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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

U.S. Strikes Deal, Gets More Information in Hunt For Terrorists; Israeli Forces Dismantling Settlers' Homes in West Bank

Aired June 19, 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.
When President Bush declared war on terrorism, he put the country on notice. The war would be won, he said, but it would be a shadow war, the battles fought in secrecy, some on American soil with details to follow security permitting, a trade off in other words between public safety and the public's right to know.

It sometimes hasn't been easy living with the bargain, in part it hinges on results and results are what the Justice Department is claiming tonight, which is where "The Whip" begins in Washington with CNN Justice Department Correspondent Kelli Arena, Kelli a headline please.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, he appeared to be a hardworking Ohio truck driver but the attorney general says that he lived a secret double life as an al Qaeda operative. The government strikes a deal and in turn gets more information in the hunt for terrorists inside the United States.

BROWN: Kelli, thank you, back to you at the top tonight.

Next, to the Middle East, a big step for Israeli, symbolically at least. CNN's Sheila MacVicar has the watch tonight so, Sheila, a headline from you.

SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: One Israeli Jewish hilltop settlement outpost, 700 police, 500 IDF soldiers, and after 12 hours the demolition of two tents and a couple of shacks -- Aaron.

BROWN: Sheila, thank you.

And, to St. Louis where Catholic bishops in the country are meeting, a lot on the agenda. CNN's Jason Carroll there for us tonight, Jason your headline.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And, Aaron, top on the agenda how well the bishops have been doing the past year to make the church a safer place for children. They say much has been done but they acknowledge more needs to be done to bring back those who have lost their faith -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jason, thank you, back to you and the rest shortly. Also coming up tonight, is the Bush administration cooking the books when it comes to global warming? We'll show you an EPA report that went from earth first to business friendly. Was it good policy or the worst sort of politics?

And, part two of our conversation with Walter Cronkite tonight, his take on the war with Iraq and the coverage of it. We'll also talk about the moment when he and television news and the entire country grew up all at once, his recollections on the assassination of President Kennedy.

And, the controversy that lives on 50 years to the day after Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were put to death as spies during an especially trying and terrifying moment in American history, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin in the present with a plea bargain agreed to last month by a truck driver from Ohio, a truck driver who was also a scout for al Qaeda. Just what he's saying we don't yet know but we already know his capture is shedding light on why certain New York City landmarks are under tighter security.

Here again, CNN's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA (voice-over): Officials say Iyman Faris surveilled the Brooklyn Bridge trying to figure out if its cables could be cut to bring it down. They say he was ordered to get the tools necessary to derail trains and that he conducted research on light aircraft to be used in possible terror attacks.

JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: From late 2000 to March of this year Faris worked in concert with al Qaeda, our enemies, to plot potential attacks against America and its citizens here in his adopted homeland.

ARENA: Faris, a commercial truck driver who lived in this apartment complex in Ohio pled guilty on May 1st to providing and conspiring to provide material support to al Qaeda.

Officials tell CNN that Faris actually turned himself in in March and was not formally arrested. The plea deal was kept secret until now.

ASHCROFT: I firmly believe that for us to have announced this case a day sooner would have carried with it the potential of impairing very important interests.

ARENA: According to government documents, Faris, a naturalized U.S. citizen, admitted to meeting with Osama bin Laden in late 2000. He also admitted to providing al Qaeda with material support including cash, sleeping bags, plane tickets, and cell phones, and he told investigators of a 2002 al Qaeda plot to simultaneously attack targets in Washington and New York, including the Brooklyn Bridge. RAY KELLY, COMMISSIONER, NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT: After carrying out that surveillance the plotters called off the operation due to the tight security on and around the bridge.

ARENA: The attorney general has said there are other plea deals under seal and sources tell CNN some of those involve individuals who, like Faris, were fingered as a result of the arrest of al Qaeda operations chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

ASHCROFT: We are in various stages of prosecution in various cases around the country.

ARENA: Faris and others are cooperating with the FBI as agents continue their hunt for al Qaeda operatives in the United States.

MATT LEVITT, FORMER FBI ANALYST: This arrest signifies that the government is on top of things. They're on the ball. They have prevented attacks.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: Now, the tactic of keeping Faris' detention and plea agreement secret has been used before, most often in organized crime cases. Prosecutors say in an effort to bring charges against top conspirators it's crucial to keep secret the fact that a lower level member has turned -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, just I may be a little confused on something. Did he turn himself in or was he given up by a senior al Qaeda operative?

