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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Malvo's Confession Will be Used in Trial; Pentagon Says no WMDs Found but Means to Produce Was

Aired May 06, 2003 - 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, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
One small indication of just how bad the devastation is from the tornadoes that hit the Midwest and the southeast this weekend, a report that some members of the Missouri National Guard getting ready to go to Iraq are staying home instead. They were going overseas to help rebuild a nation thousands of miles away. Now they have different towns to rebuild, hometowns.

We have a lot on the tornadoes tonight, including a look at the utter devastation in one spot in Missouri, Pierce City, Missouri. Jason Bellini tonight has a report from Liberty, Missouri, the story of a college that's been heavily damaged and the students whose lives and plans have been upended.

Leon Harris tonight on the damage in Tennessee, the destruction of one church in Jackson, Tennessee, that's been a terrible blow to the community there, a church called Mother Liberty.

Not all on tornadoes tonight, though. We have quite a mix of stories other than weather. It's actually been a very busy day, busy enough for a second whip, believe it or not, a whip classic if you will.

My goodness it begins at CNN Center in Atlanta. Mike Boettcher has an unsettling look at some of the 9/11 hijackers years before they became killers, Michael a headline from you.

MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, we're going to show you a wedding video, a wedding groom, a wedding singer, and something that would comprise the most wanted wedding list in the world -- Aaron.

BROWN: Mike thank you.

A big development, a huge development, in the case of the teenage sniper suspect Lee Malvo, Jeanne Meserve has been covering that, so Jeanne a headline.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Lee Boyd Malvo's own words will be used against him at trial. A judge decides that most of the six-hour police interrogation of the teenager was done by the rules and is admissible in court -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jeanne, thank you. And now to the Pentagon and a story about managing expectations in the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre with us tonight, Jamie a headline.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, so far the Pentagon has still not found any of the weapons of mass destruction that were the primary justification for going to war but the Pentagon is ready to declare its found the means to produce those weapons. At the same time, some in the Pentagon are warning that they may never find the actual weapons -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you, back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight in an hour and a half edition of NEWSNIGHT, an update on SARS, what one American university is doing to keep it off campus, and the mystery of the virus with Dr. Laurence Altman who is the chief medical correspondent for "The New York Times."

We'll talk with Caroline Kennedy tonight about one of the ways she's responded to the attacks of 9/11. She's out with a new book called "The Patriot's Handbook."

A look at the nation's largest retailer taking testosterone off its shelves, if you will, three magazines deemed too raunchy for Wal- Mart. Michael Wolff of "New York Magazine" joins us to talk about the implications.

And, the story of a man who insisted his granddaughter was being abused but no one, he says, would listen until it was too late. Jamie Colby reports that sad tale. As we go along tonight, all of that and more in the next 90 minutes.

We start off once again tonight in the southeast and the Midwest where the skies were still stormy, the wounds still fresh, and where for now rebuilding means using machinery to finish what demolition the tornadoes started.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): The long road back to normal began in the states hit hardest by the tornadoes, here in southwestern Missouri and here in Tennessee where some of the residents were still trying to digest what had happened.

JOE BYRD, JACKSON, TENNESSEE: The tornado, I guess, lasted between -- it seemed like maybe eight to ten minutes and we could hear loud explosive sounds outside and the wind was just horrific. It sounded like just cyclonic in nature, not really a train sound or a jet engine sound but the greatest rushing of wind I've ever heard with periodic explosive sounds.

BROWN: In the small town of Pierce City, Missouri, bulldozers were out in force but the entire historic downtown was lost.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't believe that it ever happened. You would never think it would hit a little bitty town like this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The downtown area is the heart of their community. It generates their sales tax. It brings in what tourist activity they have. So, for that all to be completely wiped out, not only emotionally and the memories that are gone, but the tax base and the income for the town, it's a huge loss.

BROWN: Today the threat of even more bad weather crossed into the south. In Atlanta, the clouds were ominous and the rains furious for a time but no tornadoes touched down.

And in Tennessee, television weathermen were warning of more severe weather ahead for the entire region.

DAVE BROWN: There may be some more thunderstorms forming, though. We can look at our pinpoint five lightning data. You can see stretching from north of St. Louis, down across southwestern Missouri, eastern Oklahoma, into northeastern Texas, north central Texas, there's another line of thunderstorms that has developed.

BROWN: And no matter where you turn people were ready with stories of how terrible the danger was and how lucky they turned out to be.

JAMES ECONOMOU, PIERCE CITY, MISSOURI: I came up first and I just opened the door and where the end of the house was was gone and her car that was in the garage, and the garage was gone, was smashed up against the house so the car was right there. The barn was gone. The shop is gone. I was worried about the dogs because they were in the house but they made it, so all three dogs were good.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That's the big story of the tornadoes tonight.

This is one of the small ones and there are thousands of them, the story of a small Missouri college and the young students who had gotten an education in life and fate and hardship they never expected.

Reporting for us, here's CNN's Jason Bellini.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A dorm room ripped asunder on the campus of William Jule (ph) College. This was home to Crystal and Brad James, a young couple about to graduate.

CRYSTAL JAMES: We actually moved in a year ago from the day. This was the picture of the chapel that's on the campus up there, the little white chapel.

BELLINI: You got married here at school?

C. JAMES: Yes.

BELLINI: That made them eligible to live in married student housing, the building most devastated by the tornado.

You lost some stuff that's important to you?

C. JAMES: Yes.

BRAD JAMES: Yes.

BELLINI: What did you lose?

B. JAMES: We lost our wedding videos (unintelligible) only one copy of it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a miracle we didn't get people killed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

BELLINI: College president David Sali (ph) surveyed the damage with students now leaving for the summer. He's canceled the rest of the school year.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had finals that were scheduled to start today and so we just canceled finals and said whatever grades we've got in the book is what we'll go with.

BELLINI: Another married couple, Jason and Lynley McClure (ph) are now officially college graduates even with loose ends left untied.

JASON MCCLURE: There's a lot of things, like I just have questions about papers and the other things you're trying to finish up for the year and you're like what it's done? So, we don't even know what's going on and then we have a lot of friends that I still haven't seen, some of my friends like really, I mean best man in my wedding, we still haven't seen him yet.

BELLINI: Brad and Crystal will now move in with Brad's parents. They have to look for their first jobs, to find a new place to live, and begin to replace the belongings they lost.

It will probably bring you closer together as a couple going through this, exactly.

Closer to beginning a new life.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can't get any closer.

B. JAMES: Can't get any closer, is that what grandma says?

BELLINI: With each other as their solid foundation.

Jason Bellini CNN, Kansas City, Missouri.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Churches are the heart and soul of small town America. In Jackson, Tennessee, one church was that and more, tonight CNN's Leon Harris on the story of Mother Liberty. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LEON HARRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The light of day brings with it scenes of destruction all around Madison County, Tennessee. Jackson, the county seat, may have endured the brunt of Sunday's killer tornadoes, where homes and businesses once stood now lies so much rubble, remnants, and refuse.

Near the Civic Center downtown on Liberty Street lies what remains of the Mother Liberty CME Church. A group of bishops cut short a conference 90 miles away in Memphis when they heard the news, and a police escort brought them here.

BISHOP HENRY WILLIAMSON, CME CONGRESS OF BISHOPS: Mother Liberty for us at CME is what to America the statue of Liberty means in that harbor. You may not live in New York or go in that harbor but you understand what it means. It's a great symbol of freedom.

HARRIS: The Mother Liberty CME Church was founded in 1870 by newly-freed slaves. They built it with bricks made by their own hands. For many this church was a symbol of self determination and self definition of early African-Americans.

BISHOP OPHAL LAKEY, CME CONGRESS OF BISHOPS: Mother Liberty was the symbol of all those years of slavery, our freedom and liberation, our organization as a denomination, our growth down through the years.

BISHOP MARSHALL GILMORE, CME CONGRESS OF BISHOPS: We see it in ruins as it is right now, it devastates you, and yet because we are people of hope, we see it rising from the ashes.

HARRIS: This building is a symbol these bishops say must never disappear. It is on the national registry of historic landmarks and through a miracle of sorts it can remain on that distinguished list.

PASTOR DARYLL COLEMAN, MOTHER LIBERTY CME CHURCH: The one thing that's necessary, required by the national registry of historic landmarks is that you must maintain your front facade and that was God's message, that we saved enough to rebuild.

HARRIS: The city of Jackson may never again look the way it did before those storms blew through here but the restoration of this building, if it does happen, could at least make some of these people here feel as though they've reclaimed one big part of their lives.

Leon Harris CNN, Jackson, Tennessee.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A look at the tornado story tonight, we now move on to other matters.

A different story, one that has pictures we think you'll find somewhat hard to watch. There is nothing graphic about the pictures as is usually the case when we make these warnings. What makes these pictures hard to watch is that you see some young men smiling, happy, celebrating with friends who would later be directly involved in the cold-blooded murder of nearly 3,000 people, a look at a wedding like no other attended by some of the 9/11 hijackers and other suspected al Qaeda plotters -- reporting for us CNN's Mike Boettcher.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOETTCHER (voice-over): The video shows us members of the now infamous Hamburg al Qaeda cell that investigators believe was the core group of the 9/11 hijackings.

The groom in the October, 1999 wedding reception in Hamburg, Germany is Said Bahaji who German authorities accuse of helping plot the New York and Washington attacks. He fled Hamburg just days before 9/11 and is still at large.

Seated to his right, Ramzi Bin al-Sheibh, a key al Qaeda figure who investigators believe played a major role in masterminding the terrorist plot. He was arrested in Karachi, Pakistan exactly one year after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.

During the reception, Bin al-Sheibh comments that all in attendance were part of a class for which there would be a test. There will be some who pass and some who fail, he said.

Marwan al-Shehhi who was one of the hijackers of United Flight 175 that crashed into the second World Trade Center building is standing on the far right of the group, which is singing to the groom.

Also at the reception Ziad Jarrah, a hijacker of United Flight 93 that crashed into a Pennsylvania field. Hijack leader Mohamed Atta is not scene in the video but investigators believe he was also present, as was Marmoun Darqenzawi (ph) who was under investigation by German police for funneling money to the group. He denies any terrorist involvement.

The videotape has been in the hands of German authorities for many months but was recently released to lawyers representing the families of those who died in the 9/11 attacks. For investigators, lawyers, and families, it provides a rare glimpse of the mysterious Hamburg cell that was celebrating a wedding at the same time they were believed to be plotting an attack.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOETTCHER: It all seems so normal, such a typical wedding, but if you look at it Ramzi Bin al-Shiebh in that video seemed like he was bursting at the seams to tell the wedding party the horrible act that was to come -- Aaron.

BROWN: Where, if we know, where in the plotting of this were they at the time that the tape was made?

BOETTCHER: At the early stages some had already enrolled in flight training. They were preparing to head to the United States. Some would head months later. Some would go very soon, and they were in advanced stages, frankly. They knew what they were going to do and how they wanted to accomplish it. They didn't know if they were going to be successful but they felt confident.

BROWN: Mike, thank you, it is chilling to look at, Mike Boettcher in Atlanta tonight.

Iraq next, President Bush today appointing a new man in charge, L. Paul Bremer is his name. He's a former ambassador, a head of the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism. Formally, he'll be the president's special envoy to Iraq and he'll be retired General Jay Garner's boss.

In choosing Ambassador Bremer, the president is being seen by some as tilting ever so slightly toward Secretary of State Powell in the bureaucratic struggle between the State Department and the Pentagon over who runs post-war Iraq.

The Pentagon has had some good success in capturing some of the most wanted Iraqis, 19 out of 55 so far. But while they have Mrs. Anthrax, the Iraqi scientist we told you about last night, it's the anthrax itself that's the Holy Grail.

Finding the germs, the chemicals, the threat the U.S. went out to eliminate, that has become an urgent goal for the United States in terms of saving face around the world. It has not happened yet and now the Pentagon is quietly trying to redefine what might qualify as a smoking gun -- our Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): The Pentagon says it can now back up a key claim made by Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations before the war that Iraq had put biological weapons laboratories on wheels.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: We know that Iraq has at least seven of these mobile biological agent factories.

MCINTYRE: Sources say one of two trucks turned over to the U.S. military in late April closely matches drawings of a mobile bio lab shown by Powell in February, right down to some of the fermenting vats depicted inside. No bio agents were found. Officials suggest that may be because the truck had been scrubbed clean with a caustic agent.

Frustrated so far in its search for WMD, sources say the Pentagon plans to point to the truck as evidence that at the very least Iraq maintained the means to produce germ warfare even as U.N. inspections continued. Asked about what the discovery proves, President Bush said he'd leave that to the experts.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: One thing we know is that he had a weapons program. We also know he spent years trying to hide the weapons program and over time the truth will come out. MCINTYRE: Privately, some Pentagon officials are saying the U.S. no longer expects to find weaponized chemicals or germs in Iraq, especially since they were not used on the battlefield as expected.

