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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Boston Priest Accused of 30 Years of Sexual Molestation

Aired January 15, 2002 - 22:00   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, NEWSNIGHT CORRESPONDENT: Thank you, and good evening again everyone. We are in Los Angeles tonight, and for the rest of the week.

There are many things about this job I love. Tomorrow morning will not be one of them. Twice a year, the TV critics from newspapers around the country come to southern California for a world-class dog and pony show, and tomorrow is CNN's day, and so bright an early, too early for the jet-lag to pass, we'll spend a couple of hours answering their questions. Needless to say, I'd rather be the one asking.

I did this six months ago when I first arrived at CNN and I promised the critics then that we would do a program that was interesting and respectful to the news always, that it would be well written and thoughtful, different, and sometimes fun. Tomorrow they'll decide, I guess, whether we kept our word, but in many ways you've already decided.

So it's part of the job and it's winter, and rather than miss a program flying back home tomorrow, we thought we'd spend the week here with a little luck, finding a bit of warm weather and a few good California stories as well.

And the big story of the day has, if you stretch the point a little, a California angle. Formal charges filed today against John Walker, a child of Marin County in northern California, more recently a Taliban soldier, and that's where we begin our whip around the world tonight and the correspondents covering it.

We begin with Susan Candiotti who's in Washington and dealing with the Walker case. Susan, quickly a headline from you please.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Aaron. In Los Angeles, it's the decision that as journalists we've been hounding sources about for weeks. When will John Walker be charged?

Tonight the waiting is over. Walker escapes a possible death sentence, but the case against him could mean a lifetime behind bars. We'll outline the charges and share his family's reaction from California.

BROWN: Susan, thank you, back with you. There was Enron news being made today. Jonathan Karl in Washington has been working that story for us. Jon, a headline from you please. JONATHAN KARL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, as a key U.S. Senator becomes the latest political figure to consider recusing himself from the investigation, the Enron scandal is giving new momentum to an old issue, campaign finance reform.

BROWN: Jon, thank you, and another very upsetting crime case out of Boston to report. A priest accused of abusing young boys for decades, the church's action in this case or inaction at the very heart of it. CNN's Bill Delaney is in Boston. Bill, a headline from you please.

BILL DELANEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know Aaron, as you said for more than a generation, for more than 30 years, a Boston area priest is accused of committing an epic series of sexual molestations of young boys, as the Catholic Church allegedly looked the other way. A criminal proceeding against John Geoghanhas begun here. We'll have a report.

BROWN: Bill, thank you, back with all of you shortly. As we promised, we have a lot going on out of our LA Bureau tonight. We'll have a fight that goes right to the heart of the exclusive Malibu area of Los Angeles. The public wants to enjoy the beach. The residents there, some pretty famous residents, want their privacy. We'll take a look at it.

Another fight, this one man against wild pigs. Segment 7 doesn't get much stranger than this, though Segment 7's only a week and a half old. Tonight it comes from a guy we like a lot, named Scott Harat. We'll have Scott's report later.

And we're delighted to have with us tonight, a little bit later, a comic legend. You might think it's easy to throw that title around, comic legend. You might think it's described in some sitcom star or late night talk show host, but it truly fits Mort Saul, and if you don't believe us, ask Woody Allen. Mort Saul, a political satirist for 40 years now in the country, will join us in LA. All of that coming up in the hour ahead.

We begin with the charges against John Walker, the man who became known as the American Taliban. Ever since Walker was discovered in that prison in Mazar-e Sharif, this case has been a captivating one and a complex one as well. There was this cultural war angle to the whole thing, the kid who came from a well-off northern California family. Some thought young John Walker was the product of over- indulgent parents who didn't discipline enough nor ask enough questions.

The other fascinating angle and the most important angle to us is the legal one. What will he be charged with? How and where will he be tried? Might he face the death penalty? We got some answers to those questions from the Justice Department today, and we're told that President Bush signed off personally on Walker's fate about 10 days ago. Joining us again from Washington now, CNN's Susan Candiotti. Susan, good evening.

CANDIOTTI: Hello, Aaron. Since John Walker's capture, officials have always indicated it was not a matter of whether but when and where he'd be charged. Tonight the American teen who left home at 16 to study overseas is charged with conspiring to kill Americans outside the U.S. and helping terrorists. He won't be tried by court martial, but in the same Federal Court outside Washington D.C. as alleged terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI (voice over): American Taliban John Walker, who also went by the name Suleyman al-Faris will be tried in Federal Court on four counts. None carries the death sentence, but Walker could face life behind bars.

JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: At each crossroad, Walker faced a choice, and with each choice, he chose to ally himself with terrorists.

CANDIOTTI: The charges are Conspiracy to Kill American outside the U.S., two counts of providing material support to terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, and providing services to the Taliban. Walker was interviewed by CIA Agent Johnny Michael Spann before a prison uprising, during which Spann was killed.

