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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Elvis Fans Remember; Republicans Question Possible Iraq War; Baseball Sets Tentative Strike Date

Aired August 16, 2002 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening again, I'm Aaron Brown. Well, can you believe it, it's been 25 years since Elvis died. OK. Full disclosure. In our control room right now, the entire staff is shrieking in pain that I actually said those words. They have been saying it all week with eyes rolling and sarcasm dripping. This has been Elvis week not just at CNN, but all over the place. Elvis impersonators. Elvis drag queens. The Elvis is really alive, folks, including the doctor, I love this guy, who claims to have been treating Elvis for the past five years -- and we wonder was Medicare being billed on this.
So we at NEWSNGHIT, in our typical fashion, declared this program to be a vast Elvis-free zone. Nothing against Elvis, of course. We sort of like the guy. We just hate hype. And maybe that's why we have been thinking this week about those famous curmudgeons over at CBS News who back on August 16, 1977 faced one of the toughest editorial decisions we could ever imagine. Lead the broadcast that day with Elvis dying, or Panama Canal treaty negotiations. You got Elvis on one side; you got the Panama Canal negotiations on the other. They chose the Panama Canal; six minutes worth, according to one account. The other guys led with Elvis.

Now, in their defense, there was a lot going on with the Panama Canal negotiations. Can you believe, after all, it has been 25 years since the Panama treaty negotiations. Oh, by the way, CBS is still in third place.

We would not make that mistake. We begin the whip with baseball. OK, it's not the most important thing, but it's the best story of the day. Keith Olestra has it. Keith, a headline, please.

KEITH OLBERMANN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Two weeks from now, Major League Baseball will either be fresh from a near miss, amazed that the players union set a strike deadline but didn't actually go out on strike, or it will be in day one of the ninth seasonal interruption in the last 30 years. The ball players declare their strike date; it will be August 30, Ted Williams' birthday, Aaron.

BROWN: I wouldn't touch that at all. On to CNN's Jim Boulden. When last we spoke, he was in Prague, with a rising river in the background. He's in Dresden, in Germany tonight, and we need a headline, Jim.

JIM BOULDEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, 33,000 residents of Dresden are in shelters early this morning. And the airport is a makeshift hospital. And thousands of volunteers are still fanning out throughout the city with sandbags. They try to keep the Elbe River from rising even further, but I'm sorry to say, it is continuing to rise, Aaron.

BROWN: And back with you at the top of the program tonight. Also, we have baseball and floods and lots of other things as well. In moments like this, aside is the game. The game of baseball still touches us in the way it once did. We'll talk tonight with filmmaker Ken Burns, a fan of the game, who's made a bit of a living making movies about things he loves.

The Bush administration talking tough on Iraq and the president did again today. We'll hear from some other voices talking caution, including a key adviser to the last Bush administration, and other members of the president's current party, the Republicans. He didn't have a past party, did he? And we'll close out the week with a smile. Love and marriage Indian style all in one television program. All for real and all for keeps. That and Elvis as only NEWSNIGHT could possibly remember the king, in the hour ahead. I know it's coming.

We begin it all in Germany. The flooding in Dresden and something a 75-year-old woman there said to a reporter today. She said we pulled so many bricks out of the ruins, so that we could reuse them, so we could rebuild the city. She was talking about 1945. And now she says it feels like '45 all over again. We go back to CNN's Jim Boulden.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOULDEN (voice-over): More and more sandbags to try and hold back the ever rising Elbe River. Pumps to remove what water has already flooded in. Thousands of volunteers and emergency personnel race through Dresden to fight against the historic surge of the river.

MIRIAM BATOW, STUDENT: It's my town. It's so, so many -- how you say? Important buildings and very nice buildings, and so we just need to protect it, you know.

BOULDEN: Hospitals and homes evacuated. Some 33,000 people needing to find shelter. The city's old square and baroque buildings were largely destroyed in World War II bombings raids; many only restored in the past 20 years after being neglected through most of the communist area.

