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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Michael Skakel Convicted of Murder; Two Hostages in Philippines Killed

Aired June 07, 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: Good evening again everyone.

The program tonight seems to be a lot about waiting. Dorthy Moxley waited a quarter of a century, 10 years longer than her daughter lived for justice. She got it today in a courtroom, where a jury that a month ago few expected would reach a guilty verdict, did just that in the case of Michael Skakel.

Martin Burnham's family out in Kansas waited for more than a year in hopes that Mr. Burnham, a missionary, and his wife would be released by Muslim extremists who had taken them captive in the Philippines. This sort of wait, hoping that somehow a brother or a father will get out safely is unimaginable to us and it ended badly today when a rescue attempt left Mr. Burnham dead.

The family of Thomas Heideman began their long wait in October of 1970, 32 years of waiting. His helicopter crashed in Laos during the Vietnam War, one of the 2,500 Americans listed as missing. His remains were just found, returned to the family, which buried them today, their long painful wait over.

And Jack Laurence waited 30 years to deal with his Vietnam experience. He was a young and very good reporter in that television war. He's just written a book about his experience and we'll talk with him tonight about it all.

So there's lots of waiting on the program and none of it easy. Waiting for most of us, at least, never is. We begin "The Whip" tonight with the Skakel case, the verdict. Deborah Feyerick covered that in Connecticut. Deborah, start us off with your headline please.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, justice for Martha, that's what her mom's been fighting for more than a quarter century. That's what she got today as a Kennedy cousin spent his first night in prison for what could be a very long time.

BROWN: Deborah, thank you, we'll be back with you in a moment. On Capitol Hill, the reaction to the president's speech to the nation last night on a new cabinet post. Jonathan Karl back on the Hill for us, Jon your headline please.

JONATHAN KARL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well the president told congressional leaders today that there's nothing wrong with a good turf battle. He's got one. Now his allies here on Capitol Hill are trying to figure out how to win it.

BROWN: Jon, thank you and as we said, the end of a long hostage situation in the Philippines. Maria Ressa has been following that, Maria a headline from you please.

MARIA RESSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The al Qaeda link Abu Sayyaf has been holding these hostages for more than a year. It's a heart wrenching end to their ordeal, a rescue attempt that leaves two of three hostages dead.

BROWN: Thank you, we are back with all of you shortly. Also coming up on the program tonight, as we said, the legacy of another war, the remains of an MIA from Vietnam laid to rest today, three decades after he died.

And a day ahead of the Belmont Stakes, the strange tale of War Emblem and the man who sold him. They say timing is everything, never more true than in this story, all of that and much more in the hour ahead.

But we begin with Skakel. Our old friend and colleague, Jeffrey Toobin, when we saw him today smiled a bit sheepishly, I thought, and said, "that's why they have the trial." Yes, it is. Whatever the experts thought going in about the case about Michael Skakel, and they didn't think much of it.

They didn't count on the talent of a career prosecutor, kind of a plotter, to take the thin case and make it full, to make the case without forensic evidence or an eye witness, and to tie it up in the end brilliantly. the sheepish Mr. Toobin in a moment, first the verdict. Here again CNN's Deborah Feyerick.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK (voice over): She has waited 27 years to get justice for daughter Martha. It finally came.

DORTHY MOXLEY, MARTHA MOXLEY'S MOTHER: I just feel so blessed and so overwhelmed that we've actually, we now, you know this is Martha's day. This is truly Martha's day.

FEYERICK: Martha's friend and neighbor Michael Skakel found guilty of beating her to death with a golf club in 1975. At the time, both were only 15 years old.

DAVID SKAKEL, BROTHER: Our family has been under great scrutiny for over 27 years. We all know each other so very well, and we all stand behind our brother Michael, not out of loyalty, but stemming from intimate understanding.

