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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Rescued Miners Consider Career Options; Investigation Into Amtrak Derailment Begins Tonight; Group of Young Cuban Catholics Defect
Aired July 29, 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: Good evening again, everyone.
Well, we admit it, most of us around here lost hope for the nine miners on Friday morning when the drill bit broke. It was around then that one of our writers began reading some of the letters left by coal miners of the past, doomed men all, desperate to leave something for their families, to let someone know what they were going through. "Oh God, for one more breath," wrote one miner to his wife a century ago, after an explosion in a Tennessee coal mine. "Raise the children the best you can," he went on, "And oh, how I wish to be with you. Goodbye to all of you."
One miner asked his family to repay his debts "if possible," and bury him in a black suit. Another tells his wife it's OK if she wants to remarry. And this advice from one doomed miner to his sons: "My boys," he wrote, "never work in the coal mines."
They were not unlike the letters those nine men were writing as they waited and prayed for 77 hours. We were, I think, due a happy ending. We were desperate to be reminded of our better selves, which is what this was. There wasn't a corrupt CEO in sight, not one child killer, or a terrorist around. This drama was about the best in the land. The people trapped, doing tough and difficult work because feeding a family and giving kids a better life is as American as the White House and the Liberty Bell.
The rescue teams were no different. They overcame fatigue and bad fortune, because they had a duty. The governor, little known even in his own state, was pitch perfect -- hopeful when he could be, solid all the time. And in the end, that wonderful combination of luck, hard work and God's grace saved these nine men, and in some ways saved an entire summer that has been too hot, too dry and far too sad.
What a joy to begin with good news for a change. And it is good news that we start the whip with. David Mattingly is in Johnstown, Pennsylvania tonight. David, a headline from you.
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, they got them out, nine for nine. Now what? The rescued miners consider their career options. We'll have that story.
BROWN: David, thank you, and thank you for your work. A lot of people hurt today when an Amtrak train traveling from Chicago to Washington derailed. Jeanne Meserve in Kensington, Maryland tonight. Jeanne, a headline from you.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, investigators expect to get to work tonight to figure out what sent this train off the tracks. One hundred seventy-three people on board, and remarkably none were killed. Only six were seriously injured -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jeanne, thank you. And a fascinating development from the gathering of young Catholics that was going on in Toronto. Cuban kids who don't want to go home at all. Frank Buckley is on that story for us in Toronto. Frank, the headline from you tonight.
FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, this may seem like a story out of the Cold War era. A group of young Cuban Catholics here in Toronto to meet the pope are tonight attempting to become Cuban defectors -- Aaron.
BROWN: Frank, thank you. Back to you and all of you in just a moment.
Also coming up on NEWSNIGHT tonight, some of the coverage of the miners story that you might have missed over the weekend. If there was ever a story worth a second look, this one is it. Correspondent John Vause tonight revisits a dramatic story from last week: A firefight that broke out at a border outpost in the Palestinian town of Rafah. Who started it, and why. And a look at billions of dollars that are being paid out to states and local communities as part of the 1998 tobacco settlement. If you think it's all being spent on smoking prevention, you would be wrong. We'll talk with a pioneer in the fight against the tobacco industry, Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore joins us a little bit later.
And "Segment 7" tonight, one of the rarest coins in the world, the 1933 gold double eagle. A quirky story. It comes from Nissen, who around here these days is known as "40 across." We'll explain that too before we go home tonight.
All that in the hour ahead, but we begin with the miners. Their thoughts about what they went through, how they tried to survive and how they planned, if they came out of it, how they planned to die, if that's what it was going to be. They talked today about what happened to them, which in a way is simple, and what happens now, which may be a whole lot more complicated.
We begin with David Mattingly. David, good evening.
MATTINGLY: Good evening, Aaron. A remarkable postscript to their three-day ordeal. Only three of the miners required an overnight hospital stay last night. These guys continued to amaze everyone here, and five of them recounted their experiences today for us in a news conference. Those first few frightening hours, they say, were the worst. It was then that it looked like there wouldn't ever be a way out of that mine.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) THOMAS FOY, RESCUED COAL MINER: We had a couple of low points down there. It was almost roofed out. We went through that. Then once we got down toward the end, we've seen we were not going to make it, because it was too deep. It was all the way up to the roof, and we tried busting holes through the walls to get through. And I don't know if the water was on the other side that we couldn't bust it through, but we tried our damndest.
QUESTION: Did you talk to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) we heard you were praying...
FOY: All the time.
QUESTION: But were you telling jokes, or telling stories? How were you passing the time?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Talked about anything and everything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can't tell you everything we talked about, but we talked about everything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We done a lot of praying. I mean, that's number one. We done a lot of praying.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: But now that they've got some hot meals and gotten some good night sleep and some warm beds, the questions come up of what next. Do they go back to the jobs that almost killed them, or do they give up on careers that in some cases have paid the bills for decades.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): For 28 years John Unger has been coming home from the mines, this homecoming possibly his happiest and his last.
