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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Investigators Reveal How Sony Hackers Got Access to System; How Restoring U.S.-Cuban Relations Will Affect America; Story of Former Black Panther Member Joanne Chesimard; Bloody Aftermath of Taliban Attack on Pakistani School

Aired December 18, 2014 - 20:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, John Berman sitting in for Anderson.

And we do have breaking news tonight about the cyber attack that shook Hollywood, stunned Washington and caused a major corporation to flat- out capitulate. There is late word on just how hackers managed to break in to Sony Pictures computers Network.

Now, I just called them hackers. Some people are calling them cyber terrorists whose trail leads all the way to North Korea. And as Sony pulls down billboards for the comedy about North Korea's dictator, the question of what to do is front and center. There are late developments on that as well.

Also, a North Korean defector reveals some of the secrets of Pyongyang's shadowy team of cyber warriors. We are going to speak to man who served as one this country's top cyber defenders.

But we do begin with the breaking news on how these infiltrators, whoever they were, actually did it.

Our justice correspondent Evan Perez broke this story and he joins us now.

Evan, what's is it word?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well John, what they did was make it look like it was an inside job. They stole, the hackers stole the credentials, the passwords, if you will, of a system administrator, so that they could get access to the entire system, the entire computer system at Sony. And in this way, one person I talked to today said they had the keys to the entire building. They were able to roam around. And this is what they did. For some time, they roamed around to get a lay of the land, figure out what they wanted before they did anything and before anyone noticed they were there.

BERMAN: Stole the credentials to look like an inside job but was not actually an inside job. Does the trail still lead, s you have been reporting, to North Korea?

PEREZ: Yes. The investigators who have been working on this from the FBI, from the NSA, from the justice department's national security division, all have been pouring over the evidence that they have.

The NSA has some very good visibility into the pipes that carry internet traffic in and out of North Korea and that's one way we know that the U.S. authorities have been able to figure out that despite the efforts that hackers made to show that the attack perhaps might have come from Europe or south America, that it really came from North Korea.

BERMAN: So if the NSA, the lead agency here now, cracking back all the way to Pyongyang?

PEREZ: It's one of the agencies. The FBI is doing a lot of investigative work as well. But you know, obviously, the NSA is very controversial. So you in one time where we can see that they're actually on the ball.

BERMAN: All right, Evan Perez, interesting news breaking tonight. Thank you for being with us, we appreciate it.

Now, the question is what to do about it, especially if, as Evan just mentioned, the government plans to publicly blame North Korea for behind being this.

Our chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto is covering that angle for us tonight.

Jim, so what does the White House do? This is a national security matter, if in fact it's true that North Korea is behind it, how will the White House approach this?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, they say they want to respond and it is appropriate to response. They want the response to be proportional. But they also don't want to get provoke into a wider cycle of cyber attack encounter attack here. So they want to calibrate it very carefully. And that's what they are doing now. They're considering those options and making sure the response somehow achieves that difficult balance.

BERMAN: What is the menu of options?

SCIUTTO: You got to see options. The first one under the circus (ph) step is naming and shaming North Korea. It's a step that you have all the evidence now but haven't taken the step of publicly calling them out. It's something that took them years to do, frankly, John, with China which is behind cyber attacks on U.S. companies and U.S. government. Hundreds of U.S. companies, multiple times, you know, for years. And it took them a number of years before they publicly called them out. That's a first step.

If they're able to determine who the actual hackers are by name and id, they could take a step again they took against an elite group of Chinese hackers earlier this year of filing charges against them. You're not going to take them into court, they're on the other side of the ocean but you could file charges publicly. But more likely in the near term, is to raise the economic costs for North Korea, tighten economic sanctions on the country. I'll tell you the most powerful one they could do is go after their access to dollar-denominated trade. This is North Korea's lifeline to the outside world and by squeezing Chinese banks that do business with North Korea, you could really exact an economic cost and that's something the administration has done with some success with Iran regarding its nuclear program, with Russia regarding its activity in the Ukraine, Crimea, et cetera. That is kind of step I would look forward in the near term.

BERMAN: You know, the president could face questions about this tomorrow. He's holding a news conference. I think the reporters will want to know what the administration intends to do.

