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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Remembering Roone Arledge; East Coast Still Cleaning Snow From Overnight Storm

Aired December 05, 2002 - 22:00   ET

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

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


AARON BROWN, HOST: One of the things that happened in the world today was the death of Roone Arledge. I can't say I was a friend of his. Roone wasn't that kind of boss. But I can say that there are very few things in this life I am more proud of than the fact that once 11 years ago I was hired by Roone to anchor an overnight news program at ABC.
It may sound silly, but I thought then, and now, if that guy thought I was good, I'll be OK in this league. But that is the smallest of the small stuff where he's concerned. There is little on TV today that Roone didn't invent or influence. From the way stories are best told to the lives of the people they impact, that's Roone. That's up close and personal at its best.

The graphics that help you understand the story, Roone again. "Nightline" was Roone, and much of what all the rest of us do these days is derived from "Nightline." And that's just the news side. There's that whole sports side, too. The thrill of victory and the rest. That's Roone as well.

He was the most important player in the business at its most important time. And for a guy who moved in some pretty fancy circles, he had a better sense of what would play in Peoria than anyone I've ever known. He could spot a great story before the rest of us saw it coming, and that is a gift.

So today, our business lost someone important, and the business of television is everyone's business in its own way. So we'll spend some time along the way tonight remembering Roone.

On to "The Whip" we go, and that begins undeniably with the storm in the East. David Mattingly in Charlotte, North Carolina. David, start us with a headline, please.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, one of the general rules of severe winter weather is that what comes down has to be cleaned up. And, thanks to this storm, there is a lot of cleaning up to do all across the East Coast -- Aaron.

BROWN: David, thank you. Back to you at the top tonight.

On to the latest verbal sparring over Iraq, at least it is verbal now. Frank Buckley again at the White House. Frank, a headline from you, please. FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well Aaron, today Saddam Hussein had some unkind words for the United States. Here at the White House, meanwhile, officials were saying that Iraqi leaders are lying. All of this taking place against the backdrop of a major deadline that is looming in which Iraq must declare its weapons of mass destruction.

BROWN: Thank you, Frank.

And to United Airlines next, and the impact of the company's financial mess. Allan Chernoff is working that tonight. Allan, a headline from you.

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: More turbulence for the nation's number two airline. United is on the verge of declaring bankruptcy, which actually may save the company. We'll have details.

BROWN: Allan, thank you. Back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight, a couple of terrific guests to talk about Iraq. One of them with the view of the inspectors' side, former Chief Weapons Inspector Richard Butler. And on the diplomatic side, we'll talk with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright about Iraq and some other things as well. All of that to come, and more, in the hour ahead. But we begin with the storm.

And it occurred to us today that there are rare few places where vast amounts of snow are greeted by many as a gift of the gods. One of them is Manhattan. People who live in town don't have to drive and a somewhat dirty city turns into an enormous snow globe. But for the rest of the East Coast, the storm runs the gamut from minor nuisance to dangerous and, yes, even deadly.

The latest count, four dead in North Carolina, six in Kentucky, two have died in Arkansas. There is no beauty in that and it's not over yet. Once again, CNN's David Mattingly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Six to eight inches of snow in New York and New Jersey. The most seen there since 2000. A picture perfect holiday scene but a nightmare for travelers. In Binghamton, New York, this truck barely stayed on a bridge. The driver was unhurt. At airports, there were rampant delays and cancellations.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had to notify I was going to a funeral in Florida and had to let them know I can't make it. There's no flights today or tomorrow. The airlines said that they're all sold out. And everything was canceled down in Florida for today.

MATTINGLY: Thousands stranded from Atlanta to Boston. Hitting unusually early in the season, the storm also gave throngs of school kids, like these in Washington, D.C., a pre-holiday vacation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Most of the kids can walk here. And you'll end up with like 100 kids. And it's a great hill. MATTINGLY: In Philadelphia, heavy rush hour snow snarled the morning commute. Road crews were out in force to keep streets and bridges clear in a snow emergency.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I expect it to be pretty treacherous.

MATTINGLY (on camera): Are you taking your time?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course. I mean, anybody who doesn't out here today is making a big mistake.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): But the worst hit remains the Carolinas, where a devastating ice storm had more than a million people waking up in the dark.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you have power?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They don't have power over here.

MATTINGLY: It is the most widespread loss of electricity here ever. Worse than the devastation of hurricane Hugo in 1989. Falling ice-covered trees and limbs, some more than 100 years, old downed power lines and blocked roads. They also smashed cars and houses.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We had a large, large portion of a tree that crushed the front of the house, and then we had another limb and then we had one hit the car.

MATTINGLY: The Brown family of Charlotte among those making a go of it with natural gas stoves and wood burning fireplaces. After trees knocked out their power, their phones, their water and damaged their roof.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've spent since about a couple of hours putting buckets around in the house that we basically -- and pulling limbs actually out of our attic.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: And hotel rooms in the Charlotte area tonight, all booked up. People looking for a warm place to sleep. And of course, the big question, when will the lights be back on? Power company officials not willing to wager a guess at this hour -- Aaron.

BROWN: I don't mean to be cute here, what's the weather like there now? Is it warming up?

MATTINGLY: It was hovering above the freezing mark most of today, and there was a lot of ice coming out of the trees. It's going to get down below freezing again tonight. So everything still in the trees is going to freeze again. But the roads are clear and they're expecting even warmer temperatures tomorrow. So tomorrow could be their first good clean-up day here in the Charlotte area and they need it. BROWN: David, thank you very much. David Mattingly. People on the northern parts of the northeast here are digging out still. Snow is still falling in parts of our region, but that's eased a bit, too. Thank you.

On to Iraq now and one of those pictures that helps bring home the enormous stakes involved. Here it is, USS Truman heading out of Norfolk, Virginia today. Heading for the Mediterranean. A thousand sailor on board, 12 vessels that make up the Truman group.

It's described as a routine deployment, six months, but the soldiers know what they could be dealing with. Some say they are anxious, another said he was pumped. And one said this: "Everyone hopes it calms down, but that depends on Saddam."

From the president's mouth it seems to that sailor's ear, Mr. Bush today kept turning up the rhetoric on Iraq, saying the difference between war and peace rests with Saddam Hussein and whether he comes clean about the weapons Iraq has. This on a day when Saddam himself went on Iraqi television with his own verbal assault, saying, "It is the humane duty of any honorable person to defend Iraq against the unjust, arrogant debased American tyranny."

We go back to the White House now and CNN's Frank Buckley -- Frank.

BUCKLEY: Well, Aaron, all this verbal back and forth taking place as this major deadline approaches December 8, when Iraq must declare its weapons programs. White House officials continue to be skeptical that Iraq, that Saddam Hussein will provide a truthful declaration, in their view, given the statements of Iraqi leaders, who continue to say there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Once again, the president today, as he was meeting with African leaders, the prime minister of Ethiopia and the president of Kenya, was asked about Iraq, and today he said that it's not a time for hide and seek. He said it's up to Saddam Hussein to prevent war.

And later, Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, quite forcefully talked about this disputed issue of whether or not Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Ari Fleischer saying that people should believe President Bush over Iraq because Iraq has lied about this in the past.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: President Bush has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Tony Blair has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Donald Rumsfeld has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Richard Butler has said they do. The United Nations has said they do, the experts have said they do.

Iraq says they don't. You can choose who you want to believe.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BUCKLEY: Now Sunday, Iraq must declare its weapons programs. They are saying -- Iraqi officials are saying they will provide this declaration on Saturday. Aaron, it may be some time, however, before the U.S. has an opportunity to digest the material.

They expect it to get back to the security council on Sunday. They will get it after that. It could be hundreds of thousands -- hundreds or thousands of pages that they'll have to wade through.

BROWN: I was reading the transcript of the briefing today. There was one of those sort of coy games going on. Reporters very much wanting to see the proof. What proof does the United States have and the White House resisting that at every turn.

BUCKLEY: That's right, Aaron. In fact, someone even asked the question, why don't you provide it in a public forum in the way that it's been done in the past? We've seen satellite photos in public forums, Cuban missiles, that sort of thing.

I talked to a senior administration official this evening who is saying that's unlikely to happen here. The White House believes it has intelligence that shows Saddam Hussein does have weapons of mass destruction. They are sharing some of it with inspectors. They may share more with inspectors in the future, but it appears as though they're not going to go public, at least not yet, with this intelligence that they have.