Dresden's mayor says $100 million will be needed to rebuild again. But that's only a fraction of the $1 billion estimate to repair other areas of the Saxony region. The German government says international aid will be needed, as the high water continues its relentless move northward through Germany.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOULDEN: Now, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has said that there will be a mini summit on Sunday. He's going to meet with the leaders of Slovakia and the Czech Republic, where much of that water has come earlier this week. They're going to get together with the European Union and start talking money. Obviously, a lot of these buildings are going to have to be restored again after spending all that money, and they are going to be looking for international loans. They are going to be looking for money from the European Union, and even before they start the clean-up, they are going to start talking about the money, Aaron.

BROWN: Well, always so. This is in the part of Germany that was East Germany. It's not a particularly rich part of the country. Is there money in the country to be had for the work?

BOULDEN: Well, of course, a lot of these areas are dependent on tourism. Some people call this the Venice of the east. You can look along the river; you see some beautiful buildings that have been restored in the last 20 years. Next to it is a very ugly communist- era building. So it's sort of the Venice of the east, but it is getting tourism into this area, but of course it's a desperate situation for them, because this is the last thing they need to get some money in here. But of course, there's election next month here in Germany, and Gerhard Schroeder has said he will give $400 million for that. I suspect he might have to give a bit more if he wants to win the election.

BROWN: Jim, thank you for your work. Jim Boulden in Dresden. Difficult place.

We move on to baseball. Choosing between baseball players and baseball owners is for me at least a bit like choosing between tripe or liver for dinner. I don't like either. Indeed, our real interest in coming up with a solution is to get a system that means that more than five teams can actually win. And while it's easy to pick on players, greed is not a concept unknown to the owners either. They have, after all, perfected the art of blackmailing cities to build new stadiums -- and oh, well, schools don't need those new textbooks anyway.

So I suspect like most of you, I hope they reach a deal just so we don't have to be annoyed by their joint whining. And now the ranting stops. And we will deliver the straight news. The players set a strike date two week from his tonight, and darn I'll miss reporting it because I'll be on vacation.

Keith Olbermann will not be so lucky.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OLBERMANN (voice-over): Every day he's on strike, Alex Rodriguez of the Texas Rangers would lose $117,000 in salary. Rodriguez and every player in the majors would lose a total of $12 million a day in salaries. But according to the sports finance analysis group at Lehman Brothers, the owners, already in hock to the banks for a reported $4 billion, would lose a total of $17 million in revenue every day. The players win that war.

ROB MANFRED, VICE PRESIDENT, MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL: I believe that the players association accepts the veracity of those numbers. They understand that this game loses money. OLBERMANN: But in the Gulliver and lilliputian world of baseball, some teams lose a lot of money, and some teams make a lot of money. The New York Yankees are in the biggest city in the country. They own their own television network, itself worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Forbes magazine pegs the value of just the ball club at 730 million. The Minnesota Twins, like the Yankees headed for the playoffs, are in the 17th biggest market in the country. They sell the local TV rights for about $1.5 million a year. "Forbes" magazine says they are only worth 127 million, one-fifth what the Yankees are worth, less than the 5-year-old expansion hockey team in Nashville is worth.

Unlike in other sports, most notably football, revenues from outside sources like TV are not shared among baseball clubs. Consequently, the average Yankees player makes $3 million a season, $3 million a season more than the average Twins player. The Twins can't pay more; they don't have the revenue. So the better their players get, the more likely they are to leave for other teams. That's what the owners want to make more difficult. By penalizing the teams with payrolls of more than $102 million a year.

And then there's the tube. Source who have read baseball's contract with Fox say if there's no playoffs, no World Series, Fox gets a refund of $300 million, at least. There is also a penalty clause to compensate the network for how much less they can charge for commercials during reruns of "The Simpsons" instead of what they could charge for commercials during the World Series. That penalty could be as much as 230 million more.

Never mind ill will and regular season losses, empty stadiums in October could cost the owners $685 million. And what about the players if there's no post season? The average player would lose only about 50 grand. Though the average fan would be madder than anything. Also the not so average fan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

The president of the United States, the not so average fan who used to own the Texas Rangers, said that fans would be furious, and he was one of them. After he left the Rangers he went into the much easier business of dealing with the national debt. A full scale season-ending strike ending August 30 would ultimately cost the players, just the players, about $412 million dollars. It would cost the owners about $1.2 billion in revenues, and we may well see it.

