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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
New Information on LAX Shooting Suspect; Baseball Legend Ted Williams Dies
Aired July 05, 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 ANCHOR: Good evening again. I'm Aaron Brown.
Ted Williams died today. You probably heard that by now. He was 83. He had been sick for a long time, and today he died. We don't do a lot of sports stories here, but we'll spend some time on Ted Williams tonight because he was more than a ball player.
I wish Larry King were here with us tonight. I'd love to know his thoughts on Mr. Williams, Larry being baseball's all-time biggest fan. More than any other sports I know, baseball binds generations. When Larry's in town, we always talk baseball at some point. He tells me about the old days in Brooklyn, or we talk about great announcers or debate and, believe me, I never win these debates, the great players, who was better, who was overrated. Baseball connects us and I've always thought that people who don't get that, and I do live with a couple of them, are missing something rich and wonderful.
So later, we'll talk about Ted Williams, which in many ways is more than a story of one man and one sport. It is the story of a period in the country, a story of what we wanted from athletes and perhaps long for in our heroes and Mr. Williams who could be a bit prickly if truth be told, was both.
But first, "The Whip," starting again tonight at LAX, Los Angeles International Airport, CNN's Frank Buckley is covering the shooting investigation. Frank, start us off with a headline please.
FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, tonight we know more about the suspect involved in yesterday's shootings here at the Bradley International Terminal, but investigators continue to work the question what was the motive? What prompted the gunman to come into the Bradley International Terminal, to approach the El Al ticket counter here and to open fire -- Aaron.
BROWN: Frank, thank you.
A different side of the ImClone story tonight call this a side effect of the scandal and it is a question of life and death. NEWSNIGHT financial correspondent Allan Chernoff has that. Allan, a headline from you please.
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN FINANCIAL CORRESPONDENT: Last year, it was the experimental miracle drug that cancer patients had to have. Then came the scandals at Imclone Systems, but many of the patients and their doctors still believe. We'll have the story of the drug Erbitux.
BROWN: Thank you very much Allan.
And, as we said, Ted Williams died today. Part of our coverage provided by Keith Olberman. So, Keith, what headline do you want to put on this now?
KEITH OLBERMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, he had the hand-to-eye coordination of a surgeon, he had the swagger of John Wayne, the mindset of an artist, and he wanted to be remembered as the greatest baseball hitter who ever lived and now perhaps he will be. Ted Williams, dead at 83.
BROWN: Back with all of you shortly.
Also tonight, the storm over a horrible kind of frontier justice practiced by a tribe in Pakistan, worse than a lynching this. Tribal elders decided one family's so-called crime was punishable by the gang rape of one of its daughters. It's hard to believe this sort of thing happens, and perhaps the best that can be said is that many in Pakistan have decided enough of this sort of thing now.
Also tonight, we'll look at a question of whether airport security ought to begin at the ticket counter, at the doors, farther away, all of this of course because of the incident at LAX yesterday.
And just so Friday doesn't seem quite so much like Doomsday, the wine couple is here, bringing four picks for summer drinking. I love this job. All that to come in the hour ahead, but we begin with a few early and incomplete answers to who was the man who opened fire yesterday at LAX?
A family man for one Hesham Mohamed Hadayet was an Egyptian immigrant, a husband, a father of two. He drove a limo and led a quiet life with one exception that we know of. He became enraged when a neighbor flew an American and Marine Corps flag after September 11th. But we don't know why he did what he did. We don't know that.
Do we know whether he acted alone? Not yet. We don't know that either. Was this terrorism? Well, the Israelis say it was, but the FBI says it's too soon to know, but in the end, this may come down to how you define the word terrorism.
We do know this for sure tonight, Hesham Mohamed Hadayet was carrying a knife, two pistols and extra ammunition. Had a security guard from El Al not shot him first, he had the means to kill dozens of people. Here again, CNN's Frank Buckley.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BUCKLEY (voice over): Reminders of the July 4th violence at the El Al ticket counter were evident the day after the shootings, bullet holes still visible, but what isn't evident to investigators is just what the motive was for the shootings.
FBI agents say 41-year-old Hesham Mohamed Hadayet shot dead by an El Al security agent came to LAX armed with two handguns, extra ammunition, and a six-inch-long hunting knife.
RICHARD GARCIA, FBI AGENT IN CHARGE: It appears that he went there for the intention of killing people. Why he did that is still undetermined.
BUCKLEY: Early Friday, investigators searched Hadayet's Irvine, California apartment seizing documents and other potential evidence. So far, FBI agents say Hadayet doesn't appear to be part of a broader terrorist plot.
They say he has no known affiliations with any terrorist organizations, and he appears to have no criminal record. They say the Egyptian national was granted a U.S. green card in 1992 and may have been working as a licensed limo driver. Two El Al security agents and one passenger subdued him during the shooting.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I ran out and jumped on his legs and just held his legs down while the security guards tried to disarm arm.
BUCKLEY: Investigators say Hadayet was disarmed but died in the process, as did two innocent bystanders, 46-year-old Yaakov Aminov who had come to LAX to drop off friends, and 25-year-old Victoria Hen, a ticket agent for El Al.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BUCKLEY: And as you look live behind the El Al ticket counter, you can see flowers have been left behind for those two victims. L.A.'s Mayor James Hahn saying tonight, Aaron, that Los Angeles is grieving -- Aaron.