The search now is concentrating on finding raw materials, the germs and nerve gas that would go inside the weapons. And publicly, some U.S. officials appear to be lowering the bar, subtly suggesting it may be enough to prove Iraq simply had banned weapons in the recent past.

POWELL: Even if we don't find weapons, we can find out what happened to that material.

TIM RUSSERT, "MEET THE PRESS": But it is important? It is important?

POWELL: Sure, it's important. I'm confident that we will find evidence that makes it clear he had weapons of mass destruction.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: So how much time does the United States have to find a smoking gun? One senior Pentagon official said he figures about two months. He said if the U.S. doesn't find Iraq's banned weapons by this summer, it's going to be very hard to keep saying with a straight face it's just a matter of time -- Aaron.

BROWN: Are there pictures of these mobile labs out there somewhere?

MCINTYRE: We don't have any pictures of them yet. All we have at this point are the drawings but we're told that this particular mobile lab, this truck, is going to be brought from the north down to Baghdad and presumably when it gets to Baghdad we may be able to get a look at it.

We're told that it very closely matches the description of those drawings that were shown at the U.N., which were produced, Colin Powell says, from very detailed instructions from one of the scientists who was involved in making them.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you, Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a decision on whether to throw out part of the sniper suspect's confession.

And a desperate swim to freedom, Susan Candiotti has what may be the most memorable story of the day.

We'll take a break first. NEWSNIGHT continues from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The sniper case now. Thanks to police shows there probably isn't a person alive who can't recite the Miranda warning by heart. The words are clear enough. A suspect has the right to remain silent, the right to an attorney, and by extension the courts have ruled the interrogation must stop when that attorney is requested.

But less clear is what and when constitutes a proper request, and on this point a judge had the choice of throwing Lee Malvo's chilling confession out or passing it onto a jury.

Here's CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE (voice-over): Lee Boyd Malvo made his statements to investigators voluntarily, Judge Jane Marum Roush writes and neither his right to an attorney nor his right to remain silent were violated in the key portion of the interrogation. She concludes that Malvo's statement, "Do I get to talk to my attorneys" was not a request for counsel. It is a significant setback for Malvo's defense team.

MARK PETROVICH, MALVO'S ATTORNEY: We felt that the constitutional violations were clear and were blatant and we respectfully disagree with her ruling in that.

MESERVE: Prosecutor Robert Horan on the other hand is clearly relishing the opportunity to play for a jury audiotape of Malvo talking about his own alleged crimes.

ROBERT HORAN, VIRGINIA PROSECUTOR: It's pretty convincing stuff I think.

MESERVE: According to sources, documents, and court testimony, during the portion of the interrogation that has been ruled admissible, Malvo allegedly admits involvement in the following:

The attempted shooting of a child outside an Aspen Hill, Maryland craft store on October 2nd; the fatal shooting of James "Sonny" Buchanan in Rockville, Maryland the next day; the October 7th wounding of a student at a Maryland middle school; the October 9th shooting of Dean Harold Myers (ph) at a Manassas, Virginia gas station; the October 14th shooting of FBI Analyst Linda Franklin; and the October 22nd shooting of bus driver Conrad Johnson.

Malvo was described by his interrogators as laughing about some of the crimes. Defense attorneys tried to find a silver lining in the judge's ruling.

PETROVICH: The analysis of the statements will indicate that there are clear inaccuracies, seeming lies that are difficult to explain and actually create more questions than they answer.

MESERVE: Under Virginia law, the judge does not have the last word in this matter. The jury will also consider whether the statement was freely given.

MARVIN MILLER, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: And so the voluntariness of the statement is to be decided by the jury and they can ascribe the weight to it that they feel is appropriate. (END VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE: The judge did exclude portions of the interview conducted before Malvo was advised of his right to remain silent and offered an attorney, but his most damaging statements came afterwards -- Aaron.

BROWN: There's actually a lot of questions about how he came to be in Virginia and where his lawyers were and all of that. Any appeal of this happens after the trial, is that what happens?

MESERVE: That's right. That's right. After the entire trial is conducted, then they can do an appeal and they most likely are expected to use this particular decision, given today, as on of the bases for an appeal eventually presuming, of course, that he is convicted.

BROWN: Jeanne, thank you very much, Jeanne Meserve in Washington.

We're joined tonight by a pretty fair defense attorney, I'd say, Gerry Spence joins us tonight from Las Vegas, good to have you on the program. A couple of preliminary questions, then we'll get to the implications of this. As you read this was it a close call for the judge, an easy call for the judge, what was it?

GERRY SPENCE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: No, I don't think. As a matter of fact, I think the judge was wrong. I think there's quite -- it's pretty obvious. A kids says listen do I get to have my attorney and the investigators say yes, you get to have your attorney, and so he then gives them his full statement and the judge says well he didn't say I want my attorney. There's a difference you see, they say.

BROWN: Yes.

SPENCE: And the difference is that little technicality that a 17-year-old somehow didn't understand and that most of us might not understand and now permits all of this testimony, Aaron, to come in.

BROWN: One more question sort of preliminary here and maybe you can answer this, maybe you can't, but why do they confess? Why? I mean the kid seemed smart enough to know that he should have an attorney and then he apparently just blabbed.

SPENCE: Well, you know, he's been alone. They bring in a nice woman that feeds him some good food. He's a vegetarian and they give him some -- a vegetarian hamburger and they -- they're nice to him and gentle to him and loving to him, and this is a boy, and he begins to talk, and they look at him and they say yes and yes and yes, and the first thing you know it's all out.

BROWN: All right, let's move on. I accept that. It's just hard to figure as I think you get the implications of this. It seems to me the defense now has a very hard road ahead. Is there any point at this point in pleading the kid guilty and then just simply trying to save his life? SPENCE: Yes. No, I really think that there is a point in doing that. I don't know about the plea of guilty, but certainly to take no, to take no part in any of the -- in any of the process of trying to prove yourself guilty or to question any of the witnesses that say you're guilty.

I think that a witness or that a defendant in this case who is probably going to be shown beyond a reasonable doubt to be guilty has only one choice and that's to save his life, and you can't go to a jury and say well I didn't do it, and then when the jury finds that he did do it, say oh well I was -- I'm sorry but I guess I did do it and please save my life.

What has to be done, Aaron, is that the credibility of this boy has to somehow be sustained if that's all there is left is his credibility that he will tell the truth and somehow you have to find out what made this little boy different than other little boys like you and I know that grew up in different homes.

How is it that this baby became this massive hateful alleged killer? We have to come to the bottom of that and find out what that is and then maybe in the bottom of all of that we can find something that is decent that we can say is enough human to save his life and that's ultimately, I think, what this case will come down to and those decisions are going to have to be made very quickly.

BROWN: Whether that happens, I suppose, depends on how effective his legal team is in presenting his case, but there is some -- there are some things to work with in his background. It's not -- it's hardly the story of a well loved child of privilege.

SPENCE: Yes, exactly, and I think -- you know, exactly. I think these folks are going to have to go back to Jamaica and rebuild his whole life, and if you think about it here are two little babies in a cradle. One is your baby and mine.

The other is this little baby and they -- and if the children had been switched Lord knows what would have happened but probably we -- the children that we raised that had our opportunities and that were given the chances that our children have would not have ended up like this baby. So, we have to find out what that is all about to present it to the jury.

BROWN: Half a minute. It's a tough jurisdiction they're trying him in. What would you guess their odds are of saving his life?

SPENCE: I think they are very, very difficult and they're difficult for a variety of reasons. Number one the crimes that they're accused of if they committed it are just the worst kind. You have a whole nation that was put at fear.

We have people who say I would pull the trigger on this kid myself. They want him dead. The prosecutors want him dead. Many people in the area want him dead and they put him out of the federal court so that they could get the death penalty against this boy and so -- and he has young lawyers who probably haven't tried too many of these cases. So, I think that the problems of the cases are very, very serious and I'd be surprised if under the circumstances that I know at this point he gets through.

BROWN: Gerry it's good to talk to you again, thank you.

SPENCE: Thank you.

BROWN: Gerry Spence who's in Las Vegas tonight.

Next on NEWSNIGHT a swim to freedom off the Florida Keys for Cubans trying to get off the island.

And later, Wal-Mart decides three magazines are just a little too racy for its racks, the implications of that when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: A few stories in our "National Roundup" tonight, beginning with a bit more perspective on the condition of Private Jessica Lynch. It comes from her brother, Specialist Gregory Lynch Jr., speaking at Fort Bragg, where he's based. He says his sister hadn't talked about her experience as a POW in Iraq. "We don't push her," in fact, to ask her. He said, "We are just there to support her and to help her get well." He also said his sister remains unable to stand on her own.

It was an honor to have the president pay a visit, of course, but this is what the sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln were really looking for, coming home after nearly 10 months at sea. The Lincoln arrived at its home port in Everett, Washington. First off the ship: dozens of new dads, as babies were born during their deployment to the Persian Gulf.

In a few minutes on the program, we'll be talking with Caroline Kennedy about patriotism and what it means to be an American, but before we do, a story of how far people will go to escape persecution to become Americans. It played out in the straits of Florida, where three Cubans had their choice of safety or certain danger. They chose danger, with the slim chance at freedom.

Here's CNN's Susan Candiotti.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just two miles off of the upper Florida Keys, a routine Coast Guard mission is interrupted.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We happened to be over the water doing some over-water work and we looked down, saw a small vessel.

CANDIOTTI: Four Cuban migrants trying as fast as they can to make it to shore. If they don't, they could be sent back to Cuba. But before they jump in the water, trouble, when the Coast Guard orders them to stop.

P.O. ANASTASIA BURNS, U.S. COAST GUARD: They tried to hit the Coast Guard boarding officers with ores.

CANDIOTTI: The Coast Guard says there were more than ores.

P.O. RYAN DIGS, U.S. COAST GUARD: Knives, machetes and ores, swinging them at the boat crew. At that point, we were forced to use force against them by use of pepper spray. That immediately dissolved the situation. They dropped their weapons, as did we.

CANDIOTTI: Their weapons dropped in the water, the Coast Guard says the men jumped overboard to avoid capture, for more than three hours, a watery standoff.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They'll still paddling. Look at them.

CANDIOTTI: Accepting Coast Guard life jackets and other floats, the Cuban migrants slowly swam to shore, corralled by three Coast Guard boats.

BURNS: The Coast Guard uses minimum force necessary to compel compliance with migrants. We are out there trying to help migrants. We are trying to save them.

CANDIOTTI: After even more paddling, the men eventually waded to shore, then navigated mangrove swamps for several minutes before hitting dry land, where the Border Patrol waited to arrest them and locals showed up to take a look and, in some cases, shake their hands. U.S. Cuban migrant policy remains at odds with other migrants, who are rarely granted asylum and are usually deported.

Haitian migrant advocate Ira Kurzban calls it a policy steeped in politics.

IRA KURZBAN, IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY: We're coming up to a presidential election year, where, as you know, Florida was the pivotal state. So I think this had much more to do with politics than refugee policy.

CANDIOTTI: One Cuban who gave up early remained on board a Coast Guard cutter. Because he didn't make it to shore, he could be sent back to Cuba, unlike his comrades, who will get to stay.

Susan Candiotti, CNN, Miami.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Before we go to break, a couple of more stories from around the world tonight, starting with a textbook case of cash-and- carry in Iraq.

American officials say, the day before the war started, one of Saddam Hussein's sons withdraw nearly $1 billion from Iraq's Central Bank. That's billion with a B. Easier said than done. The loot filled three tractor-trailers. Where it or he went, no one can say. But the fear is, the money will be used to fund the remnants of an old regime or, at the very least, give Saddam and his henchmen the means to buy their way to safety; $1 billion goes a long way. More signs today of the thaw in chilly relations between India and Pakistan. Today, Pakistan answered India's peace overture, restoring diplomatic ties and transportation links with its southern neighbor. Pakistan's prime minister also expressed hopes for a negotiated settlement in the dispute over Kashmir and pushed for talks as well to eliminate nuclear weapons from the region.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT: Caroline Kennedy and her "Patriot's Handbook." And Wal-Mart cleans house: why the retail giant is pulling certain magazines from its shelves.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And coming up on NEWSNIGHT: Caroline Kennedy on patriotism; and then a grandfather who says his plea for help went unanswered and it cost him his granddaughter's life -- that story, much more.

NEWSNIGHT continues from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's one of those questions that seems almost too simple to ask, until you ask it: What is patriotism?

Having already dealt with another simple one, the right to privacy, Caroline Kennedy has taken up the subject of patriotism and woven a rich and complex book out of it. She is the editor of "A Patriot's Handbook: Songs, Poems, Stories and Speeches Celebrating the Land We Love." We are delighted to have her here. It's a terrific book.