Jim Sciutto, great to have you with us. Thanks so much.

SCIUTTO: Thank you.

BERMAN: So grappling with issues surrounding North Korea is nothing new, that company has been committing controversial acts almost from day one as a country. So to better understand the situation, we are join now by Bill Richardson, who are in addition to being a former secretary of energy, U.N. ambassador and New Mexico governor, has served as over the years a high level diplomatic troubleshooter on North Korea. Also with us, CNN national security analyst and former Bush homeland security adviser Fran Townsend. Fran currently serves on the D.A. just in CIA external advisory board. And we are also joined by Victor Cha, director of Asian studied in Georgetown University and the author of the impossible state North Korea past and future.

Fran, you're here with me right now. I'm going to start with you. And the White House has not called this an act of terror. There are people out there calling it a hack, you know, cyber espionage, but is this an act of terror? Whoever did this forced an American company to pull a picture, basically and not only that, they threatened violence.

FRAN TOWNSEND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: But often, John, a state will act against a civilian target or civilian population in order to change behavior, have a political outcome. It meets the definition here. There's no question now. I think the White House is reluctant to call it that because there is a lot of rhetoric that is wrapped around the idea of responding to a terrorist attack and they said we want to be deliberate about this. We want to be thoughtful. We wanted to be proportionate. You don't hear that kind of language when you talk about responding to a terror attack.

So I think that is why you see people being very cautious with the administration.

BERMAN: So Governor, the administration is being cautious. But if the trail leads to North Korea, you can expect some kind of response both policy-wise and at least some kind of statement I imagine, perhaps even from the president itself.

So if the administration does publicly blame North Korea for this, what do you think the North Korean response will be?

BILL RICHARDSON, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: Well, the North Koreans, they're so unpredictable. Just three weeks ago, we were all pleased that three Americans were released from North Korea at a time when it didn't seem they were asking for anything in return. Now, we have this unpredictability of the new leadership taking this very, very aggressive action.

I think what the administration needs to do, first of all, yes, find a way to publicly state what we know. Get the facts, make sure that the facts are 100 percent. I suspect they are because of the people we have are very good.

Secondly, I think we need an international response. We need some kind of cyber attack agreement with our allies, with our friends. This is out of control. This is like a new kind of conflict.

And then, third, what kind of specific response? Now, North Korea is sanctions to death in so many areas. I suspect the most, the glaring and strongest sanction that would be proportional would be the banking sanctions. But there, the derivatives. There you have to get the support of the Chinese banks. And China has not exactly helped us when it comes to moderating North Korea.

China controls a lot of North Korea's economic assistance, food, energy, but China's been reluctant to get in there and help and moderate them, get them to stop shooting their missiles and developing their nuclear weapons.

So I think what needs to happen is a careful response to get the six party countries, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea in a concerted effort here because if we just do it on our own without any international support, this is going to continue.

But the North Koreans have reacted because they were so mad at this movie. And they get into these personal concerns. I think Fran will remember when President Bush said something about Kim Jong-Il, the father being a tyrant. You know, they go crazy with these kind of depictions of their leadership because it's a cult of personality. The personality of the country is determined by the personality of their leader. In this case, Kim Jong-Un who unfortunately we know, know very much.

BERMAN: Victor, the governor said the North Koreans get so mad at this. Does it make sense to you that they would get mad enough to break into a company inside the United States?

VICTOR CHA, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: Yes, I think so. I mean, in this case what was arguably different from other cases of western media are ridiculing North Korean leadership and North Korean state was that the storyline of the movie was this attempt to assassinate, successfully assassinate the North Korean leadership.

I think this is a reflection of concerns within North Korea about the stability of their own leadership, a recognition by the state that increasingly North Korean people in society are interested in learning more about the outside world. Borders are much more porous with China than they used to be with lots of information coming into the country. The North Korean people no longer rely on the state for food and rations. They get 60 percent of their livelihood from the market. And I'm sure the North Korean leadership saw the danger as I see it with a movie like this possibly getting into their country not only disrespecting their leadership and shattering the myth of this called the personality that Governor Richardson talked about. But also possibly giving somebody a crazy idea they might try something like this. So yes, I think they took a special offense at this and for that reason, they went forward with this hack of Sony.