ARENA: Well, the interrogation of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed led to a relative of Faris', a man named Majid Khan (ph) which then in turn led to Faris, but the word got out that the FBI was looking for this individual and he, according to our sources, presented himself to federal agents back in March.

Now, how he was kept in custody between March and May is unclear. We do know that he had access to his cell phones that he could keep in regular communication with people that he normally spoke to, to hide the fact that he was being detained.

BROWN: Got it, Kelli thank you, Kelli Arena in Washington tonight.

ARENA: You're welcome.

BROWN: There was a glimmer of hope today at a farmhouse near the Iraqi city of Tikrit that American forces were one step closer to catching Saddam Hussein but today, being like so many other days, the hope was soon overtaken by reality. No Saddam and another American casualty and, as always these days it seems, plenty of angry Iraqis.

Reporting for us tonight CNN's Ben Wedeman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In southern Baghdad another American soldier, a medic, killed by unknown attackers his ambulance hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, the third American soldier killed her in combat in the last three days.

The wounded were whisked away by helicopter, the chopper surrounded by troops to prevent another attack. Every day, several times a day, U.S. forces in Iraq now come under attack. Gunfire in the streets of Baghdad at a funeral, shots fired in anger towards the heavens this time.

There is no God but God and America is the enemy of God, mourners chant at the funeral for former Iraqi army officer Tariq Mohammed (ph) shot dead by an American soldier outside coalition headquarters in Baghdad.

Mohammed was one of two army officers killed in a demonstration Wednesday demanding that members of the disbanded Iraqi armed forces receive back pay and protesting the American mandated dissolution of the Iraqi army an incident the U.S. says was self defense.

Striking back, American forces continue to press ahead with Operation Desert Scorpion nabbing not only senior figures from the old regime but treasure as well.

On a farm outside Aljay (ph) the town where Saddam Hussein was born a major haul.

FIRST LT. CHRISTOPHER MORRIS, 4TH INFANTRY DIVISION: It's about four motivated guys and a mine detector. We went through the whole area. In that particular area we turned up five caches, two being $4 million a piece and then the other two containing the jewels and about $300,000 in American cash.

WEDEMAN: Also found a passport belonging to Saddam Hussein's wife Sajida.

(on camera): Daily attacks on U.S. forces, daily American casualties, steadily mounting Iraq anger and frustration it all adds up to a far more complicated and dangerous scenario than anyone ever expected for the new post-Saddam Iraq.

Ben Wedeman, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Next to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and two items of note tonight. The first is one we've become accustomed to seeing, a suicide bombing. It happened at a grocery store in an Israeli village that borders the West Bank. The grocer was killed, Islamic Jihad taking responsibility for the attack.

Today's other development looked familiar also, Israeli forces dismantling homes in the West Bank but these were Israeli homes, here again CNN's Sheila MacVicar.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MACVICAR (voice-over): This is one of the victories the Israeli army had today, holding back hundreds of Jewish settlers long enough to tear down a ramshackle shed.

On a windy West Bank hilltop dozens of Israeli soldiers and police struggled for hours to demolish the illegal settlement outpost of Yitzar (ph). As the tents came down they fought over cupboards and (unintelligible) and parts of a tarpaulin.

(on camera): This outpost is one of 62 that the Israeli activist group Peace Now that monitors settlement activity says is illegal and is built since the intafada began in the fall of 2000. It's one of 12 that the prime minister had said must go, an idea of how difficult and what a long, hot summer it's going to be here.

(voice-over): The settlers say they are determined to make it as difficult as they can for Prime Minister Sharon to implement this small part of President Bush's roadmap. The prime minister was considered a friend and a supporter, not now.

ADI MEANS, SETTLERS COUNCIL MEMBER: He is taking Israel to dangerous places and if he will keep going in the old (unintelligible) this will -- we will arise to destroy all the state of Israel.

MACVICAR: There were no guns today but force and the strength of numbers. Dozens were hurt including soldiers. The settler say as soon as the soldiers leave here they will be back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They leave. We'll put it up again. They take it down. We'll put it up again. And not only there but for every one they take down we'll put up ten.

MACVICAR: The settlers believe this is their land given to them by God. No one, they say, has the right to take it from them. The Palestinians and the international community say the settlements and their outposts sit on illegally occupied land and if there is to be peace between Israelis and Palestinians much more than a dozen outposts of tents and shacks will have to go. If it is hard now, it could get much, much harder and what Prime Minister Sharon needs is an agreement with the settlers not a struggle for every carpet.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACVICAR: Aaron, we know now that it took the IDF and the Israeli police, 1,200 of them in total, 12 hours to dismantle that ramshackle collection of sheds and tents. We're told that the Israeli army remains there tonight and any glimpse of what may come in the future the settler movement says that every time they attempt to dismantle one of these outposts they will be there again in numbers and they are promising more confrontation -- Aaron.

