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Amanpour

NBC's Richard Engel and Crew Freed from Kidnappers; Discussing Guns and American Culture

Aired December 18, 2012 - 15:00   ET

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

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour.

So is the moment -- as Newtown, Connecticut, continues to bury an entire class of first-graders, 20 children, 6 and 7 years old, mowed down by gunfire along with their teachers -- is this the moment that America finally confronts its gun crisis? Maybe.

Yesterday on this program, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who has staunchly stuck to his guns, changed his tune and called for new gun laws.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOE MANCHIN, D-WEST VIRGINIA: Who would have ever thought in America or anywhere in the world that children would be slaughtered? You know, that -- it's changed me. But with that being said, people are afraid to talk about some things that just basically should be talked about.

AMANPOUR: So you're committed to change?

MANCHIN: I'm committed to bringing the dialogue that would bring a total change -- and I mean a total change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: The National Rifle Association, the tough pro-gun lobby that intimidates anyone who tries to loosen America's grip on its weapons, even the NRA has gone into hiding. It's taken down its Facebook page since the massacre happened. The NRA is no longer making friends and some say it'll stay silent until the furor dies down and the media turns away again.

But will we this time? The entire world is looking on in horror and disbelief. Other countries simply don't understand why America can't love its guns and make sure the most dangerous are not made so easily available.

Terrible events like this one have happened overseas, in Scotland, in Australia and other places. And when they do, the laws have been changed and the death toll went way down.

So why hasn't that happened in the United States? Tonight, I'll ask that question of a man who may be America's most distinguished journalist.

NBC's Tom Brokaw has interviewed every president since Lyndon Johnson, who came into office because John F. Kennedy was assassinated. And Brokaw has chronicled America's greatest triumphs, its deepest crises and its everyday life.

I'll speak with him in a moment about this terrible event of the last few days, but also about another important story, the rescue of NBC's chief international correspondent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): In a dangerous world, getting the story can be a most dangerous job, just ask NBC's Richard Engel.

RICHARD ENGEL, NBC CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The last five days are some days that we'd rather forget.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): And the greatest generation produced many heroes. One of them gave his all for his country and then he gave 50 years more.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: We'll get to that in a bit. But first veteran journalist Tom Brokaw. He's had a front row seat to all America's major cultural and political events over the past several decades. Tonight, I get his take on the Sandy Hook massacre and the culture of violence here in the United States.

Welcome to the program.

TOM BROKAW, TV JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR: Thank you, Christiane.

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: I'm sorry even to frame it like that, but that is what we're in right now, and that's what the world is looking at.

How did you react the day the Sandy Hook massacre happened?

BROKAW: Well, I was stunned like everyone else. I'm a grandparent now and as I thought about those youngsters in that classroom, and I have someone who's just that age as a grandchild, raised my own children and then of course empathy for all the parents, all the school administrators. And then I was in a rage. I was --

AMANPOUR: Enraged?

BROKAW: Enraged. And I was furious with the culture of violence that has taken over this country, the success of the gun lobby to continue to insist that we can have Bushmasters available --

AMANPOUR: Which are military-style weapons.

BROKAW: They're assault weapons. I've actually fired them. And they're beyond lethal. That's the only way to describe them. I've grown up with guns. I've had them since I was 10 years old. They're all sporting weapons.

And I've got a collection of them. And I don't think anyone's going to knock down my door and take my gun away, because if it gets to that point, we're beyond anarchy in our government; we've got problems beyond that, quite honestly.

AMANPOUR: Well, so let me ask you, because that clearly is the way -- I mean, I like to describe it as the paranoid fringe. They frame the argument in terms of if you take one -- made one law, you're taking our total liberty away.

How does one change that discussion and that -- ?

BROKAW: Well, I think this event is changing it, because you're already seeing senators and congressmen who have been supported by the NRA and have been proud of their A+ rating from the NRA --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: Like Joe Manchin.

BROKAW: We've got to change. And we've got to take a look at it because this is the tipping point. We have gone too far here. And there's no question about it. And it's not just this event, it's this entire year.

Wednesday of this past week, I was in Aurora, Colorado, on personal business. And as I drove through and looked at the street signs that said Aurora, I thought, it's already faded from our consciousness. That was a terrible tragedy, 12 people killed in a movie theater, another assault weapon involved.