BERMAN: Do you think the United States underestimated the capabilities here?

CHA: You know, I mean, my understanding is that North Korea has displayed some cyber capability in the past. Largely, very rudimentary attacks against South Korean business and media companies. They do have, rather, a large cyber forest within the reconnaissance bureau, unit 121, which you guys have reported on and they've been working at. But I don't think they've ever demonstrated at least in the public domain the capacity to do what they did against Sony. And for that reason, I think, we certainly didn't expect and Sony certainly didn't expect the extent of the attack that they suffered.

BERMAN: Fran, you know, Sony pictures is not the United States government. Nevertheless, I think just to be blunt, I mean, Sony caved. I mean, Sony capitulated to the demands of whatever was behind this. What responsibility does a corporation have to the public? Does this set a bad precedent?

TOWNSEND: Well, I think it sets a horrible precedent. Like when you confronted in the bully, you want to punch him in the nose as opposed to cave and get under their desk. And that seems to be what Sony has done here. And it sends a horrible message.

Look, I think we've got to be very clear. Sony is not bated itself in glory. They've been embarrassed by the leaks. This has been massive. They didn't just launch this attack now because of the picture's release. This is a hundred terabytes of data. This is ten times the size of the library of Congress in the United States. This has been going on months and it was able to continue in that way because Sony was asleep at the switch.

I mean, they have real legal liability issues related to sort of the people whose information has been stolen and compromised, including well known stars like Angelina Jolie. And so, let's be clear. They made the decision to can this movie, not because they were worried about theater goers, you heard from the U.S. government that wasn't a serious threat, but they're worried about their own legal liability. They want this to go away and they want the leaks to stop. And you know, that's also dangerous. We don't know that by canning the movie this thug regime in North Korea will not continue to leak out.

BERMAN: Exactly, That there will be more secrets still out there.

Fran Townsend, Governor Bill Richardson, and Victor Cha, thanks so much for be with us. I really appreciate it.

A quick reminder, make sure to set your DVR so you can watch 360 whenever you would like.

And next, the fact to reveals the secrets of North Korea's hacker army.

And it turns out that the White House fence jumper was just the tip of the iceberg. We will tell you about the troubling conclusions of the new report on the secret service. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Breaking news. Hackers got into Sony pictures network by first stealing the credentials, the log-in and password information from a system administrator. In other words, they stole the keys to the operation, then they stole terabytes of data, then they terrorized Sony executives in to canceling the movie on North Korea's dictator.

Rob Lowe who had a cameo on the film tweeted, wow, everyone caved, the hackers won and utter and complete victory for them, wow.

Others hammer Sony for giving in to that. Michael Moore tweeted received numerous threats before the release of Fahrenheit 9/11. We were warned not to show it. This deterred none of us from releasing it.

But the damage has done. And U.S. officials believe North Korea is behind it, possibly a shadowy group of computer hackers.

Kyung Lah has uncover some of the secrets, joins us now from Seoul, in South Korea.

And Kyung, I know you spoke with a North Korean defector, who was a former military computer systems worker. What did he tell you about this army of hackers known as bureau 121?

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: 121, he wants you to think of them as a giant army. Eighteen hundred agents that spread around the world with one sole mission. They want to hack into companies with western interests. So how did this all happen?

They're picking, selecting the very, very best of the best out of Pyongyang, the smartest students. They are training them, they're laser focused on simply hacking. This agency then sends them out and then once they're out, the goal again, John, is to try to break into a company, try to make North Korea seem invincible on a global map, John.

BERMAN: Sort of a hacking society that turns into a hacking corporation. Has this 121 done anything before successfully?

LAH: Yes. South Korea's government has been hot on the trail of 121 for sometime because last year, he banking system here in South Korea was ground to a halt. The ATMs, and think about this, every single ATM, not able to withdraw cash. People weren't able to get money out of ATM because of malware that affected the banking system here in South Korea. Some of the broadcasting companies went completely dark. And what

they saw on their servers is a shadowy image that Sony employees reported seeing, that skull and cross bones, that very eerie message. That's what they saw here in South Korea. So what the lesson is from at least South Korean experts to the world is that they are getting bolder and they're getting better.

BERMAN: And that is certainly shown the capability to do this.