BROWN: Well, we may see something. I don't know. Do you think we are going to see -- it doesn't feel like a replay of seven years ago to me.

OLBERMANN: I know exactly what you mean. I have had this sense, and I have been through I think the last seven of them as a reporter, a sense that there's something different about this one than the previous ones. But I don't know what it is, and I know it's not intelligence or common sense, because these have not been a part of the baseball negotiations that began in November 1888. It's always been this way. BROWN: There's -- you know, we're going to talk to Ken Burns later -- you talk about a lot of things here, but there is in this sport a greater antipathy between players and owners than in any other sport, and it does in fact go back 100 years or more.

OLBERMANN: It's an extraordinary thing, and I forget if it is -- it's never been identified whether it was said by Bill Terry, who was the manager of the New York Giants in 1930s, or by somebody, I thought, in the late 1890s. Baseball has always survived the stupidity of the people who run it. So the quote is at least 60 years old and may in fact be 100 years old, and it's always been true.

BROWN: Well, here we are again. We'll see what the next two weeks bring, and I expect you will spend some time with us. Thank you.

OLBERMANN: Certainly.

BROWN: Keith, have a good weekend.

President, as Keith mentioned, talked about baseball a bit while he was -- when he met with reporters today. He's on vacation in Texas. More notably, we think, he talked about Iraq. The administration has so far, at least, had a tough time gaining international support for a possible war to oust Saddam Hussein, and it is possible that domestic support, which in the polls, at least, remains quite strong, could start to slide as well.

Voices of opposition are beginning to emerge, and they are not just voices the president can easily dismiss.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There should be no doubt in anybody's mind this man is thumbing his nose at the world, that he has gassed his own people, that he is trouble in his neighborhood.

BROWN (voice-over): Again today the president made it very clear that he is thinking hard about the possibility of a war with Iraq. But he also acknowledged that not everyone thinks that's a such a smart idea, and the loudest voices now are not the Democrats, many of whom opposed the first Gulf War, but among Republicans who supported it.

BRENT SCOWCROFT, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: What would the region look like if we did that? Right now, I think we could have an explosion in the Middle East.

BROWN: Brent Scowcroft is one of them, an important voice in an important debate. He was the first President Bush's national security adviser, and along with Henry Kissinger he has warned the current President Bush to hold his fire.

SCOWCROFT: To attack Iraq while the Middle East is in the terror that it is right now and America appears not to be dealing with something which is to every Muslim is a real problem, but instead go over here, I think could turn the whole region into a cauldron.

REP. DICK ARMEY (R), TEXAS: As long as he behaves himself within his own borders, we should not be addressing any attack of resources against him.

BROWN: There's criticism too from some senior congressional Republicans like Dick Armey in the House, and in the Senate Nebraska's Chuck Hagel.

SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R), NEBRASKA: We always have the option of going to war. It's easy to get in to war, not so easy to get out.

WILLIAM HAWKINS, U.S. BUSINESS AND INDUSTRIAL COUNCIL: Most of the criticism, from people like Dick Armey or Senator Chuck Hagel, Jack Kemp, have come out of what you call the business wing of the party, and that wing has a different priority.

BROWN: Some argue that the Republicans who are critics simply don't think the president should risk rocking an already shaky world economy with an attack against Saddam Hussein.

HAWKINS: They want peace and tranquility so that we can carry on business, trade and investment, and they don't like things that disturb that as far as international affairs, and domestically they don't want things like military build-ups or wars which upset the budget process or may imperil tax cuts or something like that.

BROWN: The president seems to be listening.

BUSH: Listen, it's a healthy debate for people to express their opinions. People should be allowed to express their opinion. But America need to know I'll be making up my mind based upon the latest intelligence and how best to protect our own country plus our friends and allies.