BROWN: Any changes in security at LAX because of this?
BUCKLEY: Security is increased today and certainly there's a discussion about whether or not security should change in the future. James Hahn has proposed a change in the security plan, but one thing he talked about tonight was the difficulty in dealing with a new security situation.
Someone asking him at a press conference tonight, "well couldn't you have people check at the curb?" And the reality is that literally millions of people travel through this airport every day. He's saying that it's difficult. He can't foresee a situation where you could check everybody at the curb, and even if you could, then people would be vulnerable at the curb.
BROWN: And when you talk about increased security at LAX today, is the airport generally just the international terminal, and what is it you see, more police officers, that sort of thing?
BUCKLEY: You do see more police officers than you normally would. Police have signaled that we would, in fact, see more police officers for July 4th itself, and through the holiday period as a result of what happened on July 4th. They told us they would increase the numbers even more.
I would even say, Aaron, that it was almost disturbing the number of police officers we saw just outside the Bradley Terminal just now as I was coming in from outside there, at least a half-dozen police cars just parked on the curb there. Perhaps that gives people a sense of security. For me, it reminded me of seeing something like a crime scene, where you come up and you see several police cars gathered at one spot. But that gives you a sense of what it feels like here tonight.
BROWN: Frank, thanks, and I guess in this case both things are true. I think it was, in fact, a crime scene and it does give us an added sense of security. Thank you, Frank Buckley at LAX now.
This is a very complicated question, the security question, does it make sense to screen people before they walk into the terminal? If so, how exactly do you do that?
As Frank mentioned, a planned expansion at LAX does call for a change in the way security is done. It's done at the airport. It's done differently, for example, at the airport in Tel Aviv, where they have a lot of experience but a whole different set of problems than we do in the United States.
Joining us from Atlanta tonight Jeff Beatty a former FBI Special Agent, a former CIA Counterterrorism Office, a former Delta Force member and probably a lot of other cool things on his resume as well. Jeff, it's good to see you.
JEFF BEATTY, SECURITY CONSULTANT: Nice to see you, Aaron.
BROWN: I want to talk about where security goes, but let me ask a couple things about the incident. I assume you have no specific facts but you have great instincts on these things. What do you instincts tell you about this incident? Was it part of something larger? Was he part of something larger or was it a lone wolf?
BEATTY: Well, Aaron, I think that the closest parallel we have to this attack is the one of Mir Aimal Kansi outside CIA's front gate in the early '90s. The assessment there was that was kind of a sympathy operation where Kansi gunned down a few CIA officers as they were turning left into CIA Headquarters.
A sympathy operation not necessarily done at the direction of any specific group or state, but rather done because there was a feeling that something needed to be done against the Central Intelligence Agency, the U.S. military, et cetera, and that was perceived as the weak target.
And again, this week we have heard reports of calls to arms, if you will, for people to attack Zionist and American targets worldwide. So the indicators are, I think, at this point that this was more of a sympathy type of attack than anything else. BROWN: Maybe I should have asked this first. Does it matter in a sense? Does it matter - obviously it matters if he's an al Qaeda operative in some sort of cell in Los Angeles, but we've spent the day fussing about whether this is terrorism or hate crime or something else.
In the end, a guy walked into the airport and created terror, and it's going to affect the way all of us, for a while at least, walk into airports or most of us I guess. So, does it matter what his intent was?
BEATTY: It matters to a degree. But, you know, it makes no difference to the people who lost their lives. The degree to which it matters, Aaron, though is if this had been an al Qaeda operation, you were likely to have seen more than one attack at the same time in different cities.
Remember the loss of our two embassies in East Africa on August 7th of '98 within minutes of each other. The multiple attacks on September 11th, those low concept -- correction low-tech, high-concept attacks. You know, al Qaeda would have wanted to show that they could strike in multiple cities.
So, to the extent that this was probably a sympathy operation and not a coordinated attack against multiple airports, I think had that happened, there would have been much more reluctance on the part of Americans to go to the terminal to return from their holiday weekend.
BROWN: Yes. I assume, and perhaps incorrectly, that there's only so much you can realistically do given the limitation. Are there things outside the security perimeter at the airport you would do differently than are being done now?
BEATTY: Well, first, I'd like to say that while we're not, and the people in the Transportation Security Administration will be the first to tell you this, we are not where we want to be yet. But having said that, I think we're making significant progress. And, yes, there are things that you can do outside of the terminal before you get, in fact, to the screening, which in most airports is about halfway or three-quarters of the way into the airport.
We earlier in the year did some work up at Boston's Logan Airport where the 9/11 attacks were launched from, training the personnel assigned to that airport in what to look for in behavioral profiling. What does somebody wearing a concealed weapon look like? How are they likely to act? Where are they likely to stand? How can you detect that and then call for help?
Aaron, I think when the facts come out on this case in Los Angeles, we're also going to see that there was some early indicator that this was a different person in line, at least to the security personnel, to the trained professional, and I believe that the El Al security personnel were already moving on this individual before he started shooting and it was because of their alertness to his behavior that they were able to bring this incident to a close rather quickly before more people got hurt. BROWN: When you talk about the security people you were training, you're talking about, I assume you're not talking about the people who are looking at the x-ray machine that you pass your bags through?