BROWN: Frank, thank you. Frank Buckley at the White House tonight. It looks a little bit chilly there.

All the stories in the world roundup tonight deal with terrorism of one sort or another. In Jerusalem today, Israel's Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, told a group of newspaper editors that he believes there are some, not many, but some al Qaeda terrorists operating in Gaza. He also said there were al Qaeda operatives in Lebanon.

In Karachi, Pakistan, al Qaeda operatives seem to actually have struck, killing three people in an explosion in the Macedonian consulate. Messages were found scrawled on the walls inside the building making reference to al Qaeda and the infidels. The attack is thought to have been revenge for the killing earlier of several suspected militants in the capital of Macedonia.

And two bombs exploded in Indonesia today. One in a McDonald's, the other at a car dealership. Three people died in the blasts, two hurt. No one claiming responsibility yet in the attack.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we'll talk with the man -- before we do that, breaking news. We heard about this just a few moments ago, we've been checking on it. Apparently we can report it now.

It comes from Miami, that a small plane has crashed into the federal reserve bank building in Miami. One body has been recovered from the wreckage. No one inside the building was said to have been hurt. The aircraft slammed into the northeast side of the bank at about 8:45 Eastern Time tonight. It exploded, burst into flames. About 90 people evacuated from the building.

We're still gathering information here, not the least of which is, was this some horrible accident, was this like the incident last winter, where the young man in Tampa, I believe it was, flew into the side of a building? What exactly caused this we do not yet know. We'll continue to report on the story and we'll pass along what we know as we learn it.

Now ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we'll talk with the man who was quoted extensively today at the White House briefing. The former head weapons inspector for the United Nations, Ambassador Richard Butler. And up next, a man who changed television, sports, news and the rest: Roone Arledge. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We said at the top of the program tonight that Roone Arledge died today. Mr. Arledge was 71. He had been fighting cancer and other medical problems for several years.

He started out as a sports producer at ABC. And he revolutionized not just the way TV looks at sports, but the way we all look at sports. He put cameras in places no one had ever put cameras before. We don't blink anymore when we watch a luge ride from the luge rider's point of view, or seem to ride the ball all the way to the catcher's mitt. But nobody had ever done that sort of stuff before Roone thought of doing it .

He got us accustomed to seeing an event from a dozen points of view at once, and then he did the same thing for news, when he went on to become the president of ABC News, as well as ABC Sports for a time. When he came to the news division, there was much hand (ph) ringing. A sports guy, oh, lord, he'll turn us to trash, some said.

But as Sam Donaldson told me on the phone tonight, "Hell, we were third. We couldn't get any worse." ABC News, in fact, got better, a lot better. And the doubters became believers.

We'll talk more about how he did what he did later in the program. This is just for starters.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Over the years, if you watched a football game on Monday night, a newscast every evening, the majesty of the Olympic games, or a thoughtful late-night news broadcast, you may not have been aware of it, but Roone Arledge was there for every frame.

TED KOPPEL, ANCHOR, "NIGHTLINE": At first he was coming over with the expressed purpose of shaking up ABC News, which had been third for so long that we'd forgotten that there was a second and a first.

BROWN: Ted Koppel is remembering 1977, when Roone Arledge was given the reigns at ABC News to see if he could somehow recreate the magic he had spun with ABC Sports. KOPPEL: We had heard and, of course, seen this rather flamboyant president of ABC News. In those days, he still favored safari jackets and gold chains. I mean, he looked like someone from another world, acted like someone from another world.

BROWN: That other world was sports. He created ABC's "Wide World Of Sports" in 1961, became the president of ABC Sports seven years later, and directed both news and sports coverage of the awful and memorable 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, splintered by the terrorist attack against the Israeli athletes.

JIM MCKAY, ABC SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon. I'm Jim McKay speaking to you live at this moment from ABC headquarters just outside the Olympic village in Munich, West Germany. The peace of what have been called the serene Olympics was shattered.

BROWN: Roone Arledge changed the way Americans watch TV. He was credited bringing to television things viewers now take for granted: slow motion replays, hand-held cameras, freeze frames of the action.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is what Roone wrote in 1960. "Heretofore, television has done a remarkable job of bringing the game to the viewer. Now we are going to take the viewer to the game."

BROWN: But technology and storytelling were just part of the genius. Roone had an eye for the right talent and the right job. Ted Koppel was hardly your expected anchor, but Roone got it. David Brinkley, discarded by NBC, was hired by Roone to remake "Sunday Morning Talk." And, of course, there was Howard Cosell, the juice that made "Monday Night Football" different. The man America loved to hate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I went through periods with him when you couldn't believe the hate mail, you couldn't believe the pressure that it brought from everything from the U.S. government to advertisers...

HOWARD COSELL, ABC SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Roone and I, as I made plain through the years, had many differences. But in fairness to that man, I would not have survived and prospered without him.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: He had an instinctive touch to what audiences wanted. But at least in the field of news that I watched him at, it was always stuff that actually made you feel good to be working there.

BROWN: When Roone Arledge was named to lead ABC News, he took with him the same star system he had pioneered in sports. When he threatened to hire away Dan Rather from CBS News, Arledge, in effect, guaranteed rather succession to Walter Cronkite.

GREENFIELD: Roone Arledge did not cheapen journalism the way a lot of his critics feared. He made it better and he also made a whole lot of money for ABC News in the process.

BROWN: Arledge tried many things at ABC News. A triple anchor of Peter Jennings, Frank Reynolds and Max Robinson. That was a first. And under his guidance, a late-night news broadcast devoted to chronicling the hostage drama in Iran in 1979 became "Nightline."

ANNOUNCER: This is ABC News "Nightline." Reporting from Washington, Ted Koppel.

KOPPEL: Good evening. This is a new broadcast in the sense that it is permanent and will continue after the Iran crisis is over.

BROWN: Still, of course, on the air today. He also brought news to primetime TV, "20/20" began under his watch. And although that very first edition was something terrible in truth, the broadcast became an institution with Hugh Downs and, of course, Barbara Walters.

BARBARA WALTERS, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: You think about news in our time, then it's just synonymous with Roone Arledge.

BROWN: Roone Arledge wasn't perfect, goodness knows. He was prickly at times, hard to reach at times, rarely returned phone calls, enigmatic. But a few years ago, Ted Koppel captured him in words when Arledge finally retired from ABC News.

KOPPEL: And, in point of fact, he was a lot smarter than the rest of us put together. He's very bright, he's very cultured, he's very civilized, and he has this enormous ability, as most great leaders do, to give you the feeling that when you are in his presence you are at the center of the universe and nothing else matters.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Later on in the program tonight, we'll talk with a man who sat across the negotiating table many times with Roone Arledge on some of his biggest deals, and also a man who wrote the book about him. That's later on NEWSNIGHT.

Up next former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Iraq and how the world views the United States. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There's an enormous amount of diplomacy involved in preparing for the possibility of a war with Iraq. This week, the focus has been on Turkey, among other countries. Turkey is a Muslim country that's been ambivalent about giving its assistance. The foreign minister said this week, "If we're talking about the extensive presence of American forces, we have difficulty explaining this to Turkish public opinion."

You can see that and a lot of other things that should be somewhat unsettling to Americans in a massive and fascinating study of world opinion done by the Pew Research Center. It shows that favorable views of the United States and Turkey have plunged in the last couple of years.

We'll talk about that and a few other things with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who chaired the project's executive committee. I said just before we started I find this fascinating, because when I looked at it, there is, not just in Turkey, but in so many places around the world a kind of ambivalence about the United States. There is respect and admiration and concerns.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, FMR. SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, it is very interesting in that regard, because what happens is that the people like American culture, technology and our way of life. And yet they don't like the way that we're exerting our influence. And then, also, there is a lot of concern on how we're carrying out the war on terrorism, and yet there's a huge reservoir of goodwill will about America. Our image has slipped, however, in trends that started in the year 2000 in many, many countries.

BROWN: I want to ask you about that. But I'll tell you something that surprised me, and tell me where maybe I haven't thought this through. It seemed to that in the aftermath of September 11, there was a great almost universal -- obviously not completely universal -- but almost universal outpouring of sorrow and grief for America and Americans both. The distinction somehow that others sometimes make between citizens and the government was gone. Was I wrong about that?