ASHCROFT: He chose to embrace fanatics, and his allegiance to those fanatics and terrorist never faltered, not even with the knowledge that they had murdered thousands of his countrymen, not with the knowledge that they were engaged in a war with the United States.

CANDIOTTI: According to the criminal complaint, Walker met with Osama bin Laden three to five times during al Qaeda training.

ASHCROFT: On one of these occasions, Walker met personally with bin Laden, who according to Walker "thanked him for taking part in jihad."

CANDIOTTI: Sometime after June of last year, court documents state, "Walker learned from one of his instructors that bin Laden had sent people to the U.S. to carry out several suicide missions."

It does not specify whether Walker knew any details. Authorities say Walker waived his Miranda rights in writing before he was interviewed by the FBI. The complaint cites a CNN interview with Walker after his capture as evidence of his allegiance to the Taliban.

WALKER: So I started to read some of their literature of their scholars and the history of the movement and my heart became attached to them.

CANDIOTTI: Walker's family said in a statement, "We are disappointed the government has held and interrogated John for 45 days without allowing any messages from his family or access to his attorney." And added, "we pray for a just resolution of this case." Walker is being held on a U.S. Navy ship in the Arabian Sea.

(END VIDEOTAPE) CANDIOTTI (on camera): As soon as the travel orders are official, Walker will be transferred to the U.S. His family may get a chance to see him then, but if the Justice Department pattern holds true, any parental visit could be monitored by authorities. Aaron.

BROWN: A couple of quick ones. Has he yet met with an attorney that we know of?

CANDIOTTI: Not to the best of our knowledge. In fact, his attorney this night is still complaining about that.

BROWN: And do we have any sense of a timetable on the trial? We know the Moussaoui trial is scheduled for October, mid-October. Do we have any timetable here?

CANDIOTTI: Well, we do know this. As you recall too, that same District Court in Alexandria, Virginia is known as being the rocket docket. So we anticipate that any trial could come quickly, but then again just like the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, no doubt a lot of classified material may be involved here and it could take a while before this goes to trial.

BROWN: Susan, thank you. Susan Candiotti in Washington tonight. Today's announcement from the Justice Department brings us a little closer to figuring out what will be next for John Walker. There are still lots of questions, and in what we assume is going to be the understatement of this night. This is a very strange case. It's a mix of civilian charges for what in the end was a military action.

We looked around for the right person to talk to. We think we found him. Someone who is familiar with both the military and the civilian courts, Retired Army Major General Michael Nardotti, former Judge Advocate General, basically military lawyer, and he joins us from Washington. Good evening, sir.

MAJOR GENERAL MICHAEL NARDOTTI, U.S. ARMY (RET): Good evening, Aaron.

BROWN: Let me ask what I think is a fairly simple question that I suspect viewers might be asking. Why not Treason?

NARDOTTI: I think the discussion that's been out in the public domain already has demonstrated, it's highlighted many of the difficulties in trying this case, or trying Mr. Walker for Treason.

As the Attorney General mentioned today, it is specified in the Constitution that you need a confession in open court, or you need the testimony of two witnesses. Under the circumstances, that may have been very difficult to get, and I think the prosecutors in this case, given the sensitivity of the case, the importance and the visibility of it, were certainly going to settle on something that they were confident that they could prove.

And as the Attorney General specified today, he believes that they are confident they can prove the charges that are in the complaint, and in looking at the supporting affidavit for that complaint, the details about his statement, there's clearly a lot of evidence there in support of the charges that have been made.

BROWN: All right. Let me play defense lawyer for a while, something I'm clearly not educated to do. First of all, he has not had access to lawyers. He clearly has made, he has talked a lot. Is there evidence that, other than his own words here?

NARDOTTI: Well the affidavit that they have, that is submitted with the complaint are the words of the FBI Agent. They will, of course, in providing his statement in court have to demonstrate that the statement that they submit has proof of his guilt or his words, not simply the words, the summation of what he said to a particular agent. And the agent made clear in the statement that not everything that he said was included in the supporting affidavit.

So it would be the burden of the government to demonstrate the substance in the statement that proves the charges, that the statement was voluntarily given and that he was properly advised of his rights.

BROWN: Can you aid and abet an enemy in an undeclared war?

NARDOTTI: Yes.

BROWN: Who's the enemy?

NARDOTTI: I think what's determined here - first of all, the charges that have been made against him don't require as a predicate that this occur during wartime. It's the predicate for engaging in - the initial charge of engaging in a conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals outside the United States, is clearly made, assuming the accuracy of what's been summarized and reported, his actions in taking up arms against the Northern Alliance and U.S. troops doesn't require a declared war. It is certainly the type of activity, which falls into the category of engaging in a conspiracy to kill. Material support - I'm sorry.

BROWN: I'm sorry. Let me try and get one more in. We've got about a half a minute. Could he have in fact been tried under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, military law? Would that have even been an option for the government?

