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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Conviction Reversed in NYPD Torture Case; Nixon Tapes Reveal Anti-Jewish Statements
Aired February 28, 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, CNN ANCHOR: Here's a strange thing. Some of the most interesting stories of the day seem to send us back in time. In New York, a Federal Appeals Court threw out three convictions of police officers in the Abner Louima case, a horrendous case of police brutality, and our minds went back to the days and years before September 11th, when here in New York at least there were lots of questions about police conduct, some fair, some not, but questions still.
And then there are the Nixon tapes, recorded in 1972, released today. These tapes are just moments in a complicated presidency, but they took you back to the time before Mr. Nixon was rehabilitated, before he had assumed a senior statesman role that he held shortly before his death. Back then, and this was before even Watergate, Mr. Nixon was an extraordinarily polarizing figure who probably did as much to engender distrust of government as anyone.
And that distrust too seems to have evaded some in the post September 11th period. Since September 11th, the country's view of government has warmed some. Tonight's news reminds that it wasn't always that way.
On to the whip tonight and it is the Louima case that begins it. Deborah Feyerick has been working that story for us here in New York. Deborah, what's left of the headline?
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, three NYPD cops convicted in a notorious torture case get a new shot at life, a stunning court reversal -- Aaron.
BROWN: It was indeed, and lots of reaction to it. To David Mattingly in Houston. He's following the Yates trial. David, the headline out of the courtroom today please.
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, Day 9 of the capital murder trial of Andrea Yates. Her husband Russell Yates back on the stand under cross-examination, defending not only his wife, but their lifestyle and the decisions he made while they were married. More emotional testimony also from a long-time friend of Andrea Yates, as defense attorneys continue to find ways to spread the blame -- Aaron.
BROWN: David, thank you, and to the White House next. Not an easy day to be the President's press secretary, our Senior White House Correspondent John King there tonight, John a headline from you.
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the press secretary here began the day by suggesting the former president, Bill Clinton, is at least partly to blame for 18 months of deadly Middle East violence. The former president complained, and then much more significantly if you work here now, the current President complained, so the press secretary issued an apology.
BROWN: John, thank you, back to you, back to all of you shortly. Once again tonight somehow, we ended up with more program than we had time, so some stories we thought we'd run tonight are back on hold for another day in part because the Nixon tapes are going to take some time tonight. Later, we'll talk with three people who knew the late president well.
And a story we've been trying to get on the air for a while, suicide bombers in Israel, women bombers. This is new and says something about how desperate some Palestinians have become.
And we'll close it all out tonight with a sort of patriotic twist on Adopt a Highway, one man's efforts to keep American flags from ending up like road kill, all of that in the hour ahead. We're glad you're with us.
We begin with the Louima case. I can't imagine anyone in New York, and forget the revulsion they felt when they first heard the details. Abner Louima, a Black Haitian immigrant arrested late one night, and then in an unspeakable act of violence, tortured by police, sodomized with a stick, punished because a cop named Justin Volpe believe that Louima had hit him, which turned out not to be true, if that made any difference, and it shouldn't.
In the investigation that followed, Volpe was one of a number of cops arrested. Three others were later convicted of the attack and covering it up, and today an Appeals Court set those other officers free. Two will never stand trial again. Here's CNN's Deborah Feyerick.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FEYERICK (voice over): His wife and his lawyer say they never lost faith Charles Schwarz would get out of prison.
ANDRA SCHWARZ, WIFE OF CHARLES SCHWARZ: I just pray to God that this, you know, this is the beginning of the end and he'll be home soon. You know all we wanted was a fair trial and I just hope we get it this time.
FEYERICK: Police officer Charles Schwarz on the other end of the phone, speaking to his lawyer from federal prison in Oklahoma, after learning an Appeals Court overturned his 15-year sentence and ordered a new trial.
RON FISCHETTI, SCHWARZ'S ATTORNEY: There was no obstruction of justice and he just didn't get a fair trial the first time. The jury never heard Volpe saying that he was innocent, that Chuck was innocent, and we finally got three judges to listen to it and Chuck's coming home.
FEYERICK: Justin Volpe, a disgraced cop, pleaded guilty to sodomizing a Haitian immigrant with a wooden stick inside Brooklyn's 70th Precinct five years ago. The assault rocked New York City, huge demonstrations, public cries of police brutality, a shakeup of the NYPD, a city divided.
Schwarz was convicted of helping Volpe, holding Abner Louima during the assault. Volpe has denied Schwarz was there. But Schwarz' original lawyer never called Volpe to testify, afraid the jury wouldn't believe him. The Appeals Court in overturning the conviction said, Schwarz did not have effective assistance of counsel, that Schwarz' lawyer provided by the police union, had a conflict of interest because the union was being sued by Louima.