ALBRIGHT: No, I think there really was. And some of it had to do with just pure compassion and understanding. Some of it also had to do with the fact that here this most powerful country in the world had, in fact, been hit so that it made everybody feel vulnerable. So it was a combination of things.

But the thing that I think saddens me is that a lot of the goodwill or this compassion that developed for us has in some way dissipated because there's not been enough explanation, I think, to the major publics about what is happening, why we want regimes to go along with us. The numbers on Turkey are, to me, quite stunning and very disconcerting.

BROWN: Because these are -- I mean, Turkey is not an Islamic fundamentalist, it's not a radical country, it ought to be more -- the government and the people ought to be, we would think, more sympathetic to the way we view the world, if not always in agreement with us.

ALBRIGHT: Well, they're a NATO ally.

BROWN: There you go.

ALBRIGHT: And they have been very important to us. And they were very unhappy with their government, and this survey was taken just before they threw out the government that they had. But what I find that I think our policy makers have to take into consideration is that we are asking the Turkish government to did all kinds of things with which their people disagree, which in the long run creates an instance of instability and something that we need to be concerned about.

BROWN: And that is not just a Turkish problem. That's -- that problem, asking governments to do something that their citizens do not agree with, is a problem we are facing, the United States is facing, all over the region, particularly where Iraq is concerned right now.

ALBRIGHT: Well, and in Pakistan, which we obviously need in order to carry on what we're doing out in Afghanistan. So there are lots of issues in this poll that I think are not subjected to quick analysis, but have to be really studied, because they are showing a disquiet with what we're doing. Obviously the major dislike of us in the Muslim and Arab world, and we've got to do something about that. I mean, we need to...

BROWN: If peace were to break out in the Middle East, if the Palestinians and Israelis finally solved their problems, would the United States still have a problem in that part of the world?

ALBRIGHT: I think if peace were to break out, I think that it would go a long way to changing the image. I think part of what has happened is that there is a sense that we have not proceeded in terms of trying to get a Middle East peace. That is part of the issue. And the other is that it looks to within this poll that the Arab world, the Muslim world, is equating our war on terrorism with an attack on them.

BROWN: And so no matter how many times the president says that, no matter how many times the United States government, in one way, shape or form, says this is not an attack on Islam, this is an attack on terror, people don't believe it.

ALBRIGHT: They don't at this stage. And so, I think we have to do more in terms of our public diplomacy. I think what the president has been doing in terms of trying to give messages and he did again today, is helpful.

But actions, in fact, in terms of constantly showing that we don't understand Islam generally, is part of a major problem.

The other part, Aaron, that's so unbelievable are the number of people who, in various of the Muslim countries, believe that suicide bombing is a legitimate way to argue against what's going on. Stunning to me.

BROWN: Yes.

The study is, as I said -- I just find this fascinating given the United States' role in the world and American culture and all the rest. It's nice to see you. Thanks for coming in and talking with us.

ALBRIGHT: Great to be with you. I'm glad you like it.

BROWN: Thank you. Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state.

Later in the program, Roone Arledge remembered by a biographer and an agent. Really.

Up next, losers and the losers in the pending United Airlines bankruptcy. There are lots of losers there. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And we'll take a stab at a business story of our own coming up next. Big American airline looks like a sinking ship.

This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, perhaps United Airlines ought to change its motto to "Fly the penniless skies."

United has enormous debts to pay off in a very short time or it will have to take the same route as U.S. Airways took a short while back, the Chapter 11 route.

So how did it happen and what does it mean? here's CNN's Allan Chernoff.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHERNOFF (voice-over): United passengers were more worried about the storm blanketing the East Coast today than the prospect that the airline might declare bankruptcy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am not concerned. I am flying to Tokyo in January and to Dublin in March.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My expectation is that they'll continue to fly and, you know, they'll come back in a perhaps a more efficient form. So, my expectation is that they're not going to go away.

CHERNOFF: In fact, a bankruptcy filing likely would have no immediate impact on passengers, including those holding frequent flyer miles. But a filing would affect United's longer term flight plan. Analysts say United has to cut expenses. That could mean the airline may drop more routes, particularly money losers.

GLENN TILTON, CHAIRMAN & CEO, UAL: We have closed reservation offices. We have withdrawn from routes that aren't making positive contributions to the company's profitability. You take all those things and you think about them as a continuum, sequentially. You simply need to continue to do that.

CHERNOFF: United employees are getting hit hard. In return for concessions eight years ago, United workers got 55 percent of the company's stock.

But today the shares collapsed, falling to $1 apiece. Analysts say the unions are partly to blame for their own troubles, by holding on to the highest wages in the industry in the middle of a turbulent economy.

MICHAEL MILLER, FOUNDER, MILLER GROUP: The employee stock ownership plan, called an ESOP at United, is probably one of the worst experiments ever made in the airline business. It show that really have to make changes from the board room down, not from the unions up.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHERNOFF: Ironically, a Chapter 11 filing could actually help United. In bankruptcy, the company will be in a stronger position to gain concessions from labor, which the airline does need to become more competitive.

Also, under bankruptcy rules, companies don't have to make regular interest payments and that can save lots of money -- Aaron.

BROWN: And we probably wouldn't be talking about any of this if the government had given it the almost $2 billion -- I think $1.8 billion in bailout money which it didn't get yesterday. Why didn't it get it?

CHERNOFF: Well, these were loan guarantees, not actual loans themselves and they didn't get it because they very much believe that United did not have a viable business plan and they did not want a taxpayer bailout.

BROWN: Was that a -- and just walk away from this if it's -- if you don't know. Was that a business decision or was that a complicated political decision because you had all these other airline, Continental Northwest, others weighing in trying to keep American, too, trying to keep United from getting this dough, arguably being more competitive and taking business away from Continental, American, Northwest and the rest.

CHERNOFF: Certainly any decision made in Washington has a political component to it, but it certainly was a decision made by people with business experience in Washington and United, in fact, does have the highest cost structure in the business.

BROWN: Allan, thank you. Allan Chernoff tonight.

A few other stories from around the country to get to tonight beginning with an update on something we talked about a bit last night, revisiting the original convictions in the Central Park jogger case here in New York. A Manhattan district attorney asked the judge today to throw out the convictions of all five men in the 1989 case. Another man confessed earlier this year. DNA evidence backs the confession up. Five men, teenagers at the time, had already a combined 40 years for the crime.

On to Kansas City and the sentence for a former pharmacist who tampered with cancer drugs. This was such an outrageous story, wasn't it? Robert Courtney got the max, 30 years without parole, pleaded guilty to charges of giving out diluted chemotherapy drugs to thousands of patients beginning a decade ago.

And one last crime story tonight comes from Tucson, Arizona. A football player for the University of Arizona football team was arrested on felony drug trafficking charges. Justin Lavaseur (ph) was stopped in Illinois with 87 pounds of marijuana. If convicted he faces up to 30 years in prison.

Next on NEWSNIGHT, remembering the master Roone Arledge. We're right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, we started the program talking about Roone Arledge and we have a little more to say. I'm not sure Roone would have approved of a newscast devoting so much time to him, but I'm absolutely sure he would have liked it.

Mark Gunther, who wrote the biography of Roone called "the House that Roone Built" joins us tonight from Washington.

We're also joined here in New York by Richard Leibner. Mr. Leibner did a fair amount of business over the years with Roone. His is the preeminent agent in the TV news business with clients that include Dan Rather and Diane Sawyer and a cast of others.

Richard, it's nice to see you. Mark, it's good to have you with us.

Mark -- let me ask both of you this question, actually. Did -- everyone agrees Roone was a genius. Did he -- did his career end as a dinosaur in some ways?

MARK GUNTHER, AUTHOR, "THE HOUSE THAT ROONE BUILT": I don't think Roone was a dinosaur. I mean, I think he was a hugely important guy at the time when ABC was dominant and at the age of 65 or 66, in ill health, he stepped away. I don't think there will be another Roone Arledge because no television executive in the future, I don't believe, will ever be allowed to amass as much power he had over news and sports.

And it's funny, you say he was a genius. Someone at ABC once described him to me as a television genius if that's not an oxymoron.

BROWN: Richard, let me ask you that question.

I'm not sure that Roone sort of gracefully retired at ABC. There was a kind of push at the door in the sense that he was of another time when there was more money and bigger vision.