And Kyung, it's hard to independently verify a lot of this information. But the defector that you spoke with has documents to back up his claims, right?

LAH: Yes. Those documents are financial documents. These are weird and eerie because we got to see hundreds and thousands of personal accounts, accounts he says, and hacked information, John, that he got directly from someone who works inside bureau 121.

PEREZ: All right, Kyung Lah, fascinating work. Thank you so much.

We want to turn now to former FBI official Shawn Henry who spearheaded the bureau cyber criminal investigative divisions, also Martin Williams, founder of northkoreatech.org.

Shawn, there are some information that the way that the hackers got in was by getting someone's information from Sony. Maybe a system administrator's information. This isn't looked like it was an inside job and they somehow stole someone's credentials, broke in and that I have been the crack in the system. How common would that be?

SHAWN HENRY, PRESIDENT, CROWDSTRIKE SERVICES: It is very typical. Usually, the adversaries will explode code on somebody's computer. They gain their credentials, their username and password. Once they have that, they can move laterally through the network. They can escalate their privileges so they can get to other areas within a network. It's a very typical way for an adversary to breach a network and to obtain the crown jewels within that organization.

BERMAN: And what investigators are doing, Martin, right now is looking for all these digital footprints, I imagine. How do you detect who's behind an attack like this, what's the forensic process?

MARTIN WILLIAMS, FOUNDER, NORTHKOREATECH.ORG: Attribution of these types of attacks can be very difficult, but there are certain things they can look for. First of all, like where's the traffic coming from? But very often, that's hidden.

These days, investigators have gotten so good that they can sometimes look at some of the actual code that's been written and almost like someone's handwriting. They can see from the style of the code who might have written it or maybe where the code was borrowed from in the past. They have many things at their disposal to figure this out.

BERMAN: Shawn, if this was North Korea, how much of a wake-up call should this be? You know, forgive me for suggesting this. I think a lot of people will be surprised to learn that North Korea even had internet capabilities. Isn't it the United States who's supposed to be good or better at it, how was the North Korea was able get in?

HENRY: You know, John, there are dozens of nation's state that have this type of capability, North Korea being one of them. North Korea would necessary have to use its owned infrastructure. It can use the infrastructure about the nations. And they do have operatives that are operating elsewhere in the world. Not necessarily just on North Korean territory.

I think that to do attribution is difficult. And while there are many, let's say, this is North Korea and there is some apparent ties to North Korea, you still have to do the thorough investigation. That's what the U.S. government is doing, the FBI, NSA, and others to train as a team.

BERMAN: If it was them and if they could break into Sony, what else could they get into?

HENRY: That's my biggest concern. The fact of the matter while this Sony incident has raised great awareness among American public and corporations, these types of attacks by nation states have been going on for a long, long time. Not necessarily from a destructive perspective but China, Russia, Iran, have breached thousands of U.S. companies and stolen billions of dollars worth of data, intellectual property, research and development, corporate strategies. This is a big, big problem.

BERMAN: You know, it is interesting because you bring up a good point. What we have seen in the past, it has to do with corporate theft. A lot of the hacking by nation and states or by people within different nations into steal secrets or make some money.

But Martin, what happened here if it was North Korea, they broke in to stop Sony from making a movie with a political motive. And that's one of the reasons people are calling this cyber terrorism. It was a political motive here that goes beyond the cyber attack. There was a threat here for actual physical violence, a 9/11 type of attack on a theater. Again, is this something you think that would be characteristic of North Korea?

WILLIAMS: North Korea is certainly no stranger to issuing threats. The first time that it took the U.S. and Sony to task for this movie was back in June. That was on the same day that it said the U.S. military was bringing Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war. And a couple of days later, it was accusing the South Koreans of aggression as well.

North Korea complains a lot, makes a lot of threats. Very rarely follows through with them. I think if we look at this hack and look at the objectives of the hack. The other thing to remember is that early on, this movie "the Interview" was never mentioned by the hackers. The first messages from the hackers were talking about restructuring and things that were going on inside Sony. It was only in the last week that the movie has kind of come to their attention or at least come into their messages that they've been sending out.