BROWN: Meanwhile the president's team makes clear where the administration stands. The current national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, gave this interview to the BBC radio this week.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: But clearly, if Saddam Hussein is left in power, doing the things that he's doing now, this is a threat that will emerge and will emerge in a very big way, and history is littered with cases of inaction that led to very grave consequences.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We'll have more on this debate in a little bit, after the break. Ron Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times talk about the president and the politics of all of this. Also later in the program, we'll talk with Ken Burns about baseball and the business of baseball.

Lots to do on a Friday night. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: Ten years ago during the run-up to the Gulf War when President George H. W. Bush was having a moment of doubt, Margaret Thatcher, then the British prime minister, reportedly took him aside and said George, this is no time to go wobbly. Makes as great story, and true or not, it is a truism. Leaders do listen to advice. Politicians do pay attention to politics when making a big decision, and going to war is about the biggest decision you can make.

Joining us to talk more about the politics of the war in Iraq, if it comes that, "Los Angeles Times" political correspondent and CNN analyst Ron Brownstein. He joins us tonight from Washington. It's always nice to see you.

RON BROWNSTEIN, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": Good to be here, Aaron.

BROWN: We need a little context here. There aren't, I suppose, a lot of voices being heard in opposition to the possibility of a war, but the voices that are being heard matter.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. These are significant people. I would say it represents a real but limited challenge to the president. What you are hearing from Brent Scowcroft, from Kissinger, from Chuck Hagel, Lawrence Eagleburger, is a strain of thinking in the Republican foreign policy establishment. I'd call it the realist school, people who want a strong America but tend to be leery of global crusades.

I don't think, though, that it foreshadows any broader rebellion against action in Iraq in the Republican party, and indeed its principal impact may be to embolden more traditional critics of American military intervention abroad, more liberal critics who feel now they have some more cover to come out with these voices being heard first.

BROWN: I think that's exactly right, as I love when people say to me. I think that's exactly right, because the Democrats have been mostly -- not totally -- but mostly silent on this. And now all of a sudden, if they are so inclined, they can say, wait a second, I'm just saying the same thing that Brent Scowcroft or Henry Kissinger is saying.

BROWNSTEIN: It's definitely better than exactly wrong. But yes, I think it will do that. It's important to note, though, that some of the leading Democrats have already come out in favor of this in a way that could signal broader support than was there for the Gulf War.

Dick Gephardt, the House Minority Leader, who's considering a presidential bid, and Joe Lieberman, Al Gore's running mate, have both been on the record already as saying they would support the use of force, ultimately, in Iraq. You know, after 9/11 the context here is very different than during the Gulf War, and I suspect, if I had to bet, there would be broader Democratic support for military action now than there was 10 years ago.

BROWN: Let me throw an idea out here, and 9/11 I think is the right hook for it. In the aftermath of 9/11 we as a country are angry. And we are going to make some decisions, at least initially, that reflect the anger of what happened to us on that day.

I'm not so sure that there has been the kind of discussion of Iraq at this point that let's us really know that the country has thought a lot about this yet. I'm just curious if you agree.

BROWNSTEIN: No, and I think that's exactly right. And I think, in a strange way, this kind of criticism may benefit the president, because what has been missing is any kind of domestic debate. Even someone like Dick Lugar, the senator from Indiana, who is one of the leading voice in this realist school among Republicans, has said that while the president can make the case for preemptive action in Iraq, he has not done so yet, and the fact that these prominent Republicans are raising these questions really increases the visibility of this debate.

You know, the press, we tend to cover the issue when there's conflict and when there's debate. And having these Republican voices out there I think is going force the administration to do something it really should have to do, which is more aggressively and comprehensively make the case for why this makes sense at this point.

BROWN: And that's exactly right, by the way. And not only do they have to make that case domestically, it does seem to me they have to make it abroad.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, Lugar, you know Lugar laid out, I thought, in an interesting Op-Ed piece in his local paper in Indianapolis the other day, five steps he thought President Bush had to cross before going ahead with this, and one of them was building up more support among the allies.

