
SNYDERMAN: So you hook a teenager, you've pretty much hooked them for life.
COOPER: Is there a link between smoking and depression?
SNYDERMAN: Yeah, that seems to be a pretty big link. And they've looked at studies with -- particularly with adolescents. And interestingly, really depressed kids seem to smoke more, and kids who smoke a lot seem to be depressed. So whether the cart comes before the horse or vice versa, no one seems to know, but absolutely, there is some kind of causality there.
COOPER: I read this statistic, and I want to read it to you, because I want to make sure I get it right. Teenagers who smoke are three times more likely than nonsmokers to use alcohol, eight times more likely to use marijuana, 22 times more likely to use cocaine. I mean, what is the connection between teen smoking and drug use and alcohol?
SNYDERMAN: Yeah, it's really mind-boggling. Because for years, we didn't believe that sort of domino theory of drug use, but the more we understand about the brain -- and there's more we don't know than what we do -- it goes back to that pleasure center, that trigger. And there's some very elegant research now that proves that as a teenager, while your brain is developing, you may be able to rewire the brain, such that if you become addicted to something, your brain, for the rest of your life, craves certain things.
COOPER: If a parent smokes, is the child more likely to smoke?
SNYDERMAN: Kids learn by imprinting. So if you have smokers in the house, with approval of smoking, kids are more likely to pick up a cigarette. If there are nonsmokers in the house, and there's great disdain for cigarettes, and it's talked about in the house, kids are less likely to smoke.
COOPER: For parents out there who are worried about their kids maybe smoking, is there -- what can they do? Is there any advice?
SNYDERMAN: You know, I'm a cancer surgeon. I've bad-mouthed cigarettes from the time my kids were in preschool. I basically just said, it makes you smell bad, and it's looking at an ashtray, and all that yucky stuff that kids could get.
And then as they got older, I showed them graphic pictures. And I said, you know, there are three things you do every single day that you take for granted. You swallow, you speak, and you breathe. If I operate on you, one of those three, if not more, is going to change for the rest of your life. That's not a good way to go.
COOPER: Let's hope some kids out there get the message.
SNYDERMAN: Yes. So for teenagers, and for smoking cessation programs and school teachers and parents, you know, this is an ugly fight. You just have to get in there and say, there's nothing elegant about smoking, period, and it's not a great way for teen girls to want to keep their weight down either. It's a dumb way to do it.
COOPER: Dr. Nancy Snyderman, thanks very much. Appreciate it.
SNYDERMAN: Always good to see you.
COOPER: All right. Good to see you, too.
We're going to find out what is coming up at the top of the hour on PAULA ZAHN NOW. Hey, Paula.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN HOST, PAULA ZAHN NOW: Hi, Anderson. I know you've been honoring the legacy of Peter Jennings, as will we. I'm going to share some memories of Peter with his longtime colleague, Cokie Roberts.
Also tonight, the pictures that you're about to see are frightening, but at the same time absolutely fascinating. Potential crime victims actually fighting back. Should you try this? Well, we asked a couple of security experts to watch these tapes and give all of us some case by case advice, if we ever have to confront that same kind of situation.
I learned a lot by watching it, and I hope our audience will as well, at the top of the hour, Anderson.
COOPER: Paula, thanks. About six minutes from now.
Coming up next, though, on 360, how to stop the smoking habit. If you tried to quit and failed, do not give up hope. We're going to show you the way to say goodbye to cigarettes for good. What works and what doesn't.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, 70 percent of all smokers want to quit, but as any smoker will tell you, it is one tough habit to break. Nicotine, the drug in tobacco, is more addictive than cocaine and heroin, say experts. That's the bad news. The good news is you can stop. People do. It is never too late to actually do it.
CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen shows us what works and what doesn't.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: (voice-over): Lung cancer is the deadliest form of cancer. It's estimated that it killed 160,000 Americans last year. By now, most everyone knows that for smokers, the key to preventing lung cancer is to stop.
DR. MICHAEL TUHN, AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY: This is a hard thing to do, but it's the best thing a smoker can do for themselves.
COHEN: And quitting at any point can dramatically benefit your health. Many studies have shown you can reap the benefits of quitting just 20 minutes after you put out that last butt, and after 15 years of being a nonsmoker, you cut the health risks associated with smoking by nearly 90 percent.
But the endless onslaught of quit smoking products can be dizzying. So how do you sort through it all? Doctors say they all work, but not necessarily for you.
TUHN: The trick is to find what works for you. Most people still quit cold turkey, but some people profit from using a nicotine patch, which delivers nicotine in a very steady way. Some people combine a patch with gum to get through the hard parts, the cravings. Sort of more sudden way is to get nicotine through either the inhalant or the nasal spray.
COHEN: Nicotine gums, candies, nose sprays, inhalers can all cut cravings by releasing small bursts of nicotine into your system quickly. But there are downsides. A quick burst now may leave you wanting more very shortly in the form of more gum, or even a cigarette.
And how about the patch? It keeps nicotine levels in your bloodstream more constant so the cravings are reduced, but it still releases much lower levels of nicotine than a smoker is used to.
TUHN: The cigarette, within two or three seconds, the nicotine hits your brain, and so the nicotine patch is not satisfying in a way that the cigarette is for someone who is addicted. But it is an effective way of avoiding real troughs in nicotine. COHEN: Some people choose other methods, like individual or group therapy, antidepressant medications such as Zyban, or alternative treatments like hypnosis or acupuncture. Experts say these can work, too, and that finding the right combination of therapies, getting support from friends and family, and talking with your doctor is important, no matter what you choose to do.
TUHN: The important thing is to, is one, decide to quit; and two, get the help you need. And that help will differ for everyone.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COHEN: Peter Jennings stopped smoking about 20 years ago, but he did pick it up occasionally after September 11, and experts tell us that even just occasionally smoking after you've quit can reignite some of the damage that was already done to cells -- Anderson.
COOPER: It is so terrible to think that after stopping for that long, he started up again just briefly.
Elizabeth Cohen, thanks very much. Thanks for watching this special edition of 360. I'm Anderson Cooper.
CNN's prime-time coverage continues right now with Paula Zahn. Hey, Paula.
ZAHN: Hi, Anderson. Thanks so much.
END
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