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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Judge Disallows Moussaoui's Guilty Pleas; Congress Approves Corporate Crackdown Legislation; Work Continues to Rescue Trapped Miners
Aired July 25, 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, HOST: And good evening again, everyone. A lot of ground to cover tonight, but for a second, we want to talk a little bit about last night, and the decision we made to air the Samantha Runnion memorial service. There has been this really interesting discussion in our e-mail about it. Most people who wrote thought it was right the right decision, but there were plenty of people who did not.
Some wondered why the family allowed the cameras in. Some thought we talked too much. Others thought, we felt that we hit the right tone, the right balance. It went on and on. And it was fascinating.
For those of you waiting now for one of those Aaron hand- wringing, Robert Blake moments, sorry. I thought it was the right thing. I thought it was one of those things we can do on a network like CNN for people who want to watch.
And of course, she was not the only child lost, or tragically lost. And yes, there were other important stories yesterday, but the case sparked lots of interest. And in the end, it just felt right. And sometimes you just make decisions that way.
I don't know I would have made the same decision to -- the family made to allow the cameras in, but it wasn't my decision to make. And I've done this work long enough to understand why people make those sorts of decisions, why they talk to us in their most difficult moments, why they allow us to view their most intimate hurts. I get that, and I and everyone involved in the program tries to treat those moments respectfully. And I think we did that last night.
Now as far as the crawl at the bottom of the screen is concerned, that is another matter, but we have been getting along great with the bosses lately. Why spoil it now?
On to the Whip, quite an extraordinary day yet again in court, in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker.
Deborah Feyerick covering the story.
Deborah, a headline please? DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, Moussaoui wanted to skip the trial, go right to the penalty phase, have a jury decide his fate. But his plans to plead guilty come to a crashing halt -- Aaron.
BROWN: Deborah, we'll be right back with you right at the top.
Cleaning up corporate America, the top item on the agenda on Capitol Hill today. Jonathan Karl worked that again.
Jon, a headline from you?
JONATHAN KARL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All told, there were 532 yes votes and only three nos, as Congress voted to tighten the reigns on the accounting industry and hit corporate felons with penalties up to 25 years in jail.
BROWN: Jon, thank you.
A truly harrowing story tonight, nine miners trapped hundreds of feet below ground. Jeff Flock is in Somerset, Pennsylvania.
Jeff, the headline from you tonight?
JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the headline from here is that they are now 45 feet down, drilling a 30 inch wide hole. They hope to pull those miners out. The only problem is they don't know if they're dead or alive. We'll tell you what we do know.
BROWN: Jeff, thank you. We'll be back with you shortly.
Back with all of you. Also coming up in the hour ahead, the former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Dore Gold, on the continuing controversy over the Israeli strike in Gaza. Randy Cohen, better known as "the Ethicist," on what's gone rotten in corporate America. John Allen joins us. John's from "The National Catholic Reporter", as the Pope greets thousands of young people in Toronto.
Also tonight, the latest in the sad and sorry saga, not easy to say that, of Ted Williams. A note now has been dredged up. And we'll look at what it says about what Mr. Williams wanted after his death.
And Garrick Utley tonight on why this is a very good time to be a Communist, sort of. He met up with some of the party faithful, who are just a little bit self-satisfied in finally seeing capitalism take a hit or two. All of that in the hour ahead, but we begin in court in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui.
The guilty plea offered, then taken back. It was a strange day in court, but then again when there hasn't been one when Moussaoui has been there. It is certainly another vexing day for the judge who decided that Mr. Moussaoui is sane enough to conduct his own defense, as crazy as some of his antics seem to be.
We begin tonight with CNN's Deborah Feyerick.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FEYERICK (voice-over): Zacarias Moussaoui changed his mind and his guilty plea, saying to admit to everything the government's accused him of would mean certain death. Exactly what he's trying to avoid.
FRANK DUNHAM, MOUSSAOUI STANDBY ATTORNEY: He found out what the repercussions of a guilty plea were, what it was he had to swallow so to speak, what facts he had to agree to in order to plead guilty. And I don't think he understood that he had to admit 9-11 in order to plead guilty.
FEYERICK: At the start of the hearing, Moussaoui tried pleading guilty to four of the six conspiracy counts of terrorism and hijacking. But as the judge went over each charge, it soon became clear Moussaoui wasn't ready to admit to a role in the September 11 attacks.
EDWARD MACMAHON, MOUSSAOUI STANBY ATTORNEY: What you saw today in court is consistent with the way he's behaved in court every time. He said he was a member of al Qaeda, but that he had nothing to do with 9-11. So that has not changed one bit.
FEYERICK: With the guilty plea stalling, Moussaoui asked the judge for a 15 minutes recess. He said a prayer, accused Judge Leoni Brinkema of putting conditions to his plea, and told her, you want to link me to certain facts that will guarantee my death. Suicide he reminded the judge is prohibited under Islamic law.