In Brooklyn, on the street where Louima first encountered the police during a club brawl, a sense of disbelief.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm a little frustrated by the whole situation, and I hope those guys, you know, they should stay in jail where they belong.
LORD KINOMORSA, BROOKLYN RESIDENT: I think we've been ripped by the system, you know, by the justice system, and I think it's a disgrace. It's totally disrespectful to this community.
FEYERICK: Schwarz and the other officers were also cleared of Obstructing Justice, even though the jury had found the officers lied to cover up their roles in the assault, the Court of Appeals saying there was not enough evidence to meet the standard for conviction.
The victim, Abner Louima, now living in Florida sued New York City, settling for close to $9 million.
SANFORD RUBENSTEIN, ATTORNEY FOR ABNER LOUIMA: With regard to the trial, the retrial of Officer Schwarz, Abner Louima will cooperate with the federal authorities and we look to the federal authorities to vigorously prosecute once again.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FEYERICK (on camera): Prosecutors say they're ready to put Charles Schwarz back on trial. They think their case is as strong as ever. Aaron.
BROWN: Any idea when that trial will be? Do we have any idea yet?
FEYERICK: Well, prosecutors say they're ready to go, so right now it's a matter of when does Charles Schwarz get out on bail. His lawyers have made the application, so we'll see whether he has a couple of days out and then where it goes from there.
BROWN: And as I remember it, the critical testimony here about Schwarz doesn't come from Louima anyway, who as I remember the sequence of events had his back to the door as it were in this case. It's actually another police officer or two.
FEYERICK: And that is one of the big issues as a matter of fact. Charles Schwarz always said that he was never in the bathroom, and as a matter of fact, the one person who pleaded guilty, Justin Volpe, said it wasn't Schwarz who was in the bathroom or near the bathroom. It was another officer, Thomas Wiese. Wiese can not be tried on this. The prosecution basically says "we still think it's Schwarz. He's the guy we're going after."
BROWN: Well, we'll do it again it looks like.
FEYERICK: It will be interesting.
BROWN: Thank you, Deborah, very much. As we mentioned, Abner Louima settled with the city. A little bit later in the program, we'll talk with one of the attorneys who helped him win that settlement. We'll also be joined by the Reverend Al Sharpton who has very strong feelings, to say the least, about the decision today. That's coming up a little bit later in the hour.
We want to deal with some of the other news of the day items first, and we are reasonably sure that five years from now, people will still be talking about the trial that is going on in Los Angeles now, a couple accused in the death of a woman mauled by their two dogs. The dogs were huge, each one weighing more than the victim. Jurors will have to decide whether the couple was so careless about what the dogs could do that it amounts to a form of murder. Today, the victim's domestic partner told her story. CNN's Thelma Gutierrez covered for us.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Sharon Smith called Diane Whipple her life partner who was taken away from her.
SHARON SMITH, DOMESTIC PARTNER: I think about her everyday.
GUTIERREZ: The couple shared an apartment together in this upscale San Francisco neighborhood.
SMITH: I knew Diane for seven years and we spent about every minute together in that seven-year period.
GUTIERREZ: Sharon Smith took the stand and tearfully described the last day of Diane Whipple's life.
SMITH: She was deeply afraid of those dogs, terrified of those dogs.
GUTIERREZ: Smith told jurors Whipple asked her to come home early. They had plans to go to a movie together. She testified, as she drove up to her building, she saw emergency vehicles and yellow tape. The landlady gave her the news. Smith says she then drove to the hospital where she saw Diane alive, but not conscious. She says she was there when Whipple died.
SMITH: I want to make sure in every possible way that they are held accountable for their actions, for their negligence.
GUTIERREZ: Smith told jurors Whipple was deathly afraid of the Presa Canario dogs that lived down the hall, with defendants Marjorie Knowler and Robert Noel. She testified that a month before Whipple was mauled to death, Whipple called her in a panic.
SMITH: Diane was leaving the building. She was still inside the foyer. Robert Noel was also inside the foyer of the building with one of the dogs. The dog lunged at her and bit her on her left hand.
GUTIERREZ: Smith says Whipple tried to warn Robert Noel.
SMITH: She said, "I told him. I told him you need to control your dog." And I said "what did he do in response?" She said "nothing. He just stared at her."
GUTIERREZ: Smith says after that, Whipple did everything she could to avoid the dogs, but she didn't complain about them. But the prosecution maintains they presented evidence that the defendants had been sufficiently warned in 30 separate incidents.
JIM HAMMER, PROSECUTOR: Of lunges on a pregnant woman, lunge on a small child, people telling them to wear choke collars and muzzles and everything else, any one of which could have saved Diane Whipple's life.