BEATTY: No. No, actually I'm talking about in both Logan and also we did some work with the management at Providence. You've got people, custodians that work at the airport, people that are at curbside, curbside check-in people.
You know everybody who gets a look at somebody as they come into the airport has an opportunity to do some assessment, and slowly but surely American airports and other transportation elements are starting to do that type of training for all their personnel to do the visual screening that needs to be done if you don't have airport type screening.
BROWN: You made I think, Jeff, an interesting observation today that the zigzag lines that we all now go through at the airports and a lot of other places are not a terrifically good idea. Can you explain why that is?
BEATTY: Sure. Think of a package bomb or think of a firearms attack. You know, we all are in those lines that "S" back and forth, and you find yourself in close proximity to another 50 people. That's an attractive target. In Frank Buckley's piece he mentioned, you know, you don't want to necessarily move things outside and just attack a group of people that are outside.
Well, the idea is you have to put people into a trickle, not a group and so it's far better to have a single file line, even though to the eye it may seem that it goes forever, but a single file line doesn't mean 20 people get killed by a package bomb. It doesn't mean that 20 people get killed by a handgun.
It means that maybe one or two people would be at risk and when there's so little bang for that buck, it's a significant deterrent to terrorists when they do their casing and do their rehearsals. They look at that and go, "not worth my operational energy."
One quick thing, if I could, you know people should not be overly afraid. If al Qaeda could hit us every day, they would be hitting us every day. They can't. They have limited operational capability. They will do a good job of preparing and that's what we want to do with our security measures is we want to deter them and have them look at things at the airport and go, "you know what, it's not worth the operational energy there. I'm not going to get the bang for my buck."
BROWN: Jeff, thanks. That's a good note to end this on. It's nice to see you again. We always appreciate your time. Thank you.
BEATTY: Thank you, Aaron.
BROWN: Jeff Beatty tonight.
Ahead on the program, a little bit later the story behind the cancer drug that is at the root of Martha Stewart's stock troubles, if in fact that's what they turn out to be.
Up next, an amazing story of frontier justice, we use that word carefully, from Pakistan. This is NEWSNIGHT on a Friday from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Someone tried to explain this story to me the other day by saying I didn't appreciate the cultural differences. That is so. In Pakistan, a tribal jury ordered an 18-year-old girl to be gang- raped as punishment for a crime, a breach of tribal rules really, committed by a member of her family. While this child endured this torture, her father was forced to watch.
Since this story was first reported, it has clearly embarrassed Pakistan and may, in the end, lead to important changes in that country but that's for another day. Here's CNN's Tom Mintier.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM MINTIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Initial reports indicated this was an 18-year-old girl first identified as just "M", but some claim she's actually 30 and a divorcee. She was allegedly raped by four men in her village in rural Pakistan.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): All four of them raped me. After one hour, I called my father and uncle to take me home.
MINTIER: Police say the assault was ordered by a tribal village jury as punishment. The girl's father was forced to witness the incident and says he begged for it not to happen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): No one helped us. We begged for mercy in the name of God from them, but they held guns on us and thus we were helpless.
MINTIER: Parts of Pakistan still have a tradition of tribal justice where some crimes are punished outside the framework of the Pakistani legal system. There are reports that the punishment was ordered because one family member, male, was seen walking un- chaperoned with a young female from another tribe. The incident has created an outcry from human rights groups and legal experts, both inside and out of Pakistan.
NAEEM BOKHAIR, ATTORNEY: It's almost like a lynching, except that in this case there's a rape involved and in the Old West the mob would just lynch the person.
MINTIER: Some involved have already been arrested. The same newspapers that put the victim on the front page put another picture of those accused on page nine. Legal experts in Pakistan say this case may change the often accepted old ways of justice in this country that may no longer be accepted.
BOKHAIR: We should be ashamed of ourselves. There's no reason to fear that. But not only are we ashamed but we are prepared to grapple with it. MINTIER: The female victim and her family have already seen some action. The president of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, ordered that compensation be paid to her and her family, a sum equal to $8,000 U.S. dollars, and that a school in her village be built and named after her.
MINTIER (on camera): The gang rape case most likely will not languish in the court system. The Supreme Court has already acted. The president is now involved and the crime has garnered worldwide attention. What most legal experts are waiting to see is if this case becomes as violent a jolt to society as it already has become to the legal system.
Tom Mintier, CNN, Islamabad, Pakistan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Here's a quick look at a number of other stories making news today.
President Bush left for a weekend at the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine but before he did, he called the Afghan president Hamid Karzai. President Bush expressing his sympathy for the loss of lives during American air strikes in Afghanistan earlier this week. Mr. Bush and President Karzai also talked about a U.S.-Afghan fact- finding mission to determine what really happened when dozens of Afghans were killed at a wedding party earlier in the week.
In Algeria, a wave of bombings rocked the country as it marked its 40th anniversary of independence. One explosion ripped through a crowd at a market, killing at least 35 people, injuring many more. No one yet claiming responsibility for these bombings.