NARDOTTI: Yes, it would have. There is an Article of the Uniform Code of Military Justice which, unlike virtually every other crime defined in the Uniform Code, applies to all persons. It is Article 104, and it describes the offense of aiding the enemy. And under the terms of that Article a civilian, in this case a citizen John Walker, could have been charged with aiding the enemy and put before either a court martial or a military tribunal.

BROWN: And I've got no time for this, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Does he have a better chance of defending himself in a civilian court than he would have had in a military court?

NARDOTTI: Well, I could give you a scenario where I believe he actually could have an advantage in being tried by a military court martial over a civilian jury. If you want me to try to do that, in the time allowed I will do that. BROWN: No, but I think you made the point that it's not a very clear answer one way or another. It depends how you look at it. Mr. Nardotti, thanks for joining us. I appreciate it.

NARDOTTI: My pleasure, Aaron, thank you.

BROWN: And I suspect we'll talk again as this case moves along. Thank you. A couple of other quick war related items here. Another group of 30 detainees departed now from Kandahar en route to Guantanamo Bay. They'll join the 50 other detainees who have already been flown to the base and are there now in two earlier flights.

At the same time, the marines guarding the air base at Kandahar discovered a huge cache of weapons hidden in caves and beneath houses in the area, about a half a mile from the airport. The marines decided to search the area after detecting at least seven intruders inside the security perimeter of the air base. They say this is the same area, you might recall this, where the shooting came from as that first planeload of al Qaeda detainees left for Cuba. If memory serves me, that was Friday, last Friday. A quick look at the Walker case and the war.

Up next on NEWSNIGHT, a trial that lays bare to what was once a terrible secret in the archdiocese of Boston. This is NEWSNIGHT from Los Angeles.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: More developments in the Enron mess. They just seem to keep coming. Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm, today fired its top auditor in charge of Enron, the man said to be behind an effort to destroy documents in the firm's Houston office related to Enron.

Andersen also put three other auditors on leave, and is replacing the management of that Houston office. Enron's stock today was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange, taken off. That's the Big Board's equivalent of a mercy killing.

This story has caused an uproar in Houston, an uproar on Wall Street, and of course in Washington, although the finger-pointing there is a little bit different than usual partisan battle, because Enron dollars had been spread far and wide on both sides of the aisle.

So far and wide that an old issue is getting a new look, campaign finance reform. We're joined again tonight by CNN's Jonathan Karl in Washington. Jonathan, good evening.

KARL: Well, Aaron, as investigators pour through 80 boxes of documents that have already been dumped up here on Capitol Hill related to Enron, 10,000 pages, there are new indications everyday about just the extent of Enron's political contacts throughout the political world, influence that went far beyond mere campaign contributions to campaigns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KARL (voice over): Much of the focus on Enron's influence has been on the political contributions and for good reason. The company doled out nearly $6 million to Congressional and Presidential campaigns, including $3.6 million in unregulated soft money to the political parties, more than 70 percent of the money going to Republicans.

SENATOR CARL LEVIN (D) MICHIGAN: I mean this creates an appearance here which simply must be eliminated, an appearance that money can have not only the purchase of access, but the purchase of influence.

KARL: But all that cash dumped into campaigns is just the tip of the Enron iceberg. The company was an even bigger player when it came to lobbying, spending $7.6 million to line up a lobbying force that included several well-connected Democrats.

Enron's army of lobbyists included Jack Quinn, former White House counsel to Bill Clinton; Greg Simon, a top advisor to Al Gore's Presidential campaign; and Michael Lewin, Senator Joe Lieberman's former Chief of Staff. Money also flowed to Democratic organizations, including $50,000 to the New Democratic Network, founded by Lieberman, and at least $50,000 to the Democratic Leadership Council, a group founded in part by Clinton and Gore.

To get a sense of Enron's reach, follow the recusals. Texas Attorney General John Cornyn who has received more than $150,000 from Enron opted out of the investigation, following U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's lead. And the entire U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston also had to step aside.

In Washington, Texas Senator Phil Graham says he is considering recusing himself. Graham's wife Wendy earned approximately $300,000 for serving on Enron's Board of Directors.

SCOTT HARSHBARGER, PRESIDENT, COMMON CAUSE: What Enron got here was what everybody who gives this money seeks, influence, access, a chance to be heard, but also a chance not to be overseen by government, when in many, many cases they ought to be overseen.

KARL: All Enron's political money certainly bought access, but as the scandal unfolds, it may have an unintended consequence resurrecting an issue that seemed to have died last year, campaign finance reform.

REPRESENTATIVE MARTY MEEHAN (D) MASSACHUSETTS: I believe we will get campaign finance reform, and to the extent that his scandal helps motivate members of Congress to pass campaign finance reform, then maybe that could be a good thing to come out of this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KARL (on camera): And there was a significant development on that front today. Florida Democrat Corine Brown became another supporter, the latest supporter of campaign finance reform, the latest person to sign the petition that would force a vote on the House of Representatives on the issue.