RICHARD LEIBNER, TALENT AGENT, N.S. BIENSTOCK: It was another time, Aaron, but it was also as a result of corporate takeovers and mergers, which ended up with ownerships changing and the greater pressures that Wall Street put on managements with acquisitions and the advent of new distribution systems and cable news channels like CNN and others coming into light.

And Roone liked to take care of his talent and Roone liked to put the best on the air and he helped change the wage structure and get a lot of people what they were entitled to be paid and sometimes the bean counters didn't like that.

BROWN: Richard, I can't imagine you saying that. What made you -- was there a side of Roone that just made you crazy to do business with him?

LEIBNER: Well, Roone -- the only part of Roone that was difficult was that Roone, as many people have said today, could be very frustrating that when he wanted to reach you, he found you and you had to be responsive. But when you wanted to reach Roone, you couldn't always do it.

But in the end, the people around him were very good at, you know, at getting the message through or dealing with that kind of enigmatic technique that he had that got the most out of people. I used to called Roone the burning bush and he'd say to me, What do you mean I'm the burning bush? I said, Well, you were kind of omnipotent.

BROWN: Yes.

LEIBNER: You would not be available but people would respond and create and do more for you than anyone else in their careers because they couldn't get to you, they were somewhat afraid of you, you were all powerful.

BROWN: Mark, was there -- in your looking at Roone's life, do you think there is one thing above all others we should take note of today or is it this extraordinary body of innovation and insight?

GUNTHER: I think the breadth of his achievement is one reason we're talking about him, and he really did remake the world of television sports and then he went on to news.

But if you asked Roone what he was most proud of creating in his career, I think he would say "Nightline." It was a very unlikely program at the time. People didn't think news would work in late night. Ted Koppel was an unlikely anchor and yet because of the clout he had accumulated, because of the money he made for ABC, he was able to get that on the air, make it a success and through his sheer determination keep it on the air and it's now really become a great television institution.

BROWN: But it's also become a threatened television institution, which really speaks to something you said earlier and Richard eluded to as well is how the business has changed and how we'll not likely see these powerful players in the news division again because there's not enough money in the broadcast news business.

GUNTHER: No, and I think it's not only an absence of money, but it's really an absence of ambition. Roone thought big. I mean, I was just thinking earlier today -- about 10 years ago he put on a primetime show on ABC with Gorbachev and Yeltsin from the Soviet Union. Who would even think of trying to do that on a network in primetime today?

So, yes, he was all about show business and stars and glitz and technology, but he was also about big, ambitious ideas that produced very memorable journalism.

LEIBNER: But he also had an extraordinary taste. He knew how he had to build ABC News when he got there. BROWN: Because ABC News, people perhaps don't remember...

LEIBNER: It was a bad third.

BROWN: It was nothing.

LEIBNER: Nothing. And NBC was content in a three horse race to be a comfortable second and CBS was the premiere place and he went after Rather with a vengeance and there was never a better recruiter in the whole world than Roone Arledge was. Boy, did he recruit. And when he didn't get Dan, then he went after somebody else.

And he filled spots. He knew that Friday night America wanted a kicker piece on a news show and so Hughes Rudd was one of those writers that could compete with Charles Kuralt on the road.

And when Diane Sawyer blossomed in the morning first, and then on "60 Minutes," he wanted here. And it took him two contracts to get her, but he went out and he got them. He had such an eye for talent and how to use that talent.

BROWN: That's the part -- we've got about a minute, gentlemen. It is not simply to me that he had a great eye for talent, is he knew the right niche.

He knew that Koppel is not the evening news anchor. He's the "Nightline" anchor. That Brinkley may not be the evening news anchor, but he's perfect on Sundays. I mean, that really is an extraordinary talent to me.

GUNTHER: Well Aaron, Roone would love to disparage ABC when he arrived but what people forget is that ABC had Barbara Walters, Sam Donaldson, Peter Jennings and Ted Koppel when he got there.

Roone was able to take those people and turn them into stars or help them turn themselves into stars.

BROWN: Well, and they grew up. I mean, Peter and Ted were both pretty young. Barbara was terribly misplaced at the time.

LEIBNER: When he got the job and people disparaged him because he was the sportsman, he was very proud of something he'd talk about. He'd say, I'm the only one of the three news presidents now in position -- Bill Small and Bill Leonard being the other tow -- I'm the only one who's never been a registered lobbyist in Washington. And he was very proud of that fact.

BROWN: Well, we're very proud to have known him. It's nice to see you, Richard. Thank you.

Mark, good to meet you. Thanks for coming in.

GUNTHER: Thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: We're talking about one of the really important people in American life, in our lifetime in this business. We'll take a break and we'll continue. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The Iraqis have called the U.N. weapons inspectors spies for Israel and the United States. The White House says Saddam Hussein is just playing the same old gam. And three days from now, on Sunday, Iraq is supposed to file papers declaring whether it has or hasn't got weapons of mass destruction.

Weren't these inspections supposed to make things clearer?

We're joined tonight from Sydney, Australia by Richard Butler. Ambassador Butler is former head of the United Nations special commission to disarm Iraq. He managed to get through the brushfires in Sydney to join us tonight.

It's good to see you again. Has anything that has happened in the last week where the inspectors have gone out on their deal, come back, has any of that meant anything really?

RICHARD BUTLER, FORMER CHIEF U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Not a lot, Aaron, I must say.

I mean, I could be forgiven for saying I've seen this movie before. I mean, there are two sides to this equation. You know, on the one hand the inspectors are back and that's fine. But on the other hand, the Iraqis have within one week -- within one week have started to do the same old propaganda business, saying these people are really spies, you know, they're there illegitimately, they're offending Iraq, they'll find nothing because we have no weapons of mass destruction and so on.

I'm a little bit breathtaken that Iraq has started to do that in less than a week when the inspectors were just doing the initial introductory stuff pending the declaration, as you say, three days from now, which is the big stake in the ground where Iraq will say what it has or what it doesn't have according to it. Then the game will truly start.

BROWN: All right. Nobody is -- nobody believes they're going to hand over a blank piece of paper to the U.N. and say, see, nothing.

BUTLER: Right.

BROWN: So what do you expect they're going to do?

BUTLER: I expect a truckload of material. I mean, a thousand or more pages. It's what they've done in the past. They've already signaled they'll do it again big time. They will blanket the U.N. with a whole truckload of material, thousands of pages of stuff, within which those who need to analyze this will be compelled to find if there are any gems, any truths, any real stuff that demonstrates that Iraq does have weapons of mass destruction.

I suspect, Aaron, it won't. They -- Iraq has said there will be one or two new bits of information, but essentially it will be the sort of kill them with kindness approach. And a more material than any rational people could deal with and it will take days to analyze what they put on the table.

BROWN: Well, days is not forever. It's always been somewhat confusing to me why this declaration is more important, in some respect, than the inspections themselves. They get the declaration, the inspectors have to go do all these sites anyway. Why does this declaration matter that much?

BUTLER: Because, you see, there's a new resolution of the security council of a couple of weeks ago and it's binding in international law and it does two things that are truly important.

One, is it gives the inspectors more power than they ever had before. I think I've said you, Aaron, I wish I had that power four hours -- four years ago. The inspectors really now can do the job in a serious way.

And, two, on the other hand, it sets out a timetable for Iraq at the end of which is the "or else" clause. The timetable is 30 days of declaration by you of all of the weapons you have, 45 days complete resumption of inspections, 60 days, a first report from the chief inspector on what is the state of affairs and behind that timetable is the "or else" that says if you violate any of this, there will be quote-unquote serious consequences.

BROWN: Well, the next step is the declaration. We'll see what they do this weekend and then we'll talk about it with you hopefully next week.

BUTLER: That's right.

BROWN: Ambassador Butler, thank you. It's good to talk to you again.

Richard Butler from Sydney tonight.

Quickly Bill Hemmer with a look at what's coming up on "AMERICAN MORNING" tomorrow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Aaron, thanks much.

On the next edition of "AMERICAN MORNING" tomorrow morning, pumping gas can be a lot more dangerous than you think. Take a simple every day act like filling your tank and a common winter problem like static shock put those two together, you can easily start a deadly fire. It has happened and we'll talk about it tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. Eastern right here. Hope to see you then -- Aaron.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Thank you very much. And that's all for us tonight. There was a lot going on behind the scenes to get it all in but we managed to get it all in tonight. We're glad you were with us as well.