BROWN: And Israeli public opinion generally supportive of the settlers or supportive of the government's effort to dismantle them?

MACVICAR: This is a very good question. At the moment, there has been an increase in support for the settler movement over the course of the last year or 18 months but the majority of Israelis still do not believe that the settlers should represent an obstacle to peace. The question of course is really whether or not Israelis believe there can be a peace agreement, a workable peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians.

You can look at what happened yesterday, as the settlers charge, as a kind of gift if you will for Secretary of State Colin Powell who is due here in just a couple of hours, a demonstration on the part of Prime Minister Sharon that, look, I'm doing what you asked. Look at how hard it is for us and basically perhaps also an attempt to buy a little more time.

But, Aaron, if you think about all those hilltops out there just in the West Bank that are dotted with settlements this could be a very long and difficult process.

BROWN: Sheila, thank you very much, Sheila MacVicar tonight.

As NEWSNIGHT continues more trouble in the Catholic priesthood just as American bishops gather to talk about progress in their dealings with sexual abuse in the ranks.

And later, more of our conversation with Walter Cronkite, his thoughts about the war in Iraq, the coverage of the war and the assassination of President Kennedy so long ago.

We take a break. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's been a year since the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops met in Dallas to confront the sex abuse scandals that were raging. A year ago the pressure on the leaders of the church was enormous and the reforms they passed were sweeping. A year later as they gather in St. Louis, there are questions about whether the bishops are living up to the bargain or simply trying to avoid it.

Here's CNN's Jason Carroll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL (voice-over): The bishops' goal here evaluate progress made in dealing with priests accused of sexual abuse, their early verdict the church is a better place now than it was one year ago.

WILTON GREGORY, PRESIDENT, U.S. CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS: We have in place the means to assure our people that their children are safe from abuse by clergy.

CARROLL: In attendance Boston's former Cardinal Bernard Law who resigned after church documents showed he protected abusive priests.

Can we just get your opinion on how things are progressing so far? Thanks a lot. We'll see you. Law didn't want to talk about progress or anything else but Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony did. Mahoney says church leaders have not been slow to cooperate with a survey on the scope of abuse but the man who was leading the church's National Review Board, former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating resigned this week after comparing the cardinal, whom he never met, and other bishops to the Mafia for their stonewalling.

CARDINAL ROGER MAHONY, LOS ANGELES: We're not dragging our feet. We're trying to get this resolved ourselves. We don't want this going on forever.

CARROLL: Shortly after our interview two Los Angeles priests, the tenth and eleventh to date were arrested for sexual abuse in California. On Saturday the archbishop from Minneapolis-St. Paul will report on how well the church's 195 diocese are following the tough new policies for problem priests.

ARCHBISHOP HARRY FLYNN, MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL: There's been an enormous amount of cooperation on the part of the bishops. There's been an enormous amount of openness on the part of the bishops.

CARROLL: But not enough according to victims like Chris Dixon.

CHRIS DIXON, PRIEST ABUSE VICTIM: I feel disappointed because I think some of the bishops are still being so protective of themselves, their priests, that victims are still being victimized.

CARROLL: And Dixon, who had become a priest himself, quit when he says he could no longer suppress the pain of his past. Dixon says one of the priests that abused him in high school later became a bishop in Florida. Anthony O'Connell resigned last year after admitting to abusing Dixon in the 1970s. The church paid Dixon a settlement and when bishops promised last year to reach out to victims Dixon hoped that would include him.

DIXON: They haven't reached out to me. They say that their first priority is to reach out to victims. Here I am. I'm waiting.

CARROLL: The bishops here say give them more time to do what's right.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: And, church leaders say they acknowledge that the church does have a credibility problem with certain lay people but they also say that they're confident that the good work of some bishops and priests out there will help alleviate some of the damage that has been done -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jason, thank you, Jason Carroll in St. Louis.

We'll talk a little bit more about this tonight. We're joined by a member of the Catholic Church Lay Review Board, the board that was set up a year ago in Dallas. Bob Bennett, prominent Washington, D.C. lawyer is on the board, Mr. Bennett with us tonight. It's nice to see you, sir.

Which is it have bishops been enormously cooperative, as one put it, or have they been a little slow at least in some parts of the country to cooperate at all?