FEYERICK: In the end, some of the most damning evidence, Michael Skakel's words, tapes for a proposed biography obtained by CNN, tapes placing Skakel on the same path the killer took from the point Martha Moxley was hit outside her home to the tree where Skakel says he masturbated and where Martha's body was found the next day. VOICE OF MICHAEL SKAKEL, PROSECUTION AUDIO EXHIBIT: I was drunk and high, I pulled my pants down, I masturbated for thirty seconds in the tree, and I went 'This is crazy.' If they catch me they're gonna think I'm nuts. A moment of clarity came into my head and I climbed down the tree, and they had that an oval driveway, half oval driveway and I started, it would be a direct route from their front door to our house, to go through, cut straight through the oval but it's really dark, and when I started walking through something in me said 'Don't go in the dark over there.'"

FEYERICK: Prosecutors say Skakel made up the story to cover his tracks in case someone saw him and to explain any DNA evidence investigators might find.

JONATHAN BENEDICT, PROSECUTOR: The defendant's own words are what did him in.

FEYERICK: As the verdict was read, Mrs. Moxley and son John broke down sobbing. Michael Skakel stood frozen. The judge denied bail and did not give Skakel a chance to speak as he requested, following the guilty verdict. Skakel's lawyer vowed to get his client out no matter how long it takes.

MICKEY SHERMAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: This jury needed to find some way to give closure to Dorthy Moxley. I understand it. I appreciate it, but you don't offer up the carcass of Michael Skakel in order to make her feel good.

FEYERICK: Skakel's lawyer plans to appeal.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK (on camera): Michael Skakel is recently divorced. He has a four-year-old son. His lawyer said he is devoted to the little boy. As for sentencing, it's expected to take place mid July, minimum ten years, maximum 25 years to life, and after the sentencing, it's likely that the State Supreme Court, the Connecticut Supreme Court will actually review the case to see whether this should have been moved from juvenile to adult court in the first place. Aaron.

BROWN: I'm going to deal with that question, the one you just threw out on the table with Jeffrey in just a moment. I want to go back to other appeal issues. Did Mickey Sherman indicate where he thought he had grounds for appeal?

FEYERICK: There are a number of areas. One example, a juror had made a statement during the course of this trial saying that he saw Michael Skakel saying good job to a cousin of his who was on the stand.

Each jury member was questioned individually. They all said that they really didn't hear it. It was only one alternate who had heard that statement. There was a concern that maybe he was making that statement because he didn't believe the witness; and again, this happened in the middle of the trial. You're not supposed to talk about it until the very end. There's also the possibility, according to the defense lawyer, that the judge's instructions were a little too specific in his opinion. For example, citing specific examples, saying consider the testimony of John Higgins, one of the people who heard the confession. Consider the testimony of Gregory Coleman, very specific examples. They were almost surprising because they were like directions more than instructions to the jury. Aaron.

BROWN: Deborah, thank you. It's been a long pull today for you. We appreciate you working late tonight, Deborah Feyerick.

FEYERICK: Any time.

BROWN: Thank you. I know you don't mean any time. No one ever does. We turn to our friend and colleague Jeffrey Toobin.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I wish you'd use my official title, which is so-called expert.

BROWN: You've been very good-natured about this, and in all honesty and in fairness, you really nailed this one the other day when you said this was one of the great closing arguments you'd ever heard.

TOOBIN: It was astonishing. This was a trial where Jonathan Benedict was a very low-key presence in the courtroom throughout and he came up for the rebuttal summation after Mickey Sherman had finished speaking. He had an hour to himself, and he just pulled it all together, and it was just an extraordinary moment. You could just feel in the courtroom how much he had made progress there.

BROWN: He took this interview that Skakel gave and kind of weaved it, right?

TOOBIN: He weaved it and Michael Skakel gave this interview and he described the night in question and we're going to play a little excerpt but I'd like to give you a little background to it.

He's talking about the night of the murder and he's talking about his alibi essentially, and what he said during the trial, what his side said during the trial, was that he and his friends, they had gathered at the Skakel home and they all went over to his cousin's house.

That was the alibi that he and his cousins went to the cousin's house, but they left behind at their house his sister Julie and her friend Andrea Shakespeare Renna, and this is what the tape says.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SKAKEL: Anyway we got home and all the lights, most of the lights were out, and I went walking around the house, nobody was on the porch, um, went upstairs to my sister's room. Her door was closed, um, and I remember that Andrea had gone home."