You know, what you saw Scowcroft say in that clip there, Chuck Hagel has also been saying, which is that most of the Arab world will be extremely leery of us doing anything in Iraq while what they see as a much more pressing problem, that of Israel and the Palestinians, remains so raw. Bush has a lot of convincing to do on that front. He certainly has a lot of convincing to do in Europe, where you have Gerhard Schroeder, for instance, beginning his campaign for reelection in Germany by saying that they would not support in any way action in Iraq.

So there is a lot of work to be done.

BROWN: Ron, need I say it? Exactly right again. Thanks for joining us. It's good to see you again, Ron Brownstein.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

BROWN: As we get through the end of the political season, we expect we'll see more of him as well.

A couple of quick items from around the world tonight before we go to break. We start in Poland, in Krakow, Pope John Paul II returning home today to the people who once knew him as His Eminence the Archbishop, that was 24 years ago. Twenty-four years later, on his ninth visit home since becoming pope, John Paul is a shadow of his former vibrant self, but not that anyone in Poland seemed to mind that today. And while his body may not be nearly as strong as it once was, Vatican sources continue to say that the pope's mind is as sharp as ever.

Nice group meeting him today.

There's a report tonight from Israeli TV of an army plan to snatch Yasser Arafat and spirit him out of the country, or out of the West Bank. According to Israel's Channel 2 Television Prime Minister Sharon improves of the plan in principle, and if it comes to that, but for the record neither he nor the IDF is making any public comment.

Out in space, Americans and Russians did a little work on the International Space Station today. They are installing some panels to protect the damage or protect the space station from damage from space junk, and of course any time you do a little home improvement, it does add value.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT we'll talk to Ken Burns about baseball. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: A little more baseball now. For those who really love the game, Ken Burns's PBS series on its history was as good as it gets. He introduced a new generation of fans to well known stars like Ty Cobb and Willie Mays, and not so well known heroes like the great Josh Gibson.

The series also reminds us that for the fuss of the moment over greed and labor strife and all the rest, that too has always been a part of the game.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "BASEBALL")

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was a time when the National League stood for integrity and fair dealing. Today it stands for dollars and cents. Once it looked to the elevation of the game and an honest exhibition of the sport. Today its eyes are on the turnstile. Players have been bought, sold, and exchanged as though they were sheep instead of American citizens. John Montgomery Ward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: That was a long time ago. We're always pleased when Ken joins us, even on a day when the game seems ready to shoot itself in the foot yet again. Tonight no exception. Ken, good to see you.

(CROSSTALK)

I'm not sure we'll say you're exactly right, though, a lot, because I think in some respects we see this differently. But we don't see this differently. This is a business. It has always been a business, and it's important in moments like this to remember that.

KEN BURNS, DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER, "BASEBALL": I think we all get tied up, all of us in our guts, with all those emotional aspects of the game. Time. Memory. Family and home, and they are there. There are very few things in our republic that are continuous, and baseball is that. A .300 hitter means the same thing to everybody practically back to George Washington.

So we are comforted by its rhythms but we forget that almost from the get-go, it's been about business, and I found, Aaron, this great quote the other day from a guy named Old Pete O'Brien (ph) in 1868.

He played for the Brooklyn Atlantics. He said somehow or other they don't play ball nowadays as they used to some eight or 10 years ago. I don't mean to say they don't play it as well, but I mean they don't play it with the same kind of feelings or for the same objects that they used to.

So the complaint about the game has always been there, the tension between the pure sport, what happens between the lines, and then the backstage business of the game, which is going on all the time.

BROWN: Here's where I think it gets a little oogy (ph), for lack of a better word. Baseball players are making enormous amounts of money. I mean, you got a guy in Texas making $21 million this year. He's going to lose $117,000 dollar a day...

BURNS: A game.

BROWN: Yes, if they walk. And going to a ball game, I read today, costs a family of four $147. That's a lot of money, and people are angry, and this is a bad economic time. I'm not so sure you're right that people are going to flock back if this goes south.

BURNS: I think they are going to come back. I don't think anything can kill baseball, but you're absolutely right. When free agency came in, before it a player made just a little bit above what an average working man guy did, five times. Now it's 50 times more. Excuse me, I've got a fly who's...

BROWN: Well, it's appropriate you'd be trying to catch a fly, so it's OK.