Then we had the Sikh temple shooting in Wisconsin, the shopping center shooting in Oregon and they didn't break the waterline in the presidential debates or in discussion in this country about who we are. We've got to get beyond that. And the way we're going to get beyond it, quite honestly, is not from the top down but from the bottom up.

AMANPOUR: So how do we, then -- we give the bottom up the space? Let me just show you a graph that we actually put together -- our producers put together. You mentioned Aurora. And of course, before that, there was -- there was Virginia Tech and there was the shooting of Gabby Giffords and killing people around her --

(CROSSTALK)

BROKAW: And Columbine is (inaudible).

AMANPOUR: And Columbine, of course, which you covered.

But the point is, look at this graph. Before and during, there's a lot of -- there's a lot of coverage during. But we're five weeks after these events, look at where coverage tails off.

So how do our politicians get kept on the hot seat? How does the NRA not hide when we're not paying any attention to it?

BROKAW: Well, the IRA (sic) is one of the most successful --

AMANPOUR: NRA. I keep making that mistake as well.

BROKAW: -- the NRA. The NRA is the most -- one of the most successful political single-interest groups I have ever encountered. I've been dealing with them for years. I once did a documentary on guns in America, called "Family and Guns," about some people who are very responsible -- most of them are -- and why they have an affection for guns and how they use them in their families.

I went to the NRA national convention in Salt Lake City before we aired a frame of it. They unleashed a torrent of criticism about how unfair we were going to be and anytime anyone does anything that even suggests that there ought to be new regulations, they come after them, money, marbles and chalk. And they have a very well defined constituency.

Four years ago, when President Obama got elected -- I spent a lot of time in Montana, as you know. One of my friends out there said how much ammunition do you want me to stockpile for you? And I said, what are you talking about? He said, "He's going to take away all of our ammunition. We're all stockpiling it." The rumor mill was rampant.

Last summer, Wayne LaPierre went before --

AMANPOUR: He's the head of the NRA.

BROKAW: -- head of the NRA went before conservative groups and said he's just waiting for a second term to do this. Again. Ammunition was stockpiled across the country because they thought their weapons were going to be taken away from them.

And what happened is that that political paranoia takes hold; President Obama didn't want to address it because he was hoping to get Nevada and Colorado and some of those key Western states. He didn't want to go there. And the Republicans, obviously, are held hostage by the gun lobby as well.

And this cycle has to be broken.

AMANPOUR: So do you see -- and at least this is a tipping point. But yesterday I talked to our Jeffrey Toobin, a well-known legal expert and writer on this, and he said to me there's no way President Obama is even going to tackle this in a second term.

Is that too cynical? Already he's talking about supporting reintroducing the Clinton ban on assault weapons. And they're hinting maybe he might talk about high-capacity magazines, ammunition magazines.

Where do you think this is going to go?

BROKAW: Well, I think we're going to find out in the next couple of weeks, Christiane. I mean, Dianne Feinstein said on "MEET THE PRESS" Sunday she's going to reintroduce the assault weapon ban. Doesn't mean that guns are going to go away. What it does mean is that we can get guns back in proportion in our lives.

It also means that this has got a lot of legs to it. The other legs are the culture of violence, video games that are way beyond graphic, movies' gratuitous violence. And no discussion about that. Doesn't mean that they can't be made, but does it mean that every family should have a dialogue about it? Is it (inaudible) become part of the community convention? Yes.

What do we do about people who are mentally disturbed in some fashion? It's very hard to get them in anywhere. And if you're a gun dealer and you call and make a check, you can't count on getting an accurate read on your customer who's coming in the door, wanting to buy one of these weapons, which at the moment, are legal.

So there are a lot of parts to it. It is complex. But it means everybody has to get to the table.

AMANPOUR: What everybody, like Senator Manchin says, you also have to bring the NRA to the table. You cannot just assault them, so to speak, with this. They have to be part of the solution. But is that even possible, given their extreme views? At least the views of the leadership, if you look at where people in America are, they're much more evolved than the leadership of the NRA. The majority want to see some kind of legislation.

BROKAW: Well, we'll see. I mean, they're very candid. So we'll see. They're very political. I've been reading a lot of the blogs and a lot of the websites. And so far, the NRA, run by David Keene, who's been around for a long time; he's a well-known conservative activist who also has enormous affection for guns and has taken over the NRA as the president, Wayne LaPierre, is their political operative.