(END VIDEO CLIP) TOOBIN: Andrea had gone home. The prosecutors put that in red in the courtroom. Andrea had gone home. If he was already gone, how would he know that Andrea had gone home?

The only way he would know that Andrea had gone home is if he'd never gone to his cousin's in the first place. With that tape, he just blew his own alibi out of the water, and there was literally almost a gasp in the courtroom when that Andrea had gone home tape was played.

BROWN: You know unlike on television in real trials, as we often say, there aren't many gotcha moments, but this was a gotcha moment.

TOOBIN: It was a gotcha moment, because this tape had been introduced previously but it had never been explained or gone over and that was what was so extraordinary about the summation.

BROWN: We'll do one more piece of tape, while we have a moment. Deborah Feyerick asked the prosecutor, Mr. Benedict, correct, about how -- about his reasons for sort of holding this last piece out until the very end, and this is the exchange as it played out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK (voice over): When you presented that as evidence, it was almost as if you were presenting Michael Skakel's own words and yet, you never highlighted it. You never underscored it. It was almost as if you know you were putting the ball up in the air but you didn't hit it out of the park until the closing argument. What was your strategy there?

BENEDICT: To catch the defense with their pants down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: That's a longstanding legal phrase there.

TOOBIN: Yes. The plainspoken Mr. Benedict had it right. No one had focused on that part of the evidence at all, and it was sensational when he did.

BROWN: Whether he caught them with their pants down, it obviously had some impact on the jury. A couple areas, we have gone back and forth on this question of how do you deal with sentencing? This murder was committed when Mr. Skakel was a juvenile. Under the laws in Connecticut that existed at that time, he would have been tried as a juvenile. How can he be sentenced now as a 41-year-old man culpable as an adult?

TOOBIN: Well, what the - the courts dealt with this extensively. This was a lot of pretrial litigation over this question of whether he should be tried as a juvenile or as an adult, and under this very peculiar 1975 law, which has long been off the books, the key question seemed to be, is there an appropriate facility for the person, deciding whether they're going to be tried as a juvenile?

Is there an appropriate facility? And, the judge said no, how could you - there's no appropriate facility for a 41-year-old man in all of our juvenile facilities. It's an odd basis, but that is what the courts mostly thought about.

BROWN: OK, that it seems to me is the argument for moving the trial from Juvenile Court to adult court, but that doesn't, forgive me for this, I don't think that answers the question of sentencing, because he committed the crime with the mindset of a child; and further, 25 years ago, we did not routinely, no state routinely was trying 15-year-old kids as adults.

TOOBIN: It is certainly true that that is an oddity about this case, but the way the system works is you're either in Superior Court for all purposes, including sentencing, or you're in Juvenile Court for all purposes. There's going to be plenty more litigation about how he gets sentenced, and I promise, no predictions.

BROWN: OK. When you put your tie on this morning, did you figure there was a verdict?

TOOBIN: I did indeed. This is the official verdict tie. Every trial I've covered in the last five years, this is the tie that's produced a verdict and, you know, you can't argue with science.

BROWN: Why didn't you do this yesterday then.

TOOBIN: I didn't wear it.

BROWN: Thank you.

TOOBIN: Sure.

BROWN: We appreciate, among other things, the good-natured ribbing today.

TOOBIN: All deserved.

BROWN: You've been very good, thank you. On we go without many smiles along the way, I must say. This is a story that has existed on the margins for a year. It's horrible to think it all came to this, a couple who went to the Philippines hoping to make the world a better place.

They were missionaries, yes the story of missionaries has been told many times before, people who put themselves in dangerous, often unpleasant places for a cause they believe in.

They were kidnapped last May, held hostage or pawns by Muslim extremists, and today their story ended when a rescue attempt went badly. Martin Burnham died, his wife, injured but alive. Our report comes from the Philippines and Maria Ressa.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RESSA (voice over): After an intense firefight, the only survivor among the hostages, Gracia Burnham, was airlifted to a military hospital. Only after her operation did she find out her husband, Martin, and Filipino Deborah Yap are dead.