Now supporters of campaign finance reform are just two signatures away from forcing a vote, a full debate in the House of Representatives on their issue. If that happens and they prevail, that would land campaign finance reform, a bill on the President's desk just as this Enron scandal is unfolding -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jon, thank you. Jonathan Karl in Washington on the Hill for us tonight. This next story is so full of pain, it's hard to report. There have been many stories like this over the last decade or more, but this one may be the worst example of it on a couple of fronts.

A priest accused of molesting hundreds of boys over decades, and the Catholic Church and what it didn't do to stop him. Sometimes the church has defended itself in these cases by saying it did not know. This is going to be a tough argument here, and in fact, the Archbishop in Boston just last week apologized for the church's role in this sad and awful case.

Today, a jury was seated in Cambridge to hear the first case against the priest. Bill Delaney, who seems to be spending a lot of time in courtrooms these days, was back there today. Bill, good evening.

DELANEY: Good evening, Aaron. The same court where Thomas Junta in that hockey father case as last week, now will take up the case of John Geoghan, accused as you said of years of sexual molestation of young boys at six different parishes in the Boston area. Criminal proceedings, the first criminal proceeding resumes tomorrow morning in Middlesex Superior Court in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This very Catholic city of Boston will be watching, as will many grown men who say long ago, John Geoghan stole their innocence.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DELANEY (voice over): Joseph Dulong, sometime in the next few days or weeks in a Cambridge, Massachusetts courtroom would like to return this statue of St. Joseph and the child Jesus to the man who gave it to him nearly 40 years ago, former priest, John Geoghan, now facing the first of three criminal trials for sexual misconduct with children.

JOSEPH DULONG, VICTIM OF SEXUAL MOLESTATION: He gave me this statue one day behind the closed doors of his bedroom. I'm going to give this back to him so that I can reclaim life of the little boy that he took away.

DELANEY: Dulong, a former altar boy says Geoghan sexually abused him for four years, from ages 8 to 12. One of some 130 stories, through six different Boston area parishes, for more than 30 years of alleged repeated child sexual abuse by the man known as Father Jack. A final transfer to Saint Julia's Parish in the wealthy suburb Westin, approved by present Boston Cardinal Bernard Law, who last week apologized with excuses. CARDINAL BERNARD LAW, ARCHDIOCESE OF BOSTON: However, much I regret having assigned him, John Geoghan was never assigned by me to a parish without psychiatric or medical assessments indicating that such assignments were appropriate.

DELANEY: Saint Julia's would be Geoghan's final parish before he began working with elderly priests. In the mid-'90s though, alleged victims, now adults, began to speak up.

DULONG: He clearly doesn't think he did anything wrong from my understanding, because he was never really appropriately disciplined. His frame of reference was, this is an OK thing to do.

DELANEY: Answering 50 civil suits with 84 more pending, the Catholic Church has paid out $10 million so far. In 1998, the church defrocked Geoghan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DELANEY (on camera): What happened here in Boston has resounded to the Vatican. As of last week, the Vatican declared that all Bishops who get wind of any priestly sexual misconduct with children must bring those allegations directly to the Vatican. The accusations will be kept secret.

Now here in Massachusetts, here in Boston, any such allegations when clergy learn of these allegations of priestly sexual misconduct with young boys, must be taken now directly to state authorities, unless the revelations come in the sanctuary of the confessional -- Aaron.

BROWN: Boston, I don't know that Boston has had more of these than any other Archdiocese. I remember personally doing a story there. What has been the reaction of the Catholic community in Boston?

DELANEY: Well, one thing last Sunday, Aaron, a lot of Catholics in and around Boston expected to hear about this from the pulpit on Sunday in sermons, and so far as we can tell, there were virtually no sermons about the subject at all. The priests simply didn't touch it.

Now if you talk to Catholic friends of yours, if you listen to talk radio, that really bothered Catholics. One Catholic scholar I spoke to today suggested that that silence from the pulpit on Sunday certainly would have had to come in the form of an order from the Cardinal not to talk about the subject.

BROWN: Bill, thank you. Bill Delaney in Boston. We'll pay a lot of attention to this, as the trial moves on. Quickly, let me introduce our next guest.

Rod Dreher writes a good deal about the Catholic Church and supportively about the church and has for some time. He's a senior writer for the "National Review." His latest piece is called "Boston Tragedy: American Bishops Hurt Their Own" and he joins us, Mr. Dreher does, from New York. Good evening, sir, it's nice to have you hear. ROD DREHER, "NATIONAL REVIEW": Glad to be here.

BROWN: Is this in some ways the same thing only just worse in the sense that the church, in the way the church itself has behaved?

DREHER: We see this over and over again in these cases, the child molestation. The church hierarchy will not take responsibility for disciplining these priests or protecting small children, and for policing itself.

And you have to wonder, when will the outrage finally force the church to do something, to start cashiering these bishops who cover up and cover up and cover up, and cause so much heartbreak to Catholics, especially Catholics like me who are very faithful to the church, loyally support the church and the Holy Father and the church's teachings. This is unacceptable.