We'll see, because they'll begin to get pressure from some members of their membership. But as I've been reading the blogs and the websites, they've not been going so much to the guns as they have been to the absence of God in our society, the deterioration of the family. That's what's caused all of this. They're finding other ways to try and --

AMANPOUR: Right, hijacking the discussion.

But when you put it to them, that, look, this is what happened in Britain in 1996; Dunblane, a terrible, terrible massacre, Tony Blair confronted the powerful gun lobby and they did put in legislation that, over the years, has seen a massive drop-off in gun crime; the same in Australia. When you put those incontrovertible facts to them, do you think that they have an answer?

BROKAW: We have a different culture. We're not Great Britain or Australia. Guns have been part of the fabric of American life forever and --

AMANPOUR: But we're not just talking about guns. We're talking about semi-automatics and assault weapons.

BROKAW: I understand that. But what's happened is that there's been an evolution in which they believe that that now, too, is part of their citizen's right to have. You know, I say, look; I'm -- I also believe in free speech and the 1st Amendment is as unconditionally you read it as the 2nd Amendment. But you can't call fire in a crowded theater. I mean, there are conditions on it.

AMANPOUR: So do you think that -- you said grassroots up. For instance, Mothers against Drunk Driving. You remember years go --

BROKAW: I've been using that. I actually wrote about that on my last book, "The Time of Our Lives," saying the best example I know of a grassroots movement from the bottom up was Candy Lightner.

And Marilyn, her daughter got killed by a drunk driver at a time when we all kind of shaded our eyes about drinking and driving and there was a lot of carnage on the streets and it was kind of all braggadocio about I had a six-pack last night, got in the car; I don't know how I got home. That came to an end.

It changed the social landscape. It changed the way bars and restaurants operate. It changed law enforcement in America. A breathalyzer is now a fixed part of any auto accident and everyone has to take it.

AMANPOUR: So it's possible. I mean, the gun lobby types and the pro- gun activists, say, oh, there are too many guns in this country. There's no way we can make a start. But do you think it's possible after all that you've seen and all that you've reported on?

BROKAW: Well, I think it's possible. But what we also have to pick out the parts and also make everyone come to the table and that includes the whole business about, look, most of the shooters in Aurora and in Connecticut were dressed in combat gear. I mean, they had on the uniforms that you see in video games.

AMANPOUR: And on the battlefield.

BROKAW: And you see on the battlefield and you see in many -- too many YouTube videos and other places and the gratuitous violence that goes on, this is not entirely a different subject. But earlier this year, there was a wonderful documentary about bullying in schools.

AMANPOUR: Bullying, yes.

BROKAW: Bullying in schools. And again, it was -- it's acceptable because they see it in rock videos; they see it in game; they see it in popular films of one kind or another. And no one is saying, well, hey, wait a minute. We got to have a discussion about this.

AMANPOUR: Well, it's --

BROKAW: And I -- and I -- you know, I think we do have to have this discussion. And I hope my friends in the West where I spend so much of my time and, look, most of the gun owners I know are extraordinarily responsible. They put them in a gun safe. They're only used for sporting purposes. They don't want to get involved in this Bushmaster stuff.

Nobody takes a Bushmaster out hunting, for example. It's a lethal killing machine. That's what it's all about.

AMANPOUR: Stand by. We'll be back with you right after a break. And in a moment, we'll have more, as I said, with Tom Brokaw on a subject that he knows all too well, the risks reporters run in getting a story.

In Syria, NBC correspondent Richard Engel just dodged a bullet, literally. But before we take a break, we've been talking about gun control, of course, and guns in school.

Take a look at this picture. There are some places in the world where guns are needed in the classroom to keep them open. In Somalia, this teacher instructs his students in the Koran, armed with an AK-47. For 20 years, Al Qaeda, known there as Al Shabaab, has waged war on teachers, students and education itself. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. I'm back again with my guest, Tom Brokaw, to continue talking about guns but also to talk about the really good news we had today.

Richard Engel, chief foreign correspondent for NBC, was freed along with his crew after five days in captivity in Syria. He had been seized -- they had been seized by a crew of armed kidnappers late last week. This morning, Engel told his story.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ENGEL: As we were moving down the road, a group of gunmen just literally jumped out of the trees and bushes on the side of the road. There were probably 15 gunmen. They were wearing ski masks. They were heavily armed. They dragged us out of the car. They had a container truck positioned, waiting by the side of the road.