And with that Moussaoui said, "I have to withdraw my guilty plea." He had hoped to avoid a trial and jump straight to the penalty phase, so he could tell the jury exactly what he did. Not in his words, but what the government says he did. And though he called an American jury his enemies, he said they would be honest enemies.
PROF. MARY CHEH, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL: He's under a mistaken notion about what his position is. He's also under some sort of, I don't know, romantic or fanciful notion that if he just gets before a group of citizens and gets to tell his side, that they will spare his life.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FEYERICK: If all goes according to schedule, opening arguments will begin mid-October. There's a massive amount of information of evidence that Moussaoui has to go through. In Minnesota, Oklahoma alone where he was taking flying lessons, documents there amount to some 70,000 pages. His standby lawyers have been going through all of it. Moussaoui still represents himself. Whether he extends an olive branch to his standby council, the weeks will tell -- Aaron.
BROWN: Is he allowed to see all of this information that the government has collected as part of the discovery?
FEYERICK: He is allowed to see a lot of the material. But again, it's only recently that he got a computer. It's only recently that he got hard copies of a lot of those documents. It's clear that he's been reading all of the motions that are being filed by the government, as well as by his own standby counsel.
The question is just how in depth has he been able to review the material? The judge did ask the government to streamline what it is he has to look at. But again, the quantity is just extraordinary. One of his own lawyers saying, it would fill the entire jail for him to have to look at everything. And there are only three months till trial.
BROWN: Deborah, thank you very much. Deborah Feyerick, who was in court today.
National Public Radio's Nina Totenberg probably spends more time in court than most lawyers. She was in the courtroom today in Moussaoui again. And she joins us again from Washington.
It's nice to have you back.
NINA TOTENBERG, NPR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Aaron.
BROWN: Just finishing up on the point we were talking with Deborah with. Are there classified documents that the government has that Moussaoui, even though he is his own lawyer here, is not allowed to see?
TOTENBERG: He can't see anything that's classified. And we have no idea how much of the material is classified. So there are what they call special administrative procedures that prevent him from contacting witnesses, from seeing classified information, from having a telephone, from having a television and radio, from even having access to the Internet. All kinds of things, so there's a limit to what he can do for himself.
BROWN: And his relationship with his -- I don't know whether to call him his lawyers, his former lawyers, his -- the people who wish they were his lawyers, whoever these guys are or were, is what right now?
TOTENBERG: Well it's curious. He again said today, that they had been put on his back essentially to kill him. But he also sort of put out a test for them. One of the things that he's maintained is that the government had him under surveillance before September 11 and knew all along that he wasn't a member of this conspiracy.
And he's got -- he keeps mentioning some British agent, who can substantiate some of his charges. And he's charged his standby lawyers to go find that person, locate that individual as a witness and interview him. And he put it out almost as a test.
I don't know whether that person exists. I asked the lawyers about it today. It was the first time they had heard this individual's name. And they said they would do their best. That's what their job is.
BROWN: Just clarify this. He maintains he was under surveillance prior to September 11. And -- but this is actually some time before September 11, because he was in jail on September 11.
TOTENBERG: That's right. He maintains, and this is when you get into the possibility that he's delusional, he has maintained consistently that the government knew in advance, the United States government knew in advance of September 11, that those attacks were going to take place, that they knew who was involved, and that they knew he wasn't involved because they had him under surveillance the whole time, that they'd had him under surveillance for years.
And one of the things he's maintained again consistently in his motions is that there's some sort of a fan, as in a summer fan that was bugged.
BROWN: Yes.
TOTENBERG: And he's maintained that - you know, so he moved from these very clear rational passages, where he quotes conspiracy law to the judge and is very with it, to these, what appear to be quite delusional passages.
BROWN: All right, is there any doubt in your mind that we're going to trial on this one now?
TOTENBERG: No, there is not. I actually never thought that the guilty plea would go through, because he's so consistently maintained that he wasn't involved in September 11. And you know, there are actually members of government who think he was more than a terrorist wannabe and a pawn. These are people outside of the Justice Department, I might add...
BROWN: Yes.
TOTENBERG: ...who think that he was sort of a pawn rather than some sort of integral player.
BROWN: So no deal in the works that you know of here?
TOTENBERG: Well, he'd have to have real lawyers.
BROWN: Yes.
TOTENBERG: Who were working with him to arrange a deal. And he doesn't have that because he doesn't trust anyone to be his lawyer. He only wants advisers, at best, advisers, you know, who have not seen fit to file appearances in court. But there's nobody he trusts to be his lawyer who can go to a prosecutor and say, let's talk turkey.
BROWN: Well, I don't mean to make light of this, but they might want to sell tickets to this trial. It's going to be something.
Nina, thank you very much. Good to talk to you.
TOTENBERG: You're welcome.