All three were held hostage by the Abu Sayyaf in the jungles of the Philippines for more than a year. Gracia says a few days ago, Martin had a premonition something bad was going to happen to him, so his wife said he wrote a letter to his three children to say goodbye. That letter was lost in the firefight but was found by soldiers and will be returned to Gracia Saturday.

A rescue attempt was something the Burnham's had long feared. In a letter in January, Gracia wrote: "To be honest, we do not want to be rescued because they come in shooting at us. If someone can't give somewhere, we will die."

The Burnham family, as well as President Bush who called Philippine President Arroyo, did not criticize the mission which cost Martin and Deborah their lives.

GLORIA MACAPAGAL ARROYO, PRESIDENT, PHILIPPINES: Our soldiers tried their best to hold their fire for the safety of the hostages. We had hoped and prayed for their safe return.

RESSA: Code named Operation Daybreak, the U.S. military helped plan the overall military operation. Pentagon officials say the rescue attempt was not planned, but the result of a chance encounter.

Filipino Scout Rangers, trained by U.S. Special Forces, had been tracking the Abu Sayyaf for 12 days. The firefight began after they stumbled on the Abu Sayyaf and the hostages resting by a stream.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RESSA (on camera): The Philippine military said that there was then an intense firefight. They say that all three hostages were used as human shields, and in sending her sympathy to the Burnham and Yap families, Philippine President Arroyo said that, "the terrorists shall not get away with this. We shall not stop until we finish the Abu Sayyaf," back to you Aaron.

BROWN: Maria, one quick question. Do we know yet, and you gave us some indication that the government says they were used as shields, whose bullets actually killed them, if the rebels killed them or if they were just caught in this crossfire?

RESSA: At this point there are conflicting reports. There are some eyewitness accounts now that have come out from some of the soldiers who were there at the encounter. This was an elite Scout Ranger troop.

One man did say that Martin Burnham was shot once the Abu Sayyaf became aware that a rescue operation was going on. However, the Philippine general in charge of that operation did tell CNN that all three hostages were used as human shields. We know that all three of them were shot and wounded. Only one survived.

BROWN: Maria, thank you for your reporting today on this. Thank you very much. We're going to take a short break. When we come back, we'll talk to the father and brother of Martin Burnham. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: As we said a moment ago, Martin Burnham and his wife, missionaries held hostage since last May in the Philippines, the rescue attempt failed today, at least insofar as Mr. Burnham did not survive it. It is, I suppose, well Mrs. Burnham did and that's the good news in an otherwise very difficult day.

Paul and Doug Burnham, father and brother, are with us from their home in Rose Hill, Kansas. We appreciate that and our condolences first of all to you. This is an excruciating day, after a very long year. Were you able to remain hopeful, Paul, through it all that somehow it would end OK?

PAUL BURNHAM, FATHER OF MARTIN BURNHAM: Yes, we were very hopeful all the way through and we were quite surprised when it ended this way, but we knew all along that there was that possibility and so we had our mind prepared for, somewhat for the thing that might happen as it did today. But we kept hopeful all along and we hoped that they would be released safely.

BROWN: How did you find out?

P. BURNHAM: We got a call from the Ambassador to the Philippines about 3:15 this morning, and he called us and told us it had happened and he had got confirmation through high officials in the Philippine government.

BROWN: And when that phone rang at 3:15 in the morning, did you at some level know that this one way or another was the call?

P. BURNHAM: Well actually, I thought it would be a good call. I thought they would be released.

BROWN: Yes.

P. BURNHAM: And I thought that they would be coming home to us soon and it was quite a shock to us.

BROWN: I imagine it was. Doug, how much contact, how many letters, how much contact did you have with your brother and your sister-in-law through this long, difficult year?

DOUG BURNHAM, BROTHER OF MARTIN BURNHAM: There was only a few letters that actually got out to us. Probably the most prominent ones, most familiar ones were the ones that the reporter that went back - went there in November and did that exclusive video with them brought out, were the ones that people are most aware of. There really wasn't any other letters or other contact that we had with them.