Why did you write it, or why did you edit it or put it together, whatever the right term is?

CAROLINE KENNEDY, AUTHOR, "A PATRIOT'S HANDBOOK": Well, I thought it would a great chance for me to sort of assemble a lot of voices that make up America.

I think people -- we're really in a moment now where there is this outpouring of patriotism and a desire to give back. And I think one of the ways to do that is to really learn more about our history and the values that we cherish and then figure out how you can make our society the kind of society that we all want to live in.

BROWN: It's a wonderful way to learn history, because it's this extraordinary range of things, from Washington's farewell speech after his term in office to, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," to the Grateful Dead, to all sorts of things, the Susan B. Anthony decision.

How did you pick the stuff?

KENNEDY: Well, I really wanted to have a range. And I hope there's something in here for everybody. Obviously, it's my selection, but I hope that it will make people think about picking out their favorites and what does America mean to them.

So I wanted something that I thought that would contain things for children to read or families to read together, as well as people who remember reading FDR's "Four Freedoms" speech in college, but left the book in their parent's basement or whatever, so things that you remember hearing about and now you are curious about again or you want to pass onto your children. I mean, that's sort of how I went about it.

BROWN: It's a very -- it's a very broad look at what patriotism is. So I guess that's how you want people to see it, rather than a very narrow view, which sometimes, particularly in this day and age, people see patriotism as.

KENNEDY: Well, I think one of geniuses of our democracy, really, which is built on individual freedom and expression, is that it has made room for so many voices. And I started with sort of the political and the really -- the sections on freedom and equality and the rule of law, which is what this country was founded on.

But then, as I was doing the research, there's just so much more. We have a humorous tradition, a satirical tradition, and a literary tradition, and songs. And it's just so much bigger than that. And we have so much to be proud of in this country. And I think to feel like we belong to something bigger is really an important thing for children, as well as for adults.

BROWN: I mean, it's not exactly a coffee table book. It's

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Yes, formidable.

KENNEDY: But nothing is more than four pages. I think there is only one thing in there that is longer. And I thought I didn't want to use quotes that were really short. I thought it would be more rewarding for people to get a real sense. If you read Franklin Roosevelt, you really get a sense of the war and I think of what was going on and how scary it was. And I think that really helps put our own times in context in a way that actually gives us a lot of strength.

BROWN: How do you see people -- how would you like people to use it?

KENNEDY: I would like people to look through the index and find something appeals to them and read it every once in a while and talk about it. Ronald Reagan, in fact, called for an informed patriotism that begins at the dinner table.

And I think that nothing is long. And I think there's a lot of things that might get people talking. And it's really about this conversation that we're all engaged in, which is what being an American is.

BROWN: Yes, it's -- I told you when you sat down. I'll say it again. I don't necessarily sit up here and sell books. It's great fun. It's terrific fun, because, depending on the mood you are in, there's something there.

KENNEDY: Right. Right.

BROWN: There's cultural stuff. And it's just -- there is some Kennedy stuff in there. Was that difficult?

KENNEDY: Not enough. Not enough.

BROWN: Not enough?

KENNEDY: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

KENNEDY: No, there is some Kennedy in there. And I think, for me, that obviously had a special meaning. But I think it's really my father and my uncle, some of their speeches are in...

BROWN: Yes, including your father's inaugural address.

KENNEDY: Right.

BROWN: Which, if you're a person my age, was a huge moment. So it's fun to read that today, too.

Nice to meet you. Thanks. Good luck with this.

KENNEDY: Thank you. Thanks a lot.

BROWN: It's terrific. Thank you.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT: "Maxim"ed out. Oh, wordplay. Oh, Aaron. Three magazines pulled from the shelves at Wal-Mart, the reason when we get back -- a break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: OK. It isn't exactly "Foreign Affairs." The investigative report you will find in this magazine is the hunt for 100 home town hotties. And the closest you will get to overseas news is a piece called, "From Russia With Lust." It's a sample from one so-called laddie magazines, where the girls are clothed, barely, and the level of discourse is more kegger than cocktail party.

But the laddies who shop at Wal-Mart now have a problem. They are pulling "Maxim," "Stuff" and "FHM" from the shells because, they say, customers are uncomfortable with the racy content. Wal-Mart's spokesman says the company isn't doing any interviews on that. Well, it won't stop us.

We want to take a look at what it means to the publishing business. So Michael Wolff of "New York" magazine joins us.

And it's always nice to have you here. The company -- one of them said it's about 1 percent of their sales, Wal-Mart, it's about 1 percent of their sales. So why is this a big deal?

MICHAEL WOLFF, MEDIA CRITIC: Well, they don't tell the truth.

BROWN: Oh.

WOLFF: One of the things about the circulation business in magazines is, nobody tells the truth. It's actually much larger than that. This is -- Wal-Mart is the big kahuna in terms of what's called single-copy sales. And it's devastating for any magazine to lose that outlet.

BROWN: Now, obviously, whether Wal-Mart should or shouldn't, clearly, Wal-Mart has the right to sell what it wants to sell.

WOLFF: I don't know. Does it?

BROWN: No?

WOLFF: Well, if you create a situation in which you've basically created monopoly positions, you've moved everybody else out of the market, no one else -- you have gotten so big that nobody else can possibly get into the market and then you control the newsstand, that's a scary thing.

BROWN: This may or may not work as an analogy. Is it like the Californian-Texas textbook thing, where, if those states don't approve it, you basically can't get the textbook sold anywhere? Is it that sort of thing?

WOLFF: Well, no, not exactly, but there are -- I mean, I think it will have a similar effect. Now that Wal-Mart has made the decision, I'm afraid I can tell you what is going to happen. Now that Wal-Mart has made the decision, the Christian groups or the so-called Christian groups that have been pressuring Wal-Mart will move onto the next chain and the next chain and the next chain.

So it will not be just Wal-Mart doing this. It will be virtually every chain that sells magazines in a certain region of the country.

BROWN: Have these other chains capitulated, if that's the right word, in the way that Wal-Mart has on video games and albums and that sort of thing, other books?

WOLFF: Sure. And you should go back to here is, the model is really the mid-'80s, the Meese Commission. You remember that?

BROWN: Yes. It was the Meese Commission on pornography.

WOLFF: Right. And they basically -- that was the motor which really forced all of the traditional men's magazines, "Playboy," "Penthouse," off of the newsstands and seriously undermined their business. They really never recovered from this. BROWN: The only thing I read -- though I don't know that I quite understand the economics of the magazine business -- is that most of the magazines, these magazines...

WOLFF: No one understands those economics.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: Perhaps even those that work in them -- are sold by subscription anyway. So how much difference do single-copy sales make?

WOLFF: Well, these particular magazines are large -- are also newsstand-driven. They really are newsstand. Their motor is the newsstand. It's not just that 35, 40 percent of their sales every month are from the newsstand. But their subscribers come from the newsstand. So they convert. You pull out that thing that falls out all over your house.

BROWN: Yes.

WOLFF: So it is without that way to get...

(CROSSTALK)

WOLFF: Without that way to get subscriptions, your entire economic model is thrown off-kilter.

BROWN: So are these magazines out of business? They're headed towards that?

WOLFF: Some of them certainly will potentially go out of business. The more successful of these -- and "Maxim" is the more successful -- it just becomes a significantly less-rich business.

BROWN: Good to have you with us.

Maybe next week -- or soon, anyway -- come back and we'll talk about your experiences in Qatar, which were, for us to watch, fascinating.

WOLFF: Any time.

BROWN: Thank you. It's good to see you.

When we continue: one grandfather's fight to change New Jersey's troubled foster care agency after, he says, the system failed him and his granddaughter; and reaction to one prominent university's move to keep its campus free of SARS.

Still a ways to go. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: When we talk about those cases of kids lost in the child welfare system, we think of Rilya Wilson, who went missing in Florida, or little Faheem Williams, who was starved to death in New Jersey, kids who seemed to have no one in the world looking out for them.

Well, this is a story of a young girl lost as surely as Rilya or Faheem were, except this 2-year-old did have someone who loved her and was fighting for her. But he says no one listened to his desperate plea that his granddaughter was in mortal danger.

Here's CNN's Jamie Colby.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE COLBY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Less than a week before Cleveland Ross was to ask to a New Jersey judge to award him custody of his granddaughter.

CLEVELAND ROSS, GRANDFATHER: Yes, she was my heart. This is my first grandbaby.

COLBY: Two-year-old Amara Wilkerson (ph) was burned and beaten to death in 1997 by her mother's boyfriend.

ROSS: Do I remember her? Every single thing. I remember the day she was born, up until the day she died. And I remember all the activities. I remember when she cut the first teeth. I remember when she -- I remember everything.

COLBY: Ross claims a case worker from New Jersey's Division of Youth and Family Service, or DYFS, refused his pleas to remove the girl from her home, even though her hand had been burned in boiling water.

ROSS: What did she have to see a baby being abused? What? I said, every sign was there, scars, scared, losing weight, and a big burned hand. Now, what else do you have to see?

COLBY: DYFS tells CNN that case worker followed proper procedures and that -- quote -- "No one was able to prevent the tragic and violent death of this young girl."

John Conroy (ph), the boyfriend, is serving the maximum sentence for manslaughter. But Cleveland Ross says he's serving a life sentence without the little girl who called him papa. After Amara's death, Ross went public with her story, even proposing Amara's Law (ph), which would give family members access to some DYFS documents and was endorsed by James McGreevey, then a New Jersey state senator running for governor.

Six years later, Faheem Williams' body was found stuffed in a plastic bin in a dingy basement where his two brothers had been locked away without food, water, or a bathroom, allegedly by the cousin caring for them; 7-year-old Faheem and his brothers also had been under the supervision of DYFS.

(on camera): In her report to the governor, DYFS Commissioner Gwen Harris admits the agency failed the boys by not visiting them for more than a year, despite at least 10 documented abuse allegations. And DYFS also admits that, in the four years prior to Faheem Williams' death, 123 other children died from abuse or neglect under DYFS watch. Now 3,000 pages of documents just unsealed by a New Jersey judge detail how DYFS left dozens of other children in foster homes with documented abuse.

(voice-over): DYFS tells CNN -- quote -- "It is important to note that these are very select cases and not representative of the many success stories that we see every day." The documents are part of a class-action lawsuit brought by the national not-for-profit advocacy group Children's Rights Inc. against DYFS.

MARCIA LOWRY, LAWYER: New Jersey truly is the worst or one of the worst systems. I have seen children are being killed. Children are being battered. Children are being sexually abused. It really should be a scandal.

COLBY: For Angela Becker, now a schoolteacher who was in DYFS care from age 4 to 18, it was her childhood.

ANGELA BECKER, FORMER DYFS FOSTER CHILD: I understood that it was OK for me to beaten, it was OK for these foster parents to treat me any way they wanted to, simply because they could.

COLBY: In 1997, then State Senator Jim McGreevey promised Cleveland Ross he would reform DYFS if elected governor, so no other children would die.

ROSS: He's putting every foot forward to make changes.

COLBY: Now, a year after taking office, McGreevey has taken some action. He has ordered more case workers and lighter caseloads. He has changed procedures for closing cases at DYFS. And he's provided some case workers with new cell phones, computers, and cars.

GOV. JAMES MCGREEVEY (D), NEW JERSEY: Unfortunately, the poverty and the magnitude of this problem has existed for too long and is so severe that it has actually contributed to the sense of hopelessness, that nothing can be done to protect these children. I refuse to accept that.

COLBY: It won't bring back Amara, but Cleveland Ross says he will be happy if DYFS could be reformed even now.

ROSS: I know personally how painful it is. And I don't want see another kid die unnecessarily.

COLBY: Jamie Colby, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up on NEWSNIGHT tonight: a SARS scare. One American university, Cal Berkeley, says some students will be turned away.

And the 2004 presidential campaign widens. Meet the Democrats' No. 9.

And later: President Bush under fire for his visit to the USS Lincoln.

A half-hour to go. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Welcome back to another half hour of NEWSNIGHT.

We want to spend some time in this half hour looking at SARS, beginning with the latest from China. Today China reported 138 new cases and eight more deaths. Of the 7,000 people around the world thought to have SARS, more than half come from China, and the World Health Organization said today that SARS has not peaked in China yet.

China, along with Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong are all places of concern for one American university, Cal-Berkeley. Berkeley has decided it will turn away students from any of those countries for its summer term.

Joining us now to talk about how they got there, Dr. Peter Dietrich is the medical director at Cal-Berkeley. He's in Sacramento tonight.

It's good to have you with us.

What sort of process -- how long did the process take? Who was involved? How did you get there?

DR. PETER DIETRICH, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY: We've been monitoring the SARS situation for a number of weeks, and obviously have significant concerns about this from a public health perspective.