JOHN UNGER, RESCUED COAL MINER: When the water first broke through, I've never seen anything with so much rage if my entire life.
MATTINGLY: Unger, one of two miners released from the hospital today, echoing thoughts among the nine survivors who were trapped 240 feet underground.
If not for the expert drilling of an emergency air shaft, all would have been lost.
UNGER: When we cut through, the air was bad. And when the air was coming through there, it made us kind of really sick. And they punched that six-inch hole and put that other pipe in there and started bringing air in to us, and it saved our lives.
MATTINGLY: Nine lives saved in a situation that could have easily killed them all. A 77-hour-long brush with death that continues to weigh heavily on their minds.
Randy Fogel is the only miner who remains in the hospital, but not the only one rethinking life as a coal miner.
RANDY FOGEL, RESCUED COAL MINER: We've all thought about it and what everybody went through. I don't know if too many of us will go back to what we did do.
MATTINGLY: Some of the miners, however, say what happened to them is not likely to happen again. A few want to go back, making the decision even tougher for people like John Unger.
UNGER: My family don't want me to go back, and I almost didn't see my family again, so they're kind of the key.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MATTINGLY: And if that decision wasn't enough to worry about, doctors are now keeping their eyes open for possible symptoms of post- traumatic stress syndrome, which is fairly common among people who have survived this kind of experience -- Aaron.
BROWN: There are couple of scenes in there. There is a scene in the press conference where they're surrounded by their wives and kids, which is just about as terrific as it gets, and the shots of these guys coming up in the capsule with all the dirt on their face and the miners' helmets still on.
What was it like, was it -- among the reporters who have been there a long time, did people think this was going to end well, and at what point did they think it was going to end well?
MATTINGLY: The reporters were getting the news just as the public was. Since this was an event that was carried live, we knew right up until the very moment -- did not know right up until the very moment that they were going to get out of there alive. So today you see journalists who are perhaps not so objective. They are applauding when people come out to the news conference and wishing them well. All a very emotional experience for every one who has witnessed it.
BROWN: I think once they made voice contact with them and knew they were alive, it all changed, the whole feeling around there seemed to change?
MATTINGLY: Right. It was that key moment that they got oxygen to them, that the men down below felt that they had a chance. It was finally when the people above were able to make verbal contact with them that that enthusiasm, that optimism spread to the surface as well.
BROWN: David, thank you. It's been a long and as it turns out a wonderful haul there in Pennsylvania. Thanks for your work.
I think in many senses, this story played out for a long time as the worst kind of drama, and then all of a sudden, early in the morning, it became the best kind. A little later in in the program, we're going to take you through it all, especially the good parts. A lot of you missed it; a lot of you want to see it again. So we've gathered up all of the tape and kind of gone through it today, looked through it, picked the pictures and the sounds that make the most sense, and a little later on NEWSNIGHT, we'll run that out for you.
Onto the other news of the day. First, the derailment of an Amtrak passenger train. This would be another derailment, the second major accident for Amtrak since mid-April. This one happened just a few minutes short of its destination, on a very hot afternoon, which may have had something to do with the accident. One of the many things federal investigators are chasing down tonight. The train, Amtrak's Capital Limited, left Chicago early yesterday evening. It left the rails in Kensington, Maryland, just before 2:00 this afternoon. One hundred seventy-three passengers on board, along with the crew. Here's CNN's Jeanne Meserve.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MESERVE (voice-over): One witness said it looked like a toy train a child pushed off its tracks, but the 173 people on board had a different perspective.
ELENORA FOTTSON, PASSENGER: It sounds like a dream. It was unbelievable. Hoping that you don't go over a cliff.
MESERVE: There was no cliff, just an embankment. But that was scary enough. Of the 13 cars on the train, eight derailed; six of those ending up on their sides. Remarkably, there were no fatalities, and only six serious injuries.
HARRISON LONG, WITNESS: A lot of people were able to walk out under their own power and were being led off to the side and being taken off to a local armory over there, being attended to.
MESERVE: The steep angle of some of the cars was a challenge to rescuers who had to shore up track and stabilize the cars to prevent further damage and injury. More than 200 rescue personnel took part, as well as passersby and passengers and crew on board the train.
James Harris, who was partially blind, helped three elderly women off the train with the assistance of another totally blind man.
JAMES HARRIS, PASSENGER: We're not heroes. Children of God, brothers and sisters, helping one another, black and white, helping one another off that train.
MESERVE: Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board say one thing they will be examining is the possible impact of the day's 100 degree temperatures.