ROBERT BENNETT, ATTORNEY: Well, I think it's a mixed bag. I think thus far it appears that most of the bishops are committed to the charter and are committed to cooperating with the board. Some are not but before we pass judgment on that we have to wait and see what returns we get from our various surveys.

But I certainly think based on my meetings here and in St. Louis that the overwhelming number of bishops are committed to cooperating with us but we, you know, we have to wait and see what the final result is.

BROWN: Mr. Bennett, is it fair to say that ultimately it's not your board that really can apply pressure on the bishops who have been a bit slow to cooperate that it has to come from a sort of broad cross-section of the Catholic community?

BENNETT: I think the only way you're going to get a recalcitrant of bishops to cooperate is fellow bishops pressuring that bishop and reminding him that all of them are paying an enormous price by their not cooperating.

Also, it should be absolutely clear to all the bishops that the National Review Board is very strong on this. You know, our goal here is to protect children and young people and we will identify and name those bishops who at the end of the day are not cooperative with us.

BROWN: And then will there still be a review board after you're done doing that?

BENNETT: It's my understanding that it is the intention of the conference to have this review board in existence for many years. That's my understanding.

BROWN: Mr. Bennett, what do you hope will come out of these meetings in St. Louis on this particular issue?

BENNETT: Well, I'm rather pleased based on my meetings with the bishops today. We met with about 300 of them and it was absolutely clear that the overwhelming number of them are absolutely committed to the work of the board and they have assured us of their cooperation.

Several of the dioceses in California were not in our view cooperating but Cardinal Mahony personally committed to me and they publicly committed to their fellow bishops today that they would be cooperating with our survey. So, we're grateful for that and that's going to help us towards our goal of protecting children.

BROWN: Those bishops who express concerns, there are a couple of surveys out there that have to do with the extent of abuse of minors by the clergy, their concerns are what? BENNETT: Well, I think they run the gamut. I mean I think they are concerned about protecting identities of priests of creating fodder for more and future lawsuits and there's a whole variety of reasons, some are reasonable and others are not reasonable but we are not going to, as a board we are not going to accept any of those reasons.

We are requiring a full and complete response to our questions because that's the only way we can protect children. We can't make them do it and if some bishop doesn't do it, all we have is the bully pulpit but that bishop should clearly understand we will identify him and make it clear that he is not honoring the charter which he was one member of passing.

But, again, I want to say that based on my presence here in St. Louis at these meetings the overwhelming number of bishops were very strong behind the charter and the work of the board.

BROWN: Just very briefly are children safer today than they were a year ago in the Catholic Church?

BENNETT: I think clearly they are safer today than they were a year ago because of zero tolerance, because of the requirement of reporting to authorities, and because this scandal is out in the open and you now have a review board which is very active. You know we have probably spent in the past year thousands of hours literally in working on these issues.

We will be sending, starting June 23rd just a few days from now, we will be sending out audit teams to each of the diocese, very experienced auditors most of whom were former law enforcement auditors to see to it that each of the diocese has lived up to the charter.

BROWN: Mr. Bennett.

BENNETT: So, clearly children are a lot safer today but I'm not saying they're all safe and totally safe. We've got a lot more work to do.

BROWN: Mr. Bennett, thank you for joining us tonight. It will be an interesting couple of days in St. Louis for you and everyone. Thank you, sir, very much.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, is the environment in trouble or not?

And, questions about whether the Bush administration is trying to downplay the dangers of global warming.

A break first, around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Once upon a time a scientist named Galileo said the earth was round and the political leaders of the time said no, no, Galileo it's flat, and Galileo got life under house arrest for his little theory. Today, the vast majority of scientists will tell you the earth is getting warmer and most would agree that industry is at least in part to blame.

So far nobody has gone to jail for saying that, which doesn't mean the idea isn't squarely at the center of a political dust-up, and not an insignificant one at that because if the charges leveled against the White House are true, an important environmental question is being twisted or ignored for the sake of politics.

Here's CNN's Chris Burns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS BURNS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a battle long fought between the Bush administration and environmentalists over the dangers of global warming and the greenhouse emissions linked to it.

The White House acknowledges it has revisions in a report to be released Monday by the Environmental Protection Agency. Leaks to the media they're revisions that critics say downplay the threat to humans as well as the ecology.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I see it as an inexcusable case of the Bush administration censoring the truth and sound science about global warming in order to benefit their political friends in the oil and coal industries.

BURNS: Initial documents show one section of the report reads, "climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment." A subsequent draft of that passage reads, "The complexity of the Earth system and the interconnections among its components make it a scientific challenge to document change, and diagnose its causes."