BERMAN: Shawn Henry and Martin Williams, thanks so much. Just ahead, a new report on White House security failures. The

conclusions, as you will see, are chilling.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Tonight, we are learning just how deep the problems that the secret service run. A panel of outside experts appointed to review the agency has released a summary of its findings and they are sobering. This review sparked by a series of security failures including this, the fence jumper. That is him in the spotlight who made it all the way inside the White House back in September, after barely through the front door of the north port Koe (ph). He ran through much of the main floor before he was finally stopped in the east room.

The layers of the security that failed really are just mindboggling. The independent describes an agency stretched beyond its limits and in need of a top to bottom overhaul.

Joining me to on how to speak about this is former secret service agent Dan Bongino whose brother still works for the secret service.

And Dan, thanks so much for being with us. This report mentions a need for better training, better leadership among other things. What do you make of it?

DAN BONGINO, FORMER SECRET SERVICE AGENT: I think the report nailed it. It was a very well done. The executives summary, I think, left out a lot the classified details which I think would be, you know, sometimes what you don't know is a little more frightening. I think that might went into some of the technical security measures at the White House that they couldn't disclose. But the executive summary portion really nailed it on the training front and the leadership front. I think it was very well done.

BERMAN: It mentions, one of the headline grabbers here, is it talks about making a taller fence, raising the height of the fence. Now, I know you probably agree with that. But that, in of itself, won't change everything. It's not just the fence jumper here that's the problem.

BONGINO: Yes. It's kind of sad, John, that we're talking about the headline being, you know, to raise the fence. You're in the media business, I was in the security business. I think both of us could have come to that conclusion after this incident.

But that is a headline, also one of the things I spoke about on this show a couple of months ago when this happen, is that (INAUDIBLE) over the top of the fence in making the angle more difficult. But the training portion was really I though damming and speaks through a small insulated group of managers at the top of those small group that in my opinion have ran the agency into the ground for a very long time. They are very dedicated men and women there who are very frustrated with this group of people in there, triaging and training, and keeping it a low priority on that triage of needs scale. BERMAN: Well, you used a word there, you can see throughout the

summer, which is insular. Is the agency too insular? And this report says there's a need for outside leadership. Why do you think that's so important?

BONGINO: You know, it's a great word for this report because it's insular in that the service doesn't typically seek advice from outside of the agency, how they should do protection, because they don't want to give up their operational model, but it's also oddly enough, insular, inside the agency as well. And here's what I mean by that. Again, the agency is almost bifurcated into this small group of management at the top that have come up through the ranks together that have kind of made similar mistakes together and they all pat each other on the back so they don't know their mistakes.

The rank and file agents, John, the men and women there who've worked very hard. They were the best people I ever worked with, have been telling these people this for years. Nothing in this report is news to them.

BERMAN: You say this has been going on for years. There've been reports before and advice to the Secret Service about how to change. Do you think this time it's going to be different?

BONGINO: You know, John, I hope and pray. And I mean that. No hyperbole intended. This is a zero area environment. You know, we're not a banana republic here. We don't allow the president to get a hangnail. We do our damage at the election, but we don't allow the president to get hurt. I hope this does change it. Most of these, a lot of these recommendations in the report were in prior reports. One of them, they said even in the Warren Commission report post-JFK. So, I really hope this is the emphasis we need to move forward.

BERMAN: Dan Bongino, thanks so much for being with us. I really appreciate it.

BONGINO: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: There's a lot more happening tonight. Susan Hendricks has a "360 Bulletin." Susan.

SUSAN HENDRICKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, a senior U.S. military official says U.S. airstrikes have killed two top level and one midlevel ISIS leaders in Iraq. The men were killed in multiple strikes going back to mid-November.

Also, at a hearing today, Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told the judge he was satisfied with his defense attorneys. It was his first court appearance since he pleaded not guilty a year ago. Some of his supporters protested outside of the federal courthouse. His death penalty trial is set to begin on January 5TH.

And word on whether Army sergeant Bowe Bergdahl will face a military court marshal could come soon, maybe even before Christmas. That's according to a senior administration official, the Pentagon has wrapped up its review of how and why Bergdahl left his post in Afghanistan of 2009 and ended up in enemy hands. He was released, as you may recall, in exchange for five Taliban prisoners without the approval of Congress.