Back tomorrow at 10:00 Eastern time. We hope you'll join us. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com





From Overnight Storm>


Aired December 5, 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: One of the things that happened in the world today was the death of Roone Arledge. I can't say I was a friend of his. Roone wasn't that kind of boss. But I can say that there are very few things in this life I am more proud of than the fact that once 11 years ago I was hired by Roone to anchor an overnight news program at ABC.
It may sound silly, but I thought then, and now, if that guy thought I was good, I'll be OK in this league. But that is the smallest of the small stuff where he's concerned. There is little on TV today that Roone didn't invent or influence. From the way stories are best told to the lives of the people they impact, that's Roone. That's up close and personal at its best.

The graphics that help you understand the story, Roone again. "Nightline" was Roone, and much of what all the rest of us do these days is derived from "Nightline." And that's just the news side. There's that whole sports side, too. The thrill of victory and the rest. That's Roone as well.

He was the most important player in the business at its most important time. And for a guy who moved in some pretty fancy circles, he had a better sense of what would play in Peoria than anyone I've ever known. He could spot a great story before the rest of us saw it coming, and that is a gift.

So today, our business lost someone important, and the business of television is everyone's business in its own way. So we'll spend some time along the way tonight remembering Roone.

On to "The Whip" we go, and that begins undeniably with the storm in the East. David Mattingly in Charlotte, North Carolina. David, start us with a headline, please.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, one of the general rules of severe winter weather is that what comes down has to be cleaned up. And, thanks to this storm, there is a lot of cleaning up to do all across the East Coast -- Aaron.

BROWN: David, thank you. Back to you at the top tonight.

On to the latest verbal sparring over Iraq, at least it is verbal now. Frank Buckley again at the White House. Frank, a headline from you, please. FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well Aaron, today Saddam Hussein had some unkind words for the United States. Here at the White House, meanwhile, officials were saying that Iraqi leaders are lying. All of this taking place against the backdrop of a major deadline that is looming in which Iraq must declare its weapons of mass destruction.

BROWN: Thank you, Frank.

And to United Airlines next, and the impact of the company's financial mess. Allan Chernoff is working that tonight. Allan, a headline from you.

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: More turbulence for the nation's number two airline. United is on the verge of declaring bankruptcy, which actually may save the company. We'll have details.

BROWN: Allan, thank you. Back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight, a couple of terrific guests to talk about Iraq. One of them with the view of the inspectors' side, former Chief Weapons Inspector Richard Butler. And on the diplomatic side, we'll talk with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright about Iraq and some other things as well. All of that to come, and more, in the hour ahead. But we begin with the storm.

And it occurred to us today that there are rare few places where vast amounts of snow are greeted by many as a gift of the gods. One of them is Manhattan. People who live in town don't have to drive and a somewhat dirty city turns into an enormous snow globe. But for the rest of the East Coast, the storm runs the gamut from minor nuisance to dangerous and, yes, even deadly.

The latest count, four dead in North Carolina, six in Kentucky, two have died in Arkansas. There is no beauty in that and it's not over yet. Once again, CNN's David Mattingly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Six to eight inches of snow in New York and New Jersey. The most seen there since 2000. A picture perfect holiday scene but a nightmare for travelers. In Binghamton, New York, this truck barely stayed on a bridge. The driver was unhurt. At airports, there were rampant delays and cancellations.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had to notify I was going to a funeral in Florida and had to let them know I can't make it. There's no flights today or tomorrow. The airlines said that they're all sold out. And everything was canceled down in Florida for today.

MATTINGLY: Thousands stranded from Atlanta to Boston. Hitting unusually early in the season, the storm also gave throngs of school kids, like these in Washington, D.C., a pre-holiday vacation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Most of the kids can walk here. And you'll end up with like 100 kids. And it's a great hill. MATTINGLY: In Philadelphia, heavy rush hour snow snarled the morning commute. Road crews were out in force to keep streets and bridges clear in a snow emergency.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I expect it to be pretty treacherous.

MATTINGLY (on camera): Are you taking your time?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course. I mean, anybody who doesn't out here today is making a big mistake.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): But the worst hit remains the Carolinas, where a devastating ice storm had more than a million people waking up in the dark.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you have power?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They don't have power over here.

MATTINGLY: It is the most widespread loss of electricity here ever. Worse than the devastation of hurricane Hugo in 1989. Falling ice-covered trees and limbs, some more than 100 years, old downed power lines and blocked roads. They also smashed cars and houses.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We had a large, large portion of a tree that crushed the front of the house, and then we had another limb and then we had one hit the car.

MATTINGLY: The Brown family of Charlotte among those making a go of it with natural gas stoves and wood burning fireplaces. After trees knocked out their power, their phones, their water and damaged their roof.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've spent since about a couple of hours putting buckets around in the house that we basically -- and pulling limbs actually out of our attic.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: And hotel rooms in the Charlotte area tonight, all booked up. People looking for a warm place to sleep. And of course, the big question, when will the lights be back on? Power company officials not willing to wager a guess at this hour -- Aaron.

BROWN: I don't mean to be cute here, what's the weather like there now? Is it warming up?

MATTINGLY: It was hovering above the freezing mark most of today, and there was a lot of ice coming out of the trees. It's going to get down below freezing again tonight. So everything still in the trees is going to freeze again. But the roads are clear and they're expecting even warmer temperatures tomorrow. So tomorrow could be their first good clean-up day here in the Charlotte area and they need it. BROWN: David, thank you very much. David Mattingly. People on the northern parts of the northeast here are digging out still. Snow is still falling in parts of our region, but that's eased a bit, too. Thank you.

On to Iraq now and one of those pictures that helps bring home the enormous stakes involved. Here it is, USS Truman heading out of Norfolk, Virginia today. Heading for the Mediterranean. A thousand sailor on board, 12 vessels that make up the Truman group.

It's described as a routine deployment, six months, but the soldiers know what they could be dealing with. Some say they are anxious, another said he was pumped. And one said this: "Everyone hopes it calms down, but that depends on Saddam."

From the president's mouth it seems to that sailor's ear, Mr. Bush today kept turning up the rhetoric on Iraq, saying the difference between war and peace rests with Saddam Hussein and whether he comes clean about the weapons Iraq has. This on a day when Saddam himself went on Iraqi television with his own verbal assault, saying, "It is the humane duty of any honorable person to defend Iraq against the unjust, arrogant debased American tyranny."

We go back to the White House now and CNN's Frank Buckley -- Frank.

BUCKLEY: Well, Aaron, all this verbal back and forth taking place as this major deadline approaches December 8, when Iraq must declare its weapons programs. White House officials continue to be skeptical that Iraq, that Saddam Hussein will provide a truthful declaration, in their view, given the statements of Iraqi leaders, who continue to say there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Once again, the president today, as he was meeting with African leaders, the prime minister of Ethiopia and the president of Kenya, was asked about Iraq, and today he said that it's not a time for hide and seek. He said it's up to Saddam Hussein to prevent war.

And later, Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, quite forcefully talked about this disputed issue of whether or not Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Ari Fleischer saying that people should believe President Bush over Iraq because Iraq has lied about this in the past.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: President Bush has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Tony Blair has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Donald Rumsfeld has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Richard Butler has said they do. The United Nations has said they do, the experts have said they do.

Iraq says they don't. You can choose who you want to believe.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BUCKLEY: Now Sunday, Iraq must declare its weapons programs. They are saying -- Iraqi officials are saying they will provide this declaration on Saturday. Aaron, it may be some time, however, before the U.S. has an opportunity to digest the material.

They expect it to get back to the security council on Sunday. They will get it after that. It could be hundreds of thousands -- hundreds or thousands of pages that they'll have to wade through.

BROWN: I was reading the transcript of the briefing today. There was one of those sort of coy games going on. Reporters very much wanting to see the proof. What proof does the United States have and the White House resisting that at every turn.

BUCKLEY: That's right, Aaron. In fact, someone even asked the question, why don't you provide it in a public forum in the way that it's been done in the past? We've seen satellite photos in public forums, Cuban missiles, that sort of thing.

I talked to a senior administration official this evening who is saying that's unlikely to happen here. The White House believes it has intelligence that shows Saddam Hussein does have weapons of mass destruction. They are sharing some of it with inspectors. They may share more with inspectors in the future, but it appears as though they're not going to go public, at least not yet, with this intelligence that they have.