CAROL CARMODY, NTSE VICE CHAIRMAN: We know that heat can be a factor and can cause a slight misshaping or buckling in the rails. This is something that does happen.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MESERVE: But that is not the only thing investigators will be looking at. They have already downloaded information from the event recorders on the locomotives. These are similar to flight data recorders that you find on aircraft. They'll tell investigators things like how fast the train was going, and what the engineers were doing. Investigators will also be looking at the condition of the rails and the ties and the road bed. They expect to get down to serious work tonight, but they say it could be months before they have any conclusions -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jeanne, thank you. Jeanne Meserve in Maryland tonight on the Amtrak train.
Pope John Paul II is in Guatemala tonight, the second stop, and it's a quick one, on his North American trip that would tire a man half his age. The pope is 82, and as you know, he's not well, and he seemed to show that some today. He left his plane by cargo lift. He didn't take the stairs the way he did last week in Toronto, where he was to help celebrate World Youth Day, and to be celebrated by thousands of young people, some of whom were members of the Cuban delegation, and they seemed to like Canada so much -- or perhaps Cuba so little -- that they have chosen to defect. Here's CNN's Frank Buckley.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As Pope John Paul II was leaving Toronto, at least 23 young Cuban Catholics here to meet the pope at World Youth Day were attempting to stay in Toronto. Attorney Pamila Bhardwaj is advising 15 of them. She says they will be seeking refugee status.
PAMILA BHARDWAJ, IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY: They're defecting. That's the word we use.
BUCKLEY: The Cubans she has spoken with range in age from 19 to 25. All but two of them are young men. They were part of a delegation of 200 Cubans who were permitted to leave the communist island nation for the pope's visit.
BHARDWAJ: Their fears are being, number one, I guess being deported back. And they want to know how am I supposed to make a refugee claim.
ISMAEL SAMBRA, PRESIDENT, CUBAN/CANADIAN FOUNDATION: They are afraid for themselves and for their families in Cuba. Because you know, there's many suppressions, a lot of oppression in our country.
BUCKLEY: Ismael Sambra is president of the Cuban/Canadian Foundation. He says he and other members of his group began hearing from some of the young Cubans last week as the pope moved around Toronto. The would-be defectors hatched plans to slip away from minders, and Sambra and others helped them do it.
SAMBRA: They found good opportunities, and we suggested then to wait some time after the delegation leaves Canada.
BUCKLEY: The Cubans are now hiding in private homes in Toronto. In Cuba, there was no official government reaction. But church leaders there, who had professed confidence that all of the pilgrims would return to Cuba, said in a statement, "this action has left a bitter taste among the rest of the delegation." Organizers of World Youth Day, which drew more than 250,000 young people from some 170 nations, said the defections didn't bother them.
ARCHBISHOP ANTHONY MEAGHER: It seems to me, the story here when you have so many coming from so many countries, is just how few have tried this.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BUCKLEY: Now, Canadian government officials will not confirm that any of these young Cubans have, in fact, attempted to apply for refugee status, but Cuban church officials do tell us that 23 of their young members have indicated that they do not intend to return to Cuba. The next step for those young Cubans is to apply for the refugee status, if they haven't already done so. Then they have a couple of administrative hurdles to cross. And then, Aaron, if they're, in fact, declared refugees, they may eventually apply for Canadian citizenship -- Aaron.
BROWN: As a practical matter, I know what happens in the United States when Cubans defect. Are any of these kids likely to be sent back, or is this just paperwork that has to be done?
BUCKLEY: Well, in talking to this attorney who is advising these Cubans, she was suggesting that they all have a pretty good chance. Generally speaking, they just have to make a case that they would face some sort of persecution if they went back to Cuba. And as long as they don't have criminal records or any sort of health concerns for the Canadian officials, there's a good chance that they will be declared refugees.
BROWN: Frank, thank you. Frank Buckley in Toronto tonight. Thank you. Cuban and Canada have very different relations than the United States and Cuba, and that could be part of the issue at play.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a little later in the program, the mystery of the vanishing gold coin. It is an amazing story of how it was tracked down. Up next, on the firing line in Gaza. We'll return to a scene from last week, and look at it from the other side. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Quite a mixed bag in the Middle East today. We saw Palestinians in Hebron burying a little girl killed by Israeli settlers, settlers bent on revenge for an Israeli killed on Friday. We heard Israel's defense minister justifying the bombing that killed a Hamas leader and a number of women and children. The Hamas man, he said, had been planning a day of terror, six bombings in six Israeli cities in one day.