And a baseball hat that Babe Ruth wore during his 1934 tour of Japan just sold for over 300,000 at an auction. The legendary slugger was part of an all-star team that played 18 games during that tour. It wasn't a Red Sox hat though, John.

BERMAN: His best years were in a Red Sox uniform.

HENDRICKS: Very true.

BERMAN: Susan, as everyone knows.

HENDRICKS: According to ...

BERMAN: Susan Hendricks, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Coming up for us, will restored relations with Cuba mean extradition for the first woman on the FBI's most wanted terrorists list? She escaped from a New Jersey prison in 1979 and eventually was granted asylum in Cuba. We'll have her story next. Also, the beaches and cigars of Cuba back in, but what does the big news mean for Americans looking to find out firsthand, do not pack your bags before you watch our report.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: The breakthrough announcement the United States is restoring relations with Cuba will affect diplomacy, trade, travel, we'll have more on that in a moment. What is still unclear is how it will affect the fate of an American fugitive who's been living in Cuba for decades after escaping from prison and becoming the first woman on the FBI's most wanted terrorist list? Now, she is a step aunt, so happens of late rapper Tupac Shakur and has been on the run since the 1970s. Jason Carroll reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ASSATA SHAKUR: You can learn a lot from people.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Assata Shakur is somewhat of celeb (ph) in Cuba, called on to speak about issues such as equality and human rights, but it wasn't always like this. In fact, she didn't always go by the name Assata Shakur.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The addition of Joanne Chesimard to the FBI's most wanted terrorist list.

CARROLL: Shakur's given name is Joanne Chesimard. Last year she became the first woman added to the FBI's most wanted terrorist list, a $2 million reward offered for her capture in connection with the fatal shooting of a New Jersey state trooper in 1973.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: While living openly and freely in Cuba, she continues to maintain and promote her terrorist ideology. CARROLL: Back in 1973, Chesimard was a member of the Black Panther

party. In 1987, Chesimard, while a fugitive in Cuba, talked about what happened the night she and two of her companions were stopped while driving on the New Jersey Turnpike.

JOANNE CHESIMARD, FBI MOST WANTED FUGITIVE: We ate, we got back into the car and shortly after, we were stopped by the police.

CARROLL: She claims things turned violent almost without warning.

CHESIMARD: He had a gun in my face and I put my hands out like this. In a matter of seconds, I was shot.

CARROLL: When the shooting had ended, state trooper Werner Foerster was dead. Chesimard and another man charged with his murder.

What happened out here in the New Jersey turnpike, took place decades ago, but one chilling detail is still very clear to state troopers. According to the FBI, Foerster was shot at point-blank range with his own gun.

A jury found Chesimard guilty of murder. She was supposed to serve a life sentence, but two years later, she was broken out of prison by three armed members of the Black Liberation Army and after hiding out for years, finally surfaced in Cuba. She was granted asylum by Fidel Castro. Since then, state officials have fought for her extradition. In 1998, New Jersey's Governor Christine Todd Whitman had this message for Chesimard.

CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN, FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: You are holding up the ability of the Cuban population to enjoy a better relationship with the United States by your presence in Cuba.

CARROLL: Now, a historic shift in U.S./Cuba relations. Could it translate into an extradition agreement when that would finally force Chesimard back to U.S. soil to be held accountable for her crime?

JOSE CARDENAS, FORMER STATE DEPT. OFFICIAL UNDER PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: What Cuba wants always is to get into a swap situation, and for U.S. officials, that's a very difficult road to go down.

CARROLL: Over four decades since the shooting, troopers here in New Jersey are still waiting for justice.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Wow, Jason Carroll joins me now. So, Jason, the question is, at this point, what can authorities do? Is extradition actually a possibility?

CARROLL: Well, it doesn't seem like it is right now. I mean look, this is still a very sensitive issue for law enforcement there in the state. In fact, though they didn't talk to us this time, they have made it very clear they want the White House and Washington to do more to extradite Shakur. We're told that U.S. officials in terms of speaking with Cuban officials, this was something that was discussed, the discussion of fugitives, not on the table now, but with these new relations will it be on table on the future, in the near future? Possibly, but for now, she is still living freely in Cuba.