BROWN: Frank, thank you. Frank Buckley at the White House tonight. It looks a little bit chilly there.

All the stories in the world roundup tonight deal with terrorism of one sort or another. In Jerusalem today, Israel's Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, told a group of newspaper editors that he believes there are some, not many, but some al Qaeda terrorists operating in Gaza. He also said there were al Qaeda operatives in Lebanon.

In Karachi, Pakistan, al Qaeda operatives seem to actually have struck, killing three people in an explosion in the Macedonian consulate. Messages were found scrawled on the walls inside the building making reference to al Qaeda and the infidels. The attack is thought to have been revenge for the killing earlier of several suspected militants in the capital of Macedonia.

And two bombs exploded in Indonesia today. One in a McDonald's, the other at a car dealership. Three people died in the blasts, two hurt. No one claiming responsibility yet in the attack.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we'll talk with the man -- before we do that, breaking news. We heard about this just a few moments ago, we've been checking on it. Apparently we can report it now.

It comes from Miami, that a small plane has crashed into the federal reserve bank building in Miami. One body has been recovered from the wreckage. No one inside the building was said to have been hurt. The aircraft slammed into the northeast side of the bank at about 8:45 Eastern Time tonight. It exploded, burst into flames. About 90 people evacuated from the building.

We're still gathering information here, not the least of which is, was this some horrible accident, was this like the incident last winter, where the young man in Tampa, I believe it was, flew into the side of a building? What exactly caused this we do not yet know. We'll continue to report on the story and we'll pass along what we know as we learn it.

Now ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we'll talk with the man who was quoted extensively today at the White House briefing. The former head weapons inspector for the United Nations, Ambassador Richard Butler. And up next, a man who changed television, sports, news and the rest: Roone Arledge. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We said at the top of the program tonight that Roone Arledge died today. Mr. Arledge was 71. He had been fighting cancer and other medical problems for several years.

He started out as a sports producer at ABC. And he revolutionized not just the way TV looks at sports, but the way we all look at sports. He put cameras in places no one had ever put cameras before. We don't blink anymore when we watch a luge ride from the luge rider's point of view, or seem to ride the ball all the way to the catcher's mitt. But nobody had ever done that sort of stuff before Roone thought of doing it .

He got us accustomed to seeing an event from a dozen points of view at once, and then he did the same thing for news, when he went on to become the president of ABC News, as well as ABC Sports for a time. When he came to the news division, there was much hand (ph) ringing. A sports guy, oh, lord, he'll turn us to trash, some said.

But as Sam Donaldson told me on the phone tonight, "Hell, we were third. We couldn't get any worse." ABC News, in fact, got better, a lot better. And the doubters became believers.

We'll talk more about how he did what he did later in the program. This is just for starters.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Over the years, if you watched a football game on Monday night, a newscast every evening, the majesty of the Olympic games, or a thoughtful late-night news broadcast, you may not have been aware of it, but Roone Arledge was there for every frame.

TED KOPPEL, ANCHOR, "NIGHTLINE": At first he was coming over with the expressed purpose of shaking up ABC News, which had been third for so long that we'd forgotten that there was a second and a first.

BROWN: Ted Koppel is remembering 1977, when Roone Arledge was given the reigns at ABC News to see if he could somehow recreate the magic he had spun with ABC Sports. KOPPEL: We had heard and, of course, seen this rather flamboyant president of ABC News. In those days, he still favored safari jackets and gold chains. I mean, he looked like someone from another world, acted like someone from another world.

BROWN: That other world was sports. He created ABC's "Wide World Of Sports" in 1961, became the president of ABC Sports seven years later, and directed both news and sports coverage of the awful and memorable 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, splintered by the terrorist attack against the Israeli athletes.

JIM MCKAY, ABC SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon. I'm Jim McKay speaking to you live at this moment from ABC headquarters just outside the Olympic village in Munich, West Germany. The peace of what have been called the serene Olympics was shattered.

BROWN: Roone Arledge changed the way Americans watch TV. He was credited bringing to television things viewers now take for granted: slow motion replays, hand-held cameras, freeze frames of the action.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is what Roone wrote in 1960. "Heretofore, television has done a remarkable job of bringing the game to the viewer. Now we are going to take the viewer to the game."

BROWN: But technology and storytelling were just part of the genius. Roone had an eye for the right talent and the right job. Ted Koppel was hardly your expected anchor, but Roone got it. David Brinkley, discarded by NBC, was hired by Roone to remake "Sunday Morning Talk." And, of course, there was Howard Cosell, the juice that made "Monday Night Football" different. The man America loved to hate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I went through periods with him when you couldn't believe the hate mail, you couldn't believe the pressure that it brought from everything from the U.S. government to advertisers...

HOWARD COSELL, ABC SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Roone and I, as I made plain through the years, had many differences. But in fairness to that man, I would not have survived and prospered without him.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: He had an instinctive touch to what audiences wanted. But at least in the field of news that I watched him at, it was always stuff that actually made you feel good to be working there.

BROWN: When Roone Arledge was named to lead ABC News, he took with him the same star system he had pioneered in sports. When he threatened to hire away Dan Rather from CBS News, Arledge, in effect, guaranteed rather succession to Walter Cronkite.

GREENFIELD: Roone Arledge did not cheapen journalism the way a lot of his critics feared. He made it better and he also made a whole lot of money for ABC News in the process.

BROWN: Arledge tried many things at ABC News. A triple anchor of Peter Jennings, Frank Reynolds and Max Robinson. That was a first. And under his guidance, a late-night news broadcast devoted to chronicling the hostage drama in Iran in 1979 became "Nightline."

ANNOUNCER: This is ABC News "Nightline." Reporting from Washington, Ted Koppel.

KOPPEL: Good evening. This is a new broadcast in the sense that it is permanent and will continue after the Iran crisis is over.

BROWN: Still, of course, on the air today. He also brought news to primetime TV, "20/20" began under his watch. And although that very first edition was something terrible in truth, the broadcast became an institution with Hugh Downs and, of course, Barbara Walters.

BARBARA WALTERS, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: You think about news in our time, then it's just synonymous with Roone Arledge.

BROWN: Roone Arledge wasn't perfect, goodness knows. He was prickly at times, hard to reach at times, rarely returned phone calls, enigmatic. But a few years ago, Ted Koppel captured him in words when Arledge finally retired from ABC News.

KOPPEL: And, in point of fact, he was a lot smarter than the rest of us put together. He's very bright, he's very cultured, he's very civilized, and he has this enormous ability, as most great leaders do, to give you the feeling that when you are in his presence you are at the center of the universe and nothing else matters.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Later on in the program tonight, we'll talk with a man who sat across the negotiating table many times with Roone Arledge on some of his biggest deals, and also a man who wrote the book about him. That's later on NEWSNIGHT.

Up next former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Iraq and how the world views the United States. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There's an enormous amount of diplomacy involved in preparing for the possibility of a war with Iraq. This week, the focus has been on Turkey, among other countries. Turkey is a Muslim country that's been ambivalent about giving its assistance. The foreign minister said this week, "If we're talking about the extensive presence of American forces, we have difficulty explaining this to Turkish public opinion."

You can see that and a lot of other things that should be somewhat unsettling to Americans in a massive and fascinating study of world opinion done by the Pew Research Center. It shows that favorable views of the United States and Turkey have plunged in the last couple of years.

We'll talk about that and a few other things with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who chaired the project's executive committee. I said just before we started I find this fascinating, because when I looked at it, there is, not just in Turkey, but in so many places around the world a kind of ambivalence about the United States. There is respect and admiration and concerns.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, FMR. SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, it is very interesting in that regard, because what happens is that the people like American culture, technology and our way of life. And yet they don't like the way that we're exerting our influence. And then, also, there is a lot of concern on how we're carrying out the war on terrorism, and yet there's a huge reservoir of goodwill will about America. Our image has slipped, however, in trends that started in the year 2000 in many, many countries.

BROWN: I want to ask you about that. But I'll tell you something that surprised me, and tell me where maybe I haven't thought this through. It seemed to that in the aftermath of September 11, there was a great almost universal -- obviously not completely universal -- but almost universal outpouring of sorrow and grief for America and Americans both. The distinction somehow that others sometimes make between citizens and the government was gone. Was I wrong about that?