We convened a task force, the chancellor did, here at our campus several weeks ago to help monitor the situation, provide access to the most accurate and up-to-date information we had available.

We reached this decision after close consultation with public health experts, both at the UC-Berkeley campus as well as our local community and the state department of health services as well.

And so it's one that we entered into carefully, because we realize it does have implications for these students. I should say, though, today that the CDC did lift their travel advisory relating to Singapore, so as a result, we are opening the door for Singapore students to come for this summer session.

BROWN: Why couldn't you just screen them?

DIETRICH: Well, we looked at this, and we have a couple of unique circumstances at the UC-Berkeley campus. Obviously we do want to maintain a campus that has open doors. It's one of the benefits of UC-Berkeley, is having the international community that's -- that is part of it.

So we have looked at the close considerations that -- of timing, first of all. One is that our summer session starts in just a few short weeks. A lot of other schools and universities around the country have until June to be able to assess their -- the impact of SARS for their particular campus communities.

For us, there's a timing issue. And in particular, there's a big impact. We have a large number of students coming in from these areas, up to 600, and the issues around being able to assess their risk, determine their extent of exposure, determine what type of monitoring and health care they need.

And if any of them were to develop symptoms or signs of SARS, then they would have to be moved into either an isolation or quarantine mode, and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) mode.

And from the housing perspective, we have significant challenges in our housing market there, and very limited availability to move into a mass quarantine or house, or isolation circumstance at this point. So...

BROWN: Am I right, doctor, that the students you're barring are all new students, and if that's true, how do you deal with the students who are already enrolled, who've been going to school, may go home for the summer and come back?

DIETRICH: Yes. The students that have -- for their programs that have been canceled are special summer session students. They're not regular admitted students to the UC-Berkeley campus. And they come through extension. And they come in six-weeks increments throughout the summer session.

We are obviously concerned about students that we have admitted already to the campus that may be traveling home either to visit family or for other travel-related issues. We are asking people to be educated about the signs and symptoms of SARS. We're asking people to look at their travel plans closely, see if they can follow the CDC recommendations and postpone nonessential travel.

We are informing all these students to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) about all the signs and symptoms, et cetera. We're asking them to keep in touch with the campus so we can be up to date throughout the summer, so that as we get closer to the return in the fall semester, we'll know what recommendations we have, either in terms of restrictions, what type of monitoring we're going to have to employ.

BROWN: Has there been much push-back from all of this? Or does the university community pretty much accept that it was -- it's not a pleasant decision, but it's one that had to be made?

DIETRICH: Yes, I think all of us recognize that there's disappointment in this decision. A lot of people are looking forward to coming to the UC-Berkeley campus, looking forward to the opportunity to learn. And they've paid money already for this. And so it's a decision that we made very carefully with careful analysis.

But a difficult decision nonetheless. At this particular point, we're hopeful that people understand the public health ramifications. We do feel we have a responsibility as well to everybody associated with our community to make sure we offer a safe community, both intellectually safe as well as public -- from a public health perspective, and that we have the resources lined up to be able to do the public health monitoring as well as isolation and quarantine issues.

And we just didn't at this particular time.

BROWN: Dr. Dietrich, thanks for your time tonight. Appreciate it very much.

DIETRICH: You're welcome.

BROWN: Tough decision...

DIETRICH: Thanks for having me.

BROWN: ... for you all at Berkeley.

SARS is such an immediate crisis in different spots of the world, it's easy to lose sight of the broader picture of the response, what's gone right, what's gone wrong, and what may be the outlook for SARS going forward.

More on all of that with "New York Times" medical correspondent Dr. Lawrence Altman. Dr. Altman also wrote a fascinating article day comparing the response to SARS to the response to another mystery disease from not that long ago, the mystery of AIDS.

Larry Altman with us tonight. Nice to have you here.

DR. LAWRENCE ALTMAN, MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Thanks for having me here.

BROWN: Is there much -- is it evident that the public health people learned from AIDS in -- when new disease and dangerous disease develops?

ALTMAN: Yes. I mean, new diseases are something that have occurred throughout history, but they aren't -- weren't always recognized as such. It's -- of late, we've had a number of them, AIDS 22 years ago, then we had Legionnaire's disease, and we've had others. And now we have SARS, which is due to a new member of the coronavirus family.

And we're trying to learn a lot about it, because there's a lot that's been learned and a lot yet to be learned.

BROWN: Let's talk about what's been learned for a bit. Does the medical community now know the origin of SARS?

ALTMAN: No. The coronavirus that's been identified as the new SARS virus doesn't resemble closely any animal or any human coronavirus, any other member of the coronavirus family.

BROWN: What does that mean? Or what does that tell you?

ALTMAN: It creates a mystery...

BROWN: Yes.

ALTMAN: ... because it tells us that it doesn't come from, you know, a mutation of a known animal or a known human coronavirus. Among the members of the coronavirus are those that can cause the common cold. It's not the only cause of the common cold. But it's not a mutation of that, it's not a mutation of animal or pig or some other virus.

So we don't know where it came from.

BROWN: At the risk of asking, then, a truly stupid question, which wouldn't be the first time, does not knowing its origin have implications to the ability to come up with a vaccine or to treat it, any of those things?

ALTMAN: Not necessarily. If you had...

BROWN: Thank you.

ALTMAN: ... a parallel, you might be able to do it, but it's a challenge to develop a vaccine under any circumstance.

BROWN: There was -- Are we closer to -- I'm actually confused about whether it has peaked or not peaked. The report out of China, the WHO report, seems to suggest it certainly hasn't peaked there. So where are we, in the sense of the spreading of the disease and the rest?

ALTMAN: A little bit here and a little bit there. It has seemed to have reached a peak in Hong Kong, WHO, the World Health Organization, said today. But it has not peaked in China. In other -- in Vietnam, it not only peaked, Vietnam -- it's disappeared.

BROWN: A story the other day, the Vietnamese handled this very well. What did they do right that -- if we know -- that the Chinese did not?

ALTMAN: Well, they recognized it right away. It was probably the first place where it was recognized. Immediate action was taken. Infection control procedures were put in place.

Case surveillance or monitoring was undertaken right away. The chain of transmission was traced, and the contacts -- the individuals who had come in contact with an infected individual were put in quarantine. And the transmission, the chain to chain, the human to human transmission got stopped.

And there was honest reporting, and it was taken under control. But in China, it was a different situation.

BROWN: Do we know, or did we have reason to believe, that we will live with SARS forever now? That once these things happen, we never quite get rid of them? ALTMAN: We don't know. It's possible that if China can find a way -- China, Taiwan, the two main hot spots at the moment -- if they can somehow control the disease well enough and break the chain of the human to human transmission, and if contaminated objects are not an important means of spread of the disease, then it is possible that we can stop the transmission, and maybe it will disappear.

On the other hand, we don't know whether it'll hibernate...

BROWN: Yes.

ALTMAN: ... or hide during the summer and come back next fall. Just not known.

BROWN: It's a nasty little virus.

ALTMAN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BROWN: Nice to meet you.

ALTMAN: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you. Larry Altman...

ALTMAN: Nice to be here.

BROWN: ... medical correspondent for "The New York Times" with us.

Next on NEWSNIGHT, the 44th president of the United States, or so he hopes, Bob Graham, and the latest runner to enter the race.

Then a political tongue-lashing. Senator Robert Byrd on President Bush, and it's not pretty.

And we'll take a look at morning papers from around the country, give you a look at what's news tomorrow on your front porch.

Be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, it's safe to say nobody expected Bob Graham, Democratic senator from Florida, not to run for president. Taking part in the presidential debate in South Carolina over the weekend pretty much was a dead giveaway, at least to us.

But in case there was any doubt, today he made it official.

Here's CNN's Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sidelined by January heart surgery, Bob Graham is late to a game crowded with players. He hopes to find running room in homeland security. SEN. BOB GRAHAM (D), FLORIDA: I know firsthand, as the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, how little this administration has done to provide real security at home while he directs his attention away from the war on terrorism abroad.

CROWLEY: Bob Graham is running for president. The first question is usually, Who's Bob Graham? They don't ask that in Florida.

BILL ADAIR, "ST. PETERSBURG TIMES": He is the most prominent and popular politician in the state.

CROWLEY: He's what's called a resume candidate, the most experienced politician in the '04 crowd, a state legislator, two-term governor, now the senior senator. Since 1966, he has been unbeatable in the state of -- are you listening, Democrats? -- Florida.

He says he's from "the electable wing" of the Democratic Party, which is to say, a moderate. He's also hard to predict. A Democrat who voted yes on the first Gulf War, when most of his party said no, and when most of his party voted yes on the second Gulf War, Graham voted no.

GRAHAM: Instead of pursuing the most imminent and real threat, international terrorists, this Bush administration chose to settle old scores.

CROWLEY: He's a well-respected, solid Democrat, but his compulsion for recording the minute-to-minute minutiae of his life is believed to have cost him the VP slot in 2000.

Whatever his quirks, Graham is a candidate loaded with gravitas who couldn't light up a room with a torch, absolutely no pizzazz.

GRAHAM: I am an optimist. The best days of America lie ahead.

BROWN: Still, in some ways that ordinariness is part of Graham's huge success in Florida.

See these people? Graham has spent a day working the jobs of most of them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He rode with me to Tallahassee and unloaded a truck up in Tallahassee.

CROWLEY: This Harvard-educated lawyer learned how to be a regular person. He began what he calls his workdays in '78, when he was running for governor. As he began, only 3 percent of Floridians said they'd vote for him. One hundred workdays later, he won the election.

(on camera): These are full days working the job of someone else, and Graham has kept it up. Day number 387 is this Friday, as a teacher in a classroom in New Hampshire.

Candy Crowley, CNN, Miami Lakes, Florida. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We spoke earlier of patriotism and patriotic dissent. Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia has served in Congress for five decades. He carries a pocket edition of the Constitution with him wherever he goes. In the days and weeks leading up to the war in Iraq, he spoke out fiercely and eloquently against it.

Today, from the well of the Senate, he spoke out again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ROBERT BYRD (D), WEST VIRGINIA: As I watched the president's fighter jet swoop down onto the deck of the aircraft carrier "Abraham Lincoln," I could not help but contrast the reported simple dignity of President Abraham Lincoln at Gettsyburg with the flamboyant showmanship of President Bush aboard the U.S.S. "Abraham Lincoln."

President Bush's address to the American people announcing combat victory in Iraq deserved to be marked with solemnity, not extravagance. With gratitude to God, not self-congratulatory gestures.

American blood has been shed, and on foreign soil, in defense of the president's policies. This is not some made-for-TV backdrop for a campaign commercial. This is real life.

And real lives have been lost.

To me, it is affront. To me, it is an affront to the Americans killed or injured in Iraq for the president to exploit the trappings of war for the momentary spectacle of a speech.

I do not begrudge his salute to America's warriors aboard the carrier "Lincoln," for they have performed bravely and skillfully, as have their countrymen, who are still in Iraq.

But I do question the motives of a deskbound president who assumes the garb of a warrior for the purposes of a speech.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Senator Robert Byrd. The White House, by the way, acknowledged today that it was not necessary for the president to fly in a plane aboard the aircraft carrier and make the dramatic landing, that the carrier was close enough to have helicoptered him in. The White House said it's how the president wanted to get there.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, Segment Seven, morning papers. That would be tomorrow morning's papers, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: All right. Not a lot of time for -- Oh, I don't know why I felt I had to say "all right." But not a lot of time for morning papers.

But here are a few, and if I would just get to them, we'd have more time, wouldn't we?

"New York Times," Larry Altman didn't even plug his own story there, studies suggest a higher rate of SARS deaths than previously thought. Death rate up to 13.2. When we first started talking about it, the death rate was about 4.7 percent, so that's changed a lot. That and a lot more, of course, in "The New York Times."

I love this story in "The San Francisco Chronicle," because honestly, I wonder also about this, over here, "Why Strangers Mourn for Laci." It's a piece on why the Laci Peterson case has captures as much attention, time on CNN and other cable outlets and the rest, as it does. It's an interesting piece in tomorrow's "San Francisco Chronicle." So you might want to fly to San Francisco and get that.

Or stop in Detroit, where you'll learn that "Auto Quality Sputters," "The Detroit News." Always an automotive story on the front page of the Detroit papers. "2000 J.D. Power Ratings Show No Improvement in No Vehicles." On the other hand, they didn't get worse, so that's a pretty good thing.

How we doing on time? Oh, my goodness, not much at all.

"The Oregonian," best story of tomorrow, absolutely, "Suicide Law Argued Today," tomorrow. The U.S. government will try and overturn an appeals court ruling that kept Oregon's assisted suicide law intact, despite the federal government's efforts to the contrary.

And that's it. I mean, I had all these papers, but we got no more time, so we'll see you tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. Join us then for NEWSNIGHT. Until then, good night for all of us.