BROWN: Nina Totenberg of NPR on the trial or the coming trial of Mr. Moussaoui. One other piece of legal business here. The government today filed court papers to justify keeping Yasser Hamdi in jail without charges for as long as the government wishes. Hamdi, you might recall, is a Saudi American who was captured in Afghanistan last year. He's currently being held at the Norfolk Virginia Naval Brig.
His public defender wants a federal judge to set him free. In papers filed today, the government justified his detention this way. Hamdi went to train in -- with the Taliban. He stayed with the Taliban after the 11th of September. And he was carrying a rifle when he was captured, all of which makes him an enemy combatant, who can be held without charges. That's the federal government's view. Hamdi's public defender now has until next Tuesday to file a response.
Onto other things now. The stock market first. Depending on when you looked, at the market today, it was either very good, up a couple of hundred points or very bad, down a couple of hundred points. Or almost nothing at all. It closed down about five points. Makes you feel great, doesn't it?
AOL Time Warner, our parent company, took a hit today. Something about an SEC inquiry into accounting practices. And of course, these accounting questions have hurt the market, or at least many smart people seem to think so. And these accounting issues and related matters have led Congress rushing a bill to the president's desk promising sweeping corporate reform.
Here again is CNN's Jonathan Karl.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KARL (voice-over): The corporate responsibility bill zipped through Congress as finger-pointing gave way to self-congratulations.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to pay a great deal of tribute to our chairman.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R), OHIO: And thanks to good work of Mike Oxley and Senator Paul Sarbanes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Give my deepest thanks to Senator Sarbanes and Leahy.
KARL: What a difference a scandal makes. A month ago, before WorldCom's collapse, this bill was mothballed by the Democratic Senate, Majority Leader Tom Daschle wasn't even talking about bringing it up for a vote. And even after the Senate acted, the top House Republican on the issue said it wasn't a good bill.
REP MIKE OXLEY (R), OHIO: There are some, I think, major flaws, as I've indicated before in the Senate bill.
KARL: That was just eight days ago. Accounting industry lobbyists hoped House Republicans, concerned about too much regulation, would water the bill down. But in the face of a sustained stock market slide, the bill got tougher. With pressure on Congress to do something, anything, about corporate corruption, it seemed anything labeled "corporate responsibility" could pass.
BOEHNER: There was a great rush, and I would call it a stampede to move legislation almost regardless of what it was.
KARL: Among the provisions, a new felony for securities fraud punishable by 25 years in prison. And tougher for penalties for mail and wire fraud, up to 20 years in prison.
REP SAM JOHNSON (R), TEXAS: Just like they booked those thugs from Adelphia, it's time these corporate crooks are given the hammer and sent to the slammer.
KARL: In the end, even conservative Republicans like Phil Gramm, swallowed major provisions they had previously objected to, including, an independent board to regulate the accounting industry, and restrictions on the consulting services done by accounting firms.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KARL: The bill received praise on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue as well, as the White House said the President Bush would sign it into law as soon as possible. Probably as soon as next week -- Aaron.
BROWN: Well, you're too much of a gentleman to suggest that these guys in Washington and women were looking for political cover, but were they looking for political cover?
KARL: It sure looked that way. Nobody wanted to be on the wrong end of this debate, Aaron. I mean everybody wanted to go back and say they did something about those guys that we saw in handcuffs yesterday.
BROWN: And basically, if you look at the bill that came out of the Senate, which is essentially the Democratic version of this, did the Republicans in the House ultimately cave in?
KARL: Yes, absolutely. What was amazing is with all the talk about how they were going to scale this down, they were going to do something about that independent board, really what they ended up doing was upping the ante. I mean those penalties doubled when they went to the House. So the Republican contribution on this in the end was actually to make the bill tougher. I mean, it was a 10 year maximum penalty that came out of the Senate. They ended up with 25 after they got done with the House.
BROWN: Lucky they finished today. It would be capital punishment by Friday.
KARL: Who knows?
BROWN: Thank you, Jon. Jonathan Karl on the Hill today.
Now to the next one. This story has an almost mythic horror about it, not to mention drama. There are men trapped hundreds of feet below ground. Water filling up the tiny place where they're pinned. Workers are desperately and we underscore desperately trying to get them out.
Earlier today, someone had three words for what those workers have been doing round the clock, since late last night in this mine in Pennsylvania. "Drilling, pumping and praying."
In Pennsylvania for us tonight, here's CNN's Jeff Flock -- Jeff.
FLOCK: Indeed, Aaron. And they'll be doing it all night. I don't know if you can tell, we are in what is an abandoned supermarket tonight here in Somerset, Pennsylvania. It is the makeshift briefing center. And I can tell you that the headline out of here tonight, the bad news is that they have not heard anything, no tapping from those nine miners in now more than 10 hours.