And there were signs if not of peace than at least of something about Palestinian life is getting toward normal. Israel loosened a number of checkpoints today; this one is in Ramallah. The measure allows about 12,000 Palestinians back to work -- they work in Israel. There was peaceful defiance going on as well today. For a second day, thousands of Palestinians in Nablus defied the curfew, pouring out into the streets in search of food and medicine and other necessities of life, including fresh air. As on Sunday, the Israeli army did nothing. A military spokesman saying the IDF is aware of the violations, and for the moment chooses not to respond.
But for many others in the region, war is the true normal, the war is the true constant. Last week, CNN's John Vause found himself inside an Israeli checkpoint during a Palestinian assault. His report was a striking one. Today, he talked to the Palestinians who were on the other side doing the shooting. Here's his report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A three-story Israeli stronghold, sandbagged and riddled with bullet holes, scarred by explosions. The Termit border outpost, wedged in the middle of the Palestinian town of Rafah, between Egypt and Gaza.
We came to this post last week. It's manned by just a handful of soldiers who patrol the border, especially looking for tunnels used to smuggle weapons from Egypt.
But hours after arriving we were caught in the middle of a firefight. Outside Palestinian gunmen threw hand grenades, fired anti-tank missiles. We reported on the two-and-a-half-hour battle, more intense, more fierce than its been for months.
But why were they firing? Why now?
Five days later, we travel to the Palestinian side of Rafah to meet the men who admit they started the shooting. They're from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, wearing hoods to hide their identity. As we arrive, they're preparing another attack on the Termit outpost.
The commander tells me the attack we experienced firsthand was retaliation for the Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, which killed 15 people, including a senior Hamas leader; and also, he says, because the day before Israeli bulldozers had destroyed houses in Rafah.
The IDF confirms the destruction of some vacant buildings, and says there was an exchange of fire, but cannot confirm if anyone was killed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We, Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, are planning to destroy the outpost as soon as possible so our people and our children can live safely. All the houses around the area have been demolished. There is no place for the children to go.
VAUSE: The militants are armed with Kalashnikovs smuggled from Egypt, a captured Israeli heavy machine gun, but mostly home made bombs because, they say, it is getting harder to smuggle weapons into Gaza. Egyptian authorities are cracking down on the smugglers, and Israeli soldiers are destroying their tunnels, at least 11 in the last six months.
Still, this commander, not much older than his Israeli counterpart, says his men will fight on, and confirms what the Israeli soldiers at the border post had feared.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We are digging a tunnel to place a huge explosions under Termit so it will blow up.
VAUSE: These two young men, the Israeli officer, the Palestinian militant, locked in a fierce, almost daily struggle. Both find it hard to imagine a day without violence, a day when neither is shooting at the other.
John Vause, CNN, Rafah.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a little bit later we'll replay the dramatic weekend rescue of the trapped miners; that's something.
Up next: the surprising ways in which the tobacco settlement money is being spent.
This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: There's an old Italian proverb that goes like this: public money is like holy water, everyone helps himself to it.
You could say that about tobacco money too. Billions of dollars have been flowing into states and local governments nearly four years after the settlement with big tobacco companies. And it has been an enormous temptation for politicians trying to make their budgets balance, doing all the things that governments are supposed to do and would like to do with fewer and fewer tax dollars.
Some of them -- most, in fact -- have given in to that temptation in one way or another, and money that many thought or hoped would be spent keeping kids from smoking or paying for the illness of those who have been smoking has been spent on other things, all sorts of other things.
In truth, no one really believed the states would spend all of their billions on health care and anti-smoking ads. Politicians and the tobacco industry didn't believe that, and I guarantee you reporters who covered the story didn't either.
But golf courses?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, 1998) CHRISTINE GREGOIRE, ATTORNEY GENERAL, WASHINGTON STATE: It will change the way we see tobacco. Under this proposal, billboards, gone. Taxi and transit ads, gone. Hats, shirts, backpacks with tobacco brand names, gone. Joe Camel and any replacement for Joe Camel, gone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN (voice-over): It was a great victory, $206 billion awarded to 46 states, and five U.S. territories. The money coming from the tobacco industry for its past sins.
Those eying what became known as the Master Settlement Agreement back in 1998 hoped the new public health initiative would become as habit-forming as tobacco itself.
DR. JOHN SEFFRIN, CEO, AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY: There's no question of what the intent was, to generate new monies to solve the problem that created the excess cost.
BROWN: Of the estimated $30 billion handed out to date nationwide, experts say a little more than 5 percent -- 5 percent -- has been used toward tobacco prevention.
Despite that, teen and adult smoking levels since the settlement are down, some way down, as much as 35 percent for kids under age 17.
This is, in part, due to more expensive cigarettes. Sales taxes have been raised on cigarettes in a number of states. But also a well-funded tobacco prevention program. It is direct evidence that the more money funneled toward anti-tobacco program, the better the results.