(on camera): Secretary, this report, was a doctored?

WHITMAN: Not at all. Not doctored. It represents the way any report comes out, which is you have your best science, you have your best research.

BURNS (voice-over): Including studies that the Bush administration says conflict over the causes and effects of global warming. But the Democrats are on the attack. Senator and presidential hopeful Joseph Lieberman has demanded that the president release the entire original reports. Environmentalists were outraged two years ago when President Bush quit the U.N.'s Kyoto treaty on fighting climate change. The president called Kyoto...

BUSH: Fatally flawed.

BURNS: He argued it's a job killer because it would require deep cuts in industrial emissions and that China and India were unfairly exempted.

(on camera): The Bush administration insists its serious about climate change, that it signed up dozens of leading companies to a voluntary program aimed at cutting greenhouse emissions 18 percent over the next ten years. Environmentalists say, that's not nearly enough.

Chris Burns, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up, our conversation with Walter Cronkite, part two. We get his thoughts on the coverage of the war in Iraq and the Kennedy assassination too. A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT, Walter Cronkite on the war in Iraq. A break first, be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: When you sit down to talk with Walter Cronkite, it's not hard to figure out where to stop. Stopping is another matter. So when we sat down with Mr. Cronkite yesterday, no notes, no agenda, just a conversation. Well let's just say we went a little past the wrap queues from the control room.

So tonight, another part of the conversation on subjects including the war in Iraq and the Kennedy assassination.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: What did you think of both technologically and journalistically how the war was covered?

WALTER CRONKITE, FORMER CBS ANCHOR: The war was covered? I thought that technically, it was -- it was grand. I mean, incredible. Absolutely incredible.

I have long believed we would never have live coverage of war the battlefield because I had never realized that they could -- somehow or rather send up a satellite signal that could not be intercepted. And I assumed you could not possibly send up a picture of a scene behind your lines when the opposing general sits in a blockhouse three miles away, looking at the same picture. You couldn't reeled that thing to them. It would be incredible.

But obviously they beat that problem. And I think that journalistically, where the embedded correspondent -- I hate that word, it sounds too much like in bed with, which I hope it wasn't in most cases -- but any rate, where the correspondent had a story, it was pretty good.

The trouble was that many of the correspondents, of course, found themselves with units that weren't doing anything. And yet the networks had put all of money in having them there, and they had a satellite available so the networks went to them, including CNN, went to them and they didn't have anything to say, really, basically. So it was kind of a wasted report.

Where they had something to say, it was quite valuable reporting. And the important thing about the embedded correspondent tactic was the fact that the military let us be there at all after Persian War I. In that war, as you know, we had no coverage whatsoever. This -- this nation of ours, our people, our history was denied the facts about the Persian Gulf War I. We don't know now today what really happened as the troops progressed around the desert.

There were no reporters with them except those reporters who were assigned by the military. I mean a the soldier reporters reporting for history. And that history of course is obviously somewhat unbalanced. It's a version that the military wanted of what we did in that war.

What we didn't -- my gosh, of all of the important -- important events of our time, when the president orders the American boys and girls into action somewhere, there's no more serious time for us to be shut out of all information. We're not only entitled to know what our boys and girls do in our name, it's our duty to what boys and girls are doing in our name in case of what they are doing in our name is not what we want them to do. We should have a voice in them.

BROWN: In moments like that, when the nation's at war, on the 9/11s, on those days of enormous journalistic and national importance, do you wish you were still sitting in the chair?

CRONKITE: Always. It doesn't take even a big story like that. Daily, I miss not being on the air, but I miss the managing editor role of helping set the agenda, if you please. Deciding what is the more important story that what is the story most likely to affect our viewing audience, the American people in our case. This is the highest journalistic calling. And I miss it.

BROWN: I don't think I've ever asked you this.

CRONKITE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) too polite.

BROWN: Sometimes.

CRONKITE: If so, don't ask it now.

BROWN: Sometimes I am too polite.

It's been a generation since you sat in the chair every night. And still today both to people who do this work, but to viewers you are the standard. Why is that? What was it about Cronkite that separated him from Huntley or separated him from...

CRONKITE: It wasn't Cronkite, it was the CBS News team, CBS News ethic, the CBS News, if I may please, superiority of correspondent core. The core that originally Ed Murrow put together in World War II and that carried in the peace afterwards, where I was lucky enough to be the front man.

I did have -- and I do have, and I'm very proud, I think I have a very keenly developed journalistic ethic. I had very good mentors, beginning in high school. I was lucky enough to be in high school, which at an early age when most high schools didn't have journalism teachers or journalism courses, I had an old city editor from a local paper who donated his time to teach us journalism.