GUTIERREZ: Sharon Smith says the criminal trial will not be the end of it for her former neighbors. She says she has also filed a civil lawsuit against them. Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: One more courtroom tonight, the Andrea Yates trial in Houston. Going into his testimony earlier this week, yesterday, Russell Yates mentioned he was nervous about his court appearance. Not hard to understand why, he is trying to save his wife, and he knew what that might mean that he'd become a target of some questions from the very lawyers who are defending Andrea Yates, that the worse he looks as a husband, the better chance she might have of escaping jail or death row. His moment to answer those questions came today. Here again, David Mattingly in Houston.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTINGLY (voice over): It is a capital murder case against Andrea Yates, but on Thursday it was her lifestyle that was on trial. Her husband, Russell, on the stand early defending questionable decisions, decisions to live in a trailer and a converted bus, while having as many children as God would allow, decisions to home school their children, decisions for Andrea to deliver through natural childbirth.
Russell Yates explained they wanted a simple lifestyle that wasn't materialistic, and to instill values in their children at home, all decisions he says were mutual. But, also on the stand, Andrea Yates' best friend. Deborah Holmes described the strict rules of the Yates household, Russell the breadwinner, Andrea the mother and homemaker. She says Andrea complained she was stressed by child care duties and that Russell was not consistently involved in taking care of the house or the children. Tearfully, she accused Russell of being slow to respond to Andrea's illness last year, as she slipped back into a deep depression and criticized the care she was given.
UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT: If it hurts you but helps Andrea, is it OK?
RUSSELL YATES, HUSBAND: Yes, you know, we all want the same outcome, you know, all our families.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MATTINGLY (on camera): Clearly, defense attorneys are continuing with their strategy to spread the blame in this case. They also called into question literature from a traveling preacher that the Yates' had corresponded with.
In that material, there were warnings to parents that children who reach the age of 14 or 15, it may be too late for them to be saved, and warning that parents reap what they sow. Remember Andrea Yates killed her children, after she said she was afraid they were going to perish in the flames of hell. She killed them because she was evil. She was a bad mother and her children were not developing correctly. Aaron.
BROWN: OK, David, tell me where now the defense can go. What's left on their witness list?
MATTINGLY: Well, they do have still an extensive witness list left. They told us earlier that they plan now not to call everybody on there. I wish I could tell you exactly what they plan to do tomorrow. They were shedding some light on that information for us, but today the judge warned them that again that they are all under a gag order, so the attorneys aren't saying much more than a polite hello to us.
BROWN: I'm sorry, I didn't intend to walk you into a trap. David, thank you. David Mattingly in Houston, covering the Yates trial. One more note here, authorities in San Diego have confirmed what was suspected last night, that the body discovered just east of San Diego is that of Danielle Van Dam. It took dental records to make the positive identification. The little girl's body was so badly decomposed.
Because of that, no determination has been made yet about exactly how she died. Investigators were back today where the body was found, and among the things they are looking for, a murder weapon, and evidence tying the killer to the scene.
David Westerfield, the neighbor of the Van Dams is in custody in San Diego tonight, charged with Kidnap and Murder, and child pornography as well. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Coming up, a quick comment and a whole lot of controversy at the White House today, the perils of being the spokesman. This is NEWSNIGHT on Thursday.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: From the Middle East today, an Israeli attack on two Palestinian refugee camps, the most extensive fighting in the past 17 months. The Israeli military says it's trying to root out terrorists. Helicopters and tanks involved in these attacks on the West Bank camps, but much of the fighting is, in fact, being done on foot. Thirteen Palestinians, one Israeli have died so far in the operation.
It no doubt happens to every White House spokesman eventually, and it happened today to President Bush's spokesman, Ari Fleischer. Speaking for the President, that is his job, Mr. Fleischer blamed the Clinton Administration for the current violence in the Middle East. It was in its own way a stunning moment for a guy considered pretty careful with his words, not a guy out there winging it at the podium. Here again is our Senior White House Correspondent John King. John, it's good to see you.
KING: Good to see you, Aaron, and you're exactly right. This is an administration that prides itself on message discipline. If we are to talk about the Middle East tonight, they would prefer we talk about the fact that the CIA director and a top State Department official are in Saudi Arabia discussing that new Saudi Mid East peace proposal, seeing if perhaps they can move that along to get the parties back to negotiating.
But back in Washington, because of the controversy you just noted, more of a focus from an administration that promised to change the tone in Washington on an old-fashioned case of the blame game.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice over): Another day of violence in the Middle East, but back in Washington finger pointing. At an off-camera morning briefing, the White House press secretary suggests former President Clinton is to blame for pushing so hard for peace just before his term ended.
"I think you can go back to when the violence began. You can make the case that the attempt to shoot the moon and get nothing, more violence resulted. As the result of the attempt to push the parties beyond where they were willing to go, that it led to expectations that were raised to such a high level that it turned into violence."
By the afternoon on-camera briefing, a much softer tone.
ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The point is that for decades American presidents have wrestled with how to bring peace to the Middle East. President Clinton tried valiantly to do so. Nobody should be surprised if President Bush has a different approach.
KING: And then an outright about-face, this later statement from Fleischer.
"I mistakenly suggested that increasing violence in the Middle East was attributable to the peace efforts that were underway in 2000. That is not the position of the administration."
Former Clinton aides responded to the initial Fleischer statement with scorn.
JAMES STEINBERG, FORMER CLINTON DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I would wait to see what the people who really know something about the U.S. foreign policy had to say about this.
KING: Administration and other sources tell CNN that Bush National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice took an angry phone call from her predecessor, Clinton NSC Chief Samuel Berger. He complained it was a cheap shot. She assured him Fleischer was not speaking for the President. Mr. Bush is known to believe that his predecessor had unrealistic expectations at the late term Camp David Summit.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING (on camera): But the President is also not a fan of the public blame game, and we are told by senior administration officials he, himself, Mr. Bush weighed in. One official said, "let's just say the President said fix it." Over at the State Department, one top official called Ari Fleischer's initial comment early this morning "reckless freelancing." Aaron.
BROWN: From a guy that isn't out there freelancing very much, I don't - you know, I don't want to go too far here, but you kind of wonder what happened in that moment, don't you?
KING: You do and it was clear that Mr. Fleischer took issue with the question. The question posed to him was "isn't President Bush to blame for the violence because Bill Clinton had the Israelis and the Palestinians together at the table and the violence was lower?" The implied criticism was because President Bush won't meet with Yasser Arafat, that is why all this is taking place. So, the White House Press Secretary clearly took offense to the question. He just in and answer went far beyond what his boss wanted him to say.
BROWN: All right. Let's let that lie for a while. Let's talk about the Saudi peace plan, the fact that the CIA Director is over there in Saudi Arabia is another sign the administration sees this as hopeful if it can get some detail.
KING: Hopeful if they can get some detail and if they can get Arafat to finally move in the view of this White House. What the administration is trying to do by sending the CIA Director George Tenet and Ambassador William Burns to Riyadh is to say we view this as a credible proposal. We would like to move it along. We're glad the moderate Arab nations are getting involved, are willing to recognize and normalize relations with Israel.
But they say there's no way Prime Minister Sharon is going to move on this until Arafat quells the violence. So the administration, the carrot and stick approach if you will, Yasser Arafat, yes we take this plan seriously like you, but if you want the Israelis to take it seriously you've got to act. We'll help you if you will.
BROWN: The plan itself, which requires Israel to retreat to the '67 borders in total, at least as I understand and includes East Jerusalem, that's going to be at some point, if this gets that far, a huge issue for the Israelis.
KING: Well, a huge issue for the Israelis, much like the concessions on the table at Camp David, which came up again today because of Ari Fleischer's remarks, were huge concessions as well for the Israelis. And remember, Ehud Barak was willing to make those concessions.
Most Arab ambassadors here in Washington and many people inside the White House for that matter, believe if you look back at Sharon's record as a general and otherwise, that he is not willing to make those concessions, that he is not willing to come all the way back to the 1967 borders. Not willing, and he has said so repeatedly, to concede any ground in Jerusalem.
But by putting this proposal on the table, what the Arabs are hoping, and what the administration is saying privately, is there's an opportunity to shift the burden back onto the Israelis to say the Palestinians have stopped the violence. The Arab world is willing to compromise. What are you willing to do?
BROWN: John, thank you. Senior White House Correspondent John King, working late tonight. In the absence of peace, the violence goes on, as we showed you earlier. But the face of some of that violence has changed in the last month. Twice now, suicide bombers, terrorists entering Israel, have been women. That is unheard of. We can all speculate on what it means, but we can't ignore it as a fact, and the fact is that these two women are being hailed as something akin at least to feminist heroes in the Arab world. Here's CNN's Jonathan Mann.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JONATHAN MANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Everything about the attack was familiar, except for the feminine face that survives on a videotape prepared and left behind.
"Because the body and the soul are all that we have" she says, "so I give them to God to become an explosion to burn the Israelis, and destroy the legend of the chosen people." And though we don't know where she made the tape, off camera we can hear a baby cry.
Thursday, the family of Dareen Abu-Aisha (ph) received visitors, not they say to mourn, but to honor the way she chose to die, setting off explosives strapped to her body at a West Bank checkpoint between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. This is how a woman's work was done.
Abu-Aisha killed herself according to a well-established custom. By one count, 37 men preceded her as suicide bombers in the last year and a half. There was one other woman, Waifa Idris (ph), a paramedic who blew herself up in Jerusalem a month ago, killing one Israeli and wounding 100.