SEFFRIN: We have proven in California, in Florida, in Massachusetts and others that if, indeed, well-resourced programs are funded and implemented and executed, we can solve the problem. We can help people break their addiction, we can prevent kids from starting and we can save lives.
Half of all the people who are addicted to tobacco, if we don't help them, will be killed by the product. Half.
BROWN: But now a report just out by anti-smoking groups suggest many states are cutting their tobacco prevention budgets.
Only a handful of states continue to maintain the recommend spending levels set by the Centers for Disease Control while others, based on their ability and their real needs, have spent their tobacco dollars elsewhere.
SEFFRIN: We are all sympathetic that, in difficult economic times every state has a tough budget to make. No one ever envisioned that that kind of money -- which was, again, was new money -- non- taxed-based money would go for potholes and prisons and golf courses.
BROWN: This in part what Dr. Seffrin is talking about: New York's Niagara County public golf course. For $250,000, a new irrigation system was installed; $200,000 bought new golf carts. And for $2.3 million, Beach Ridge Road will be repaved: $19 million spent on capital projects.
DAVID BRODERICK, NIAGARA COUNTY TREASURER: We're going to be criticized, and we have been. I don't know how you stop the criticism, because unless it's all spent on education programs or all spent on health care, there are going to be people who will criticize you.
David Broderick is the treasurer in Niagara County. He says because his county took a one-time cash payout of $42 million, instead of a scheduled $115 million over 25 years, restrictions were placed on how the county could spend the money.
BRODERICK: I can't defend each individual project except to the extent to say they are valid capital projects that have been approved by bond council, and they meet the criteria of county purpose and the depreciable life of more than a year. Some I might agree with, some I might not.
BROWN: Niagara is not alone when it comes to criticism. One of the largest tobacco-producing states in the country, North Carolina, is about to spend a little more than $6 million on a program to cut teen smoking, but critics say this falls way short of what needs to be done.
There is also a lawsuit which has been filed against the state for the way it's distributed millions of the big tobacco settlement dollars; monies, in part, that went toward the funding of an equestrian center and a tobacco processing plant.
The governor, in a statement to NEWSNIGHT, said he's disappointed with the way some of the money has been spent, notwithstanding some investments that have helped attract good jobs to North Carolina. And he has asked that the lawsuit be thrown out, arguing it is without merit. North Carolina is scheduled to receive more than $4.5 billion in tobacco money over the next 25 years.
GENE BOYCE, PLAINTIFF'S ATTORNEY: I compare our situation today by analogy to the Enron, the WorldCom, the Adelphia situation. The taxpayers of North Carolina are the shareholders. The government, the executive branch of North Carolina, the elected officials are the CEOs. We now are getting into an exploration of the accounting that has been done.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The tobacco problem in America is a ticking time bomb. Some terrible decisions have been made, and some money has been lost, but it is not too late.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Not too late because there's money coming into states and municipalities for many years to come. In a moment, we'll talk with the man who spearheaded the tobacco settlement, really started this whole thing, Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore. We'll talk to him in just a moment. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Well, you can blame the tobacco industry for a lot, but you can't really blame the industry for how the billions in settlement money is being spent. And perhaps, depending on how you look at this, no one should be blamed at all. That's a lot of money that has gone to the states and communities. Some of it is being spent on health care and anti-smoking initiatives.
Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore has helped to start the whole drive against the tobacco industry, and believes the settlement money should not be spent on what he calls "the political whim of the day." We're always pleased to talk to the attorney general from Mississippi, and he joins us tonight. Michael, nice to see you, sir.
MICHAEL MOORE, ATTORNEY GENERAL, MISSISSIPPI: Aaron, good to be with you tonight.
BROWN: How is Mississippi spending its money? Is it all going to the anti-tobacco programs and health care?
MOORE: Well, Mississippi made a commitment since we started this fight about seven or eight years ago, we made a commitment to receive all our money, put it in the health care trust funds, spend it just on improving health care in Mississippi and to meet the CDC guidelines, Centers for Disease Control guidelines, on prevention programs, and we are spending above the CDC guidelines on prevention programs in Mississippi and we're reducing teen smoking dramatically, so yes, if the poorest state in America can live up to what we are supposed to do, then I don't think any other state in America has much of an excuse, do they?
BROWN: One of the excuses they throw out -- I've heard this a lot -- and I think it was -- I believe it was the governor of Michigan I heard it from most recently, but I may be wrong and so I apologize -- that these anti-smoking campaigns simply don't work, so why waste money on them?
MOORE: I've herd that Governor Engler has been going around saying those things. The only place in America or anywhere in this world that prevention programs don't work, where they're not trying them. I mean, it works every single state that has a prevention program, a comprehensive prevention program. They're seeing huge reductions in teen smoking and adult smoking, so Governor Engler is just plain wrong on that.