BROWN: Did they in those letters seem hopeful that this would end well, afraid, what was the tone of those letters?

D. BURNHAM: Well I think they had hoped that they would one day be back with their family. It was their desire and they expressed that to us as their family, that they were looking forward to seeing us, seeing their children, seeing their parents, and that encouraged us.

BROWN: There are three children, right? Do they now know?

D. BURNHAM: Yes. The ambassador also called the other grandparents whom they were with at the time, and they were able to give them the news about the same time that mom and dad first heard...

BROWN: Yes.

D. BURNHAM: ... the news this morning.

BROWN: And how are they doing? There's no easy way to ask this question, how are they doing?

D. BURNHAM: Well, I think they're doing pretty well. They're not falling apart. Obviously, they're grieving but that's to be expected. They lost - they have a bit loss right now.

BROWN: Yes. Yes, they do.

D. BURNHAM: And they've got to work through that.

BROWN: Paul, have you had a chance to talk to your sister-in-law yet, your daughter-in-law, rather?

P. BURNHAM: Yes, we did. We talked to her just - we talked to her twice today and it was very good to hear her voice. Her voice seemed quite strong for a person that's been in that type of situation for a long time. She was really - you could tell she had grown spiritually and she was praising the Lord for all the things that he had taught her and the things that she went through, and she really had a good testimony to the goodness of the Lord.

BROWN: And I assume she very much wants to get home and be with her children?

P. BURNHAM: Yes, she is. She said that she wouldn't want to spend a minute longer there. She wanted to be with her children just as quickly as possible and she was really looking forward to them, and she had a good word for each one of the children and they were looking forward to her coming home.

BROWN: And do you have any idea when she might get home?

P. BURNHAM: No, we don't but the embassy assured us that they are doing all they can to take care of her needs and to prepare her for it, and also to get her tickets to come here to be here as soon as possible.

BROWN: Paul, Doug Burnham, thank you both for your time today, and again, our hearts are with you tonight. Thank you very much.

D. BURNHAM: Thank you. P. BURNHAM: Thank you very much.

BROWN: Thank you, the Burnham family on a very difficult day for them. Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the man who let a winner get away, that's coming up later in the program. Up next, the story of a Vietnam MIA and a family that still seeks answers. This is NEWSNIGHT on a Friday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: President Bush spent the day selling the plan he laid out last night for a Department of Homeland Security. This morning he met with lawmakers whose support he needs to restructure the agencies and reshuffle the jobs and reshape the turf, and there are lots of agencies and lots of turf when you start shuffling billions of dollars and 170,000 workers around.

So the president was out selling in both Washington and then out in Des Moines. As another traveling salesman once said, attention must be paid. Here again, CNN's Jonathan Karl.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARL (voice over): Despite the early praise lavished on the president's plan, getting it passed this year will take something of a legislative miracle.

SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN (D-CT), GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS COMMITTEE: We're not kidding ourselves. There's going to be some opposition and it probably will be bureaucratic turf protection. There will be a lot of arguments about why we ought not to do this.

KARL: Lieberman would like to see the bill crafted in his committee, Government Affairs, but he may have to fend off fellow Democrat Pat Leahy, whose Judiciary Committee has authority over some of the biggest pieces of the proposed new department. The Commerce Committee also expects a major piece of the action.

SEN. TRENT LOTT (R-MS), MINORITY LEADER: We've got to decide what committees will have jurisdiction. We may even have to look at restructuring some committees, but my answer to that is so what. This is a very important issue.

KARL: It's a developing turf war that mirrors the expected battles inside the administration, where departments are suppose to cede authority and budgets over to the newly-created Department of Homeland Defense. The president personally lobbied key members of Congress on the plan Friday at the White House.

REP. JANE HARMAN (D-CA) INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: He will have to exert personal leadership to overcome the turf resistance in his administration, and he can help up here too to make sure that those who may have to give up some power and some budget for the greater effort are willing to do that. I would just like to sign up as one member and say that I am.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KARL (on camera): The president's chief salesman for this plan on Capitol Hill will be Tom Ridge. As I'm sure you remember, Aaron, Ridge had steadfastly refused to testify before Congress in his capacity as Homeland Security Adviser, but the president said today that Ridge certainly will testify now, not in the capacity as a confidential adviser to the president, but in the capacity of the chief advocate for the new Department of Homeland Defense -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, I feel like if we have a program, we'll know the players. So give me the three or four or five players to watch over the next few months in both the Senate and House. Lieberman obviously.