BERMAN: Yeah, so the name did come up. And when you say living freely in Cuba, you had the video right there. She's out there in Cuba.

CARROLL: It's really incredible from law enforcement's point of view when you see that this woman, not only is she living freely there, but as we said in the piece there, somewhat of a cause celeb, because of her relationship to Tupac Shakur, she speaks to children there. At one point, even wrote a letter to the Pope about her situation and wanting to stay there in Cuba. So, again, cause celeb there living freely. We'll see how long it lasts.

BERMAN: Jason Carroll, fascinating, thanks so much for coming in. I appreciate it.

So, tourism companies are already preparing for the day when any American can book a vacation to Cuba, but even with the decision to normalize diplomatic relations and ease some of the sanctions, there are still a lot of restrictions on traveling there. Rene Marsh reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Havana once dubbed the Latin Las Vegas. Images of Carmen Miranda singing with fruit in her hair and movie stars dancing the night away at the Tropicana nightclub. Exotic Caribbean flavor and distinct culture made Americans fall in love with Cuba before the revolution.

Caught in a time warp, it still looks strikingly similar to when TV's Lucy and Ricky visited and the 1950s cars were new.

CHRISTOPHER P. BAKER, "MOON CUBA": Only 90 miles from U.S. shores, so it's a no brainer, really, that the demand is there.

MARSH: The president's new policy makes some travel like educational and humanitarian trips easier but it does not lift the embargo or allow for tourism.

BAKER: You've got the forbidden fruit aspect, so much pent up energy of millions and millions of Americans wishing to explore Cuba for themselves.

MARSH: Last year, less than 100,000 Americans visited most on charters operated by airlines like American and JetBlue. But an industry group predicts 2 million more would go in the next two years if all restrictions were lifted and the infrastructure may not be ready. The retro look attracting Americans conceals decades old water, electrical and transportation systems.

BAKER: It's going to take some time for the airlines and cruise ships to put their plans in place, but they're already geared up for that day. They know what their itineraries will look like, et cetera. You'd better believe they are salivating at the potential that Cuba holds.

MARSH: But for that potential to be realized, Congress would have to lift the embargo and there's resistance.

MARCO RUBIO: It is just another concession to a tyranny.

MARSH: But Wednesday's decision has filled the travel industry with hope that Cuban tourism is around the corner.

BAKER: The most important thing yesterday is not just that we reestablished diplomatic relations, but that it changed the ball game and the discussion in Congress.

MARSH: Renee Marsh, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: You know, visiting Havana is a remarkable thing. It is the city literally stopped in time. It looks like 1959 just about everywhere.

Just ahead for us, Nic Robertson takes us inside the school where more than 130 children were massacred by the Taliban. We'll show you how the attack unfolded and what was left in its wake.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: The massacre at a school in Pakistan has plunged the city of Peshawar into a sea of grief that obviously just can't be measured. More than 140 people, nearly all of them children murdered by the Taliban killed in cold blood. More than 100 others were injured, many have gunshot wounds. There are counts of this massacre have proved crucial to piecing together how it unfolded minute by gruesome minute. CNN's Nic Robertson got inside the school today and we should warn you that what you are about to see as he walks through this crime scene is very difficult to look at. But the details, as awful as they are, we think are necessary to show because they are the measure of an atrocity. Here's Nic's report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is where the Taliban got into the school. They cut the barbed wire off the top of the wall, scaled it using bamboo ladders. Another team got in just down here and then they took off towards the main buildings.

They burst into here, the main auditorium. They split into two teams, it was full of children here taking classes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED BOY (through translator): He shot me as soon as they came in. We tried to run. I was shot in my shoulder. The people who came, they had no sense of humanity in them. .

ROBERTSON: So many of the children afraid trying to hide under these benches. The class was going on. A brigadier was giving a lesson in first aid. The dummy, the apparatus left where he fell. And this is when things get really bad. The army says that the children fled for the door over here and the door here. A hundred of them were gunned down as they were trying to escape, cold-blooded murder.

Everywhere you walk here, blood splatters all over the ground. The Taliban not satisfied with their killing downstairs come up here to the computer lab. And one look inside this room and you can see immediately what's happened. Children gunned down, whether just typing at their computers.