BROWN: Is it realistic, given the amount of money that has funneled into states and communities, that all of it be spent on these programs? And is that necessary that all of it -- isn't it -- might it be just as well that a good hunk of it is to fund well thought out programs, but you know, if you need a bridge, build a bridge too?
MOORE: Yeah, of course, you know, we didn't sue to build highways; we sued because tobacco kills more people than anything else in this country. You know, 420,000 people a year. So we thought if we got this money, we would be able to use prevention programs to reduce the death and disease, but no, the answer is states don't need to spend all that money on prevention programs, just a piece of it. In Mississippi, we spend somewhere between $20 million and $23 million a year. We're receiving hundreds of millions of dollars. So no, 20, 25 percent of the money in most cases would have a great comprehensive prevention program that would reduce disease, but it also pays off on the other end, Aaron.
I mean, if you reduce the number of kids who are smoking and you reduce the number of folks who are going to die from the disease and therefore your health care costs go down dramatically. It just makes sense, and I just hate it that these states are selling out the future of their kids and their citizens for some short-term political whim of the day gain.
BROWN: Now, here's my hanging curve question and I'll get a little tougher.
MOORE: OK.
BROWN: I assume that you find it a little galling to know that North Carolina spent it on a tobacco processing plant.
MOORE: Yeah, my friend Mike Easley up there of course was very helpful to us with this tobacco settlement, but he's having some tough times, and the tobacco lobby is pretty strong, as you might imagine, up there in tobacco land in North Carolina. I think they even built a road to a tobacco plant with some of this money. So yeah, that's a little galling. I mean, we don't need to do anything to help the tobacco companies. Believe me, they have plenty of money. So I wish they wouldn't do things like that. That's kind of crazy.
BROWN: Has the industry pretty much abided -- pretty much abided by the master settlement agreement?
MOORE: Yeah, the industry has abided by the settlements that we entered to and the masters settlement agreement. We had a few problems with some advertising and marketing, a couple of the companies get out of line from time to time, and California had to sue RJR and I think were successful on it. But by and large, they've cooperated.
As a matter of fact, I've talked with Philip Morris and at least one other company about trying to help me get the states to spend the money the right way, and we've been on this campaign for the last couple of years. And it's just -- it's amazing. You know, we fight a battle for six years trying to, you know, help the public health of this country, and we get the antibiotics, so to speak, to fix the problem, and the states are building highways and, you know, fixing their deficit problems with it. It just -- it galls me that they're not spending the money on what the fight was about, improving the public health.
BROWN: Any evidence that the -- I'm sorry -- any evidence that the anti-smoking spots that the industry runs are any more or less effective than the anti-smoking spots that the states put together? MOORE: The legacy foundation that the state attorneys general created to run these ads nationwide did a study, and they found that Philip Morris' ads and some of the other companies' ads were less effective than the ads that Legacy puts out, so sometimes the studies have shown they might be even counter productive. So yeah, they may be a problem.
BROWN: And just quickly, are you hopeful that as more money comes in and maybe the economy gets better, states will spend it differently?
MOORE: Well, you know, the attorneys general of the country, governors and others told Congress that we were going trust us, we are going to spend this money the right way, and frankly, a lot of people didn't tell the truth, it appears. So I hope that in the next few years they'll start spend the money; we will see disease and death go down from tobacco-related illness.
BROWN: Mr. Attorney General, it's always nice to see. We spent a lot of days and hours together not that long ago. It's good to see you.
MOORE: We did. You and Keith Sumi (ph) did a great job covering this story.
BROWN: Thank you, sir, it's good to talk to you. Mike Moore, the attorney general of Mississippi.
Quickly, a number of stories making news around the country today, beginning with the mystery of a dead crow found on the lawn of the White House, the South Lawn. The crow has tested positive for the West Nile virus. So far this year, nearly 50 birds in Washington have tested positive for West Nile as well, and West Nile can kill.
Quite a scene today in Cape Cod. Rescuers got 46 stranded pilot whales back in the water. Nine of the whales died on the beach. This is the largest number of whales to beach themselves on Cape Cod in at least the last decade. There is still a risk that the whales could head back to shore, beach themselves again. No one quite understands why the whales do this.
A moment of silence today as a bridge over the Arkansas river in Oklahoma reopened ahead of schedule. This is a bridge that was hit by a towboat, then collapsed back in May; 14 people died on that awful day.
And the final martinis were shaken, the last of the caviar spooned, and one more bowl of borscht was served at yesterday's farewell at the Russian Tea Room here in New York City. The Tea Room opened in 1926, opened by former members of the Russian Imperial Ballet, and would later become a magnet for the rich, the famous, the decadent and people who just like Russian food, I guess. The restaurant says the business was hurt by 9/11, among other things, and never really recovered.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT: the mystery of the vanishing gold coin. That's a little bit.