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




WMDs Found but Means to Produce Was>


Aired May 6, 2003 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
One small indication of just how bad the devastation is from the tornadoes that hit the Midwest and the southeast this weekend, a report that some members of the Missouri National Guard getting ready to go to Iraq are staying home instead. They were going overseas to help rebuild a nation thousands of miles away. Now they have different towns to rebuild, hometowns.

We have a lot on the tornadoes tonight, including a look at the utter devastation in one spot in Missouri, Pierce City, Missouri. Jason Bellini tonight has a report from Liberty, Missouri, the story of a college that's been heavily damaged and the students whose lives and plans have been upended.

Leon Harris tonight on the damage in Tennessee, the destruction of one church in Jackson, Tennessee, that's been a terrible blow to the community there, a church called Mother Liberty.

Not all on tornadoes tonight, though. We have quite a mix of stories other than weather. It's actually been a very busy day, busy enough for a second whip, believe it or not, a whip classic if you will.

My goodness it begins at CNN Center in Atlanta. Mike Boettcher has an unsettling look at some of the 9/11 hijackers years before they became killers, Michael a headline from you.

MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, we're going to show you a wedding video, a wedding groom, a wedding singer, and something that would comprise the most wanted wedding list in the world -- Aaron.

BROWN: Mike thank you.

A big development, a huge development, in the case of the teenage sniper suspect Lee Malvo, Jeanne Meserve has been covering that, so Jeanne a headline.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Lee Boyd Malvo's own words will be used against him at trial. A judge decides that most of the six-hour police interrogation of the teenager was done by the rules and is admissible in court -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jeanne, thank you. And now to the Pentagon and a story about managing expectations in the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre with us tonight, Jamie a headline.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, so far the Pentagon has still not found any of the weapons of mass destruction that were the primary justification for going to war but the Pentagon is ready to declare its found the means to produce those weapons. At the same time, some in the Pentagon are warning that they may never find the actual weapons -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you, back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight in an hour and a half edition of NEWSNIGHT, an update on SARS, what one American university is doing to keep it off campus, and the mystery of the virus with Dr. Laurence Altman who is the chief medical correspondent for "The New York Times."

We'll talk with Caroline Kennedy tonight about one of the ways she's responded to the attacks of 9/11. She's out with a new book called "The Patriot's Handbook."

A look at the nation's largest retailer taking testosterone off its shelves, if you will, three magazines deemed too raunchy for Wal- Mart. Michael Wolff of "New York Magazine" joins us to talk about the implications.

And, the story of a man who insisted his granddaughter was being abused but no one, he says, would listen until it was too late. Jamie Colby reports that sad tale. As we go along tonight, all of that and more in the next 90 minutes.

We start off once again tonight in the southeast and the Midwest where the skies were still stormy, the wounds still fresh, and where for now rebuilding means using machinery to finish what demolition the tornadoes started.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): The long road back to normal began in the states hit hardest by the tornadoes, here in southwestern Missouri and here in Tennessee where some of the residents were still trying to digest what had happened.

JOE BYRD, JACKSON, TENNESSEE: The tornado, I guess, lasted between -- it seemed like maybe eight to ten minutes and we could hear loud explosive sounds outside and the wind was just horrific. It sounded like just cyclonic in nature, not really a train sound or a jet engine sound but the greatest rushing of wind I've ever heard with periodic explosive sounds.

BROWN: In the small town of Pierce City, Missouri, bulldozers were out in force but the entire historic downtown was lost.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't believe that it ever happened. You would never think it would hit a little bitty town like this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The downtown area is the heart of their community. It generates their sales tax. It brings in what tourist activity they have. So, for that all to be completely wiped out, not only emotionally and the memories that are gone, but the tax base and the income for the town, it's a huge loss.

BROWN: Today the threat of even more bad weather crossed into the south. In Atlanta, the clouds were ominous and the rains furious for a time but no tornadoes touched down.

And in Tennessee, television weathermen were warning of more severe weather ahead for the entire region.

DAVE BROWN: There may be some more thunderstorms forming, though. We can look at our pinpoint five lightning data. You can see stretching from north of St. Louis, down across southwestern Missouri, eastern Oklahoma, into northeastern Texas, north central Texas, there's another line of thunderstorms that has developed.

BROWN: And no matter where you turn people were ready with stories of how terrible the danger was and how lucky they turned out to be.

JAMES ECONOMOU, PIERCE CITY, MISSOURI: I came up first and I just opened the door and where the end of the house was was gone and her car that was in the garage, and the garage was gone, was smashed up against the house so the car was right there. The barn was gone. The shop is gone. I was worried about the dogs because they were in the house but they made it, so all three dogs were good.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That's the big story of the tornadoes tonight.

This is one of the small ones and there are thousands of them, the story of a small Missouri college and the young students who had gotten an education in life and fate and hardship they never expected.

Reporting for us, here's CNN's Jason Bellini.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A dorm room ripped asunder on the campus of William Jule (ph) College. This was home to Crystal and Brad James, a young couple about to graduate.

CRYSTAL JAMES: We actually moved in a year ago from the day. This was the picture of the chapel that's on the campus up there, the little white chapel.

BELLINI: You got married here at school?

C. JAMES: Yes.

BELLINI: That made them eligible to live in married student housing, the building most devastated by the tornado.

You lost some stuff that's important to you?

C. JAMES: Yes.

BRAD JAMES: Yes.

BELLINI: What did you lose?

B. JAMES: We lost our wedding videos (unintelligible) only one copy of it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a miracle we didn't get people killed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

BELLINI: College president David Sali (ph) surveyed the damage with students now leaving for the summer. He's canceled the rest of the school year.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had finals that were scheduled to start today and so we just canceled finals and said whatever grades we've got in the book is what we'll go with.

BELLINI: Another married couple, Jason and Lynley McClure (ph) are now officially college graduates even with loose ends left untied.

JASON MCCLURE: There's a lot of things, like I just have questions about papers and the other things you're trying to finish up for the year and you're like what it's done? So, we don't even know what's going on and then we have a lot of friends that I still haven't seen, some of my friends like really, I mean best man in my wedding, we still haven't seen him yet.

BELLINI: Brad and Crystal will now move in with Brad's parents. They have to look for their first jobs, to find a new place to live, and begin to replace the belongings they lost.

It will probably bring you closer together as a couple going through this, exactly.

Closer to beginning a new life.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can't get any closer.

B. JAMES: Can't get any closer, is that what grandma says?

BELLINI: With each other as their solid foundation.

Jason Bellini CNN, Kansas City, Missouri.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Churches are the heart and soul of small town America. In Jackson, Tennessee, one church was that and more, tonight CNN's Leon Harris on the story of Mother Liberty. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LEON HARRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The light of day brings with it scenes of destruction all around Madison County, Tennessee. Jackson, the county seat, may have endured the brunt of Sunday's killer tornadoes, where homes and businesses once stood now lies so much rubble, remnants, and refuse.

Near the Civic Center downtown on Liberty Street lies what remains of the Mother Liberty CME Church. A group of bishops cut short a conference 90 miles away in Memphis when they heard the news, and a police escort brought them here.

BISHOP HENRY WILLIAMSON, CME CONGRESS OF BISHOPS: Mother Liberty for us at CME is what to America the statue of Liberty means in that harbor. You may not live in New York or go in that harbor but you understand what it means. It's a great symbol of freedom.

HARRIS: The Mother Liberty CME Church was founded in 1870 by newly-freed slaves. They built it with bricks made by their own hands. For many this church was a symbol of self determination and self definition of early African-Americans.

BISHOP OPHAL LAKEY, CME CONGRESS OF BISHOPS: Mother Liberty was the symbol of all those years of slavery, our freedom and liberation, our organization as a denomination, our growth down through the years.

BISHOP MARSHALL GILMORE, CME CONGRESS OF BISHOPS: We see it in ruins as it is right now, it devastates you, and yet because we are people of hope, we see it rising from the ashes.

HARRIS: This building is a symbol these bishops say must never disappear. It is on the national registry of historic landmarks and through a miracle of sorts it can remain on that distinguished list.

PASTOR DARYLL COLEMAN, MOTHER LIBERTY CME CHURCH: The one thing that's necessary, required by the national registry of historic landmarks is that you must maintain your front facade and that was God's message, that we saved enough to rebuild.

HARRIS: The city of Jackson may never again look the way it did before those storms blew through here but the restoration of this building, if it does happen, could at least make some of these people here feel as though they've reclaimed one big part of their lives.

Leon Harris CNN, Jackson, Tennessee.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A look at the tornado story tonight, we now move on to other matters.

A different story, one that has pictures we think you'll find somewhat hard to watch. There is nothing graphic about the pictures as is usually the case when we make these warnings. What makes these pictures hard to watch is that you see some young men smiling, happy, celebrating with friends who would later be directly involved in the cold-blooded murder of nearly 3,000 people, a look at a wedding like no other attended by some of the 9/11 hijackers and other suspected al Qaeda plotters -- reporting for us CNN's Mike Boettcher.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOETTCHER (voice-over): The video shows us members of the now infamous Hamburg al Qaeda cell that investigators believe was the core group of the 9/11 hijackings.

The groom in the October, 1999 wedding reception in Hamburg, Germany is Said Bahaji who German authorities accuse of helping plot the New York and Washington attacks. He fled Hamburg just days before 9/11 and is still at large.

Seated to his right, Ramzi Bin al-Sheibh, a key al Qaeda figure who investigators believe played a major role in masterminding the terrorist plot. He was arrested in Karachi, Pakistan exactly one year after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.

During the reception, Bin al-Sheibh comments that all in attendance were part of a class for which there would be a test. There will be some who pass and some who fail, he said.

Marwan al-Shehhi who was one of the hijackers of United Flight 175 that crashed into the second World Trade Center building is standing on the far right of the group, which is singing to the groom.

Also at the reception Ziad Jarrah, a hijacker of United Flight 93 that crashed into a Pennsylvania field. Hijack leader Mohamed Atta is not scene in the video but investigators believe he was also present, as was Marmoun Darqenzawi (ph) who was under investigation by German police for funneling money to the group. He denies any terrorist involvement.

The videotape has been in the hands of German authorities for many months but was recently released to lawyers representing the families of those who died in the 9/11 attacks. For investigators, lawyers, and families, it provides a rare glimpse of the mysterious Hamburg cell that was celebrating a wedding at the same time they were believed to be plotting an attack.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOETTCHER: It all seems so normal, such a typical wedding, but if you look at it Ramzi Bin al-Shiebh in that video seemed like he was bursting at the seams to tell the wedding party the horrible act that was to come -- Aaron.

BROWN: Where, if we know, where in the plotting of this were they at the time that the tape was made?

BOETTCHER: At the early stages some had already enrolled in flight training. They were preparing to head to the United States. Some would head months later. Some would go very soon, and they were in advanced stages, frankly. They knew what they were going to do and how they wanted to accomplish it. They didn't know if they were going to be successful but they felt confident.

BROWN: Mike, thank you, it is chilling to look at, Mike Boettcher in Atlanta tonight.

Iraq next, President Bush today appointing a new man in charge, L. Paul Bremer is his name. He's a former ambassador, a head of the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism. Formally, he'll be the president's special envoy to Iraq and he'll be retired General Jay Garner's boss.

In choosing Ambassador Bremer, the president is being seen by some as tilting ever so slightly toward Secretary of State Powell in the bureaucratic struggle between the State Department and the Pentagon over who runs post-war Iraq.

The Pentagon has had some good success in capturing some of the most wanted Iraqis, 19 out of 55 so far. But while they have Mrs. Anthrax, the Iraqi scientist we told you about last night, it's the anthrax itself that's the Holy Grail.

Finding the germs, the chemicals, the threat the U.S. went out to eliminate, that has become an urgent goal for the United States in terms of saving face around the world. It has not happened yet and now the Pentagon is quietly trying to redefine what might qualify as a smoking gun -- our Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): The Pentagon says it can now back up a key claim made by Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations before the war that Iraq had put biological weapons laboratories on wheels.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: We know that Iraq has at least seven of these mobile biological agent factories.

MCINTYRE: Sources say one of two trucks turned over to the U.S. military in late April closely matches drawings of a mobile bio lab shown by Powell in February, right down to some of the fermenting vats depicted inside. No bio agents were found. Officials suggest that may be because the truck had been scrubbed clean with a caustic agent.

Frustrated so far in its search for WMD, sources say the Pentagon plans to point to the truck as evidence that at the very least Iraq maintained the means to produce germ warfare even as U.N. inspections continued. Asked about what the discovery proves, President Bush said he'd leave that to the experts.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: One thing we know is that he had a weapons program. We also know he spent years trying to hide the weapons program and over time the truth will come out. MCINTYRE: Privately, some Pentagon officials are saying the U.S. no longer expects to find weaponized chemicals or germs in Iraq, especially since they were not used on the battlefield as expected.