But they still think they could be there. They're just not able to hear because there's so much work going on above. We have pictures of the very latest of the work. It involves a massive drilling project. They are drilling a 30-inch wide hole that they hope will go all the way down 300 feet and get those miners out.
But again, it is a long process. The governor the Pennsylvania told us a short time ago, they're about 45 feet down now. And maybe they could hit where they need to be by sometime early in the morning. At least that's what they hope. It is a process though that is at once, complex, methodical and frantic.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FLOCK (voice-over): From the air you could see an opening into the Quick Creek mine now flooded with more than 50 millions gallons of water. It happened when the miners accidentally broke through into a water-filled abandoned mine.
DAVID HESS, SECRETARY OF PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION: The temperature in the ground is somewhere around 55 degrees. Hypothermia is a concern if in fact they are in water.
KARL: Hoses snake across the rock as rescuers frantically try to pump out water to take the pressure off an air bubble that they think holds the trapped miners.
About a mile and a half away, directly over the spot where they think the nine men are located, they ready a 30 inch collar where they will drill a hole big enough to get the miners out. Nearby, smaller holes are being drilled to pump out more water. One that they think has hit the miners' air bubble is now being used to pump air back in, which will give the miners something fresh to breathe. They also hope the compressed air will push back the water and widen the air pocket.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's hard on everybody. It's tough. But you got to put those feelings back. And you got to go ahead with what you know. You got to do. And we're going to do it. And we're going to succeed.
KARL: With the police escort leading it on, our cameras catch a glimpse of the giant drill they'll use to bore the 30 inch escape hole. They say it could take 15 hours to go as much as 300 feet needed to reach the men.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just lost my other cousin almost the exact same time last year in a mine over in - past Jennerstown. My cousin was killed in a mine last year when a boulder fell down on him. And now, this is my cousin this year that might die this year, so it's entirely too much for one family to handle.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KARL: And indeed, Aaron, those family members holed up at a fire station not too awfully far from here, waiting for any word. But we are told they know about as much as we do at this point.
To you.
BROWN: Well, Jeff, all we can do is wait and hope. And we know you'll be doing both there. Thank you, Jeff Flock.
It is dangerous work these miners do.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we'll check in on the Pope's visit to Canada. And up next, the fallout from the Israeli attack in Gaza. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Another ugly day in the Middle East. A rabbi was buried tonight. He was shot and killed this morning in retribution for the air strike on Gaza. His wife now a widow and his children now fatherless. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade claims responsibility for that.
Also by way of retribution, another PLO splinter group says it is now targeting Israeli leaders for assassination. Tonight, Israeli forces moved into part of Gaza City and bulldozed a metal shop. And with all that as a backdrop, the Israeli government keeps grappling with how to explain Monday's bombing to itself, its citizens, the rest of the world.
After all whatever else can be said about it, the murderous record of their target for one, the deaths of nine children in the bombing run and the injuries suffered by 150 others, kids and adults, has been difficult for Israel to deal with. That dominated the discussion we had earlier today with Israeli spokesman Dore Gold.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Mr. Gold, the president described the Gaza attack as heavy handed. I wonder if today the Israeli government concedes that at the very least, it was badly planned, badly executed, wrong time, wrong weapon, wrong place?
DORE GOLD, PRESIDENT, JERUSALEM CENTER FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS: Well, we very carefully listened to the comments of the White House and the U.S. Department of State. We take them very seriously. At the same time, you know, we understand that we're both engaged, the U.S. and Israel, in a war on terrorism that is very, very difficult.
I can't imagine, a United States Air Force pilot or an Israeli Air Force pilot that would intentionally drop weaponry on civilians. And I can tell you that the people of Israel, when they hear about any civilian losses on the Palestinian side, even if they're not intended, have a deep ache in their stomach. It's something that our society cannot accept.
And of course, the circumstances around our military operation are being examined. Unfortunately, both our adversaries and your adversaries are trying to kill our civilians. When our civilians die, they rejoice.
BROWN: I'm not sure I quite understand -- are you conceding that it was not a well planned and well executed operation?
GOLD: No, I am stating that sometimes military operations that are very difficult on the war on terrorism are necessary. It is probable that, you know, we had certain intelligence difficulties, that our military understood that the situation on the ground with respect to civilians was different. Those kind of situations happen in war. But you have to remember, the war that Israel is facing was imposed on Israel by Yasser Arafat.
Had Mr. Arafat arrested Mr. Shehade, had he fulfilled the Oslo agreements, we wouldn't be in this situation. And the same is true for the United States. When you're engaged in Afghanistan on the war on terrorism, it's not because you want to be there. It's because that war has been imposed on you as well.
BROWN: One of the questions that has come up a good deal in the last couple of days was the timing of the attack that there seemed to be -- there seemed to be some small measures of progress going on in these talks with the various parties on the Palestinian side. Is there concern now that whatever efforts were going on, that they're lost?