BURNS: I'm trying to field a fly. But now they are way, way, way more than anything that we imagine, so we just can't imagine they'd stop the game for that. But remember, these guys had been slaves for ever and ever, and if you had been making steadily more money and all of a sudden somebody told you you had to make less, you might want to go on strike.

I think the key word here is onerous.

BROWN: That's good word. I remember back in 1965, and the Twins were in the World Series. And Cal Griffith, one of the last of the great -- I use that word advisedly -- great individual owners of a sport, bragged about the fact that he was paying his infield, three out of four guys in his infield, the major league minimum, which was about $6,500 at the time. BURNS: Right.

BROWN: There is this long history of distrust. It looked like maybe we're going to get by it this time. Now I'm not so sure. Is this just part of the game, like balls and strike, that management and labor are constantly going to be at war?

BURNS: You're exactly right. I wanted to say that. Yes. This is part of the game, and I think we have to step back a little bit. Yes, it's terrible. Yes, we can't understand it in a recession. Yes, we can't understand in the wake of 9-11 why -- it seems unpatriotic. But at the same time this drama has been going on and on and on and will continue, and that ought to be part of the game, too.

We are watching an age-old American struggle between the guys who own the ball and the field and the guys whose hit the ball with the bat. And I think it will go on for as long as this game is. I would be worried if there wasn't kind of this no drama about money and baseball and power in some future time.

I think it's part of it. I mean, it's hard for us now. I'm just apoplectic about the idea that in a couple weeks I won't see my beloved Red Sox to the end of the season, but I don't know, Aaron. I think it's been there. I think we have to accept it. That's what it's about. And I think people will come back. There will always be -- like right now we are looking at baseball has never been better between the lines. This has never been better, and I think just as we are...

BROWN: One more question before we run out of time. You know, when football went on strike, they just put other guys on the field and no one seemed to care very much. Why doesn't that work for baseball?

BURNS: You can't do that, because we are talking about 500, 750 guys, 250 of whom are pitchers who can do something that nobody else can do, is hit this little ball as it comes at you with a piece of ash. And the difference between the best hitter and worst hitters seems like a universe of difference, but that guy, remember, who is hitting a buck-98 is still 1,000 times better than you or me, no matter what we dream about watching TV.

You just can't all of a sudden mount another professional league. So I think we are just going to have to put up with it. We're going to grin and bear it. And I think, you know, with somebody like Andy McVeil (ph) on the owner's team, who knows they just got to move towards an agreement. I think there's some player representatives that really want to change it.

I feel a little bit like something is in the bones, that they will work it out before the 30th. And if they don't, we'll still come back when they finally figure out how to play the game again.

BROWN: Ken, it's always a treat to see you. Go deal with that fly now, will you?

BURNS: Yes. I'll try to shag it.

BROWN: Thank you. Ken Burns from New Hampshire tonight. Good to talk to you.

Still ahead on the program tonight, remembering the victims of 9- 11. It's a Friday night in New York, and this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It is odd, I think, the things I struggle with in writing the program sometimes. Take this lead. In some ways it is a very straightforward introduction to this weekend's "CNN Presents," a documentary called "America Remembers." It doesn't need more than that, I suppose.

On the other hand, what are the right words to say, set aside some of your weekend to relive the worst day in the country's modern history, a day documented so well by television that you will feel much of the same shock and the same sorrow you felt the first time around.

I know this because I watched a piece on Monday night, and it was as hard as it was powerful. So here is a sample of the documentary. A look at the day as we all saw it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When I got outside I saw everybody was like looking up toward the sky. And I started running downtown to a building, and I got maybe a block or two before I saw there was a motorist stopped on the corner, so I jumped up to her window and just waved my CNN ID in her face, and said give me a ride, give me a ride, and she let me in the car.

I got within a few blocks of the World Trade Center when suddenly there was the second sort of war that came out of the sky and everyone just looked right up and another plane came and just barreled into the other tower.

At first I thought I'm dreaming. My god. This can't be. This isn't happening.