And he was -- he had journalism in his gut. And he just was so firm on honesty, impartiality, lack of prejudice and accuracy. It was embedded in me. And I was lucky enough in my college and then in my very early jobs to have that kind of a mentor.

And I think -- I'm not saying that I'm that different from others. I think there are many of us who have that. But I'm one of them. And it was just a point of pride to me every night that we did our job, adhering to the finest principles of ethical journalism.

BROWN: Let me ask one more question on this. With due respect to your colleagues at CBS who were remarkable journalists, how important do you think it was that you were in the chair when President Kennedy was assassinated, in terms of how people from that point on viewed you as the anchorman? That day...

CRONKITE: Well, I suppose it's a moment clearly when you're reaching directly into their hearts. We are all suffering the same emotional reaction to a tragedy. The tragedy that affected people whether they were Republicans or Democrats, whether liberals or conservatives. It was the youth of the president and being denied his future. And our future with him, whether you agree with his particular policies or not.

This was a moment of high emotion. And I was sharing it with them. I don't know why this would seem to apply to me more than to the people on the air at NBC and ABC at the time. I don't know because I don't know what they did. I have no idea what was on over there. They may have been that they shifted back and forth to people where I stayed at the desk the entire day and night and for three days and three nights with various, very little relief.

And that might have -- I don't know. I really don't know. It may have been the moment when I just seemed to lose it there for a second when I had to announce that the president was dead. And it was certainly not, you know a long delay in the broadcast. It was just a momentary thing where my voice caught...

BROWN: You take your glasses off. You take your glasses off and you take a tear from your eye.

CRONKITE: Yes, right.

BROWN: And do you -- are you embarrassed by that moment? Do you regret that moment?

CRONKITE: No, not at all. Not at all. And I don't criticize any reporter for showing that he or she is human. I that deny that is almost the mistake to suggest that we are so hardened at our work that we don't react like our viewers do. I don't find that despicable at all or in any way damaging to our pose of impartiality and that sort of thing.

BROWN: I know you have a busy summer. And you know how much I look forward to these conversations. Thanks for some time today. CRONKITE: You bet. Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you.

CRONKITE: Good to be with you. I am a great admirer of your broadcast.

BROWN: You're a very kind man. Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A guy named Cronkite. It's good to have him here.

Ahead on "Segment 7", America's most infamous traders, or were they? The story of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg on the 50th anniversary of their execution here in New York. Take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It was a muggy evening 50 years ago tonight, 8:00 p.m. Eastern daylight time, June the 19th, 1953. The two admitted members of the American Communist Party, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed. They went to their deaths at the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison in New York, for conspiring to spy for the Soviet Union. And ever since, there has been a persistent debate about their crime and their punishment.

Here in New York City tonight, one of their sons is leading what he calls a public commemoration of what happened, an event that seems is still fresh in the minds of those who lived it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Robert Meerapol will not give up. He continues to try to prove to himself and to the country that his parents did not deserve to die 50 years ago for conspiring to pass America's atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.

ROBERT MEERAPOL, AUTHOR, "AN EXECUTION IN THE FAMILY": They were actually charged with conspiracy to commit espionage. They weren't even executed for spying but -- so they were executed for conspiracy.

BROWN: Robert was 6-years-old, his about brother Michael 10 when their parents Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were electrocuted in the New York's Sing Sing Prison. They were adopted by a couple sympathetic to their parents, their names changed.

MEERAPOL: I'm quite certain they didn't do the thing they were killed for.

BROWN: Meerapol has just written this memoir, "An Execution in the Family". And in it, he says he firmly believes that his mother was completely innocent of any of the charges brought against her.

And as for his father, whom he once believed was completely innocent in as well, he says this now...

MEERAPOL: The evidence points towards Julius Rosenberg being involved not in atomic espionage, but nevertheless, an espionage during World War II.

BROWN: But that evidence, says another author, can be read two ways. Julius Rosenberg, he says, was a very successful spy.

RON RADOSH, CO-AUTHOR, "THE ROSENBERG FILE": He stole major military and technological secrets for the Soviets that were of extreme importance and dangerous to our security including the first design of the American jet fighter that was used by the Russians for the MiGs, used in the Korean War. And they stole something called the "proximity fuse" that allowed a direct hit on airplanes and that the Russians used in the '50s on the eve of the Khruschev-Eisenhower Summit to shoot down the famed Gary Powers' U-2 plane.