The Israelis aren't certain if she detonated her bomb intentionally or was just carrying it when it went off. But there's no doubt in the way she's being remembered. With Idris' image displayed around her, an unidentified woman spoke in a videotape obtained by Israeli TV, announcing the creation of a woman's Waifa Idris Brigade.
"It's preparing plans immediately" she said "and in all places for unexpected missions."
Dareen Abu-Aisha was a college student determined to carry out a mission of her own, but in a society where women's traditional virtue is endurance rather than extremism, even that may have been a small battle. The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, says it turned her down because of her gender. She got the explosives elsewhere. In the streets of Ramallah, no one wondered why.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think that a woman must (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
MANN: The most famous Palestinian woman says it's just sad no matter who carries out the attacks.
HANNAN ASHRAWN, PALESTINIAN COUNCIL MEMBER: To me suicide bombers are a double tragedy. I find the suicide bomber a victim himself or herself, and in his victimization they also victimize innocent people.
MANN: A spokesman of the Israeli Army almost agreed. "Gender doesn't matter" he says "when you've got a bomb."
COL. OLIVIER RAFOWICZ, IDF SPOKESMAN: Basically, it does not change anything, because you have to be ready for all possibilities when we are fighting terrorism. Of course, now they are using women and for us, we have to be very careful, but at the same time also aware about the fact that we are fighting terrorists.
MANN (on camera): Women were among the Palestinian guerillas who hijacked jetliners back in the '70s. They've been active in the Intifada, in protest marches, and in other ways. And, of course, women have been among the victims. Some people here feel that really nothing has changed. A bad conflict has just gotten bad in a different way. Jonathan Mann, CNN, Jerusalem.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: In other news tonight, nearly two-thirds of the 300 detainees at Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo went on a hunger strike today. It began after guards interrupted one of the detainees while he was praying. He had turned his bed sheet into a turban and turbans were not allowed. Officials worry weapons could be hidden in them.
U.S. officials calling the incident unfortunate, they said the men held will now be able to wear their turbans. It's not clear yet if that will end the hunger strike, but officials say detainees will be fed intravenously if necessary to keep them from starving to death. And this today out of the Balkans, the first real attempt by NATO peacekeepers in Bosnia to capture the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. He's one of the most wanted suspects in the U.N. war crimes tribunal at the Hague. The operations took place in eastern Bosnia, after commanders got word he was hiding in a compound there. He wasn't found, but two and a half tons of weapons were, all seized by NATO.
And there was a moment around our offices today where we all got ready to throw one lead story out and replace it with another. A jumbo jet landed at Kennedy Airport here in New York with a fighter jet escort. This was at about 4:45 this afternoon. Authorities had been following the Air India 747 since it took off this morning from London. Their interest began when a security screener said one of the passengers resembled a suspected terrorist. The fighters scrambled. Police and FBI agents greeted the plane. They took the man into custody. They asked him some questions and they let him go, lots of nervousness.
In a moment, we revisit the Louima case and today's developments with Abner Louima's lawyer, and the Reverend Al Sharpton. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: I want to talk a bit more about the Abner Louima case, the decision by the Appeals Court in New York to overturn convictions on three of the New York City police officers involved in the incident. A couple points to make here, we know how strongly people feel about this.
BROWN: We want to talk a bit more about the Abner Louima case, the decision of the Appeals Court of New York to overturn convictions on three of the New York City police officers involved in the incident.
A couple of points to make here. We know how strongly people feel about this. We understand our guests feel that way, too. That said, we always aim for as little heat as possible, and as much light as we can muster. Now why I'm telling the audience that, I don't know. I should be telling you guys that.
Reverend Al Sharpton is with us tonight. Mr. Sharpton speaks often about race issues here in New York and also Sanford Rubenstein, who was one of Mr. Louima's attorneys.
Nice to see you both. I heard you on the radio this afternoon, shortly after this decision came down, Reverend Sharpton. You were not a happy man. I'm wondering if in the hours since, you look at this at all differently?
AL SHARPTON, REV., PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ACTION NETWORK: No, I think that what is disturbing is there seems to be a pattern. Frankly, nationally that it seems difficult to successfully prosecute police, no matter what the circumstance. And that is troubling. When you read the decision, as we have, And I've read it over, even since my comments today. And to think that one of the main reasons of the overturning is because the appellate court judges said that his choice of an attorney was a conflict of interest, since it was provided by the union.
The government opposed him using the attorney. He fought to use the attorney. And now he is able to get a new trial, he being Mr. Schwarz, based on something he had fought for. It just seems to me, given the seriousness and gravity of this act to be a very, very flimsy type of judicial decision.
BROWN: Let me ask you one more on that, and we will move off that. Given that, given the seriousness of this, and the kind of time that these officers faced if they were convicted, don't you think that Mr. Schwarz was at least entitled to have counsel call Mr. Volpe to the witness stand? Mr. Volpe would say whatever it was he was going to say. And the jury would believe it or not. But you know he was going to say that it wasn't Schwarz. And shouldn't the jury have heard that?