KARL: Yes. And clearly, Tom Daschle here in the Senate, because you're going to have this interesting turf battle in the Senate. You've got some very powerful Democratic senators, people like, you know, Leahy and Lieberman. And it's really going to be Tom Daschle's going to have to decide how to cut this pie up here in the Senate.

The other place to watch is over in the House with the conservatives. Now the reason why the conservatives were on board with this plan is the president personally assured them that it would not mean more spending. It wouldn't mean an expansion of the bureaucracy. It would mean a restructuring of the bureaucracy, even a streamlining.

But you can bet that as this plan gets put together, the Democrats are going to push for more spending, because they believe there is not enough there for homeland defense. So watch the conservative Republicans and see if they bolt and that becomes the truth.

BROWN: Jonathan, thank you. You have an early call tomorrow. We appreciate your staying late tonight.

KARL: Absolutely.

BROWN: Thank you, Jonathan Karl on the Hill.

One of the saddest lessons of September 11, a reminder for all of us, is just how important it is for the families of the dead to get something to bury, no matter how small. That something may be in many cases it is quite small. This is a story of a man lost in a different war, four decades later, the impact very fresh still for the family left behind.

Here's CNN's Kathleen Koch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Though I have slipped the surly bonds of earth and...

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They are sights and sounds, Air Force Master Sergeant Thomas Heideman's family have waited 32 years for. His mother most of all.

OLIVETTE HEIDEMAN, MOTHER: Being a good kind of man he was, he's deserving of this.

KOCH: The helicopter carrying Heideman crashed in the thick Laotian jungle on October 24th, 1970. The 36-year-old father of five was listed as missing.

MARY ANN BUONFORTE, DAUGHTER: This one, this is from the accident investigation where it says no remains, personal effects or any identifying objects belonging to Sergeant Heideman were located.

KOCH: So the family was stunned when the Defense Department told them in 2000 it had excavated the crash site, found unidentifiable burnt remains and were pronouncing them in part to be Heideman's.

SANDY EVANS, DAUGHTER: There was nothing back then that indicated that he was on that helicopter after it crashed. It leads me to believe that he may have survived and been taken by enemy forces. I don't know.

BUONFORTE: I think it's the military's way of closing out these cases.

KOCH: The Pentagon admits there was no DNA match, but some evidence that Heideman died in the crash.

LT. COL. TOM ERSTFELD, DEPT. OF DEFENSE, POW/MISSING PERSONNEL OFFICE: When they did the excavation, they did find pieces of a flight suit.

THOMAS HEIDEMAN, JR., SON: I think somebody saw something. Somebody had to see something or know something. They're just not telling us.

KOCH: As an only son, Heideman could have opted out of combat, but didn't. For his 92-year-old mother accepting his death is better than the alternative.

O. HEIDEMAN: For many years, I said maybe he was prisoner of war. And from what I had heard, I certainly didn't want him to be under those conditions. Maybe he would be out of his mind. Maybe he would be blind. Maybe crippled. So to me this is a closure.

KOCH: Whatever closure is possible with so many questions unanswered.

Kathleen Koch, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: It is -- it's amazing how long the pain of Vietnam lingers in us and the United States. Up next, the story from Vietnam of a journalist 30 years later. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: Vietnam, like all wars we guess, changed the country. For one thing, America lost. We can debate the reasons for that. And we can argue about how it may have been different. But in the end, it doesn't change the outcome. It was also the first war, and probably the last war that television covered with almost unfettered access.

The coverage often stood in stark contrast to the optimistic daily briefings of the generals in Vietnam and the politicians back home. John Laurence was a young reporter for CBS News. Vietnam would be his first great story. And in truth, probably the best story he ever had. Like the country, the war changed Jack, and he's written about it in a new book 30 years in the making called "A Cat from Hue." We talked with him not long ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN LAURENCE, AUTHOR, "THE CAT FROM HUE": The American flag flies on the Citadel wall, but there is no breeze to blow it. And the job is far from done for Delta Bravo company.