Classroom after classroom, a pair of glasses sitting here, child's pencils and pens lying on the floor torn. Pieces of school work, this child just been writing in its lessons and here on the board where the teacher would have been standing, bullet holes and then the place where the teacher fell. And this is where the final showdown took place. The administration brought one of the attackers blowing up the suicide vest here. Shrapnel marks the wall with little pop marks from all the bearings inside this suicide vest. And over here, rubble on the floor. Another suicide bomber that's blown himself up. Chaos, devastation. The principal's office down here, she's killed. And right up the end of the corridor, the last suicide bomber blows himself up. The deputy principal hides in there and she survives. And this here is what's left of the last attacker.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Nic Robertson joins us now live from Islamabad. You know, Nic, those images are simply horrific. To see the shoes that the kids were wearing, to see the blood of those children still on the ground is -- it takes your breath away. You know, what's the reaction there? What are parents saying? I mean, I look at that as a parent and you know, it's just shock and anger.

ROBERTSON: And that's exactly what they're feeling, John. The families who live nearby there, we've seen them protesting outside of the school. They're angry with the government. They're afraid of the Taliban. They want the government to do more to tackle the Taliban and it isn't just those parents. All across the country now, there are parents who are sending their children to school every day and now they're afraid because they don't know if it's their school next. They don't know if it's going to be their children next. At that school, it was an army school. A lot of the children were sons of army officers. Their job to protect the country, but they couldn't even save their children. So there is this real frustration, real fear and then anger as well, John.

BERMAN: Nic Robertson, thanks so much for being with us. That's an important story for everyone to see.

Just ahead, we're going to put a smile on your face. A trail blazing performer making history at the American ballet theater. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BERMAN: Tonight, a young woman is making ballet history. Misty Copeland is performing the lead role of Clara in "The Nutcracker" at the American Ballet Theater. She is the first African-American ballerina to do so in the company's 75 year history. Randi Kaye has more of Misty's story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: She's long been called an unlikely ballerina. But at 32 years old, Misty Copeland is the first African- American soloist in two decades at the prestigious American ballet theater. Her story is different than most ballerinas.

(on camera): You took your first ballet class at 13 ...

MISTY COPELAND, SOLOIST, AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE: Yeah.

KAYE: Which is a pretty late start in the ballet field, right?

COPELAND: It is, it is.

KAYE (voice over): Months after that first class in a boys and girls club in San Pedro, California, people were calling Misty a prodigy. She was just 17 when she joined the American Ballet Theater, but not everyone was quick to accept this ballerina, who didn't look like all the rest.

COPELAND: Dear candidate, thank you for your application to our ballet academy. Unfortunately, you have not been accepted. You have the feet, Achilles tendons, turnout, torso length and bust.

KAYE (on camera): Did you ever received a letter like that? Could you relate to that?

COPELAND: I did. My teacher said keep that letter because you're going to want to look back on it one day. As an adult, I was told that I didn't have the right skin color. I was too muscular. I was too curvy, my breasts were too big. I was too short.

KAYE: You wrote about an experience years ago where your friend overheard an American Ballet Theater staff member saying that you didn't fit in with your brown skin. Especially in a ballet like "Swan Lake." Do you remember how that affected you?

COPELAND: Yeah, I get emotional right now just thinking about it. I try to understand the person's perspective. And how deep rooted it is in the ballet culture. It's so easy for them to just say these things out loud and not understanding the effect it can have on someone.

KAYE: Misty proved her critics wrong and played the dual role of the white and black swan in "Swan Lake" in Australia and will re-prize the role for the Washington Ballet and the American Ballet Theater next year.

(on camera): I want to ask you that one moment when you saw you in front of the Met. (LAUGHTER)

KAYE: Is that - I mean did your heart just skip a beat?

COPELAND: It was overwhelming and I didn't see myself up there. I saw a black woman. And that was the part that made me so emotional, to see a black woman representing ballet, representing America's national ballet company on the front of the Metropolitan Opera House. And I was like, that's change.

KAYE (voice over): Randi Kaye, CNN, New York.

BERMAN: That's wonderful. That does it for us. We'll see you again at 11:00 p.m. for another edition of "360." Anthony Bourdain "Parts Unknown" starts now.