SHARPTON: But the choice of the jury. Now you know, Aaron, that was his attorney's choice.
BROWN: Absolutely true. But you have, and you know this, I mean we both know this, there are lots of people who are in prison today, lots of them. And one of the things that they argue in their appeals, many of them on death row, is that their counsel did dumb things or paid no attention or made terrible mistakes. That it's not an uncommon complaint among people who have been convicted.
SHARPTON: No, it is not, it is not uncommon, but I think that what one must do is realize one, this was the choice of his counsel. This was the counsel he fought the prosecutors to have. And I think, lastly, let us talk about the fact that the only witness that we know he has is a man who lied for half the trial, said he never did anything to Abner Louima, and in fact suggested Louima had engaged in homosexual activity and had done this to himself.
So let's not act as though, in a new trial, if this is the only witness, that a jury will automatically believe him. They may believe him. And we will now see, but I think as reasonable as we can. I think this is far from over. And I would not be one to be gloating, if I was a supporter of Mr. Schwarz, because I think nothing removes the fact of the horrific act that happened to Abner Louima. And I think that they should consider how Abner feels, watching people popping champagne bottles, like his injuries are incidental.
BROWN: How does Abner feel? How does Mr. Louima feel?
SANFORD RUBENSTEIN, ATTY. FOR ABNER LOUIMA: Abner Louima wants to go on with his life and put this behind him. He suffered perhaps the worst case of police brutality, of police torture in the history of this country. He wants to live with his family and go on with his life.
BROWN: Well, so do we all, but he's, I assume, coming back to court to tell his story one more time? RUBENSTEIN: And he will fully cooperate with the federal prosecutors, who now have the duty to proceed with the second trial.
BROWN: Is he angry?
RUBENSTEIN: I don't think -- what's important is the state of mind now. What's important is that justice is done in this case. There will be a new trial.
Don't forget. This conviction was overturned on a very narrow ground of choice of counsel. The fact that Officer Schwarz said, even though he knew there was conflict, said, "I want this man to be my lawyer any way." That was the ground the appellate court threw this out on. Nothing to do with the facts of the case. Nothing to do with the evidence.
There will be a new trial. And at the new trial, we look for justice.
BROWN: Am I right? We talked about this earlier. Mr. Louima does not identify Officer Schwarz in the bathroom.
RUBENSTEIN: He identifies the driver of the police car.
BROWN: As the same person?
RUBENSTEIN: As the person who helped Volpe sodomize him. The driver of the police car, it is uncontroverted, was Officer Schwarz. So the fact that he doesn't specifically say, "I see a picture of Officer Schwarz and that is the man," does into mean there was not an identification through circumstantial evidence. He identified the person as the driver of the car. The driver of the car was Officer Schwarz.
SHARPTON: I think what's also important, Aaron, to point out, because I heard the earlier discussion is that two juries convicted Schwarz. So let's not assume that because Louima didn't say Charles Schwarz, that a third jury won't believe him. Two juries did.
The second thing I think that was brought up...
BROWN: That's a fair point. But one jury convicted him of the attack itself; and the other jury, if I remember this right, convicting him of participating in the cover up of the attack.
SHARPTON: Yes, but the identity of him, I'm saying...
BROWN: Correct.
SHARPTON: ...was the same in both trials. But the other thing, I think, that was said that I would raise some question on, is when they say well, we can't be tried again. Weese was tried for assaulting Louima in the car. He was never charged with assaulting him in the police station, which I don't know whether or not the government is barred from looking into, if they choose to believe it was Weese that was in the bathroom. And again, I'm not questioning the government seemed to have the evidence on Schwarts. But don't -- if I was Weese, I wouldn't be pulling out of the woods yet.
BROWN: You're obviously going to trial again. And I hope you guys will join us again.
SHARPTON: Thank you.
RUBENSTEIN: Thank you.
BROWN: Nice to see you both. Thank you. Nice job tonight.
When we come back, Richard Nixon, the president and the profane. A very complicated man captured on tapes. Another batch made public today. This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.
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BROWN: The National Archives today released another batch of recordings that Richard Nixon secretly made, while in the White House. They cover the first half of 1972. An awful lot was happening. Vietnam, a presidential campaign, the trip to China, J. Edgar Hoover died, do you want me to go over there, I'll go over there. Stay over here, OK.
J. Edgar Hoover. Here we go. Anyway, look, the point of this is it was a fascinating time. And here is a look at how these tapes, at least, are a look at how presidential decisions are made. But if our interests, if we said our interest was only in the history of all this, we wouldn't be quite truthful. It is also our interest about biography.
Having said all that, here's CNN's Bruce Morton.