And in Germany, where hundreds of police resume searching for the last two victims of Monday's midair collision that killed 71 people, Swiss authorities have launched an investigation to see whether anyone should face criminal charges in connection with the disaster.
Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, we'll look back at the career of Ted Williams. That's in a little bit.
Up next, the story of the cancer drug behind ImClone and the Martha Stewart case. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: A few months ago, the only people who knew about ImClone were some investors and some doctors and cancer patients. In the last weeks, we've all come to know the company because the CEO was arrested for insider trading and one of his good friends, Martha Stewart, has come under a cloud of suspicion.
All of this became news when the Food and Drug Administration refused to grant fast track approval for the anti-cancer drug the company was developing. Investors lost fortunes. Well, some of them did. And as for the cancer patients, here again NEWSNIGHT financial correspondent Allan Chernoff.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHERNOFF (voice over): Since the arrest of former ImClone executive Sam Waksal on insider trading charges, the story has been all about his friend Martha Stewart. Did she or didn't she engage in insider trading?
MARTHA STEWART, MARTHA STEWART LIVING OMNIMEDIA: I think this will all be resolved in the very near future and I will be exonerated.
CHERNOFF: Rachel and Phil Hightower really don't care about Martha and her stock trades. They care about ImClone's cancer drug. It could help Rachel, who is suffering from advanced colorectal cancer. They're hoping the ImClone scandal doesn't further delay the drug's approval.
RACHEL HIGHTOWER, CANCER PATIENT: It's very frustrating to cancer patients because if you think you have something that may cure you or may help you at least extend your life, then you're real anxious to get to that drug and there ought to be ways to expedite the process.
CHERNOFF: Rachel has been through rounds of chemotherapy. It has helped, but the Hightowers know that chemotherapy works for only so long.
R. HIGHTOWER: It's always just so hopeful to hear that when you run out of conventional therapies there are other available drugs to you on trial. It gives you a lot of hope.
PHIL HIGHTOWER, RACHEL'S HUSBAND: We still believe that this is a drug of not the future but of today if we can just get it out there.
CHERNOFF: In the spring of last year, ImClone's Erbitux, also known as C225, was the toast of the cancer community, a new kind of antibody that could block tumor growth. A clinical trial of patients who had failed other treatments showed tumors shrank by at least half in almost one out of every four cases when Erbitux was combined with traditional chemotherapy. Back then, ImClone's Sam Waksal predicted Erbitux would be approved by now.
SAM WAKSAL, FORMER IMCLONE CEO: We feel very confident that we'll be on the market next year with a very important new drug.
CHERNOFF: ImClone tried to get fast track approval, but last December the Food and Drug Administration said no, raising questions about the methods of ImClone's trial. Still, many oncologists believe the drug hold great promise.
DR. MANUEL HIDALGO, JOHNS HOPKINS KOMMEL CANCER CENTER: Hundreds of companies are developing at a given time and very few make it to the clinic and very few make it to the point in which Erbitux is currently being developed. I think everything we have seen is excited.
CHERNOFF: The FDA says its reviewers are professionals and they will review the medical and scientific data and go where the science leads. Before that happens, ImClone needs to present more data. Several clinical trials are underway and ImClone is currently enrolling patients in a lung cancer trial. Meanwhile, families stricken with cancer keep waiting and hoping.
P. HIGHTOWER: I'm not concerned about the stock value. I'm not concerned about the management of a company. I am concerned that as a result of what's been going on that they do not lose their quality when they're making the drug, and number two, that they are able to produce it and get it out to the people.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHERNOFF (on camera): There is yet another waiting game. For months, ImClone has been saying it is working on a compassionate use program that would provide the drug to a very limited number of patients, but so far ImClone says it has no details on exactly when such a program might begin -- Aaron.
BROWN: A quick ImClone question, then I want to talk about the drug a second. Is the company still solvent, still able to do the work that it needs to do?
CHERNOFF: It is still working on it, absolutely, and they still intend to get it approved.
BROWN: OK. The FDA, in this day and age, drugs get approved much more quickly than they used to, must have had a reason not to approve the drug. And you worry a little bit about patients who understandably will grab at anything. Why do we believe at this point that this drug is, in fact, the real deal?
CHERNOFF: No guarantee that it is.
BROWN: Right.
CHERNOFF: But the trial that was submitted to the FDA showed spectacular results and, very important here, this is a drug used for people who have Stage 4 cancer, who basically are at a very serious stage and looking for a solution.
BROWN: Right, but the study that was submitted to the FDA also led the FDA to question the methodology of the study?
CHERNOFF: Precisely, that's correct.
BROWN: So, it's hard to know what that means, isn't it?
CHERNOFF: Which is exactly why the FDA said, we need more studies.
BROWN: So, that's where we are is that ImClone needs to conclude the studies that it's involved in now and get that to the government and see where this goes?
CHERNOFF: And that doesn't happen overnight. BROWN: Not even in this day and age. Allan, thank you very much. It's always good to remember, by the way, these stories have more branches than we sometimes indicate at first blush.
Here are a number of other stories making news today.
More rain today, we are sorry to report, in central Texas, which means more flooding as well. You're looking at a part of northeast San Antonio. Water from a dam spilled into a nearby river with such force that it swept a house off its foundation, and carried the house away. More than a thousand residents and hundreds of tourists have been forced to leave the area.