The search now is concentrating on finding raw materials, the germs and nerve gas that would go inside the weapons. And publicly, some U.S. officials appear to be lowering the bar, subtly suggesting it may be enough to prove Iraq simply had banned weapons in the recent past.

POWELL: Even if we don't find weapons, we can find out what happened to that material.

TIM RUSSERT, "MEET THE PRESS": But it is important? It is important?

POWELL: Sure, it's important. I'm confident that we will find evidence that makes it clear he had weapons of mass destruction.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: So how much time does the United States have to find a smoking gun? One senior Pentagon official said he figures about two months. He said if the U.S. doesn't find Iraq's banned weapons by this summer, it's going to be very hard to keep saying with a straight face it's just a matter of time -- Aaron.

BROWN: Are there pictures of these mobile labs out there somewhere?

MCINTYRE: We don't have any pictures of them yet. All we have at this point are the drawings but we're told that this particular mobile lab, this truck, is going to be brought from the north down to Baghdad and presumably when it gets to Baghdad we may be able to get a look at it.

We're told that it very closely matches the description of those drawings that were shown at the U.N., which were produced, Colin Powell says, from very detailed instructions from one of the scientists who was involved in making them.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you, Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a decision on whether to throw out part of the sniper suspect's confession.

And a desperate swim to freedom, Susan Candiotti has what may be the most memorable story of the day.

We'll take a break first. NEWSNIGHT continues from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The sniper case now. Thanks to police shows there probably isn't a person alive who can't recite the Miranda warning by heart. The words are clear enough. A suspect has the right to remain silent, the right to an attorney, and by extension the courts have ruled the interrogation must stop when that attorney is requested.

But less clear is what and when constitutes a proper request, and on this point a judge had the choice of throwing Lee Malvo's chilling confession out or passing it onto a jury.

Here's CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE (voice-over): Lee Boyd Malvo made his statements to investigators voluntarily, Judge Jane Marum Roush writes and neither his right to an attorney nor his right to remain silent were violated in the key portion of the interrogation. She concludes that Malvo's statement, "Do I get to talk to my attorneys" was not a request for counsel. It is a significant setback for Malvo's defense team.

MARK PETROVICH, MALVO'S ATTORNEY: We felt that the constitutional violations were clear and were blatant and we respectfully disagree with her ruling in that.

MESERVE: Prosecutor Robert Horan on the other hand is clearly relishing the opportunity to play for a jury audiotape of Malvo talking about his own alleged crimes.

ROBERT HORAN, VIRGINIA PROSECUTOR: It's pretty convincing stuff I think.

MESERVE: According to sources, documents, and court testimony, during the portion of the interrogation that has been ruled admissible, Malvo allegedly admits involvement in the following:

The attempted shooting of a child outside an Aspen Hill, Maryland craft store on October 2nd; the fatal shooting of James "Sonny" Buchanan in Rockville, Maryland the next day; the October 7th wounding of a student at a Maryland middle school; the October 9th shooting of Dean Harold Myers (ph) at a Manassas, Virginia gas station; the October 14th shooting of FBI Analyst Linda Franklin; and the October 22nd shooting of bus driver Conrad Johnson.

Malvo was described by his interrogators as laughing about some of the crimes. Defense attorneys tried to find a silver lining in the judge's ruling.

PETROVICH: The analysis of the statements will indicate that there are clear inaccuracies, seeming lies that are difficult to explain and actually create more questions than they answer.

MESERVE: Under Virginia law, the judge does not have the last word in this matter. The jury will also consider whether the statement was freely given.

MARVIN MILLER, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: And so the voluntariness of the statement is to be decided by the jury and they can ascribe the weight to it that they feel is appropriate. (END VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE: The judge did exclude portions of the interview conducted before Malvo was advised of his right to remain silent and offered an attorney, but his most damaging statements came afterwards -- Aaron.

BROWN: There's actually a lot of questions about how he came to be in Virginia and where his lawyers were and all of that. Any appeal of this happens after the trial, is that what happens?

MESERVE: That's right. That's right. After the entire trial is conducted, then they can do an appeal and they most likely are expected to use this particular decision, given today, as on of the bases for an appeal eventually presuming, of course, that he is convicted.

BROWN: Jeanne, thank you very much, Jeanne Meserve in Washington.

We're joined tonight by a pretty fair defense attorney, I'd say, Gerry Spence joins us tonight from Las Vegas, good to have you on the program. A couple of preliminary questions, then we'll get to the implications of this. As you read this was it a close call for the judge, an easy call for the judge, what was it?

GERRY SPENCE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: No, I don't think. As a matter of fact, I think the judge was wrong. I think there's quite -- it's pretty obvious. A kids says listen do I get to have my attorney and the investigators say yes, you get to have your attorney, and so he then gives them his full statement and the judge says well he didn't say I want my attorney. There's a difference you see, they say.

BROWN: Yes.

SPENCE: And the difference is that little technicality that a 17-year-old somehow didn't understand and that most of us might not understand and now permits all of this testimony, Aaron, to come in.

BROWN: One more question sort of preliminary here and maybe you can answer this, maybe you can't, but why do they confess? Why? I mean the kid seemed smart enough to know that he should have an attorney and then he apparently just blabbed.

SPENCE: Well, you know, he's been alone. They bring in a nice woman that feeds him some good food. He's a vegetarian and they give him some -- a vegetarian hamburger and they -- they're nice to him and gentle to him and loving to him, and this is a boy, and he begins to talk, and they look at him and they say yes and yes and yes, and the first thing you know it's all out.

BROWN: All right, let's move on. I accept that. It's just hard to figure as I think you get the implications of this. It seems to me the defense now has a very hard road ahead. Is there any point at this point in pleading the kid guilty and then just simply trying to save his life? SPENCE: Yes. No, I really think that there is a point in doing that. I don't know about the plea of guilty, but certainly to take no, to take no part in any of the -- in any of the process of trying to prove yourself guilty or to question any of the witnesses that say you're guilty.

I think that a witness or that a defendant in this case who is probably going to be shown beyond a reasonable doubt to be guilty has only one choice and that's to save his life, and you can't go to a jury and say well I didn't do it, and then when the jury finds that he did do it, say oh well I was -- I'm sorry but I guess I did do it and please save my life.

What has to be done, Aaron, is that the credibility of this boy has to somehow be sustained if that's all there is left is his credibility that he will tell the truth and somehow you have to find out what made this little boy different than other little boys like you and I know that grew up in different homes.

How is it that this baby became this massive hateful alleged killer? We have to come to the bottom of that and find out what that is and then maybe in the bottom of all of that we can find something that is decent that we can say is enough human to save his life and that's ultimately, I think, what this case will come down to and those decisions are going to have to be made very quickly.

BROWN: Whether that happens, I suppose, depends on how effective his legal team is in presenting his case, but there is some -- there are some things to work with in his background. It's not -- it's hardly the story of a well loved child of privilege.

SPENCE: Yes, exactly, and I think -- you know, exactly. I think these folks are going to have to go back to Jamaica and rebuild his whole life, and if you think about it here are two little babies in a cradle. One is your baby and mine.

The other is this little baby and they -- and if the children had been switched Lord knows what would have happened but probably we -- the children that we raised that had our opportunities and that were given the chances that our children have would not have ended up like this baby. So, we have to find out what that is all about to present it to the jury.

BROWN: Half a minute. It's a tough jurisdiction they're trying him in. What would you guess their odds are of saving his life?

SPENCE: I think they are very, very difficult and they're difficult for a variety of reasons. Number one the crimes that they're accused of if they committed it are just the worst kind. You have a whole nation that was put at fear.

We have people who say I would pull the trigger on this kid myself. They want him dead. The prosecutors want him dead. Many people in the area want him dead and they put him out of the federal court so that they could get the death penalty against this boy and so -- and he has young lawyers who probably haven't tried too many of these cases. So, I think that the problems of the cases are very, very serious and I'd be surprised if under the circumstances that I know at this point he gets through.

BROWN: Gerry it's good to talk to you again, thank you.

SPENCE: Thank you.

BROWN: Gerry Spence who's in Las Vegas tonight.

Next on NEWSNIGHT a swim to freedom off the Florida Keys for Cubans trying to get off the island.

And later, Wal-Mart decides three magazines are just a little too racy for its racks, the implications of that when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: A few stories in our "National Roundup" tonight, beginning with a bit more perspective on the condition of Private Jessica Lynch. It comes from her brother, Specialist Gregory Lynch Jr., speaking at Fort Bragg, where he's based. He says his sister hadn't talked about her experience as a POW in Iraq. "We don't push her," in fact, to ask her. He said, "We are just there to support her and to help her get well." He also said his sister remains unable to stand on her own.

It was an honor to have the president pay a visit, of course, but this is what the sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln were really looking for, coming home after nearly 10 months at sea. The Lincoln arrived at its home port in Everett, Washington. First off the ship: dozens of new dads, as babies were born during their deployment to the Persian Gulf.

In a few minutes on the program, we'll be talking with Caroline Kennedy about patriotism and what it means to be an American, but before we do, a story of how far people will go to escape persecution to become Americans. It played out in the straits of Florida, where three Cubans had their choice of safety or certain danger. They chose danger, with the slim chance at freedom.

Here's CNN's Susan Candiotti.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just two miles off of the upper Florida Keys, a routine Coast Guard mission is interrupted.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We happened to be over the water doing some over-water work and we looked down, saw a small vessel.

CANDIOTTI: Four Cuban migrants trying as fast as they can to make it to shore. If they don't, they could be sent back to Cuba. But before they jump in the water, trouble, when the Coast Guard orders them to stop.

P.O. ANASTASIA BURNS, U.S. COAST GUARD: They tried to hit the Coast Guard boarding officers with ores.

CANDIOTTI: The Coast Guard says there were more than ores.

P.O. RYAN DIGS, U.S. COAST GUARD: Knives, machetes and ores, swinging them at the boat crew. At that point, we were forced to use force against them by use of pepper spray. That immediately dissolved the situation. They dropped their weapons, as did we.

CANDIOTTI: Their weapons dropped in the water, the Coast Guard says the men jumped overboard to avoid capture, for more than three hours, a watery standoff.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They'll still paddling. Look at them.

CANDIOTTI: Accepting Coast Guard life jackets and other floats, the Cuban migrants slowly swam to shore, corralled by three Coast Guard boats.

BURNS: The Coast Guard uses minimum force necessary to compel compliance with migrants. We are out there trying to help migrants. We are trying to save them.

CANDIOTTI: After even more paddling, the men eventually waded to shore, then navigated mangrove swamps for several minutes before hitting dry land, where the Border Patrol waited to arrest them and locals showed up to take a look and, in some cases, shake their hands. U.S. Cuban migrant policy remains at odds with other migrants, who are rarely granted asylum and are usually deported.

Haitian migrant advocate Ira Kurzban calls it a policy steeped in politics.

IRA KURZBAN, IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY: We're coming up to a presidential election year, where, as you know, Florida was the pivotal state. So I think this had much more to do with politics than refugee policy.

CANDIOTTI: One Cuban who gave up early remained on board a Coast Guard cutter. Because he didn't make it to shore, he could be sent back to Cuba, unlike his comrades, who will get to stay.

Susan Candiotti, CNN, Miami.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Before we go to break, a couple of more stories from around the world tonight, starting with a textbook case of cash-and- carry in Iraq.

American officials say, the day before the war started, one of Saddam Hussein's sons withdraw nearly $1 billion from Iraq's Central Bank. That's billion with a B. Easier said than done. The loot filled three tractor-trailers. Where it or he went, no one can say. But the fear is, the money will be used to fund the remnants of an old regime or, at the very least, give Saddam and his henchmen the means to buy their way to safety; $1 billion goes a long way. More signs today of the thaw in chilly relations between India and Pakistan. Today, Pakistan answered India's peace overture, restoring diplomatic ties and transportation links with its southern neighbor. Pakistan's prime minister also expressed hopes for a negotiated settlement in the dispute over Kashmir and pushed for talks as well to eliminate nuclear weapons from the region.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT: Caroline Kennedy and her "Patriot's Handbook." And Wal-Mart cleans house: why the retail giant is pulling certain magazines from its shelves.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And coming up on NEWSNIGHT: Caroline Kennedy on patriotism; and then a grandfather who says his plea for help went unanswered and it cost him his granddaughter's life -- that story, much more.

NEWSNIGHT continues from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's one of those questions that seems almost too simple to ask, until you ask it: What is patriotism?

Having already dealt with another simple one, the right to privacy, Caroline Kennedy has taken up the subject of patriotism and woven a rich and complex book out of it. She is the editor of "A Patriot's Handbook: Songs, Poems, Stories and Speeches Celebrating the Land We Love." We are delighted to have her here. It's a terrific book.