GOLD: Well, first of all, let me clarify what existed and what didn't exist. We began a dialogue last Saturday night, actually a little bit earlier than that, with Palestinian representatives to deal with the question of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people. Israel's strategy is to fight terrorism, not to fight all of the Palestinians.
Our interest, where possible, is to ease up the situation for Palestinians by allowing Palestinian workers in Israel, by transferring funds that we collect with respect to their taxes. But there was no political dialogue or security dialogue with the Palestinians at this point. So to say some kind of political dialogue was disrupted would be false.
The Palestinians have also begun to put out a story. Particularly through "The London Times" and some of the European press that some kind of unilateral declaration of a cease-fire or cessation of attacks on civilians was imminent. I can say this with complete confidence. There was no authoritative Palestinian body that was about to issue a unilateral cease-fire or unilateral cessation of hostilities against Israeli civilians. It's simply spin that's been coming out after this military operation.
BROWN: Finally, and we've got about a minute left. Someone on the program the other night suggested that Palestinians may ultimately see this moment as their Passover Massacre, the equivalent of what the Israelis went through some months back. And the implication is that this an extraordinary and difficult moment for your side. Do you see this having a lasting impact in the region?
GOLD: Well, let me be very clear about what our adversaries try and do to both the U.S. and to Israel. They try and obfuscate the moral clarity that exists here. You know, again, we feel a deep sense of regret when we see any civilian losses. But we have to understand the nature of terrorism, the war that we're dealing with.
Terrorism attempts to specifically and deliberately target civilians to kill many Americans and to kill many Israelis. That's their target. Our target are the terrorists, those who are engaged in military activity against us. Unfortunately, in a war on terrorism there can be civilian losses. But that is not our intent. That is not our policy.
And therefore, those who try and confuse the two, who try and create a moral equivalent between terrorism and counter-terrorism, between those who start the fire and those who are trying to put it out, are simply trying to weaken our will and your will in the war on terrorism.
Terrorism can be defeated. And it will be defeated by our being very careful to target the terrorists and to be very clear about our goals, which is to defeat terrorism and ultimately bring peace to the Middle East once terrorism has been vanquished.
BROWN: All right, Mr. Gold, it's always good to talk to you. Thank you.
GOLD: My pleasure. My pleasure.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Dore Gold, earlier today. The Israeli government's position on the Gaza strike.
Coming up on NEWSNIGHT a little bit later, the latest twist. Will this story ever end by the way in the battle over Ted Williams body? Up next, we'll go to Canada and talk about the Pope trip. This is NEWSNIGHT on a Thursday night in New York City.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Hundreds of thousand of young people filled Exhibition Place in Toronto today. They waited for hours to see the object of their adoration, and were nothing short of euphoric when the big moment came. And as you know, we're not talking about Britney, or the Backstreet Boys here. Their hero is 82 years old, Pope John Paul II, who today kicked off an event that is sometimes called the "Catholic Woodstock": World Youth Day. The Pope today did not address the priest abuse scandal that so dominated the American media and the American church, but it was impossible not to think of the issue when you looked at the crowds of young people, literally, the future of the Catholicism. John Allen of the "National Catholic Reporter" joins us tonight. He's traveling with the Pope. And so he's in Toronto.
John, it's good to see you. Do you expect, by the way...
JOHN ALLEN, "NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER": Thanks, Aaron.
BROWN: ... the Pope to talk about the priest abuse scandal at all in the trip?
ALLEN: No. Every indication we've been given is that there's going to be no overt reference to it either by the Pope or by the organizers of World Youth Day.
BROWN: But it has come up, hasn't it? in these - there was a really interesting piece in the "New York Times" either today or the day before, I don't remember anymore, about some of the dialogue between the bishops and these young people about the scandal and how to think about it and deal with it.
ALLEN: Yes. Listen, you've got 55,000 kids from the United States here, Catholic kids, together with 125 American bishops, it was inevitable this was going to come up. And actually, interestingly, it has been coming up largely from the kids in the sense that they - several of them in sessions, when they get together with bishops, have been asking questions like, what do we do when people challenge us about this? how do we as Catholics respond to this mountain of negative publicity the church has been getting? And I think the message they've been hearing is a twofold one.
One is you've got to acknowledge that we've screwed up, that there is sin in our church as there is in any human institution. But at the same time they've also been urged to be proud of who they are, to not apologize for being Catholic.
BROWN: Let's move on to the Pope for a bit. It is, for me at least, it's always a bit difficult these days to watch him because he does not look well. Can you talk to us about how his health is?
ALLEN: Yes. I mean, you've seen him in the last three days. He's been doing much better. That is to say he walked down the stairs in the plane when he got here by himself, as you probably saw. And tonight at the Festival of Youth, he was beaming and there was an energy in his voice that we haven't seen for a long time. But all of that has to be put in the context of a man who, as you say, is struggling against some very real physical problems.