BROWN: Why? Why do they do this? Why do they protect these people?

DREHER: Why do they protect them? I think it's because it's an old boys network. They care more - not all bishops. There are some good bishops, but many bishops care more about protecting the good name of the church and their friends, than protecting the small children, the weakest members of the church and families from pedophiles.

And I think that if you start reporting on this story, you'd find that there is a network in many chanceries, in many seminaries around the country of people who do act out sexually, priests, who are protective of each other and don't want to tell on each other, and I think the silence has to stop.

BROWN: This thing is about to actually get a little bit, or maybe not so little bit uglier. I think it's 10 days from now this massive cache of documents is going to be released. What do you know about them?

DREHER: These documents are thousands of papers relating to Father Geoghan and his ministry in the archdiocese of Boston. All we know about them is that they will give a paper trail of what the diocese knew and when it knew it about Father Geoghan.

Now there are like 90 civil suits out and these suits name Cardinal Law, who will be deposed in some of these suits, which is unprecedented and humiliating for the church for a cardinal, and it names five other current Catholic Bishops in the United States, including the Archbishop of New Orleans and the Bishop of Brooklyn. All of them had supervisory capacity over Father Geoghan at some point during his illustrious career.

I think that the church is going to be humiliated by these revelations coming on January 25th, because we'll know exactly what the church knew and when it knew it.

BROWN: Rod, as a non-Catholic looking at this, sometimes I think of the church here as perpetrator, and in a different way I think of it as victim here in this sense, that these sorts of things, these terrible tragedies and inactions by the church are used against the church more broadly.

DREHER: Absolutely, Aaron. You find every time something like this comes out, all the malcontents and dissenters within the church, who complain about the church's teaching on abortion, on women's ordination or a host of issues, always come piggyback on these hideous cases of pedophilia. And you also find that there are a tremendous number of very good priests -- good, faithful, loyal priests -- who love children and would never harm children, they're suddenly brought under suspicion. I have a good friend of mine who's a priest who can't -- who loves kids, and he can't be seen to touch children because he fears false accusations would ruin his priesthood.

It's devastating to these men, these good priests, and to good, loyal Catholics. There's not going to be any accountability of the -- on the part of the bishops until the Vatican hears from the faithful, till the faithful people in the pews stop giving their money to the diocese to be paid out in these settlements to -- these secret settlements to victims.

BROWN: Perhaps less than a minute here, and I'd like to try and get two more in. This decision, I think it was last week, by the Vatican to change procedurally how it deals with these cases, bring them to Rome, deal with them there -- is that a step forward or a step back?

DREHER: It's a small step forward. And by the way, it's a real vote of confidence in the American bishops, isn't it?

BROWN: Yes.

DREHER: The Vatican itself has a big problem in dealing honestly with these sexual cases. We had a secret report released last year of African priests who were raping nuns and forcing nuns to have abortions. Vatican covered that up, didn't want it out.

We also had a case of a group called Roman Catholic Faithful last year that revealed the existence of St. Sebastian's Angels, a gay priest Web site that had pornography on it, it had the bishop of South -- Capetown, South Africa, talking about how he wanted the pope to be killed, he wanted Cardinal Ratzinger dead.

This guy, Bishop Talkit (ph), called to the Vatican to answer for himself, he's still in place in South Africa. Nothing was done to him. So the Vatican's got problems with its own.

BROWN: And Cardinal Law, does he have go too, in your view, do they have to force him out, does he have to quit?

DREHER: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I don't know that he will quit. But listen, if a secular CEO of a secular corporation faced the sort of things that Cardinal Law faces now, no question, he would have resigned. But the Catholic Church is more than a corporation. It is the Body of Christ to those of us who believe in it, And it should be there to look out for the spiritual welfare of the weakest members.

Cardinal Law, if I had the sort of things on my conscience that he does, I would go to the mountaintop to spend the rest of my life in prayer in penance. We'll see what happens.

BROWN: Robert, I've read your work for a long time now. It's good to finally get to talk to you. I hope you join us again.

DREHER: Good to be here.

BROWN: Thank you, sir.

Up next on NEWSNIGHT, we'll head down to the beach -- we are, after all, in Los Angeles -- down to Malibu, where we'll try and figure out where all the people are.

This is NEWSNIGHT from Los Angeles.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We have a story we've taken to calling Greenwich West. There's a fight going on in Malibu, California -- not terribly far from here, yes, Star Central -- and it reminds us of a fight in Greenwich, Connecticut. The Greenwich battle got national attention, and you could probably sum it up in one line -- who owns the beach, the public or just the residents of the tony town of Greenwich, one of America's wealthiest cities? Connecticut Supreme Court ultimately deciding with the public late last summer.

But the battle in Malibu is far from over. Here the debate goes a little bit different. It's not over whether the public has the right to the beach. They do. It's whether the residents of Malibu, including celebrities, are unfairly keeping people from getting there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): It's just another winter's day in southern California. The surfers are out, so are the dolphins, just yards off the beach. Even a bride is getting ready to have her picture taken.