BROWN (voice-over): At the height of the Vietnam War, American reporters, many of them very young, had astonishing access to the fighting and of course the dying.

LAURENCE: Spring, 1970. After five years of killing, the gears of the Vietnam death machine were grinding more slowly in the months before the invasion of Cambodia.

BROWN: And few were younger or better than 25-year-old Jack Laurence of CBS News. It was his first television assignment.

Do you think that your age in a sense was helpful to you? There -- we all, I mean at 25, we all assume we know everything. It's a wonderful thing about 25. We don't know what we don't know. But you were as -- not much older, and in some cases the same age as a lot of the soldiers that were over there.

LAURENCE: Absolutely. And I identified with them. And one of the threads in the book is that I went as a non-combatant, as a very naive, innocent minded pro-military, very much for the cause going to Vietnam, winning the war, and defeating Communism and all that. And in the course of the three tours between '65 and '70 that I was there, I became more and more like a soldier, but also more and more to hate the war.

BROWN: More than 30 years after he left Vietnam, Jack Laurence has finally written about it. The book is called "The Cat from Hue". "The New York Times" called it one of the finest books in its genre.

What is it about Vietnam that still rattles around in us, as Americans particularly? Still rattles around and feels so unsettled all these years later?

LAURENCE: I suspect it has something to do with how violent it was, how long it lasted, and how much of it was brought home to us on the evening news on television. The military mission is to make contact with North Vietnamese army units.

BROWN: Correspondents like Jack Laurence were allowed in the field, seemingly allowed anywhere and everywhere in Vietnam. It was the first and the last time in war that the American military allowed reporters to be so close to American troops.

You and your colleagues who were there probably had the last great access to war that American reporters are going to have for a while, it seems to me. What do you think about that?

LAURENCE: I think it's unfortunate. I think that much in our system of democratic freedom depends on the press having reasonably free access to all the activities of government and all the institutions of our government except those that have to be super secret. And I understand the military's need to operate in secret in for example Afghanistan and other places. But I also see that it's important to have a record of what actually happened, so that the public will know, if not today, then perhaps when a book is published.

BROWN: In Vietnam, Laurence says, American reporters often censored themselves.

LAURENCE: In the book, I talk about the fact that I censored, for example, story that I witnessed from the airplane of an illegal bombing of Cambodia. We murdered a bunch of innocent civilian farmers with our guns and our bombs, and I didn't report it, because I was afraid what would it do to the face of the American military. I regretted it.

BROWN: I was going ask. That's an interesting judgment to make for a 25-year-old.

LAURENCE: I was doing them a favor. Not, not the integrity of the news business. Not the integrity of Jack Laurence, the reporter. And I learned a great deal from that. And it weighed on my conscience, Aaron, for years and years and years. It just drove me crazy that I sat on that one.

BROWN: The Vietnam War began as a fight for glory on behalf of a beleaguered ally. For many, it ended in disarray and discontent. And some, not all but some would say dishonor.

LAURENCE: I think war should be fought for an honorable and just cause. And I came to see that what we thought originally was an honorable and just cause, a very moral one, was in fact not. We were interfering in a civil war between the Vietnamese. And while I wasn't sympathetic to the other side, I could see as a journalist that that's what the war was all about. And it wasn't worth the loss of a single American or Vietnamese life at our hands to interfere with that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: John Laurence, 30 years later on Vietnam. Still ahead tonight, the man who sold a potential Triple Crown winning horse just a little bit too soon, as it turns out. And also tonight, we'll take a look at World Cup madness, as only NEWSNIGHT producers could produce it. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: OK, this is not a sports story. I want to make that clear. It may look like a sports story at times, but it's not a sports story. And we say that, because we know what happens when we run a sports story. Right.