Up next we'll look back at the rescue of the miners over the weekend.
This is NEWSNIGHT on a Monday in New York City.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: More on the mine rescue now.
It's no exaggeration in saying when word came that these nine men were safe, it was one of those dance-around-the-room wonderful moments that never happen enough, especially in the early hours of the morning when it seems nothing good ever happens at all. I learned of it when the pager kept bedside started crackling. They were alive, they were getting out, it said.
We run this tonight in part because it is wonderful drama -- good pictures, good sound, good TV. But we also run it because if we can revisit misery many times over -- and we do -- then pure joy should get a rerun as well.
So here's the miners' story and the ending we doubted we would ever see.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All nine are alive.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are very pleased to announce that the first miner has, in fact, been pulled from the mine.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: There it is Jeff, I hope can you see it now. That's Randy Fogel, 43 years old. This is the man who's been complaining of chest pains. He's being evaluated right now at a makeshift medical center out at the scene.
This is the first chance we've had to see any of the miners who've been trapped in that mine shaft a mile below the surface of the earth.
JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Incredible.
LIN: You can see that he's soaking wet.
This tube is a -- it's a narrow tube. It's only 22 inches wide. It had to make its way down a shaft that was about 26 inches wide. The governor of Pennsylvania actually tried it on himself just so that he would know what the miners will be going through in coming up.
FLOCK: Out he comes. He's still got his helmet on, too. Amazing.
We've got them coming every 15 minutes because Randy Fogel -- what was it 1:00. We've got Harry Mayhugh at 1:15, and now Tom Foy age 52 at 1:30 a.m.
There it is. There it is. After they practice it they drill it, and now they're doing it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And now they're doing it. And each time they do it, the next time they do it a little better.
FLOCK: Well, I hope you don't have a next time. But it is amazing to go see this.
And let's -- can we see into that capsule? These guys look like they're soaking wet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, they do look like they're wet, sure.
FLOCK: So what we thought about this is pretty much on. I mean, it's amazing how prescient you were, not only to find them, but you said, they're probably in water.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just don't say me. All I did was stand here.
FLOCK: Well, I say "you," I mean the collective you, and you speak for the collective you. But you and yours were absolutely right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think we were very lucky. We made some good educated guesses.
FLOCK: He's a classic miner. That face is classic.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at that smile.
FLOCK: Doesn't that say -- I mean, God in heaven, that's just what you think a miner looks like.
LIN: Going find out who this gentleman is.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At 1:55 a.m. John Phillippi -- P-H-I-L-L-I- P-P-I -- was brought out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Miner number six, whose name is Ron Hileman -- H-I-L-E-M-A-N -- age 49, he was brought up approximately 2:10.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lucky seven, Dennis J. Hall -- H-A-L-L -- he's 49 years old and he's a local boy from Johnstown.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have the name of the eighth miner. His name is Robert Pugh Jr -- P-U-G-H Jr. He's 50. He's from Stoystown, Pennsylvania.
LIN: Jeff Flock, is that number nine?
FLOCK: Yes it is. Boy, I'll tell you. And, you know, everyone is just gathered around the pictures here, just watching this happen, sort of all collectively drink this in. I'm wondering how this man wound up to be the last man out. It will be fascinating to hear the stories because I've got to believe they've, in some sense, self-selected how to come up. And it will be interesting to hear how that all shook out.
LIN: Yes, he seems to be the most animated.
FLOCK: Maybe that's just it. Maybe they went the way they certainly should have -- you know, based on what we know, it figures that that's just what they would do.
I'll tell you, I don't want to make too much of something that's clearly a great thing that you don't need to make more than it is, but what a bookend -- an irony in this community which was touched so by September 11, the Schneckville plane wreck in the same county -- what a bookend to this.
A great achievement, not only these miners who -- the ones down at the bottom radioed the others but, you know, American kind of ingenuity and stick-to-it-iveness and all of the rest coming together, not giving. Sort of what some thought was a lot of cause, and they did it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just a couple minutes ago coming out of the drill site I saw someone holding a big sign that said, nine for nine. And, indeed, it turned out to be nine for nine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: That's something. Jeff Flock and Carol Lin provided the coverage overnight on Saturday night-Sunday morning.
Just as I was watching, thinking of all the rescue people, the guys who were drilling and the medics and the firemen and all of that, and what it must have been like for them to know that they did it.
One more is out of the hospital, by the way, so they are all getting well and on their way. And we are very delighted, grateful it played out.