Why did you write it, or why did you edit it or put it together, whatever the right term is?

CAROLINE KENNEDY, AUTHOR, "A PATRIOT'S HANDBOOK": Well, I thought it would a great chance for me to sort of assemble a lot of voices that make up America.

I think people -- we're really in a moment now where there is this outpouring of patriotism and a desire to give back. And I think one of the ways to do that is to really learn more about our history and the values that we cherish and then figure out how you can make our society the kind of society that we all want to live in.

BROWN: It's a wonderful way to learn history, because it's this extraordinary range of things, from Washington's farewell speech after his term in office to, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," to the Grateful Dead, to all sorts of things, the Susan B. Anthony decision.

How did you pick the stuff?

KENNEDY: Well, I really wanted to have a range. And I hope there's something in here for everybody. Obviously, it's my selection, but I hope that it will make people think about picking out their favorites and what does America mean to them.

So I wanted something that I thought that would contain things for children to read or families to read together, as well as people who remember reading FDR's "Four Freedoms" speech in college, but left the book in their parent's basement or whatever, so things that you remember hearing about and now you are curious about again or you want to pass onto your children. I mean, that's sort of how I went about it.

BROWN: It's a very -- it's a very broad look at what patriotism is. So I guess that's how you want people to see it, rather than a very narrow view, which sometimes, particularly in this day and age, people see patriotism as.

KENNEDY: Well, I think one of geniuses of our democracy, really, which is built on individual freedom and expression, is that it has made room for so many voices. And I started with sort of the political and the really -- the sections on freedom and equality and the rule of law, which is what this country was founded on.

But then, as I was doing the research, there's just so much more. We have a humorous tradition, a satirical tradition, and a literary tradition, and songs. And it's just so much bigger than that. And we have so much to be proud of in this country. And I think to feel like we belong to something bigger is really an important thing for children, as well as for adults.

BROWN: I mean, it's not exactly a coffee table book. It's

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Yes, formidable.

KENNEDY: But nothing is more than four pages. I think there is only one thing in there that is longer. And I thought I didn't want to use quotes that were really short. I thought it would be more rewarding for people to get a real sense. If you read Franklin Roosevelt, you really get a sense of the war and I think of what was going on and how scary it was. And I think that really helps put our own times in context in a way that actually gives us a lot of strength.

BROWN: How do you see people -- how would you like people to use it?

KENNEDY: I would like people to look through the index and find something appeals to them and read it every once in a while and talk about it. Ronald Reagan, in fact, called for an informed patriotism that begins at the dinner table.

And I think that nothing is long. And I think there's a lot of things that might get people talking. And it's really about this conversation that we're all engaged in, which is what being an American is.

BROWN: Yes, it's -- I told you when you sat down. I'll say it again. I don't necessarily sit up here and sell books. It's great fun. It's terrific fun, because, depending on the mood you are in, there's something there.

KENNEDY: Right. Right.

BROWN: There's cultural stuff. And it's just -- there is some Kennedy stuff in there. Was that difficult?

KENNEDY: Not enough. Not enough.

BROWN: Not enough?

KENNEDY: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

KENNEDY: No, there is some Kennedy in there. And I think, for me, that obviously had a special meaning. But I think it's really my father and my uncle, some of their speeches are in...

BROWN: Yes, including your father's inaugural address.

KENNEDY: Right.

BROWN: Which, if you're a person my age, was a huge moment. So it's fun to read that today, too.

Nice to meet you. Thanks. Good luck with this.

KENNEDY: Thank you. Thanks a lot.

BROWN: It's terrific. Thank you.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT: "Maxim"ed out. Oh, wordplay. Oh, Aaron. Three magazines pulled from the shelves at Wal-Mart, the reason when we get back -- a break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: OK. It isn't exactly "Foreign Affairs." The investigative report you will find in this magazine is the hunt for 100 home town hotties. And the closest you will get to overseas news is a piece called, "From Russia With Lust." It's a sample from one so-called laddie magazines, where the girls are clothed, barely, and the level of discourse is more kegger than cocktail party.

But the laddies who shop at Wal-Mart now have a problem. They are pulling "Maxim," "Stuff" and "FHM" from the shells because, they say, customers are uncomfortable with the racy content. Wal-Mart's spokesman says the company isn't doing any interviews on that. Well, it won't stop us.

We want to take a look at what it means to the publishing business. So Michael Wolff of "New York" magazine joins us.

And it's always nice to have you here. The company -- one of them said it's about 1 percent of their sales, Wal-Mart, it's about 1 percent of their sales. So why is this a big deal?

MICHAEL WOLFF, MEDIA CRITIC: Well, they don't tell the truth.

BROWN: Oh.

WOLFF: One of the things about the circulation business in magazines is, nobody tells the truth. It's actually much larger than that. This is -- Wal-Mart is the big kahuna in terms of what's called single-copy sales. And it's devastating for any magazine to lose that outlet.

BROWN: Now, obviously, whether Wal-Mart should or shouldn't, clearly, Wal-Mart has the right to sell what it wants to sell.

WOLFF: I don't know. Does it?

BROWN: No?

WOLFF: Well, if you create a situation in which you've basically created monopoly positions, you've moved everybody else out of the market, no one else -- you have gotten so big that nobody else can possibly get into the market and then you control the newsstand, that's a scary thing.

BROWN: This may or may not work as an analogy. Is it like the Californian-Texas textbook thing, where, if those states don't approve it, you basically can't get the textbook sold anywhere? Is it that sort of thing?

WOLFF: Well, no, not exactly, but there are -- I mean, I think it will have a similar effect. Now that Wal-Mart has made the decision, I'm afraid I can tell you what is going to happen. Now that Wal-Mart has made the decision, the Christian groups or the so-called Christian groups that have been pressuring Wal-Mart will move onto the next chain and the next chain and the next chain.

So it will not be just Wal-Mart doing this. It will be virtually every chain that sells magazines in a certain region of the country.

BROWN: Have these other chains capitulated, if that's the right word, in the way that Wal-Mart has on video games and albums and that sort of thing, other books?

WOLFF: Sure. And you should go back to here is, the model is really the mid-'80s, the Meese Commission. You remember that?

BROWN: Yes. It was the Meese Commission on pornography.

WOLFF: Right. And they basically -- that was the motor which really forced all of the traditional men's magazines, "Playboy," "Penthouse," off of the newsstands and seriously undermined their business. They really never recovered from this. BROWN: The only thing I read -- though I don't know that I quite understand the economics of the magazine business -- is that most of the magazines, these magazines...

WOLFF: No one understands those economics.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: Perhaps even those that work in them -- are sold by subscription anyway. So how much difference do single-copy sales make?

WOLFF: Well, these particular magazines are large -- are also newsstand-driven. They really are newsstand. Their motor is the newsstand. It's not just that 35, 40 percent of their sales every month are from the newsstand. But their subscribers come from the newsstand. So they convert. You pull out that thing that falls out all over your house.

BROWN: Yes.

WOLFF: So it is without that way to get...

(CROSSTALK)

WOLFF: Without that way to get subscriptions, your entire economic model is thrown off-kilter.

BROWN: So are these magazines out of business? They're headed towards that?

WOLFF: Some of them certainly will potentially go out of business. The more successful of these -- and "Maxim" is the more successful -- it just becomes a significantly less-rich business.

BROWN: Good to have you with us.

Maybe next week -- or soon, anyway -- come back and we'll talk about your experiences in Qatar, which were, for us to watch, fascinating.

WOLFF: Any time.

BROWN: Thank you. It's good to see you.

When we continue: one grandfather's fight to change New Jersey's troubled foster care agency after, he says, the system failed him and his granddaughter; and reaction to one prominent university's move to keep its campus free of SARS.

Still a ways to go. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: When we talk about those cases of kids lost in the child welfare system, we think of Rilya Wilson, who went missing in Florida, or little Faheem Williams, who was starved to death in New Jersey, kids who seemed to have no one in the world looking out for them.

Well, this is a story of a young girl lost as surely as Rilya or Faheem were, except this 2-year-old did have someone who loved her and was fighting for her. But he says no one listened to his desperate plea that his granddaughter was in mortal danger.

Here's CNN's Jamie Colby.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE COLBY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Less than a week before Cleveland Ross was to ask to a New Jersey judge to award him custody of his granddaughter.

CLEVELAND ROSS, GRANDFATHER: Yes, she was my heart. This is my first grandbaby.

COLBY: Two-year-old Amara Wilkerson (ph) was burned and beaten to death in 1997 by her mother's boyfriend.

ROSS: Do I remember her? Every single thing. I remember the day she was born, up until the day she died. And I remember all the activities. I remember when she cut the first teeth. I remember when she -- I remember everything.

COLBY: Ross claims a case worker from New Jersey's Division of Youth and Family Service, or DYFS, refused his pleas to remove the girl from her home, even though her hand had been burned in boiling water.

ROSS: What did she have to see a baby being abused? What? I said, every sign was there, scars, scared, losing weight, and a big burned hand. Now, what else do you have to see?

COLBY: DYFS tells CNN that case worker followed proper procedures and that -- quote -- "No one was able to prevent the tragic and violent death of this young girl."

John Conroy (ph), the boyfriend, is serving the maximum sentence for manslaughter. But Cleveland Ross says he's serving a life sentence without the little girl who called him papa. After Amara's death, Ross went public with her story, even proposing Amara's Law (ph), which would give family members access to some DYFS documents and was endorsed by James McGreevey, then a New Jersey state senator running for governor.

Six years later, Faheem Williams' body was found stuffed in a plastic bin in a dingy basement where his two brothers had been locked away without food, water, or a bathroom, allegedly by the cousin caring for them; 7-year-old Faheem and his brothers also had been under the supervision of DYFS.

(on camera): In her report to the governor, DYFS Commissioner Gwen Harris admits the agency failed the boys by not visiting them for more than a year, despite at least 10 documented abuse allegations. And DYFS also admits that, in the four years prior to Faheem Williams' death, 123 other children died from abuse or neglect under DYFS watch. Now 3,000 pages of documents just unsealed by a New Jersey judge detail how DYFS left dozens of other children in foster homes with documented abuse.

(voice-over): DYFS tells CNN -- quote -- "It is important to note that these are very select cases and not representative of the many success stories that we see every day." The documents are part of a class-action lawsuit brought by the national not-for-profit advocacy group Children's Rights Inc. against DYFS.

MARCIA LOWRY, LAWYER: New Jersey truly is the worst or one of the worst systems. I have seen children are being killed. Children are being battered. Children are being sexually abused. It really should be a scandal.

COLBY: For Angela Becker, now a schoolteacher who was in DYFS care from age 4 to 18, it was her childhood.

ANGELA BECKER, FORMER DYFS FOSTER CHILD: I understood that it was OK for me to beaten, it was OK for these foster parents to treat me any way they wanted to, simply because they could.

COLBY: In 1997, then State Senator Jim McGreevey promised Cleveland Ross he would reform DYFS if elected governor, so no other children would die.

ROSS: He's putting every foot forward to make changes.

COLBY: Now, a year after taking office, McGreevey has taken some action. He has ordered more case workers and lighter caseloads. He has changed procedures for closing cases at DYFS. And he's provided some case workers with new cell phones, computers, and cars.

GOV. JAMES MCGREEVEY (D), NEW JERSEY: Unfortunately, the poverty and the magnitude of this problem has existed for too long and is so severe that it has actually contributed to the sense of hopelessness, that nothing can be done to protect these children. I refuse to accept that.

COLBY: It won't bring back Amara, but Cleveland Ross says he will be happy if DYFS could be reformed even now.

ROSS: I know personally how painful it is. And I don't want see another kid die unnecessarily.

COLBY: Jamie Colby, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up on NEWSNIGHT tonight: a SARS scare. One American university, Cal Berkeley, says some students will be turned away.

And the 2004 presidential campaign widens. Meet the Democrats' No. 9.

And later: President Bush under fire for his visit to the USS Lincoln.

A half-hour to go. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Welcome back to another half hour of NEWSNIGHT.

We want to spend some time in this half hour looking at SARS, beginning with the latest from China. Today China reported 138 new cases and eight more deaths. Of the 7,000 people around the world thought to have SARS, more than half come from China, and the World Health Organization said today that SARS has not peaked in China yet.

China, along with Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong are all places of concern for one American university, Cal-Berkeley. Berkeley has decided it will turn away students from any of those countries for its summer term.

Joining us now to talk about how they got there, Dr. Peter Dietrich is the medical director at Cal-Berkeley. He's in Sacramento tonight.

It's good to have you with us.

What sort of process -- how long did the process take? Who was involved? How did you get there?

DR. PETER DIETRICH, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY: We've been monitoring the SARS situation for a number of weeks, and obviously have significant concerns about this from a public health perspective.

We convened a task force, the chancellor did, here at our campus several weeks ago to help monitor the situation, provide access to the most accurate and up-to-date information we had available.