BROWN: The conspiracy the Rosenbergs were convicted of centered around their enlistment of Ethel's brother, David Greenglass, to steal secrets from the Los Alamos weapons lab. The Rosenbergs were never charged with treason, and Robert Meerapol says more information is still out there, still available.

MEERAPOL: New evidence could come out. There's unreleased KGB files. Unreleased CIA files and FBI files. And my parents and a lot of the people who they were close to, and who were supposedly involved in this, were very young at the time. Some of them are still alive. We may yet hear from some of their contemporaries and this may tip the balance one way or another.

BROWN: Perhaps. But even those who believe in their guilt say they didn't have to die.

RADOSH: They could have cleared themselves by telling the truth and they didn't. They chose to be martyrs for the cause.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The Rosenberg case, a big news story 50 years ago tonight. We'll take a break and tell you what big news stories of tomorrow are. We'll check morning papers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: I don't get that whole Clay-Rubin thing. That's because I work at night, isn't it? This is work.

Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. Here we go. Are you ready? "The New York Times," a number of good stories. Got a great picture. We will get to that a second. "Hussein likely alive and in Iraq, U.S. experts say," citing intercepts. This one of those stories that will dominate the news cycle tomorrow. I don't know if you can get to that down at the bottom of the page. A terrific still, though -- well, of course it's a still. What would they do? Put a movie in "The New York Times"? They can't do that -- of the Israel settlers in the IDF battling out today. Pretty good picture in "The New York Times" if you can get that and everyone can and probably should.

"USA Today." "The Hulk" is their big story. That's what you'll be getting if you're on the road. You'll be begging for news but you'll be getting the hulk. I didn't mean that. I take that back. I guess a little late for that isn't it? "USA Today."

OK, the Detroit papers. Man, I don't get it. If it's not a car story in the Detroit papers, what is it? You're right, it's a police corruption story. "Seventeen officers named as rogues in indictment." And then a sidebar story. "Detroit polices robocop indicted". This is a guy who's had some problem with excessive violence, so it is said. And then over here, even another one of those. The Oakland County executive got stopped in a traffic mess, and he says, "I work hard and I have allowed myself to play hard." Yes! "I intend to play a hell of a lot less," he says. That's "The Free Press."

"Detroit News." Detroit indictments talked about that and a Fedorov. That's a hockey player. "I'm unemployed." He's unhappy. I'm not sure why that's a front page story. But it is Hockey Town, USA. The weather in tomorrow, in Chicago? No the weather tomorrow in Chicago is primo, according to "The Sun-Times".

And -- we out of time? We're out of time. That's it. We're all back tomorrow, or at least a lot of us are. Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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

Terrorists; Israeli Forces Dismantling Settlers' Homes in West Bank>

Aired June 19, 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.
When President Bush declared war on terrorism, he put the country on notice. The war would be won, he said, but it would be a shadow war, the battles fought in secrecy, some on American soil with details to follow security permitting, a trade off in other words between public safety and the public's right to know.

It sometimes hasn't been easy living with the bargain, in part it hinges on results and results are what the Justice Department is claiming tonight, which is where "The Whip" begins in Washington with CNN Justice Department Correspondent Kelli Arena, Kelli a headline please.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, he appeared to be a hardworking Ohio truck driver but the attorney general says that he lived a secret double life as an al Qaeda operative. The government strikes a deal and in turn gets more information in the hunt for terrorists inside the United States.

BROWN: Kelli, thank you, back to you at the top tonight.

Next, to the Middle East, a big step for Israeli, symbolically at least. CNN's Sheila MacVicar has the watch tonight so, Sheila, a headline from you.

SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: One Israeli Jewish hilltop settlement outpost, 700 police, 500 IDF soldiers, and after 12 hours the demolition of two tents and a couple of shacks -- Aaron.

BROWN: Sheila, thank you.

And, to St. Louis where Catholic bishops in the country are meeting, a lot on the agenda. CNN's Jason Carroll there for us tonight, Jason your headline.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And, Aaron, top on the agenda how well the bishops have been doing the past year to make the church a safer place for children. They say much has been done but they acknowledge more needs to be done to bring back those who have lost their faith -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jason, thank you, back to you and the rest shortly. Also coming up tonight, is the Bush administration cooking the books when it comes to global warming? We'll show you an EPA report that went from earth first to business friendly. Was it good policy or the worst sort of politics?

And, part two of our conversation with Walter Cronkite tonight, his take on the war with Iraq and the coverage of it. We'll also talk about the moment when he and television news and the entire country grew up all at once, his recollections on the assassination of President Kennedy.