In Miami, a vice president of the flight school where Saddam Hussein's stepson planned to study says nobody ever told him that foreign students now need student visas. This, by the way, is the same flight school that trained one of the 9/11 hijackers. "I know airplanes" the man said. "I do not know the INS." As for Saddam's stepson, he's expected to be deported in a matter of days.
And it's been a month now since 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was taken from her bedroom at gunpoint. Today, her father in Salt Lake once again appealed to the kidnapper to find it in his heart to let her go. Right now, the investigation still focused apparently on former handyman Richard Ricci. His lawyer says he's cooperating. He's taken a lie detector test, given blood samples, and consented to a number of searches. No break now in that case a month into it.
Later, on NEWSNIGHT a look back at the career of Ted Williams. Coming up, some friends stop by with a bottle of wine. It gets good now folks. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Well, the first time we did this, we had a news peg of sorts. Boy, is that stretching the term. It was open that bottle night. We have no such reason tonight, except it seemed like the perfect antidote for doing a live television program on the Friday of the holiday week. In truth, we'd have found another excuse if we needed it, but that's our story for now and we're sticking to it.
We thought we'd spend a few minutes talking wine with Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher. I always do that. I always worry that I've done it wrong.
DOROTHY GAITER, "WALL STREET JOURNAL" WINE COLUMNIST: You've got it right.
BROWN: Husband and wife and wine columnists for "The Wall Street Journal." It's nice to see you both again.
So what you been drinking?
GAITER: Well, only good stuff.
BROWN: Only good stuff? GAITER: Yes, yes. This is Oregon Pinot Gref (ph). It's the same grape as Pinot Brigio (ph) in Italy...
BROWN: Mm-hmm.
GAITER: ...but in Oregon, they let it get really ripe. So it's rich and complex and really yummy.
BROWN: And, therefore, how is it different from -- in another -- the same grade from another place?
GAITER: The same grade? Well, in Italy, it's...
BROWN: You know, I sniff this like I know what I'm doing. I'm sorry.
GAITER: No.
JOHN BRECHER, "WALL STREET JOURNAL" WINE COLUMNIST: It looks great. It looks just right.
BROWN: OK.
GAITER: Freeze that. That's great. In Italy, the grape doesn't get as ripe, so it's more acidic. This is really a charter. This is richer.
BRECHER: We love this as a summer wine. A friend of ours once said it's like drinking the cold. It seems to chill our soul, not just our mouths. And that's what it's really all about in summer.
BROWN: That's very nice.
GAITER: We thought you could use that today.
BROWN: I can use that every day. You guys wrote about jug wines the other day or the other week.
GAITER: We did.
BROWN: Yes.
GAITER: We did.
BROWN: And what did you learn about jug wines?
GAITER: Well, some are better than others. We...
BROWN: True of so many things. Television programs, newspapers, life.
GAITER: We went through 50 of them. And we drank them all blind. And it's a wonder that we didn't go blind drinking them, but we really like the Sutter Home's Savignon Blanc.
BROWN: And what's that sell for? About eight bucks? GAITER: Yes, $7.99.
BRECHER: These are all wines, $7.99 or less.
BROWN: Does that come in a box? Is there a box or a bottle?
BRECHER: No, we have done box wine tasting. These were better. These were in actual bottles, big bottles, $7.99 and less. And the message we took from it is that really some jug wines are much better than others. If your jug wine is just something cold and okay in your glass, try another.
BROWN: Yes.
BRECHER: They're inexpensive enough. You can try some.
BROWN: All right, we've got about three minutes left. I want to -- I have one more question, but what else did you bring in?
GAITER: We brought Sincere (ph) from...
BRECHER: Classic summer wine.
GAITER: ...France. And a Roset from Spain.
BROWN: What makes something a summer wine? It's lighter?
GAITER: It's lighter. It goes with great light summer foods, grilled foods.
BROWN: If I told you I liked Sangria, would you laugh at me?
GAITER: No. I like Sangria, too.
BRECHER: We had a great Sangria just the other day at a Mexican restaurant.
GAITER: This is Chiroz (ph) from Australia. Drink it chilled.
BROWN: Australians make their nice wines, don't they?
GAITER: Yes, this is a red wine, but it's really nice chilled with barbecue. Deloche (ph) White zin, the best zin in America.
BRECHER: White zin in America.
BROWN: Is that a California wine?
GAITER: Yes, yes.
BRECHER: Yes.
GAITER: Used to be a fireman, and now he makes wonderful regular zins, but the best white zin in America.
BRECHER: There's no reason to drink a bad white zinfandel, because there are good white zinfandels out there.
BROWN: I had said that many times myself, actually. There's no reason to drink a bad wine. You went -- I love this idea. You went and -- to popular restaurants.
GAITER: Yes.
BROWN: The sort of franchise kinds of restaurants we all have in the cities we live in and sampled their wines. And what did you learn?
GAITER: I wore these very same pearls to Hooters.
BROWN: Is that proper Hooters attire? I don't know. And I do know that that's the first time in almost 30 years I've ever said Hooters on the air. With any luck, the last time. But in any case...
GAITER: The Olive Garden has a great wine program.
BROWN: Is that right?