Still, on this particular stretch of beach at Malibu, it is practically empty, which is just the way the nearby residents like it.

SARA WAN (ph), CALIFORNIA COASTAL COMMISSION: They don't want people there. But the fact is, those are not private beaches, they are public. The public does own the beach.

BROWN: From the Dekeber (ph) Hilltop House overlooking the Pacific, Sara Wan has declared war on Malibu, after a fashion. She wants to open a long stretch of beach to everyone, and as the head of the California Coastal Commission, she just may have the muscle to do it.

WAN: It may be that these particular homeowners don't like it, but I'm sorry, that is the law. And I think it really is what is fair and just for the majority of the public. BROWN: This is what the fight is all about, a spectacular three- mile stretch of beach right in the heart of Malibu. The public can get in, but you're looking at one of only two legal ways to do it, named by the state of California in honor of a comic strip character best known for smoking a good deal of marijuana.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: I've been (UNINTELLIGIBLE) for three years, and it's really the only place to get down here. And I just went for a run on the beach here, and, you know, I don't know where the next public access is.

BROWN: That's because property owners here have done a lot to make it very difficult, a lot of fences and padlocks on those fences, warning signs, even barbed wire, all in an effort to make sure no one gets in.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Well, there's approximately 50 miles of beach here in Los Angeles County. That's about a two- or three-mile stretch. So I guess if you could say that there's some impediment to access, yes, there is, over that two- or three-mile stretch.

BROWN: No one, it seems, disagrees the public has every legal right to be on the beach. The state constitution makes that clear. But how do you get to the beach? The state's answer, to build as many as 11 additional access ways, and to build them through private property.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: If the state were to try to take what the chairman of the Coastal Commission wants to you to believe belongs to the people, this state, which is having budgetary problems right now, would be faced with huge condemnation awards.

BROWN: Can the state of California actually do that on some of the priciest real estate in the country? Well, yes, because in order to build these homes in the first place, most of the owners had to agree to what lawyers call easements, public rights-of-way, in exchange for the privilege of building homes so close to the water.

WAN: Homeowners who granted these easements, granted them as conditions of permits, they got the benefit of those permits, that is, they got the right to build those homes. Therefore, those easements are valid. They have a 21-year-life to them. If the state does not pick them up within 21 years, then the state loses the right to do that.

BROWN: And when does that 21-year timetable expire? In about two years.

WAN: I'm 100 percent confident that they're going to be opened, and that's a pretty firm statement.

BROWN: Attorneys for the homeowners, who include some of Hollywood's biggest names, say long court fights are certain.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Like it or not, these people that are referred to as "whiny rich landowners" don't have much of a choice in this matter. So they've got to protect those rights, otherwise Mr. Geffen (ph) will have someone looking in his living room window, or, as "The L.A. Times" put in their editorial, you know, "People will peek in other people's beach windows." They said, If you don't like it, move. The answer really is, if you don't like it, protect your property rights.

WAN: The sand, the sky, the water -- it belongs to everyone. It just doesn't belong to the people who can afford it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: So what are you thinking in Kansas about that? A California story, Malibu.

When we come back, we'll talk to Mort Sahl for a while. This is his night in L.A.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Here's something someone once said about Mort Sahl. "My education in comedy came largely from watching Mort Sahl. He made the country listen to jokes that required them to think. Watching him made me want to be a stand up comedian." Person saying those words did become a stand up comedian and a lot more. It comes from Woody Allen.

And you'd have to start a very long list if you wanted to catalog all the comics who owe a big debt to Mort Sahl and his political satire. And that's enough of that. Let's just turn to Mr. Sahl, who joins us here in Los Angeles.

How many red sweaters do you own, by the way?

MORT SAHL, COMIC LEGEND: Couple of dozen. But they're harder to get these days.

BROWN: But they're -- how did the red sweater become something?

SAHL: In the "Hungry I in San Francisco." You know, you needed something to liven it up so it didn't sound like a radio program. And I carried the newspaper...

BROWN: Yes, always.

SAHL: ... because I couldn't remember any of the jokes. And I had them written in there. And of course I couldn't see the paper.

BROWN: I -- All right. Did you write material? Did you sit at home and write material...

SAHL: No, it doesn't work.

BROWN: ... or did you...

SAHL: It would be like rehearsing what we're going to talk about, without my consulting you. You know, working on it all afternoon -- it doesn't work. You have to get something and then shape it. You know, something would come along, say every time the Russians throw an American in jail, we throw an American in jail, speaking of HUAC.

So then the story would start to grow. It would start to grow from night to night. You have to rehearse it in front of the audience.

BROWN: You've been doing this for a very long time. Was there -- is there one decade that was -- that you look at and say, That was great material. It may have been a bad time for the world, but it was fabulous material?