The Parkinson's is degenerative disease and it's getting worse. He has hearing loss in both ears, he wears hearing aids. He's still dealing with that botched hip replacement surgery in '94 that makes it very difficult for him to walk. He's got aggravated arthritis in the right knee, which makes it hard to stand for any length of time. And his breathing is increasingly labored and heavy. All of that means that fatigue comes over him much more easily and his time on task, so to speak is much less than it once was.
But two points have to be made about that. One is, that all of these conditions, though they're problems, none of them are life- threatening. There's no sense that this guy is on death's door. And secondly, mentally, he's as sharp as ever.
BROWN: How - I want to ask this right - in a sense, how do they manage his time? How do they manage those decisions he must make, those talks he must give, as opposed to lesser things that others could do?
ALLEN: Yes, well, one of the things you learn hanging around the Vatican is that there isn't a whole lot of managing the Pope that goes on. The Pope very much sets the tone. Listen, Aaron, these trips are enormously difficult. And the older he gets and the more frail he gets, the more difficult they become. And I'm here to tell that if John Paul were to decide tomorrow he was never going to travel again, there would be no happier place on Earth from a certain point of view than the Vatican. Because there's always great fear when he goes out on the road.
So I think what happens is as the Pope's energy levels subside, as the amount of time every day he's able to devote to the church's business becomes smaller and smaller, he is deciding what appointments he's going to take, what documents he's going to work on, what issues he's going to consider. By default then, his aides pick up increasingly the stuff he is unable to turn himself to.
BROWN: Well, he always has had great affection for kids. So it's not surprising he chose to come to this event.
ALLEN: Yes, that's absolutely right. This is not a guy who spent a lot of time as a church bureaucrat. He was always a pastor working with people, and above all, with the young. I think these experiences take him back to those earlier moments in his priesthood that he derives immense pleasure from. You see that on his face.
BROWN: Yes. And it's wonderful to see it on his face. John, it's good to see you again. And we hope we'll talk to you again soon. Thanks a lot.
ALLEN: Thanks, Aaron, my pleasure.
BROWN: Still ahead - thank you. I didn't mean to interrupt the "thank you very much" part.
Still ahead tonight, what's so bad about being red? as in communism. Yes, they're still out there, sort of. We'll take a look at that.
Up next, the fight over Ted's head may boil down to his autograph. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: Well, well, well, Agatha Christie couldn't have come up with a better plot twist. Just when it seemed like we had a blissful lull in the Ted Williams mystery, out comes the "oil-stained codicil," a small grubby scrap of paper that John Henry Williams, the son, hopes will answer the question of just what his dad wanted done with his own body after he died. But, his half-sister doesn't seem ready to say the mystery is solved, at least not yet. Our story from CNN's John Zarrella.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): John Henry Williams, son of baseball legend Ted Williams, went to great lengths to make sure every piece of baseball memorabilia his father signed was authenticated. It's been reported, John Henry even videotaped his dad autographing balls and bats. But the one document, perhaps most important to his father in death, son John Henry didn't bother to have witnessed.
BOB GOLDMAN, ATTORNEY FOR CLAUDIA AND JOHN HENRY WILLIAMS: He wanted to keep this private. We've said all along this is a private matter between Ted Williams and his family.
ZARRELLA: John Henry and his sister, Claudia, in a fight with their older half-sister over what to do with Ted's remains, have now released a hand-written note they claim proves their dad wanted his body frozen, not cremated, as stated in his will. The note reads, quote: "J.H.W., Claudia and dad all agree to be put into biostasis after we die. This is what we want: to be able to be together in the future, even if it is only a chance," end quote.
The note has three signatures: John Henry, Claudia, and Ted Williams.
According to their attorney, Bob Goldman, it is absolutely authentic.
GOLDMAN: I can assure you that I am 100 percent sure that that is not only a genuine signature, that's a genuine document. It was all done at the same time. I am certain of that.
ZARRELLA: The note was reportedly written while Ted was in Shands Hospital in Gainesville, awaiting surgery.
It's dated November 2, 2000, four years after Williams' will was written.
(on camera): In a statement, John Henry and Claudia say because they wanted to settle the issue of their father's remains privately, that's why they didn't release the note weeks ago. And, they say, the reason the note was not witnessed by an impartial third party is simply because they never intended, or thought, it would become public.
(voice-over): An attorney for half-sister Bobby Jo Ferrell says the note is far short of the proof they'll need to stop their fight. RICHARD FITZPATRICK, ATTORNEY FOR BOBBY JO FERRELL: That's the only document that John Henry and Claudia have to support their position that their father changed his mind after he wrote his last will and testament.
We're very comfortable with our position in this case.
ZARRELLA: Ironically, while all three children are professing their only motivation is love for their father, not one of them showed up earlier this week in Boston when the Red Sox paid tribute to their dad.