GAITER: Yes.
BROWN: And I think they actually advertise that, don't they?
GAITER: Do they? Yes, that's right. That's right.
BRECHER: But most of them, unfortunately, are the big, big chains don't really do much in terms of wine. You know, it's funny, you could ask your wait person about the beer, and they'll go through the 20 beers...
BROWN: Yes.
BRECHER: ...and tell you something about each one. Ask about wine, you get a blank look. And that's a shame, because we're really going to become a wine drinking nation, the places like Applebees have to become places where wine is a friendly experience.
BROWN: Yes, is part of the problem that the kind -- they have to buy wines in such large quantities, that they can't really go to boutique (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
GAITER: Doesn't have to be boutique to be good. Beringer makes gobs of wine.
BROWN: And...
GAITER: And it's good quality wine.
BROWN: And, anyway, you found like a great deal at Hooters. There I've said it again.
GAITER: Yes, yes. Dom Perignon with 20 wings for...
BRECHER: $150. GAITER: $150.
BRECHER: For a bottle of Dom Perignon and 20 wings. Now aside from that, there is virtually no wine at Hooters. So if you want wine at Hooters, you have to have Dom Perignon. That's the downside.
BROWN: And does it go well with wings?
GAITER: It does.
BROWN: I've never thought of it that way.
GAITER: It does. It goes very well with wings, with the blue cheese dip and celery. Can't beat it.
BROWN: Thanks for coming by.
GAITER: Thank you.
BROWN: I hope you're having a terrific summer.
GAITER: We are.
BROWN: Come back soon?
GAITER: We will.
BROWN: Thank you very much.
BRECHER: Thank you.
BROWN: This is a great bit, you know. It's Friday. You drink the wine.
We'll talk about Ted Williams, a great bit, too as NEWSNIGHT continues from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: If it were just for his statistics, a career average of .344, ninth all time, a two-time Triple Crown winner, 525 home runs, Ted Williams' death today would still be worth noting. But Ted Williams was much more than that. He was -- he had the drive of a fighter pilot, which in fact, he was at one point in his life. He was the focus of the hopes and disappointments of an entire city, alternately the hero and the villain in Boston.
But today, he was nothing but the hero there as the grounds crew cut his number 9 into the left field grass, where he robbed -- heavily robbed from 1939 to 1960. What a ball player.
And just before the game, a game between the Red Sox and the visiting Tigers of Detroit, it was a moment of silence in honor of Ted Williams.
Keith Olberman now with more on Ted Williams. KEITH OLBERMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: If it was not the case long ago, Aaron, it was in recent past. Everybody knew Ted Williams was the last baseball player to hit .400. The only American Leaguer to have done it since 1923. But in a sense that one statistic, .406, overshadowed a life that seemed to have sprung from the pages of fiction.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They used to call Ted Williams, "The Kid."
OLBERMAN (voice-over): It was true. Ted Williams really did say as a teenager that all he wanted out of life was to talk down the street and hear people say, "There goes the greatest hitter who ever lived." They said a lot more than just that. This was probably our first modern athlete. Tempestuous, controversial, yelling one moment and giving the fans or the media or even his teammates the silent treatment the next.
TED WILLIAMS, BASEBALL PLAYER: When some guy said one day, he said, "Boy that kid has got quick wrists." Oh, I even today don't think quick wrists are that important, but I didn't know whether it was good or bad, but sounded like a compliment to me. And when I heard that, I said, "Just wait until next time he sees me."
OLBERMAN: 1938: Williams is still an unheralded minor leaguer, spending spring training with the Boston Red Sox. He moves to the batting cage to take his practice swings, a veteran outfielder jumps in ahead of him. Williams swears at the man who is twice his age. And then his tone gets calm. I'll have your job next year. He did. And he kept it until 1960.
DAN SHAUGNNESSY, SPORTS WRITER, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": For power in average, he might be as good as it gets. He was bombastic. He played baseball at a time when baseball was the only game that mattered.
OLBERMAN: It was never an easy ride. He had grown up virtually without a father, constantly watched by his ultrareligious mother in near poverty in the dusty streets of San Diego of the 1920s, where his sole luxury was a photo of Babe Ruth on his bedroom wall. Deferred from the draft in the second World War because he was his ailing mother's sole support, he was nonetheless attacked by the Boston newspapers, and in turn by the fans.
That would embitter Williams. It would inspire him to defiantly enlist, to train pilots. And then in Korea at the age of 33, to be called back to active service to run bombing raids, to nearly be killed when his plane returned but its landing gear did not. Along the way, he met and trained a novice pilot, who would always insist Ted Williams taught him everything he knew about courage. That man's name was John Glenn.
JOHN GLENN, FMR. ASTRONAUT: Ted and I got to be very close because of all the combat experience together. And he got hit several times out there. Once he was on fire and had to belly land the plane back in. Slid it in on the belly that came up the runway about 1500 feet before he was able to jump out and run off the wing tip. And another time was hit in the wing tip tank when I was flying with him.
And so, he was a very active combat pilot. And he was an excellent pilot. I give him a lot of credit. He was great.