SAHL: That's the only way to assess it. It was -- I think probably the liberals thought Nixon was a great time.

BROWN: Yes.

SAHL: But generally speaking, it's all a great time, if they're so disposed.

BROWN: Do you think of yourself as liberal, by the way? I mean, I'm sure...

SAHL: No.

BROWN: ... people will...

SAHL: Think of myself as radical, independent.

BROWN: Yes. Do you have trouble making jokes about the president in a time of war?

SAHL: No, no. The whole idea, from the time it started, to say he's doing a bang-up job -- and the audience always applauds -- and then I say, It's kind of embarrassing that we didn't elect him. Then that opens the door for you to do anything you want to do, or, Read my father's lips was very successful as a joke about taxation.

BROWN: Yes. Who comes to see you these days.

SAHL: Well, it's mixed. It was mixed in New York at Joe's Pub. I mean, a lot of the older people brought the younger people. Course, if you work the colleges, you're in anyway, so...

BROWN: Yes. Has that changed over time, the people that came -- come to see you?

SAHL: Well, yes, it used to be nothing but Jewish doctors, you know, but they all used to come in Berkeley, because -- from Berkeley, from Cal, over to the Hungry I.

BROWN: And, well, at least you broadened out from there, I guess.

SAHL: Well, they set the tone for the rest of the country, though. They're the tastemakers.

BROWN: You know where I think I saw you first? And I don't know iff I -- this is true, or if for some reason I've conjured this up. I think I saw you first on "The Ed Sullivan Show."

SAHL: That's right.

BROWN: You used to do "The Ed Sullivan Show."

SAHL: Oh, yes, I did that a couple of dozen times.

BROWN: Is that a good forum -- was that a good forum for you? That's big -- seems to me that's bigger comedy than you do.

SAHL: It's live.

BROWN: Yes.

SAHL: That's the good part, it's live. And you should make all the mistakes and have shadows on your face and all that's good.

BROWN: Well, I know about that. What do you think of -- you worked in front of '60s idealists, and now you work in front of '90s yuppies. What do you think?

SAHL: Who think their sacred obligation is to get rich. They think it's going to cure everything. They really do believe that. They don't understand there's anything intimidating about a large salary. They think it's liberating. That's just songs their mothers taught them, so to speak.

BROWN: It's odd -- I'm going to take a break here, I want to talk to you some more, but...

SAHL: Yes.

BROWN: ... I remember the first time I was talking to students, college students, and the first question that came out was, Do you have a medical plan where you work? I thought, Wow. And...

SAHL: The last time I saw you, I was working for "The Christian Science Monitor"...

BROWN: That's right.

SAHL: ... and that was our inside employee joke, the medical benefits were so great, we'd never leave.

BROWN: Stick around for a couple more minutes?

SAHL: Oh, yes, my pleasure.

BROWN: And we've got that fancy atomic watch there, you'll know exactly how long we're away. We'll continue with Mr. Sahl in just a moment, with Mort Sahl in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We're in Los Angeles tonight, and so is Mort Sahl, and that seemed reason enough for us to talk to him.

Have you watched a lot of the war coverage?

SAHL: Yes.

BROWN: And what do you think of the way reporters do this business?

SAHL: Well, there's a lot of shows where people talk about news and there seems to be less and less news. But I don't know, I was thinking about the charges against John Walker.

BROWN: Yes?

SAHL: He was a source for Geraldo Rivera, one of the charges against -- no, I'm being facetious, of course. But I grew up around the news guys. They were a better source for me than the comedians. I knew a lot of the guys first, you know.

BROWN: Yes. Maybe won't -- we won't talk about Geraldo any more. I know this is going to come up when I talk to the TV critics tomorrow. Let that go.

SAHL: OK.

BROWN: Well, no, you can, I'm the -- I'm tempted to. But I promised my bosses I'd behave.

I asked you at the break, is there anything you're -- can I say how old you are?

SAHL: Yes.

BROWN: You're 75?

SAHL: Seventy-five in May.

BROWN: Seventy-five in May.

SAHL: Seventy-four now.

BROWN: Is there anything in the business you wish you'd done that you haven't done?

SAHL: No, I did everything, I did live television, and I like that the best.

BROWN: Yes.

SAHL: And I wrote movies. I did a lot of stuff. And I got to meet some great people. Let's not forget that.

BROWN: Yes, I mean, and you did television when television was young and riskier.

SAHL: Yes, and I got to meet Frank Sinatra and John Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy and Adlai Stevenson, and sure, you know, you kind of -- it's like standing on the corner while all the traffic's going by, it's a (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BROWN: Did you ever meet any of these politicians that you've ribbed over the years, and they've just looked you in the eye and said, You know, Mort, I hate you?

SAHL: Not the heavyweights.

BROWN: They can laugh at themselves.

SAHL: Not -- oh, sure. Nixon could laugh at himself.

BROWN: Is that right?

SAHL: He told me the only way he'll grow up is "if you keep a blowtorch under Kennedy's rear as well as mine. Be honest," he said.