I looked up and the first thing I thought was, my God. The plane is flying so low. In a big city with these tall buildings, what's it doing so low? There was a schoolyard across the street, and I remember there were kids that were being evacuated from the school yard. And one of the girls looked up into the sky and she said to her father, Daddy, look, they are doing it on purpose.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up on a year, my friends. Part one of "America Remembers" can be seen Saturday evening at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time or Sunday at 7:00 p.m. Eastern time.

For a program that has spent a considerable amount of time recently on the redesign of the Trade Center Site we have never forgotten that this is not a building tragedy. It is a people tragedy. In New York the number is 2,823 people and Salvatore Papasso was one of them.

He was a very strong and caring person. He weighed the possibilities of things, the pros and cons, and was able to make a decision based on that and still being able to support his friends and family. He was always the voice of reason for a lot of them, I think, to be hearing that a lot lately. But any time there was problem in their life or something that they were contemplating, they would call Sal, and he'd either talk some sense into them or tell them, yes, that sounds good, and he would back them up 100 percent, and they all looked to him for that.

Spot was a Dalmation. He was my dog before we got married. And then once we moved into our house and the dog came with me, the two of them bonded. It was unbelievable. It was like he was never my dog. It was always Sal's dog, and the dog is actually having a very hard time even right now.

They are like people, and he knows he's missing and he sits up and he cries, and you know, it's the same thing. He knows the loss. He was at a stage that he was very happy, but he was still looking forward to so much more.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Take a moment to look at some of the ideas you have been sending us to what to do with the Trade Center site. There's so much talk about what the memorial should look like, the buildings around it. If you're so inclined, go to cnn.com/NEWSNIGHT. Follow the links. It will take you to the place in the web site and give you some explanation of how you can submit your ideas. No prizes, as we always say. It's not a contest.

But we're very much interested in how you see the future of Lower Manhattan. Here's some of the proposals. This one from Daniel Snyder Of Greensboro, North Carolina. Calls for rebuilding both towers and adding a third one, a taller one. Duane Sand out in California thinks there should be two delicate open towers outlining the originals. That's an interesting look. It's kind of a New York look in many ways.

Anyway, we've gotten a ton of these, and we hope you'll continue to send them our way. Cnn.com/NEWSNIGHT. Follow the links. You know the rest. Next on NEWSNIGHT, uh oh, our tribute to Elvis. We'll be right back.

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BROWN: Look, have a little sympathy for us, OK? We tried. We really did try, but how could we not do this. After all, my name is Aaron. His middle name was Aaron. He had Colonel Parker. Here at NEWSNIGHT we often have General Chows. One of our colleagues at CNN Financial News is an anchor named Ali Veshi. Yes, rearrange those letters and it spells Hail Elvis. There's no way around it so why even try to avoid it? We will do Elvis as only we can, with help of Jim Nayder of national public radio's annoying music guy, who we found out was two-timing us for one of those big network shows the other day, but we for give him. Welcome.

JIM NAYDER, NPR'S THE ANNOYING MUSIC SHOW: Aaron, Happy I-wish- Elvis-were-still-here Day.

BROWN: Yes, we all wish, but he's not, so what are you going to do instead?

NAYDER: Well, it's a bittersweet day, but thankfully it's sweet because there's a lot of impersonators and they ended up here. It think when you think of Rock and Roll and Elvis you think of Sweden. And that's where we are headed.

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NAYDER: That's of course the great Elard Polan (ph).

BROWN: Oh, I have many of his CDs.

NAYDER: All right, when you think of Elvis, you think of Las Vegas, don't you?

BROWN: I do.

NAYDER: The film, the song, and I tried to find somebody who was here today that can capture that Viva Las Vegas feeling.

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NAYDER: I'll stop it whenever you want. How much time do we have?

BROWN: And just tell us again who that is, for people who may have missed it.

NAYDER: This is Piranha Man from Pakistan.

BROWN: Yes, and that's the Piranha Man's second appearance on the program, I believe. And who else you got?

This is No. 1 on our list, and this is a shocker, because it's the King himself singing one of the world's most famous songs. Greatest entertainer...

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NAYDER: I think it proves he wasn't a vegetarian.

BROWN: Forty seconds left. Give us one more.