John Zarrella, CNN, Miami.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: I'm sure they would have been warmly received there.
A quick look at some other stories around the country making news tonight.
The president was in North Carolina today, proposing limits on what you can get in punitive damages in medical malpractice cases. He says frivolous lawsuits are driving up health care costs. The issue seemed to be directed at North Carolina Senator John Edwards, a possible Democratic contender in the 2004 presidential race. It's never too early, apparently, to start here. Edwards was a personal injury lawyer, and a very successful one, before joining the Congress.
In Philadelphia, two men wanted in the kidnapping of a 7-year-old were arrested today. James burns and Edward Johnson captured just blocks from where Erica Pratt was abducted on Monday night. Erica gnawed her way through duct tape to escape the house where she was being held. Good for her, huh?
And in California the wildfire grew to 57,000 acres, threatening the ancient sequoias nearby. Crews said they've been able to save several sequoias groves. A 45-year-old woman is in custody on suspicion of starting this fire. One fire official said authorities are looking at the case as an accident rather than an arson.
Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we find the remnants of the Communist Party in America. That's a little later.
But up next, a search for ethics in the boardroom.
This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
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BROWN: Well, we came across an interesting quote from a young entrepreneur who just cannot believe the perilous decline of ethics in American business. He said: "People have to be able to trust you, know that what you're selling is what you say you are selling. If I lied like these CEOs, I would have been out of business." That's what he said. Now we should probably tell you the young entrepreneur is actually a 20-year-old drug dealer, and if he violated the rules of the street, he'd be dead. But you know things are pretty bad when you're getting moral outrage from drug dealers on the street.
We thought we'd talk about corporate America and where the good guys have gone with someone who doles out moral outrage for a living, Randy Cohen, the ethicist behind the most enjoyable column in the Sunday "New York Times" magazine.
And it's nice to see you. Frankly, it's nice to see you in one piece.
RANDY COHEN, "THE ETHICIST," "NEW YORK TIMES" MAGAZINE: Thank you very much. I'm happy to be in one piece.
BROWN: Well, all these names we've been throwing around lately -- Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers and all these people -- they didn't invent greed.
COHEN: No, we don't live in the most wicked time in human history, but we're putting in a bid for it, aren't we?
BROWN: Well, it seems in particular we're doing it on a fairly grand scale. Is there something about -- is there a marriage between the times and greed in some weird way?
COHEN: I think there is. I think most people won't be villainous and most people won't be saintly; they'll behave about as well as their neighbors behave.
So it matters very much what kind of neighborhood you live in. And the neighborhood we live in now is one of crony capitalism. We have a government by all CEOs. They set the tone, and it resonates through the entire culture.
And none of the -- you know, our president, our vice president themselves have been accused of doing some very unseemly things.
BROWN: Yes, this is a really interesting theory to me. I mean, this sort of top-down ethics that we tend to -- or most of us tend to mimic in some respect what we see around us. If everyone is speeding...
COHEN: Sure, yes. If everyone drives 110, it's very hard to drive 65.
BROWN: Right.
COHEN: That, left to individual rectitude, it's hopeless. It's hopeless.
If you take a rookie cop and put him or her in a corrupt precinct house, the odds are overwhelming that that cop will become corrupt. If you take the same young officer, put him in an honest, a clean precinct, that cop is likely to become clean. But most of us are profoundly influenced by the society we live in.
BROWN: And so you take a young and otherwise perfectly decent accountant and put him in -- and I assume there is such a thing -- and you put him in a company where the message is, let's pump the stock price or the bottom line, or whatever, ultimately he'll buy in?
COHEN: Occasionally you'll get a Serpico of accountants who will have enormous reserves of character.
But it's very rare for someone to be heroic. That's why heroism is heroism.
He'll probably act like the people at the next desk.
BROWN: And -- I'm not even sure this is the right -- or this is a fair question to you: I've always wondered if these guys, at some point -- I mean, they were taking home $200 million a year; they couldn't spend all this dough in 10 lifetimes if they wanted to -- if they ever said to themselves or turned to their spouses and went, you know, I don't know, $200 million feels greedy?
COHEN: Well, I have a sociobiological explanation for this that may or may not be true, but it's an interesting way to think about it.
You know, we have a predisposition, a genetic predisposition, to eat fatty foods because when we started the tribe we almost never saw dead animals. So when we saw one, it was a great thing. If we wanted to just gorge on fat, our bodies could store it.
What if it's that way for acquisitiveness? That when we started the tribe there was very little stuff, so that if you had an acquisitive urge, you would get out -- you would invent the wheel, you would build things, you would domesticate plants and animals.
That was an environment in which being acquisitive was terrific.
Well, now you can get a steak in any supermarket, so a craving for fatty foods is deadly. And now there's stuff everywhere. So that drive for acquisitiveness produces a shallow, hollow life that's very destructive to everyone. It's the moral equivalent of craving fat.