BROWN: Did you like him?

SAHL: Yes, because he didn't have any capacity for self-pity.

BROWN: Bill Clinton, do you like him?

SAHL: I don't know him. I didn't get to meet him.

BROWN: Would you like to have met him?

SAHL: Not especially.

BROWN: Because?

SAHL: Because I thought by that time it was anti culture. There was no morality.

BROWN: Yes.

SAHL: I don't mind Republicans or Democrats, it's that other stuff. But I got to meet Perot, among candidates. I know both Bushes.

BROWN: Yes. It's just wonderful to see you again. It's been too long.

SAHL: Yes, 14 years...

BROWN: And the sweater looks...

SAHL: ... this time.

BROWN: Yes, sweater looks fabulous on you. Great look for you, too.

Mort Sahl, with us in L.A.

When we come back, Segment Seven goes to the pigs. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Finally from us tonight, a high-stakes fight over a bunch of wild pigs. Really, I'm not making this up. There was a story a few months back about German farmers using Britney Spears to scare the wild pigs away. Apparently the pigs really hated "Oops, I Did It Again."

Anyway, this story's a bit closer to home, at least our temporary home this week here in our Los Angeles bureau.

Pinnacles National Monument south of San Jose, northern California, where the wild pigs are really, really big, an all-around menace to society. This is not a "Charlotte's Web," these pigs need to be confined.

Guantanamo, obviously, is very busy these days. So the park came up with its own solution, build a really big pigpen, the longest continuous fence or pigpen ever to keep these wild pigs at bay -- as if actually there's very much competition for this.

Twenty-five miles of fence costing more than a million dollars. That's everything you need to know about this story except for one thing. It's reported by Scott Herriott.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCOTT HERRIOTT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): I had heard of an impressive 27-mile-plus barrier built within the confines of the Pinnacles National Monument, designed not to keep out the marauding intruder but rather to confine.

AMY FESNOCK, PARK BIOLOGIST, PINNACLE NATIONAL MONUMENT: Well, pigs are very destructive in nature. In order for them to find food, they do a lot of rooting around on the ground.

HERRIOTT (on camera): Chad, how long would it have taken to do all this rooting right here?

CHAD MOORE, EARTH SCIENTIST, PINNACLE NATIONAL MONUMENT: Well, for a family of pigs -- let's say 10 pigs -- it shouldn't take very long at all. A few minutes, they could probably root through here, finding acorns and grubs and maybe some salamanders.

HERRIOTT: How long is it -- has it been a problem at the monument?

MOORE: It really became a problem in the 1980s, and that's when we started constructing the pig fence.

FESNOCK: Actually, if you were to try to stuff a small pig through this area, the body would be able to fit, but the legs wouldn't.

HERRIOTT (voice-over): It's this type of valuable wildlife data- gathering that helps explain why the enclosure has cost more than $40,000 a mile.

(on camera): Get the hell out of there!

Would that work?

MOORE: They're not afraid of humans, really.

HERRIOTT: Can't you train the pigs? Can't you just be a little neater? Isn't that possible? They're smart. There should be -- what about a federally funded pig training program where they wouldn't root everything up?

FESNOCK: Unfortunately, pigs are pigs. We have to get rid of them all.

HERRIOTT: Yes.

FESNOCK: They just cause way too much damage to allow them to continue to exist.

HERRIOTT: They're not cute like pot-bellied pigs, right, they're -- they can't -- it's hard to train a farrow pig as a pet?

MOORE: Yes.

HERRIOTT: Have the pigs ever tried to tunnel out?

MOORE: We don't really have problems with the pigs tunneling under the fence.

HERRIOTT: Right.

(voice-over): Apparently, other deterrents haven't even been tried.

(on camera): Wouldn't that maybe keep them out?

Why do you pig-hunt?

JOSH BRONES, PIG-HUNTING ENTHUSIAST: Well, people have asked me the obvious question, why pigs? And it's not very easy to explain. It takes a little bit of bravado, a little bit of insanity to want to spend your free time chasing wild, ugly pigs with dogs across the hillsides. They're extremely intelligent, and they are -- can be extremely lethal. There have been people actually killed by wild pigs in Hawaii.

HERRIOTT (voice-over): I felt I learned a lot from Josh, how to employ stealth tactics while in the bush.

(on camera): There's a pig in right here?

(voice-over): Along with gaining a little more reverence for nondomesticated swine.

BRONES: If I've learned anything from hunting pigs, it's to swallow my pride. Just when you think you know all there is to know about them, they go and make you humble.

FESNOCK: We are looking at using pigs that are removed from inside the fence as food for condors.

HERRIOTT: Condor food or not, it appears that the fate of the wild pigs at the Pinnacles Park is sealed.

Scott Herriott for CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: If you want to stay after class, I'll read that lead again, only it'll make sense the next time.

We'll see you tomorrow night from L.A. Good night for NEWSNIGHT.

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