NAYDER: All right. This is the deposed president of Ecuador.

BROWN: You are kidding.

NAYDER: They called him El Loco, partly because of his performance. He insisted on singing Elvis at various state functions.

They voted him out and he wouldn't leave.

It's ironic, I think he ended up in jail house rock.

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BROWN: Well, it's hard to believe it's been 25 years, isn't it? Because those songs sound as good today as they did then. Jim, it's always nice to see you. But we don't really like seeing you early in the morning on other networks, to be honest. Thank you. Come back and visit.

NAYDER: Won't happen again.

BROWN: Yes, well, we'll see about that.

NAYDER: Mr. B, it won't happen again.

BROWN: Mr. B. Thank you. Good luck this weekend.

NAYDER: God bless Elvis.

BROWN: Thank you. God bless Elvis indeed. I think we all think that on a day like today.

Enough, OK. Next on NEWSNIGHT, the hottest -- all right. I'm ready now. Next on NEWSNIGHT, the hottest TV show on the subcontinent. Think the "Newlywed Game" meets "Survivor." This is a great closer. We'll be right back.

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BROWN: We end the program for the week with a game show from India, something we'll call their reality TV. It's a program where girl meets boy. Girl's family meets boy's family. If everything works out, they get married. It's not exactly love American style. Here's CNN Satinder Bindra.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) SATINDER BINDRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Four times a week for an hour at a stretch, India's version of Julia Roberts, Madhuri Dixit gives millions of Indians a ringside seat into what is usually a very private affair, an arranged marriage.

Arranged marriages mean no dating. So how does it work on TV? Madhuri Dixit's producers invite a woman, and then three guys whose resumes and pictures she's already seen on to their sets. Then Madhuri Dixit takes over, ensuring the couple and their entire families get to know each other better.

MADHURI DIXIT, HOST: I in no way influence the girl or the boy to make the decision. It has to be totally theirs. And the family has to decide totally on their own. But, of course, sometimes you get excited and you are behind the scenes you are like, oh, my goodness, I think she likes him.

BINDRA: Dixit is aware some U.S. marriage-based reality TV shows have been controversial. But having had an arranged marriage herself, she realizes the screening process has to be rigorous.

One of the first women selected for the show, 26-year-old badminton champion, Meenakshi Wagh. Meenakshi says she agreed to selecting her guy on TV because it gave her control in a society where she says it's men who check out women and sometimes reject them at whim.

MEENAKSHI WAGH, SHOW PARTICIPANT: I chose this way to get married because here I will be, I knew that I will be the most important person. And this decision will be my own decision.

BINDRA: One of the men on the show with Meenakshi, table tennis champion Vinod Deshpande. In an intimate setting, and watched by millions of conservative Indians, Pande asked her tough questions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you been in love before?

BINDRA (on camera): Besides television, there are other ways of fixing an arranged marriage here like finding a marriage broker, or surfing wedding Web sites. Each year, it's estimated 10 million Indian couples tie the knot. And catering to their needs are special markets like this, where one can buy jewelry, elaborate silks and, of course, wedding bells.

(voice-over): Given its status as both tradition and now a burgeoning industry, sponsors are lining up on Madhuri Dixit's show to give participants like Meenakshi Wagh exquisite gifts.

So what happened to her marriage prospects? After meeting Vinod Deshpande both on and off set, the couple shock everyone by saying yes. Their families can't hide their joy.

VINOD DESHPANDE, SHOW PARTICIPANT: When the lights went on, I said this.

BINDRA: Several weeks later, Vinod and Meenakshi tied the knot in a traditional Indian ceremony.

MEENAKSHI DESHPANDE, SHOW PARTICIPANT: I'm very happy. Life is very good. My in-laws are very understanding.

BINDRA: Both Vinod and Meenakshi Deshpande say there's no question their arranged marriage was prearranged for ratings. All they care about is they found bliss in a marriage not made in heaven, but on television.

Satinder Bindra, CNN, Mumbai (ph).

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BROWN: Nice way to leave you. Have a terrific weekend. We'll see you Sunday night at 10:00. Join us for that. Good night from all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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