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BRUCE MORTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a grab-bag of tapes, 426 hours of conversations from January to June, 1972. John Connally, talking to Richard Nixon about John Kennedy's assassination. Connally, then governor of Texas, he and his wife Nellie were in the car with Kennedy. Connally was wounded.
JOHN CONNALLY: I knew he was dead and I became unconscious. I was lying down in Nellie's lap, like this. And she had her head on top of me. And I had my eyes open. And I heard that bullet hit his head. And immediately, there was brain matter. Hell, I know brain matter because it was all over the car.
MORTON: In 1972, Arthur Bremer, who had once thought of shooting Nixon, shoots presidential candidate, George Wallace. Nixon wants to make sure the liberals are blamed.
RICHARD NIXON, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Why dno't we play the game a bit smarter for a change? They pinned the assassination of Kennedy on the right wing, the Buchers. It was done by a Communist and it was the greatest hopes that has ever been throughout this country. And I respectfully suggest can't we pin this on one of theirs?
MORTON: Aide Chuck Colson reports to the president on Bremer.
CHUCK COLSON: Ah, he's obviously demented.
NIXON: Is he a left winger or right winger?
COLSON: Well, he's going to be a left winger by the time we get through, I think.
NIXON: Ah, good. Keep that thought. Keep that thought.
MORTON: The president with his wife, Pat.
R. NIXON: Bad people did it.
P. NIXON: Who did it?
R. NIXON: The Liberals.
MORTON: Nixon meeting with aide H.R. Haldeman and the Reverent Billy Graham talks about Jewish control of the media.
NIXON: All three networks, Brinkley or Cronkite may not be of that persuasion, but the writers (UNINTELLIGIBLE), 95 percent are Jewish.
Now what does this mean? Does this mean that all Jews are bad? No, but it does mean that most Jews are left-wing.
MORTON: He talks again about the media.
NIXON: It happens though that this as our media is concerned, the power of the media.
BILLY GRAHAM, REVEREND: They've got it.
NIXON: They've got it.
GRAHAM: And they're the ones putting out the pornographic stuff and putting out everything...
MORTON: One fascinating, hard to hear scrap, Nixon and Henry Kissinger talking, about how to escalate planned attacks in North Vietnam.
NIXON: No, no, no. I'd rather use a nuclear bomb.
HENRY KISSINGER: That, I think, would just be too much.
MORTON: Nixon escalated, but did not go nuclear. Scraps of history with bad sound.
Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington. (END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Up next, a first for NEWSNIGHT, Segment 7B. We'll talk about the tapes with Richard counsel, with a friend, with a great newspaper man, who was a real tape maven as well. Interesting segment coming up. This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.
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BROWN: A little more on the Nixon tapes and some of the questions they raise.
There's a lot to be shocked about in these tapes; and not all of the shocking language comes from the former president. In fact, the tapes portray two Nixons, the smart an savvy Nixon, and then the much less attractive side.
Joining us tonight to discuss it all, Leonard Garment, former counsel to the president, one of the former counsels to the president. He had a number of them over his terms. He's in Washington, along with Frank Gannon, a friend and colleague of the late president's. And in Washington with us, rather, in Chicago with us tonight, James Warren, deputy managing editor of "The Chicago Tribune".
Welcome to all of you. And Mr. Warren let me start with you, because in your piece in the paper tomorrow, you focused on something that jumped out at me, too, when I first heard this stuff today. And it wasn't what came out of the president's mouth. We've heard a lot of that. It was what came of of Billy Graham's mouth.
JAMES WARREN, "THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE": Yes, Billy Graham there chiming in and not being a passive observer, as many people are, when the president went into his bigoted rants. But in fact, chiming in, egging him on, talking about a Jewish stranglehold on the media that had to be dealt with, unless this country were then to go down the drain.
And then Richard Nixon is heard saying, "You really believe that?" And Graham goes, "Yes." And Nixon goes, "Well, so do I, but I just can't say that." And I think that's rather stunning. Having spoken today to a couple folks, religion professors, who know Graham in the field far better than I, and know his history far better than I, including William Martin at Rice University, who has written a biography of Graham, and Martin Marty at the University of Chicago. They were taken aback, to put it mildly, that Billy Graham is heard very audibly making the most bigoted remarks about Jewish conspiracies.
BROWN: Yes, just a button that you tried to get in touch with Reverend Graham today as well, I know?
WARREN: Yes, I got -- well, I tried to get in touch with him. He is 83, suffering from Parkinson's. And through a spokesman, and I e-mailed him some of the the dicier portions of the transcript that I made in the last 24 hours. And through his spokesman he simply said that he could not remember those comments. He had so many conversations with Nixon, which I course, I wouldn't think necessarily is a very stout defense.