BROWN: The trouble -- and you may very well be right. The trouble with that is that it's a kind of depressing notion, that there is a -- almost a predestined nature to us all.
COHEN: Well, here's another story you'll like.
Right near this building -- we're out in front of Penn Station where hundreds of people pour out from every minute from. It's a transit hub. And they're all trying to get taxis. And they used to do dreadful things to one another to get a cab.
Well, 10 or 15 years ago, the Taxi and Limousine Commission painted a yellow line down the street and they wrote two words: "cab line." People stand in it. They behave with astonishing civility.
The people are no more or less moral, intrinsically, but the conditions in which they operate have changed. They now live in conditions in which it's possible to be good.
Now, this is either incredible depressing, because they required someone to draw this line, or incredibly encouraging, because it says, if you build a decent society, if you create the conditions in which it's possible to be honorable, people will.
I choose to see the hopeful version of this.
BROWN: These -- the people who write to you write to you about much more basic things than corporate greed most of the time. Just, in 15 seconds, do you find that people are influenced in how they behave by how they see the Bernie Ebbers of the world behave?
COHEN: Oh yes. Oh yes. I think it's back to what we were saying before. If you perceive everyone around you as behaving -- as driving 100 miles, you won't drive at 65. If everyone is jumping the turnstile, it's very difficult to put your token in.
BROWN: Good to see you. Please be careful on your bicycle.
COHEN: I always wear a helmet.
BROWN: Thank you.
Communism -- why not? -- when we come back.
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BROWN: Finally from us tonight: communism.
There are many things we like about our colleague Garrick Utley -- no, he's not a communist -- at least I don't think he is -- but he is very smart and he's extremely well-read. He's been doing this work and doing it really well for a long time. Garrick is really tall, and I sort of envy that.
And like any good reporter, he has an eye for the right story at the right moment. So it's not surprising that with the stock market crumbling, with people's savings being wiped out, a feeling that government too often protects the big-money interests and not the little guy -- with all that upheaval going on, it's not surprising that Garrick had a story to pitch: Let's do a little piece on communists, he said.
And as you will see, "little story" is exactly right.
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GARRICK UTLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's the kind of faceless building you'd walk right by on West 23rd Street in Manhattan. Inside is the headquarters of the Communist Party of the United States. Yes, there still is one.
JARVIS TYNER, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN COMMUNIST PARTY: You know, this is an ideology they can't kill. I know they've tried. We've been pronounced dead, you know, a million times.
UTLEY: And now capitalism is taking its knocks.
(on camera): Are you ever tempted to tell people, I told you so?
TYNER: I'm tempted, but that's not nice.
UTLEY (voice-over): The party is not exactly brimming with life these days; it has only a few thousand members. Its weekly newspaper is mostly given away.
But now it has a story to exploit.
JUDITH LEBLANC, "PEOPLE'S WEEKLY WORLD": The basic problem is the system of capitalism. We believe that the solutions to the crisis that this system generates is really in the hands, and will be brought about by the struggles of the working people.
UTLEY: Go down to the basement of the Communist Party headquarters and you find the Marxist Reference Center. Old Karl's portrait is right up there in a place of honor.
Mark Rosenzweig does not think Marxism is dead.
(on camera): The old conflicts over capitalism, even between classes, still exist?
MARK ROSENZWEIG, MARXIST REFERENCE CENTER: Yes, and I think they're reemerging with a vengeance.
UTLEY (voice-over): That may be hope springing eternally in a place where time seems to have slowed down, if not stopped; where communism's best years are preserved in faded photos and the volumes of Lenin's writings.
ROSENZWEIG: Capitalism's life, I think, is going to be one which is going to produce a kind of social nervous breakdown.
UTLEY: A social nervous breakdown is what happened in the Russian Revolution when the communists seized power, and then abused their power and, finally, misjudged it, as when Nikita Khrushchev said communism would bury capitalism.
In the United States, the communists made their voices heard in the 1920s and '30s, and ran candidates for president.
But that was then. Today, the party has closed its street-level bookstore and want to rent it out.
Still, the faithful are not giving up. TYNER: Our society, the capitalist system, is built on a notion that you can't have human progress without this enormous thrust towards greed and wealth and power. America needs a large, visible, fighting communist party to be able to fight its way out of this current crisis.
UTLEY (on camera): You really believe it?
TYNER: I absolutely believe it. Absolutely.
UTLEY (voice-over): But, then, Karl Marx believed, absolutely, that the masses would rise up and overthrow capitalism. It hasn't worked out that way.
The masses are not beating a path to the party's door, but if you want to rent a storefront on West 23rd Street, you can probably get a good deal.
Garrick Utley, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: That's all. We'll see you tomorrow. Join us at 10:00 Eastern. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
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