OLBERMAN: The baseball success of Ted Williams was once known well enough to be part of a mathematical fabric of this nation. He batted .406 in 1941, the last man to hit better than .400 for a full season, the last man to hit better than .390 for a full season. Forgotten in the looking back, the need to look further back. He had been the first man to hit .400 since 1931.
Equally known was the great frustration of his career. He played in but one World Series. The Red Sox lost. He was barely a factor. And Williams barely ever mentioned that in an ill conceived practice game before that series, he was hit by a pitch and played all seven games with his elbow swollen to twice its size.
WILLIAMS: The biggest regret I've got is that I didn't have a -- that I wasn't successful in the World Series. And my playing performance was terrible.
OLBERMAN: Ted Williams never lost the ability to hit a baseball. 16 seasons after he batted .406, he batted .388. He was 38-years old. Only three players have hit .388 or better since then. But the Boston fans would never love Williams the way New York loved Joe DiMaggio or Chicago loved Michael Jordan. Their battle, the one between the unbreakable Williams and the equally determined fans, would rage for the rest of his career. They booed him when he was not perfect. He spat at them or raised a finger towards them at a time when that gesture was still shocking enough to wilt flowers.
YOGI BERRA, FORMER BASEBALL PLAYER: Ted Williams, I used to get, you know, when he come up to hit, I used to talk to him. I'd say, "Ted, where are you going fishing this year?" And he used to tell me "Shut up, you little Diego." He was all business. He was all business.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Certainly one of the great players.
OLBERMAN: And his career ended in the stuff of fiction, a home run in Boston in his final game, in his final at bat. And the fans finally roared their unconditional love. He stayed in the dugout and would not tip his cap. And then he vanished. Off to fish in Florida, to inspire many to say he was one of the greatest fishermen who ever lived.
There was an ill-fated return to baseball, as manager of the Washington Senators. Then in 1972, he went back into retirement. But there was an Indian summer as glorious perhaps as any athlete has ever known, beginning in the '80s, when the generations who had taunted him had begun to fade away. Boston and baseball learned to appreciate who Ted Williams was and what he had given them.
SHAUGNNESSY: Ted Williams is the franchise player here of the century without question. I mean, he's a godlike figure, and remains such in the city of Boston, and is the most famous player associated with Fenway Park, bar none.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was the last man to hit .400 in a season.
OLBERMAN: Finally, in 1999, when the All-Star Game came back to Fenway Park, Ted Williams came back with it. And as 30,000 flashbulbs flared, the modern stars, not one of whom had ever seen him play, enveloped him in the middle of the diamond, a perfect moment on a perfect night for what we suddenly understood was a nearly perfect athlete.
JOHN HENRY WILLIAMS, TED WILLIAMS' SON: He's been along for the ride. Very excited for my successes. You know, upset about my failures and talking, hitting the whom time.
OLBERMAN: And if all that had not been story book ending enough, there was this most improbable final chapter. Enacted here on a back water within a back water. Williams son, John Henry, at what for baseball was the impossibly ancient starting age of 33. Taking a belated first stride in his father's footsteps. Joining Boston's Minor League team in Fort Myers, Florida, joining it because Teddy Ballgame had asked the Red Sox for what proved to be one final favor.
JOHN SANDERS, RED SOX MINOR LEAGUE MANAGER: In respect to -- respect for Ted Williams and his family, this is something that we have agreed to do. And we all are on the same page. We've all agreed to go with it.
OLBERMAN: Ted Williams had been so sick after two strokes and high risk heart surgery, so sick for a decade. Yet however the strings were pulled for this to happen, he lived to see it happen. And then just two weeks and two days later, Ted Williams died. His timing in life, as on a baseball field, perfect to the end.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OLBERMAN: A few years ago, a friend of his asked Williams why, really why nobody had hit .400 since he did. Between you and me, he half snapped, half whispered, Ted is gone now. I guess the confidence can be broken. "Abstinence," he said. Williams friend went blank. "Abstinence," Williams repeated. "These guys nowadays can think of only one thing. Hell, I didn't go on a date until the 1940 All-Star game."
Some day, Aaron, there may be another hitter like Ted Williams, but I doubt there will ever be another man like him.
BROWN: He's a great -- he's a great and complex character. We talk to Costas about this a little bit later. Do you think he regretted how he handled Boston?
OLBERMAN: I never got that sense from him. And I only knew him obviously after his career was over.
BROWN: Yes.
OLBERMAN: But I never got the sense that he was completely comfortable with the way Boston had treated him and waiting for them to apologize.
BROWN: Well, yes, that's a fair part of this. That's a fair part of it.
But there is the moment in the '99 All Star Game, when he comes out, and maybe it's what I read into the moment, or maybe the moment was in fact what we see. He tips his hat, finally tips his hat.
OLBERMAN: Yes.
BROWN: That's a gesture to me.
OLBERMAN: Yes. And I think he made the gesture after waiting for Boston to make the first move for 50 years. And I think he finally got around doing it himself.
BROWN: Thanks. I know he's someone you liked a lot. It's not pleasant to have to write those sorts of stories, but we appreciate you doing it.
OLBERMAN: Thank you.
BROWN: Thank you, Keith.