BROWN: Let me turn to Mr. Garment for a second and Mr. Gannon. Mr. Garment, how should we look at these tapes? You know, the things we hear, and they are in fact, unattractive. And we perhaps pull the most unattractive parts of them. How will we see them?
LEONARD GARMENT, NIXON'S FMR. COUNSEL: I'm not here to defend Reverend Graham, or for that matter, to defend Richard Nixon's ugly private language. But I think it -- we're all sufficiently sophisticated at this point, to know, first of all, that out of 1700 hours of recorded private conversations, there's going to be a lot of ugliness.
Conversations among any group of politicians. And those, of course, are being understandably, inevitably cherry picked by the press in the first go around. I think what will be interesting over time, probably from historians rather than from most instant journalists, short term journalism, will be the more serious conversations that one can applaud or criticize because that was Nixon.
I mean, he was a combination of the Shakespearian and a little bit of Franz Kafka.
BROWN: Yes.
GARMENT: The noble and the bizarre. The large, the small, the mean, the generous. And I think the problem with all of the tapes, something that Nixon to the end of his days regretted most that he hadn't destroyed...
BROWN: Yes.
GARMENT: The problem with the tapes, Aaron, is that it does -- these ugly passages obscures a number of important and useful things that Nixon did during some of the most dangerous and difficult times in American history.
BROWN: Mr. Gannon, when we hear conversations in the Oval Office, we don't hear very often in this -- certainly in these and not in the Johnson tapes. are disagreeing with the president. Almost no matter what he says, except we get to the point where he thinks about nuclear weapons in Vietnam. And Dr. Kissinger says whoa, hold on here. Do you think Mr. Nixon was serious when he said that?
GANNON: Well, things have to be seen in context. It's hardly an original observation. Henry Kissinger came to Nixon's attention in the 50s with a book he wrote called, "Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy," which brought him into the Rockefeller camp first. So any raising of the nuclear option with Henry Kissinger has a back story that goes far beyond the particular context.
Also I think the context of that, the interesting context of that exchange was that that was the lead up to the Soviet summit. And Nixon was unhappy with the way the North Vietnamese were not accommodating the peace process. And he was taking a major risk of mining, what turned out to be the mining of Hai Fung (ph), in the weeks right before the Soviet Summit with the risk that the Russians would cancel the summit. To me, that's the interesting context, not this -- I think he was tweaking, to answer your question, a long answer to a short question. I think he was tweaking Kissinger in that case.
Now you can say, you shouldn't tweak when nukes are at stake, but I think that's the context of that exchange.
BROWN: Actually, Mr. Gannon, I think it was a long answer to a long question, to be perfectly honest. Long enough so that if you guys can all stay for a minute, we need to take a short break. I'd like to do another segment here. So we'll take a break and rejoin our guests in a moment.
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BROWN: We've got a couple more minutes with Leornard Garment, former counsel to President Nixon and Frank Gannon, a friend and collague to the former president, and Jim Warren, who's the deputy managing editor of "The Chicago Tribune."
Talking about the tapes that were released today. Mr. Garment, you knew the president pretty well. Which Nixon was he most? Was he the private, difficult kind of dark side Nixon or was he the public smart guy Nixon, or both?
GARMENT: Well, he was both.
BROWN: YEs.
GARMENT: And he was both at different times and different circumstances. You know, the dealing with this business of anti- semitism, and the question I'm frequently asked. I wrote a whole book about myself and Richard Nixon called appropriately, "Crazy Rhythm."
The question I'm most asked is whether he was anti-semitic and how anti-Semitic. And I saw well, of course, he had real traces of anti-semitism, like millions of other people who also have traces of racism, and who also have traces of all of the historical bigotries and sentiments that privately express.
For a president, I think the question is what is their public behavior? And it should be borne in mind that contrasted with these ugly, private comments about Jews...
BROWN: Yes.
GARMENT: That Richard Nixon was Golda Meir's pin up boy. In her autobiography, she said he was the best president Israel ever had because they could count on him. And in these tapes, by the way, he makes reference to the fact about his admiration for Israeli Jews and for Russian Jews. So there you are.
BROWN: It's a weird thing, Mr. Gannon. About 30 seconds or so here. When you talk to him, when you'd do the interviews with him, when you worked with him, were you aware that he was this incredibly complex man of two almost distinctive personalities?
GANNON: Well, I was aware I guess, to greater or lesser degrees on one of any number of dimensions, whatever that means.
Having worked with him on his memoirs and having studied his life as a once and maybe even future historian, one is aware that he's a tremendously interesting, fascinating complex man, the product of a political time of great leaders, of great events, of great forces.
BROWN: Yes, it's fascinating stuff always to listen to. Thank you all for coming in. We're up against the clock, but I appreciate that you stayed late. And I appreciate that you stayed late as well. It was an interesting program tonight. We're back here tomorrow. We hope you join us then. Until then, good-night from all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
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