The story of the gold coin when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Finally from us tonight, you may have noticed a clue in the "New York Times" crossword puzzle a week ago Friday. You all do the "New York Times" crossword puzzle, don't you? "40 across, TV newswoman Beth, six letters." That would be Nissen, n-i-s-s-e-n, who loves a good puzzle far more than she likes the attention she's getting from being in one. So a puzzle she found. The clues are this: A gold coin that isn't a coin, a fat man who's dead and a Cairo that isn't named Joel. At this point, Sam Spade might be scratching his head, but Nissen isn't, because this story doesn't feature the Maltese falcon -- it's all about the double golden eagle.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Inside this black plastic case is a treasure that over seven decades has been stolen, shipped to Egypt, hidden, fought over in court and almost destroyed by fire twice.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the 1933 gold double eagle, one of the rarest coins in the entire world.
NISSEN: What makes this ounce of nearly pure gold so valuable is its beauty, its literal mint condition, its rarity and a life story to rival the Maltese falcon.
That story begins in 1933, with the United States in the depth of the Great Depression.
DAVID REDDEN, VICE CHAIRMAN, SOTHEBY'S: People in the U.S. were hoarding gold. It was undermining our entire financial system, and FDR, almost as soon as he became president, within a couple of days, took us off by executive order off the gold standard.
NISSEN: With payment or hoarding of gold prohibited, thousands of citizens turned in their gold to the banks, but no one told the U.S. Mint to stop making new gold coins; 445,000 new gold double eagle coins were cast in 1933, after FDR's order. Although they were never issued or circulated.
REDDEN: Coins are not money until it's monetized, until the Treasury says they're money, and so in fact, no, they weren't money. They weren't legal to spend. It was simply a bright gold round disk.
They were by order of the Treasury in 1937 melted down.
NISSEN: At least authorities thought they were all melted down. It would be years before they discovered the truth. In 1944, agents for Egypt's King Farrukh (ph), an eclectic collector of stamps, aspirin bottles, old razor blades and coins applied for an export license for a 1933 gold double eagle.
REDDEN: And it wasn't until a few weeks after that license was signed that suddenly everybody realized an awful mistake has been made, and this coin was illegal to own, and in fact, had been stolen from the U.S. Mint.
NISSEN: It had been an inside job. The Secret Service fingered George McCann, the chief cashier of the Mint, as the thief. Investigators had evidence that McCann had stolen 10 of the 1933 double eagles, and they set off to recover the stolen U.S. property.
REDDEN: Nine were found; they were in the hands of rich and important collectors who wanted this extraordinary treasury, but eventually one by one they were disgorged, except for this one.
NISSEN: The T-men and G-men knew the last coin was in King Farrukh's (ph) collection, but were stymied in their attempts to retrieve it. REDDEN: In 1944, we were in the middle of a world war, and Egypt stood at the crossroads in the middle of the Mediterranean. It was not perhaps the precisely right moment in diplomatic history to go and try to make a claim on a coin.
NISSEN: The coin detectives had to wait eight long years until 1952, when King Farrukh (ph) was overthrown and his famous collection put up for auction.
REDDEN: The U.S. government recognized that the 1933 double eagle was in that collection, and they officially asked the Egyptian government to pull it from the sale and return it as stolen property of the United States.
NISSEN: The double eagle was pulled from the sale, and disappeared like a coin in a magic trick. Authorities didn't know where the coin was for more than 45 years, until 1996, when a British coin deal Stephen Fenton (ph) brought it to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City to sell to an American collector.
REDDEN: And the Secret Service, ever passionate, ever diligent, you know, not letting their man go, created a sting operation, seized the coin, and actually put poor Mr. Fenton (ph) in jail.
NISSEN: Fenton (ph) got out of jail and went to court. While he and the U.S. government battled over ownership of the coin, the coin itself was stored in what authorities thought was a secure location: A vault at the World Trade Center. But the coin was fated to survive yet again. It was removed from the World Trade Center vault weeks before September 11, after the case was settled out of court. Fenton (ph) and the U.S. government will split proceeds from its sale. The coin was moved to Fort Knox.
The 1933 double eagle has been under the watchful eye and heavy guard of the U.S. Mint police ever since, and will be until the coin is sold, or rather until the disk is sold. It won't technically be legal tender and legal to own until the director of the U.S. Mint signs these documents after the auction.
REDDEN: And the irony of ironies is that in order to make this coin totally legal and totally monetized, the buyer will have to give, in addition to the millions of dollars it costs to buy, an extra $20, a $20 bill to go back to the Treasury to repay the Treasury for this coin and to make it into real money that can be spent.
NISSEN: And what if -- just what if -- there are any other purloined 1933 double eagles out there? The Mint says they may look like hard cold cash, but they will be seized and melted down.
Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: You cannot have too much security. We'll see you tomorrow at 10:00. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
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