ALBRIGHT: No, I think there really was. And some of it had to do with just pure compassion and understanding. Some of it also had to do with the fact that here this most powerful country in the world had, in fact, been hit so that it made everybody feel vulnerable. So it was a combination of things.

But the thing that I think saddens me is that a lot of the goodwill or this compassion that developed for us has in some way dissipated because there's not been enough explanation, I think, to the major publics about what is happening, why we want regimes to go along with us. The numbers on Turkey are, to me, quite stunning and very disconcerting.

BROWN: Because these are -- I mean, Turkey is not an Islamic fundamentalist, it's not a radical country, it ought to be more -- the government and the people ought to be, we would think, more sympathetic to the way we view the world, if not always in agreement with us.

ALBRIGHT: Well, they're a NATO ally.

BROWN: There you go.

ALBRIGHT: And they have been very important to us. And they were very unhappy with their government, and this survey was taken just before they threw out the government that they had. But what I find that I think our policy makers have to take into consideration is that we are asking the Turkish government to did all kinds of things with which their people disagree, which in the long run creates an instance of instability and something that we need to be concerned about.

BROWN: And that is not just a Turkish problem. That's -- that problem, asking governments to do something that their citizens do not agree with, is a problem we are facing, the United States is facing, all over the region, particularly where Iraq is concerned right now.

ALBRIGHT: Well, and in Pakistan, which we obviously need in order to carry on what we're doing out in Afghanistan. So there are lots of issues in this poll that I think are not subjected to quick analysis, but have to be really studied, because they are showing a disquiet with what we're doing. Obviously the major dislike of us in the Muslim and Arab world, and we've got to do something about that. I mean, we need to...

BROWN: If peace were to break out in the Middle East, if the Palestinians and Israelis finally solved their problems, would the United States still have a problem in that part of the world?

ALBRIGHT: I think if peace were to break out, I think that it would go a long way to changing the image. I think part of what has happened is that there is a sense that we have not proceeded in terms of trying to get a Middle East peace. That is part of the issue. And the other is that it looks to within this poll that the Arab world, the Muslim world, is equating our war on terrorism with an attack on them.

BROWN: And so no matter how many times the president says that, no matter how many times the United States government, in one way, shape or form, says this is not an attack on Islam, this is an attack on terror, people don't believe it.

ALBRIGHT: They don't at this stage. And so, I think we have to do more in terms of our public diplomacy. I think what the president has been doing in terms of trying to give messages and he did again today, is helpful.

But actions, in fact, in terms of constantly showing that we don't understand Islam generally, is part of a major problem.

The other part, Aaron, that's so unbelievable are the number of people who, in various of the Muslim countries, believe that suicide bombing is a legitimate way to argue against what's going on. Stunning to me.

BROWN: Yes.

The study is, as I said -- I just find this fascinating given the United States' role in the world and American culture and all the rest. It's nice to see you. Thanks for coming in and talking with us.

ALBRIGHT: Great to be with you. I'm glad you like it.

BROWN: Thank you. Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state.

Later in the program, Roone Arledge remembered by a biographer and an agent. Really.

Up next, losers and the losers in the pending United Airlines bankruptcy. There are lots of losers there. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And we'll take a stab at a business story of our own coming up next. Big American airline looks like a sinking ship.

This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, perhaps United Airlines ought to change its motto to "Fly the penniless skies."

United has enormous debts to pay off in a very short time or it will have to take the same route as U.S. Airways took a short while back, the Chapter 11 route.

So how did it happen and what does it mean? here's CNN's Allan Chernoff.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHERNOFF (voice-over): United passengers were more worried about the storm blanketing the East Coast today than the prospect that the airline might declare bankruptcy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am not concerned. I am flying to Tokyo in January and to Dublin in March.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My expectation is that they'll continue to fly and, you know, they'll come back in a perhaps a more efficient form. So, my expectation is that they're not going to go away.

CHERNOFF: In fact, a bankruptcy filing likely would have no immediate impact on passengers, including those holding frequent flyer miles. But a filing would affect United's longer term flight plan. Analysts say United has to cut expenses. That could mean the airline may drop more routes, particularly money losers.

GLENN TILTON, CHAIRMAN & CEO, UAL: We have closed reservation offices. We have withdrawn from routes that aren't making positive contributions to the company's profitability. You take all those things and you think about them as a continuum, sequentially. You simply need to continue to do that.

CHERNOFF: United employees are getting hit hard. In return for concessions eight years ago, United workers got 55 percent of the company's stock.

But today the shares collapsed, falling to $1 apiece. Analysts say the unions are partly to blame for their own troubles, by holding on to the highest wages in the industry in the middle of a turbulent economy.

MICHAEL MILLER, FOUNDER, MILLER GROUP: The employee stock ownership plan, called an ESOP at United, is probably one of the worst experiments ever made in the airline business. It show that really have to make changes from the board room down, not from the unions up.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHERNOFF: Ironically, a Chapter 11 filing could actually help United. In bankruptcy, the company will be in a stronger position to gain concessions from labor, which the airline does need to become more competitive.

Also, under bankruptcy rules, companies don't have to make regular interest payments and that can save lots of money -- Aaron.

BROWN: And we probably wouldn't be talking about any of this if the government had given it the almost $2 billion -- I think $1.8 billion in bailout money which it didn't get yesterday. Why didn't it get it?

CHERNOFF: Well, these were loan guarantees, not actual loans themselves and they didn't get it because they very much believe that United did not have a viable business plan and they did not want a taxpayer bailout.

BROWN: Was that a -- and just walk away from this if it's -- if you don't know. Was that a business decision or was that a complicated political decision because you had all these other airline, Continental Northwest, others weighing in trying to keep American, too, trying to keep United from getting this dough, arguably being more competitive and taking business away from Continental, American, Northwest and the rest.

CHERNOFF: Certainly any decision made in Washington has a political component to it, but it certainly was a decision made by people with business experience in Washington and United, in fact, does have the highest cost structure in the business.

BROWN: Allan, thank you. Allan Chernoff tonight.

A few other stories from around the country to get to tonight beginning with an update on something we talked about a bit last night, revisiting the original convictions in the Central Park jogger case here in New York. A Manhattan district attorney asked the judge today to throw out the convictions of all five men in the 1989 case. Another man confessed earlier this year. DNA evidence backs the confession up. Five men, teenagers at the time, had already a combined 40 years for the crime.

On to Kansas City and the sentence for a former pharmacist who tampered with cancer drugs. This was such an outrageous story, wasn't it? Robert Courtney got the max, 30 years without parole, pleaded guilty to charges of giving out diluted chemotherapy drugs to thousands of patients beginning a decade ago.

And one last crime story tonight comes from Tucson, Arizona. A football player for the University of Arizona football team was arrested on felony drug trafficking charges. Justin Lavaseur (ph) was stopped in Illinois with 87 pounds of marijuana. If convicted he faces up to 30 years in prison.

Next on NEWSNIGHT, remembering the master Roone Arledge. We're right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, we started the program talking about Roone Arledge and we have a little more to say. I'm not sure Roone would have approved of a newscast devoting so much time to him, but I'm absolutely sure he would have liked it.

Mark Gunther, who wrote the biography of Roone called "the House that Roone Built" joins us tonight from Washington.

We're also joined here in New York by Richard Leibner. Mr. Leibner did a fair amount of business over the years with Roone. His is the preeminent agent in the TV news business with clients that include Dan Rather and Diane Sawyer and a cast of others.

Richard, it's nice to see you. Mark, it's good to have you with us.

Mark -- let me ask both of you this question, actually. Did -- everyone agrees Roone was a genius. Did he -- did his career end as a dinosaur in some ways?

MARK GUNTHER, AUTHOR, "THE HOUSE THAT ROONE BUILT": I don't think Roone was a dinosaur. I mean, I think he was a hugely important guy at the time when ABC was dominant and at the age of 65 or 66, in ill health, he stepped away. I don't think there will be another Roone Arledge because no television executive in the future, I don't believe, will ever be allowed to amass as much power he had over news and sports.

And it's funny, you say he was a genius. Someone at ABC once described him to me as a television genius if that's not an oxymoron.

BROWN: Richard, let me ask you that question.

I'm not sure that Roone sort of gracefully retired at ABC. There was a kind of push at the door in the sense that he was of another time when there was more money and bigger vision.