We reached this decision after close consultation with public health experts, both at the UC-Berkeley campus as well as our local community and the state department of health services as well.

And so it's one that we entered into carefully, because we realize it does have implications for these students. I should say, though, today that the CDC did lift their travel advisory relating to Singapore, so as a result, we are opening the door for Singapore students to come for this summer session.

BROWN: Why couldn't you just screen them?

DIETRICH: Well, we looked at this, and we have a couple of unique circumstances at the UC-Berkeley campus. Obviously we do want to maintain a campus that has open doors. It's one of the benefits of UC-Berkeley, is having the international community that's -- that is part of it.

So we have looked at the close considerations that -- of timing, first of all. One is that our summer session starts in just a few short weeks. A lot of other schools and universities around the country have until June to be able to assess their -- the impact of SARS for their particular campus communities.

For us, there's a timing issue. And in particular, there's a big impact. We have a large number of students coming in from these areas, up to 600, and the issues around being able to assess their risk, determine their extent of exposure, determine what type of monitoring and health care they need.

And if any of them were to develop symptoms or signs of SARS, then they would have to be moved into either an isolation or quarantine mode, and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) mode.

And from the housing perspective, we have significant challenges in our housing market there, and very limited availability to move into a mass quarantine or house, or isolation circumstance at this point. So...

BROWN: Am I right, doctor, that the students you're barring are all new students, and if that's true, how do you deal with the students who are already enrolled, who've been going to school, may go home for the summer and come back?

DIETRICH: Yes. The students that have -- for their programs that have been canceled are special summer session students. They're not regular admitted students to the UC-Berkeley campus. And they come through extension. And they come in six-weeks increments throughout the summer session.

We are obviously concerned about students that we have admitted already to the campus that may be traveling home either to visit family or for other travel-related issues. We are asking people to be educated about the signs and symptoms of SARS. We're asking people to look at their travel plans closely, see if they can follow the CDC recommendations and postpone nonessential travel.

We are informing all these students to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) about all the signs and symptoms, et cetera. We're asking them to keep in touch with the campus so we can be up to date throughout the summer, so that as we get closer to the return in the fall semester, we'll know what recommendations we have, either in terms of restrictions, what type of monitoring we're going to have to employ.

BROWN: Has there been much push-back from all of this? Or does the university community pretty much accept that it was -- it's not a pleasant decision, but it's one that had to be made?

DIETRICH: Yes, I think all of us recognize that there's disappointment in this decision. A lot of people are looking forward to coming to the UC-Berkeley campus, looking forward to the opportunity to learn. And they've paid money already for this. And so it's a decision that we made very carefully with careful analysis.

But a difficult decision nonetheless. At this particular point, we're hopeful that people understand the public health ramifications. We do feel we have a responsibility as well to everybody associated with our community to make sure we offer a safe community, both intellectually safe as well as public -- from a public health perspective, and that we have the resources lined up to be able to do the public health monitoring as well as isolation and quarantine issues.

And we just didn't at this particular time.

BROWN: Dr. Dietrich, thanks for your time tonight. Appreciate it very much.

DIETRICH: You're welcome.

BROWN: Tough decision...

DIETRICH: Thanks for having me.

BROWN: ... for you all at Berkeley.

SARS is such an immediate crisis in different spots of the world, it's easy to lose sight of the broader picture of the response, what's gone right, what's gone wrong, and what may be the outlook for SARS going forward.

More on all of that with "New York Times" medical correspondent Dr. Lawrence Altman. Dr. Altman also wrote a fascinating article day comparing the response to SARS to the response to another mystery disease from not that long ago, the mystery of AIDS.

Larry Altman with us tonight. Nice to have you here.

DR. LAWRENCE ALTMAN, MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Thanks for having me here.

BROWN: Is there much -- is it evident that the public health people learned from AIDS in -- when new disease and dangerous disease develops?

ALTMAN: Yes. I mean, new diseases are something that have occurred throughout history, but they aren't -- weren't always recognized as such. It's -- of late, we've had a number of them, AIDS 22 years ago, then we had Legionnaire's disease, and we've had others. And now we have SARS, which is due to a new member of the coronavirus family.

And we're trying to learn a lot about it, because there's a lot that's been learned and a lot yet to be learned.

BROWN: Let's talk about what's been learned for a bit. Does the medical community now know the origin of SARS?

ALTMAN: No. The coronavirus that's been identified as the new SARS virus doesn't resemble closely any animal or any human coronavirus, any other member of the coronavirus family.

BROWN: What does that mean? Or what does that tell you?

ALTMAN: It creates a mystery...

BROWN: Yes.

ALTMAN: ... because it tells us that it doesn't come from, you know, a mutation of a known animal or a known human coronavirus. Among the members of the coronavirus are those that can cause the common cold. It's not the only cause of the common cold. But it's not a mutation of that, it's not a mutation of animal or pig or some other virus.

So we don't know where it came from.

BROWN: At the risk of asking, then, a truly stupid question, which wouldn't be the first time, does not knowing its origin have implications to the ability to come up with a vaccine or to treat it, any of those things?

ALTMAN: Not necessarily. If you had...

BROWN: Thank you.

ALTMAN: ... a parallel, you might be able to do it, but it's a challenge to develop a vaccine under any circumstance.

BROWN: There was -- Are we closer to -- I'm actually confused about whether it has peaked or not peaked. The report out of China, the WHO report, seems to suggest it certainly hasn't peaked there. So where are we, in the sense of the spreading of the disease and the rest?

ALTMAN: A little bit here and a little bit there. It has seemed to have reached a peak in Hong Kong, WHO, the World Health Organization, said today. But it has not peaked in China. In other -- in Vietnam, it not only peaked, Vietnam -- it's disappeared.

BROWN: A story the other day, the Vietnamese handled this very well. What did they do right that -- if we know -- that the Chinese did not?

ALTMAN: Well, they recognized it right away. It was probably the first place where it was recognized. Immediate action was taken. Infection control procedures were put in place.

Case surveillance or monitoring was undertaken right away. The chain of transmission was traced, and the contacts -- the individuals who had come in contact with an infected individual were put in quarantine. And the transmission, the chain to chain, the human to human transmission got stopped.

And there was honest reporting, and it was taken under control. But in China, it was a different situation.

BROWN: Do we know, or did we have reason to believe, that we will live with SARS forever now? That once these things happen, we never quite get rid of them? ALTMAN: We don't know. It's possible that if China can find a way -- China, Taiwan, the two main hot spots at the moment -- if they can somehow control the disease well enough and break the chain of the human to human transmission, and if contaminated objects are not an important means of spread of the disease, then it is possible that we can stop the transmission, and maybe it will disappear.

On the other hand, we don't know whether it'll hibernate...

BROWN: Yes.

ALTMAN: ... or hide during the summer and come back next fall. Just not known.

BROWN: It's a nasty little virus.

ALTMAN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BROWN: Nice to meet you.

ALTMAN: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you. Larry Altman...

ALTMAN: Nice to be here.

BROWN: ... medical correspondent for "The New York Times" with us.

Next on NEWSNIGHT, the 44th president of the United States, or so he hopes, Bob Graham, and the latest runner to enter the race.

Then a political tongue-lashing. Senator Robert Byrd on President Bush, and it's not pretty.

And we'll take a look at morning papers from around the country, give you a look at what's news tomorrow on your front porch.

Be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, it's safe to say nobody expected Bob Graham, Democratic senator from Florida, not to run for president. Taking part in the presidential debate in South Carolina over the weekend pretty much was a dead giveaway, at least to us.

But in case there was any doubt, today he made it official.

Here's CNN's Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sidelined by January heart surgery, Bob Graham is late to a game crowded with players. He hopes to find running room in homeland security. SEN. BOB GRAHAM (D), FLORIDA: I know firsthand, as the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, how little this administration has done to provide real security at home while he directs his attention away from the war on terrorism abroad.

CROWLEY: Bob Graham is running for president. The first question is usually, Who's Bob Graham? They don't ask that in Florida.

BILL ADAIR, "ST. PETERSBURG TIMES": He is the most prominent and popular politician in the state.

CROWLEY: He's what's called a resume candidate, the most experienced politician in the '04 crowd, a state legislator, two-term governor, now the senior senator. Since 1966, he has been unbeatable in the state of -- are you listening, Democrats? -- Florida.

He says he's from "the electable wing" of the Democratic Party, which is to say, a moderate. He's also hard to predict. A Democrat who voted yes on the first Gulf War, when most of his party said no, and when most of his party voted yes on the second Gulf War, Graham voted no.

GRAHAM: Instead of pursuing the most imminent and real threat, international terrorists, this Bush administration chose to settle old scores.

CROWLEY: He's a well-respected, solid Democrat, but his compulsion for recording the minute-to-minute minutiae of his life is believed to have cost him the VP slot in 2000.

Whatever his quirks, Graham is a candidate loaded with gravitas who couldn't light up a room with a torch, absolutely no pizzazz.

GRAHAM: I am an optimist. The best days of America lie ahead.

BROWN: Still, in some ways that ordinariness is part of Graham's huge success in Florida.

See these people? Graham has spent a day working the jobs of most of them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He rode with me to Tallahassee and unloaded a truck up in Tallahassee.

CROWLEY: This Harvard-educated lawyer learned how to be a regular person. He began what he calls his workdays in '78, when he was running for governor. As he began, only 3 percent of Floridians said they'd vote for him. One hundred workdays later, he won the election.

(on camera): These are full days working the job of someone else, and Graham has kept it up. Day number 387 is this Friday, as a teacher in a classroom in New Hampshire.

Candy Crowley, CNN, Miami Lakes, Florida. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We spoke earlier of patriotism and patriotic dissent. Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia has served in Congress for five decades. He carries a pocket edition of the Constitution with him wherever he goes. In the days and weeks leading up to the war in Iraq, he spoke out fiercely and eloquently against it.

Today, from the well of the Senate, he spoke out again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ROBERT BYRD (D), WEST VIRGINIA: As I watched the president's fighter jet swoop down onto the deck of the aircraft carrier "Abraham Lincoln," I could not help but contrast the reported simple dignity of President Abraham Lincoln at Gettsyburg with the flamboyant showmanship of President Bush aboard the U.S.S. "Abraham Lincoln."

President Bush's address to the American people announcing combat victory in Iraq deserved to be marked with solemnity, not extravagance. With gratitude to God, not self-congratulatory gestures.

American blood has been shed, and on foreign soil, in defense of the president's policies. This is not some made-for-TV backdrop for a campaign commercial. This is real life.

And real lives have been lost.

To me, it is affront. To me, it is an affront to the Americans killed or injured in Iraq for the president to exploit the trappings of war for the momentary spectacle of a speech.

I do not begrudge his salute to America's warriors aboard the carrier "Lincoln," for they have performed bravely and skillfully, as have their countrymen, who are still in Iraq.

But I do question the motives of a deskbound president who assumes the garb of a warrior for the purposes of a speech.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Senator Robert Byrd. The White House, by the way, acknowledged today that it was not necessary for the president to fly in a plane aboard the aircraft carrier and make the dramatic landing, that the carrier was close enough to have helicoptered him in. The White House said it's how the president wanted to get there.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, Segment Seven, morning papers. That would be tomorrow morning's papers, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: All right. Not a lot of time for -- Oh, I don't know why I felt I had to say "all right." But not a lot of time for morning papers.

But here are a few, and if I would just get to them, we'd have more time, wouldn't we?

"New York Times," Larry Altman didn't even plug his own story there, studies suggest a higher rate of SARS deaths than previously thought. Death rate up to 13.2. When we first started talking about it, the death rate was about 4.7 percent, so that's changed a lot. That and a lot more, of course, in "The New York Times."

I love this story in "The San Francisco Chronicle," because honestly, I wonder also about this, over here, "Why Strangers Mourn for Laci." It's a piece on why the Laci Peterson case has captures as much attention, time on CNN and other cable outlets and the rest, as it does. It's an interesting piece in tomorrow's "San Francisco Chronicle." So you might want to fly to San Francisco and get that.

Or stop in Detroit, where you'll learn that "Auto Quality Sputters," "The Detroit News." Always an automotive story on the front page of the Detroit papers. "2000 J.D. Power Ratings Show No Improvement in No Vehicles." On the other hand, they didn't get worse, so that's a pretty good thing.

How we doing on time? Oh, my goodness, not much at all.

"The Oregonian," best story of tomorrow, absolutely, "Suicide Law Argued Today," tomorrow. The U.S. government will try and overturn an appeals court ruling that kept Oregon's assisted suicide law intact, despite the federal government's efforts to the contrary.

And that's it. I mean, I had all these papers, but we got no more time, so we'll see you tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. Join us then for NEWSNIGHT. Until then, good night for all of us.

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WMDs Found but Means to Produce Was>