They put us into that container truck. We were with some gunmen, some rebels who were escorting us. They executed one of them on the spot. And they took us to a series of safe houses and interrogation places. And they kept us blindfolded, bound. We weren't physically beaten or tortured; it's a lot of psychological torture.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Psychological torture, like subjecting them to mock executions, making them choose who would be shot first. Engel believes his kidnappers were members of the shabiha, the militia allied with President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and that his captors had hoped to exchange them for Iranian agents that are held by the Syrian opposition.

Yesterday the kidnappers ran into a rebel checkpoint while moving the hostages and in the ensuing gunfight, two of the captors were killed and Engel and his crew safely released.

His cameraman, John Kooistra, had this to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KOOISTRA, CAMERAMAN: During the ordeal, I made -- I make amends with my Maker. I made good with my Maker. I made good with myself. I was prepared to die many times.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: It's the nightmare that shadows all of us who report from the world's danger zones. As anchor and managing editor of NBC News, Tom Brokaw had closely overseen Richard Engel from the first days at the network.

So, obviously, you must have been thrilled today; you knew about it since the day he was kidnapped.

BROKAW: I did, and I was out doing something else in the West. I was actually appearing with Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra for their Christmas show and album. And so I was living two lives, because I was sending mental images to Richard, saying, stay cool. I've known about it from the moment he disappeared.

And there was just very little news at the beginning. And it was a long way away. And we had no connections at that point. Then it started to get better. A lot of people were involved. I can't give all the details now; we'll hear more about them later. But one of the things that happened -- and John Kooistra is an example of that.

He talked about it later; they've all gone through hostage training about how to behave if you're taken hostage, what to do. And he described it, one of our -- my colleagues, saying he went to his happy place. You go into -- you find another thing to think about besides where you are at the moment.

AMANPOUR: Indeed. And that's become such a -- such an element of news coverage, everyone, CNN sends abroad also, has that kind of training.

But as managing editor, as anchor, when you were, did you ever have second thoughts, qualms, like many of our leaders do about sending us into these places?

BROKAW: Constantly. There's a risk and reward. We have that conversation again this morning. Now that Richard is out, I said, one of the after action evaluations we have to do is what are the risks and what are the rewards for these assignments.

And in Syria, as you know, there can be no more dangerous place in the world. There are no lines; there are so many factions that are fighting at this time. It is the definition of anarchy. But at the same time, you've got to get on the ground to find out what is going on.

Oddly enough, we'd sent Richard into Mexico earlier and some of our internal security people said that's too dangerous. But I said, wait a minute; we're sending him to Syria constantly.

AMANPOUR: Everything's becoming too dangerous. You're on the Committee to Protect Journalists; I am as well. It's one of the most dangerous years for journalists as each year becomes -- and Syria's one of the most dangerous places. We have lost so many.

BROKAW: I checked before I came over, 67 of us (inaudible) so far this year as opposed to 47 a year ago.

AMANPOUR: I mean, it is -- it is absolutely awful.

But on the other hand, you talk about risk and reward, and I think about this a lot, because in a Syria, in a Sandy Hook, if journalists aren't on the ground, how does this national and international discussion happen? Don't journalists have to be on the ground so that politicians don't have anywhere to hide?

BROKAW: Yes, I do think that they do. But look, no one's been out there more than you have, Christiane. And you know people always say, don't cross the line. And that great line from "Broadcast News," "They keep moving that sucker." You don't quite know where the line is until you get there.

Remember during Lebanon, when that was going on, you know, you didn't know what neighborhood you were in and how dangerous it was going to be. During the Iraq War, you were not -- you know, it was a stateless war, in effect. The lines were changing every day. And the danger is all around you.

But at the end of the day, what you don't want to do is say to your correspondent or any of the technicians, man or woman, I just want you to go out there and risk it, because we got to get this story on the air. You've got to keep it in proportion. And that's always a very, very tricky balance. And the thing that was comforting to me is that I knew this group. And I knew how seasoned they were.

And Richard is daring. Sometimes he pushes the envelope a little more than I'd like him to. In fact, just last Tuesday, before we knew about this, I ran into his father. And I said, "He's doing so well. But I worry about him," and he said, "So do i."