RICHARD LEIBNER, TALENT AGENT, N.S. BIENSTOCK: It was another time, Aaron, but it was also as a result of corporate takeovers and mergers, which ended up with ownerships changing and the greater pressures that Wall Street put on managements with acquisitions and the advent of new distribution systems and cable news channels like CNN and others coming into light.

And Roone liked to take care of his talent and Roone liked to put the best on the air and he helped change the wage structure and get a lot of people what they were entitled to be paid and sometimes the bean counters didn't like that.

BROWN: Richard, I can't imagine you saying that. What made you -- was there a side of Roone that just made you crazy to do business with him?

LEIBNER: Well, Roone -- the only part of Roone that was difficult was that Roone, as many people have said today, could be very frustrating that when he wanted to reach you, he found you and you had to be responsive. But when you wanted to reach Roone, you couldn't always do it.

But in the end, the people around him were very good at, you know, at getting the message through or dealing with that kind of enigmatic technique that he had that got the most out of people. I used to called Roone the burning bush and he'd say to me, What do you mean I'm the burning bush? I said, Well, you were kind of omnipotent.

BROWN: Yes.

LEIBNER: You would not be available but people would respond and create and do more for you than anyone else in their careers because they couldn't get to you, they were somewhat afraid of you, you were all powerful.

BROWN: Mark, was there -- in your looking at Roone's life, do you think there is one thing above all others we should take note of today or is it this extraordinary body of innovation and insight?

GUNTHER: I think the breadth of his achievement is one reason we're talking about him, and he really did remake the world of television sports and then he went on to news.

But if you asked Roone what he was most proud of creating in his career, I think he would say "Nightline." It was a very unlikely program at the time. People didn't think news would work in late night. Ted Koppel was an unlikely anchor and yet because of the clout he had accumulated, because of the money he made for ABC, he was able to get that on the air, make it a success and through his sheer determination keep it on the air and it's now really become a great television institution.

BROWN: But it's also become a threatened television institution, which really speaks to something you said earlier and Richard eluded to as well is how the business has changed and how we'll not likely see these powerful players in the news division again because there's not enough money in the broadcast news business.

GUNTHER: No, and I think it's not only an absence of money, but it's really an absence of ambition. Roone thought big. I mean, I was just thinking earlier today -- about 10 years ago he put on a primetime show on ABC with Gorbachev and Yeltsin from the Soviet Union. Who would even think of trying to do that on a network in primetime today?

So, yes, he was all about show business and stars and glitz and technology, but he was also about big, ambitious ideas that produced very memorable journalism.

LEIBNER: But he also had an extraordinary taste. He knew how he had to build ABC News when he got there. BROWN: Because ABC News, people perhaps don't remember...

LEIBNER: It was a bad third.

BROWN: It was nothing.

LEIBNER: Nothing. And NBC was content in a three horse race to be a comfortable second and CBS was the premiere place and he went after Rather with a vengeance and there was never a better recruiter in the whole world than Roone Arledge was. Boy, did he recruit. And when he didn't get Dan, then he went after somebody else.

And he filled spots. He knew that Friday night America wanted a kicker piece on a news show and so Hughes Rudd was one of those writers that could compete with Charles Kuralt on the road.

And when Diane Sawyer blossomed in the morning first, and then on "60 Minutes," he wanted here. And it took him two contracts to get her, but he went out and he got them. He had such an eye for talent and how to use that talent.

BROWN: That's the part -- we've got about a minute, gentlemen. It is not simply to me that he had a great eye for talent, is he knew the right niche.

He knew that Koppel is not the evening news anchor. He's the "Nightline" anchor. That Brinkley may not be the evening news anchor, but he's perfect on Sundays. I mean, that really is an extraordinary talent to me.

GUNTHER: Well Aaron, Roone would love to disparage ABC when he arrived but what people forget is that ABC had Barbara Walters, Sam Donaldson, Peter Jennings and Ted Koppel when he got there.

Roone was able to take those people and turn them into stars or help them turn themselves into stars.

BROWN: Well, and they grew up. I mean, Peter and Ted were both pretty young. Barbara was terribly misplaced at the time.

LEIBNER: When he got the job and people disparaged him because he was the sportsman, he was very proud of something he'd talk about. He'd say, I'm the only one of the three news presidents now in position -- Bill Small and Bill Leonard being the other tow -- I'm the only one who's never been a registered lobbyist in Washington. And he was very proud of that fact.

BROWN: Well, we're very proud to have known him. It's nice to see you, Richard. Thank you.

Mark, good to meet you. Thanks for coming in.

GUNTHER: Thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: We're talking about one of the really important people in American life, in our lifetime in this business. We'll take a break and we'll continue. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The Iraqis have called the U.N. weapons inspectors spies for Israel and the United States. The White House says Saddam Hussein is just playing the same old gam. And three days from now, on Sunday, Iraq is supposed to file papers declaring whether it has or hasn't got weapons of mass destruction.

Weren't these inspections supposed to make things clearer?

We're joined tonight from Sydney, Australia by Richard Butler. Ambassador Butler is former head of the United Nations special commission to disarm Iraq. He managed to get through the brushfires in Sydney to join us tonight.

It's good to see you again. Has anything that has happened in the last week where the inspectors have gone out on their deal, come back, has any of that meant anything really?

RICHARD BUTLER, FORMER CHIEF U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Not a lot, Aaron, I must say.

I mean, I could be forgiven for saying I've seen this movie before. I mean, there are two sides to this equation. You know, on the one hand the inspectors are back and that's fine. But on the other hand, the Iraqis have within one week -- within one week have started to do the same old propaganda business, saying these people are really spies, you know, they're there illegitimately, they're offending Iraq, they'll find nothing because we have no weapons of mass destruction and so on.

I'm a little bit breathtaken that Iraq has started to do that in less than a week when the inspectors were just doing the initial introductory stuff pending the declaration, as you say, three days from now, which is the big stake in the ground where Iraq will say what it has or what it doesn't have according to it. Then the game will truly start.

BROWN: All right. Nobody is -- nobody believes they're going to hand over a blank piece of paper to the U.N. and say, see, nothing.

BUTLER: Right.

BROWN: So what do you expect they're going to do?

BUTLER: I expect a truckload of material. I mean, a thousand or more pages. It's what they've done in the past. They've already signaled they'll do it again big time. They will blanket the U.N. with a whole truckload of material, thousands of pages of stuff, within which those who need to analyze this will be compelled to find if there are any gems, any truths, any real stuff that demonstrates that Iraq does have weapons of mass destruction.

I suspect, Aaron, it won't. They -- Iraq has said there will be one or two new bits of information, but essentially it will be the sort of kill them with kindness approach. And a more material than any rational people could deal with and it will take days to analyze what they put on the table.

BROWN: Well, days is not forever. It's always been somewhat confusing to me why this declaration is more important, in some respect, than the inspections themselves. They get the declaration, the inspectors have to go do all these sites anyway. Why does this declaration matter that much?

BUTLER: Because, you see, there's a new resolution of the security council of a couple of weeks ago and it's binding in international law and it does two things that are truly important.

One, is it gives the inspectors more power than they ever had before. I think I've said you, Aaron, I wish I had that power four hours -- four years ago. The inspectors really now can do the job in a serious way.

And, two, on the other hand, it sets out a timetable for Iraq at the end of which is the "or else" clause. The timetable is 30 days of declaration by you of all of the weapons you have, 45 days complete resumption of inspections, 60 days, a first report from the chief inspector on what is the state of affairs and behind that timetable is the "or else" that says if you violate any of this, there will be quote-unquote serious consequences.

BROWN: Well, the next step is the declaration. We'll see what they do this weekend and then we'll talk about it with you hopefully next week.

BUTLER: That's right.

BROWN: Ambassador Butler, thank you. It's good to talk to you again.

Richard Butler from Sydney tonight.

Quickly Bill Hemmer with a look at what's coming up on "AMERICAN MORNING" tomorrow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Aaron, thanks much.

On the next edition of "AMERICAN MORNING" tomorrow morning, pumping gas can be a lot more dangerous than you think. Take a simple every day act like filling your tank and a common winter problem like static shock put those two together, you can easily start a deadly fire. It has happened and we'll talk about it tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. Eastern right here. Hope to see you then -- Aaron.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Thank you very much. And that's all for us tonight. There was a lot going on behind the scenes to get it all in but we managed to get it all in tonight. We're glad you were with us as well.

Back tomorrow at 10:00 Eastern time. We hope you'll join us. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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