A bit now on the World Cup. We'll go on a limb here and say that most Americans are not waiting with baited breath for the latest results of the World Cup. After all, it is going on in Asia. And to watch the games here in the United States means pulling an all nighter, but there are corners of New York City, and probably other parts of the country too, where football fans do not think twice about going the distance.

Last item was Argentina versus England. And our producers, who actually are young enough to do this, went out to see how people were handling the English sympathizers far from home and in a sea of Argentinean supporters.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Four years of waiting, suffering, pain until this moment comes. And then only one month to enjoy it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, and it's crazy. We are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week for a month straight. We're separating from our wives. We're losing girlfriends. We are losing sleep.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think you feel pleasure more when you feel other people's misery surrounding it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we've actually planned several routes of escape over the table tops. And the word's out there is a back entrance just over there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are winning. That's all they really need to be said.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We did jump up and we sat down quickly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We sat down twice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We sat down pretty quickly. We don't feel that comfortable yet. A couple more goes and...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I like to fight with words and I hear the Argentineans don't. So (UNINTELLIGIBLE.) I like an intellectual battle. And I don't feel they are up to it...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are the only happy guys here. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: England.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We didn't have anyone to hug there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At the end, you know, celebration.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We hugged each other, yes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The World Cup. And by the way, say what you want about New York, the bars are open at 7:30 in the morning.

Up next on NEWSNIGHT, the man who sold the horse that may win the Triple Crown, the man who sold the horse that may win the Triple Crown. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Back in 1920, a man named Henry Friese (ph) became a part of sporting history, when he was so hard up for cash, that he sold a pretty good, though not yet phenomenal baseball player from the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees. The player, of course, was Babe Ruth. And forests had been felled that chronicled the ripple effects of that smooth move.

Lately an octogenarian in Chicago has been drawing comparisons to Mr. Friese for reasons you are about to understand.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): His business is in a decidedly unglamorous part of Chicago. And the steel products he sells have not exactly been flying off the shelves.

RUSSELL REINEMAN, CROWN STEEL SALES: We had the biggest losses in 2000 and 2001 than we ever had. And 2002 is starting out the same way.

BROWN: So at age 84, owner of the same company for half a century, Russell Reineman says he needed cash. No, he didn't go to the race track to bet on a horse. Instead, he sold one.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We got the most beautiful black colt anyone had ever seen.

BROWN: That black colt, one of more than 100 owned by Reineman and his daughter Lynn McCutchen (ph), raced for the first time in public early last fall, and won.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: War Emblem strikes, first time out of the gate.

BROWN: That's right. The horse Russell Reineman put on the block was War Emblem, which he sold just weeks before the Kentucky Derby for $900,000 to a Saudi Arabian prince named Ahmed bin Salman. REINEMAN: I'm happy for the horse, for the people that bought the horse, and for ourselves.

BOBBY SPRINGER, FIRST WAR EMBLEM TRAINER: It's done, but I can't change it. So no, I don't have a problem with it at all.

BROWN: This is the man who convinced Russell Reineman to sell, Bobby Springer, his long time trainer. War Emblem says Springer was a risk because of bone chips in two of his ankles, and one on one knee. And besides, the owner did need the money.

SPRINGER: Hindsight's 20/20, but even if he hadn't had the little problems that he's got, we would have probably sold him. Just been for more money.

BROWN: War Emblem, of course, went on to win the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, which gives him a chance to win Saturday's Belmont Stakes and become the first Triple Crown winner since 1978.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If he wins the Belmont, he will become a movie star in his own right.

BROWN: Russell Reineman and his daughter will not be shut out completely. Before they sold War Emblem, they asked for and got 10 percent of all his future earnings, which should he win the Belmont, will be very impressive, especially at stud.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A fee for a stallion for a live foal could be anywhere between $200,000 and 300,000. That's just for one mare. The average stallion may breed somewhere between 60 and 80 mares during that January to June window. So you can imagine what kind of dollars you're talking about generating.

BROWN: Enough, suffice it to say for Russell Reineman to enjoy the rest of his horses, including this one, a filly, who's the half sister of War Emblem and will race in Kentucky next week.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Belmont tomorrow. Have a great weekend. We'll see you on Monday. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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