And then on Thursday we had another conversation. So --

AMANPOUR: Well, he's back and his crew's back and they do great work.

BROKAW: They do great work. I mean, I'm so proud of him, I can't tell you. I mean, he is a correspondent's correspondent, as you know. I mean, you're across the street, but he's in the Christiane Amanpour mold.

(LAUGHTER)

AMANPOUR: Well, we're all in the same mold. In any event, it's great. But here's another question I want to ask you, talking about the international perspective. I've been pretty stunned by the way certain countries have reacted to Sandy Hook. Obviously, there's been an outpouring of condolence and grief and shock and horror.

And countries that you might least expect, like China and others, are saying hang on a second. This is the country, the United States --

BROKAW: You want us to emulate?

AMANPOUR: Yes -- that is about human rights, that is about democracy, that is about preaching the right policies. How do you think the world is looking at us right now?

BROKAW: Well, I think that you know, for the last several years, they've looked at us in a -- in an entirely different way. But I think what we have to concentrate on is what we want to be, not just what the rest of the world wants to imprint on us. We have to decide for ourselves what we want to be. Is this what we want as a legacy of our time, all of us, however old we are?

I'm 72 years old. I'm thinking a lot more of these days about what I leave behind. This is not what I want to leave behind. I don't want this on my scorecard. I don't want this on my -- on my sheet of some kind. So I made a speech in San Francisco yesterday to a very prominent Jesuit preparatory school alumni business group.

And I was tough. And I've got to tell you, I was astonished and encouraged by the reaction, by them -- everybody kind of said, in effect, we've got to sign up. We've got to get to the table. We've got to do something about this.

And on the way out the door, the San Francisco police chief, who I did not know was there, looked at me and he went thumbs up, because law enforcement is in the line of fire of all this stuff. If that guy had not killed himself as those officers rush in, he probably would have taken out two or three cops as well with that Bushmaster.

AMANPOUR: It really is a moment. And we said, is this the moment, I really hope it is.

BROKAW: Well, Christiane, here's something we all have to think about. We condemn in our minds and politically a Shia who goes into a Sunni mosque and detonates a suicide vest of some kind. We say, how barbaric is that?

How barbaric is what happened in Sandy Hook the other day?

And if we want to think of ourselves as a great nation, held together by rule of law, and by a culture that is the common bond of an immigrant place where we come from everywhere else, this is a cancer on that. And we have to think of it that way.

AMANPOUR: Indeed.

Tom Brokaw, thank you so much.

BROKAW: My pleasure.

AMANPOUR: What wisdom.

And we'll be back with a final thought after a break.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, imagine an American hero who was first in war and first in peace. No, it wasn't George Washington, but a Japanese American named Daniel Inouye. Now imagine him on December 7th, 1941, a high school student in Honolulu, with dreams of becoming a surgeon.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that day changed all of that, like other young Americans, he wanted to serve his country. But Japanese Americans weren't allowed to enlist. And many were interned in one of the darkest chapters of American history. He had to wait two years until the U.S. Army created an all-Japanese American regiment that became the nation's most decorated military unit.

In 1945, two weeks before the war ended in Europe, Lt. Inouye was hit by machine gun fire, severing his right arm. Even though his right hand was still clutching a live grenade, incredibly, he used his left hand to pry it loose and he threw that grenade, saving his platoon, an act of conspicuous gallantry worthy of a Medal of Honor.

But , again, he had to wait until the year 2000, when President Bill Clinton placed the nation's highest military honor around his neck. His dream of becoming a surgeon ended when he lost his arm. But when Hawaii became a state in 1959, Inouye went to Washington and he remained there for over 50 years as congressman and then senator, speaking softly but with strong conviction.

As chairman of the Iran-Contra hearings in 1987, he spoke prophetically about what some have come to call American exceptionalism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. DANIEL INOUYE, D-HI.: Vigilance abroad does not require us to abandon our ideals or rule of law at home. On the contrary, without our principles and without our ideals, we have little that is special or worthy to defend.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: It is that exceptionalism that still needs defending, as you heard from Tom Brokaw, to get rid of the cancer that Sandy Hook shows. Inouye died yesterday at the age of 88, his last word fittingly was "Aloha." We don't know if he was saying goodbye or hello, but that's it for our program. Thanks for watching. Goodbye from New York.

END