We'll talk with Bob Costas about the great Ted Williams when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Last time I saw the sportscaster Bob Costas, we were standing around home plate at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. That was the day before the stadium closed. I was there to write the last chapter in that old ballpark story history. And he was there to show his son up close what the old place looked like. We talked kids and history that day. We talked about Ted Williams earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: How ought we think about Ted Williams on a day like today?
BOB COSTAS, SPORTSCASTER: Well, Williams always said that all he ever wanted out of life was when he walked down the street for people to say, "There goes the best damn hitter who ever lived." And if he wasn't that, he was very, very close.
The combination of things that Babe Ruth brought to the game might have made him the most dangerous hitter. And in this era of inflated baseball stats, there are guys doing things now that in terms of raw numbers may approach what Williams did for a sustained period of time. But I think that Williams combined batting average, power, the slugging percentage, the on base percentage because he got a whole lot of walks without striking out too often. That combination of things for more than two decades, I don't think anybody approaches that as a pure hitter. Not in the modern era.
BROWN: He was a complicated guy. He had this very difficult relationship with both the media and the fan in Boston.
COSTAS: Yes.
BROWN: What was that about?
COSTAS: He was stubborn. A part of it was principle, an honest principle that you don't bend to the prevailing winds or to popular opinion. You're there to do a job. Do it by your own lights. Do it honestly. And he did that day in and day out.
And part of it, I think, was you know almost anyone who accomplishes something at a high level has something going on inside that they probably don't resolve until later in life. So there was some fire burning inside of him.
In the last 20 years of his life, and that's when I knew Williams, and I was privileged to know him, he was a wonderful guy. Accessible. Warm. Friendly. Very generous in his assessments of modern players. Not one of the guys that was trying to burnish his own legacy. He liked to see others do well. And he was free with his advice and his encouragement to young ball players.
And even the established guys, guys who you knew were certain hall of famers, were in awe around Ted Williams.
BROWN: Mm-hmm.
COSTAS: I was privileged to sit at a conversation between Ted Williams and Tony Gwynn. Tony Gwynn had hit .394 the year before. And Williams started quizzing him. What do you do with two strikes in this situation? What do you do if the infield plays you this way? What do you do if Randy Johnson's pitching you that way? And the look on Gwynn's face was like you get, you know, when you're in third grade and you hope the teacher won't call on you because you might not know the answer.
This was the best hitter in the National League. And he was afraid he would disappoint Ted Williams. And when he gave him an answer that Williams approved of, Gwynn beamed, both with pride and I think with relief, that he didn't get slapped across the knuckles with a ruler or something.
BROWN: I'll bet he did. He played -- their careers overlapped, he and Joe DiMaggio.
COSTAS: Yes.
BROWN: Both actually could be pretty prickly, truth be told. One sort of an elegant guy. The other, to me at least, sort of a blue collar ball player. Did they -- did Ted Williams resent the attention DiMaggio got?
COSTAS: No.
BROWN: Yes. COSTAS: Williams saw his achievements on their own terms and didn't worry that much about public adulation. He always said that DiMaggio was the best all around player he ever saw. And in turn, DiMaggio always said that Williams was the best pure hitter he every saw. There was little doubt that Joe was a much better fielder and a better base runner than Ted. And no doubt that Ted was a greater hitter, even as great as DiMaggio was with the bat.
BROWN: In -- let me -- just make a good guess for me here. Given the relationship he had in Boston, this kind of love-hate thing that was going on, had he been the modern player with the right to leave, to take the big check and go somewhere else, would he have made his career in Boston? Or would he have gone?
COSTAS: Very hard to say because the -- all the factors that shaped a guy like Ted Williams are factors that might have shaped someone who grew up in San Diego in the 1920's and 30's, who fought in two wars, World War II and Korea. He was a genuine war hero. Missed five seasons, the equivalent of five prime seasons to serve his country and did so willingly, and never complained, and made comparisons about what it would have done to his lifetime statistics.
So he would have been a different guy...
BROWN: Yes.
COSTAS: ...if you know, if he had been around to play in the modern era. And it's hard to say. I'll tell you this, he'd be worth more than $20 million a year if he was playing today.
BROWN: Final question. Do you ever see a nicer moment than the All Star Game at Fenway in what, '99?
COSTAS: '99.
BROWN: When it seemed like everything, the stars align to give Ted Williams his moment?
COSTAS: Yes, they were celebrating the whole century of baseball, because it was '99. And the All-Star Game was at Fenway Park. And out came Ted. And I think it was Tony Gwynn and Ken Griffey, Jr., really touching, poignant scene. They helped him to his feet because he was frail by that time. And all the modern players and all the Hall of Famers, the all time greats, they all gathered around him in a show of respect.
I'll leave you with one thing not directly related to your question. I said to him one time I was really lucky to know him pretty well and I cherished that. And I said to him, you know, "You're the guy that everyone thinks John Wayne was. You're the guy that John Wayne played in all those movies." And he paused for a second and goes, he even sounded like Wayne a little. He says, "Yes, I know it. I know. And he was right. It's like Dizzy Dean said. "It ain't bragging if it's the truth."
BROWN: Bob, thanks for your time today. It's always good to talk to you.
COSTAS: All right, Aaron. Thanks a lot.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Bob Costas earlier today. Have a wonderful weekend. We'll see you all again on Monday night, 10:00 o'clock Eastern time. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
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