And, the controversy that lives on 50 years to the day after Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were put to death as spies during an especially trying and terrifying moment in American history, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin in the present with a plea bargain agreed to last month by a truck driver from Ohio, a truck driver who was also a scout for al Qaeda. Just what he's saying we don't yet know but we already know his capture is shedding light on why certain New York City landmarks are under tighter security.

Here again, CNN's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA (voice-over): Officials say Iyman Faris surveilled the Brooklyn Bridge trying to figure out if its cables could be cut to bring it down. They say he was ordered to get the tools necessary to derail trains and that he conducted research on light aircraft to be used in possible terror attacks.

JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: From late 2000 to March of this year Faris worked in concert with al Qaeda, our enemies, to plot potential attacks against America and its citizens here in his adopted homeland.

ARENA: Faris, a commercial truck driver who lived in this apartment complex in Ohio pled guilty on May 1st to providing and conspiring to provide material support to al Qaeda.

Officials tell CNN that Faris actually turned himself in in March and was not formally arrested. The plea deal was kept secret until now.

ASHCROFT: I firmly believe that for us to have announced this case a day sooner would have carried with it the potential of impairing very important interests.

ARENA: According to government documents, Faris, a naturalized U.S. citizen, admitted to meeting with Osama bin Laden in late 2000. He also admitted to providing al Qaeda with material support including cash, sleeping bags, plane tickets, and cell phones, and he told investigators of a 2002 al Qaeda plot to simultaneously attack targets in Washington and New York, including the Brooklyn Bridge. RAY KELLY, COMMISSIONER, NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT: After carrying out that surveillance the plotters called off the operation due to the tight security on and around the bridge.

ARENA: The attorney general has said there are other plea deals under seal and sources tell CNN some of those involve individuals who, like Faris, were fingered as a result of the arrest of al Qaeda operations chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

ASHCROFT: We are in various stages of prosecution in various cases around the country.

ARENA: Faris and others are cooperating with the FBI as agents continue their hunt for al Qaeda operatives in the United States.

MATT LEVITT, FORMER FBI ANALYST: This arrest signifies that the government is on top of things. They're on the ball. They have prevented attacks.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: Now, the tactic of keeping Faris' detention and plea agreement secret has been used before, most often in organized crime cases. Prosecutors say in an effort to bring charges against top conspirators it's crucial to keep secret the fact that a lower level member has turned -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, just I may be a little confused on something. Did he turn himself in or was he given up by a senior al Qaeda operative?

ARENA: Well, the interrogation of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed led to a relative of Faris', a man named Majid Khan (ph) which then in turn led to Faris, but the word got out that the FBI was looking for this individual and he, according to our sources, presented himself to federal agents back in March.

Now, how he was kept in custody between March and May is unclear. We do know that he had access to his cell phones that he could keep in regular communication with people that he normally spoke to, to hide the fact that he was being detained.

BROWN: Got it, Kelli thank you, Kelli Arena in Washington tonight.

ARENA: You're welcome.

BROWN: There was a glimmer of hope today at a farmhouse near the Iraqi city of Tikrit that American forces were one step closer to catching Saddam Hussein but today, being like so many other days, the hope was soon overtaken by reality. No Saddam and another American casualty and, as always these days it seems, plenty of angry Iraqis.

Reporting for us tonight CNN's Ben Wedeman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In southern Baghdad another American soldier, a medic, killed by unknown attackers his ambulance hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, the third American soldier killed her in combat in the last three days.

The wounded were whisked away by helicopter, the chopper surrounded by troops to prevent another attack. Every day, several times a day, U.S. forces in Iraq now come under attack. Gunfire in the streets of Baghdad at a funeral, shots fired in anger towards the heavens this time.

There is no God but God and America is the enemy of God, mourners chant at the funeral for former Iraqi army officer Tariq Mohammed (ph) shot dead by an American soldier outside coalition headquarters in Baghdad.

Mohammed was one of two army officers killed in a demonstration Wednesday demanding that members of the disbanded Iraqi armed forces receive back pay and protesting the American mandated dissolution of the Iraqi army an incident the U.S. says was self defense.

Striking back, American forces continue to press ahead with Operation Desert Scorpion nabbing not only senior figures from the old regime but treasure as well.

On a farm outside Aljay (ph) the town where Saddam Hussein was born a major haul.

FIRST LT. CHRISTOPHER MORRIS, 4TH INFANTRY DIVISION: It's about four motivated guys and a mine detector. We went through the whole area. In that particular area we turned up five caches, two being $4 million a piece and then the other two containing the jewels and about $300,000 in American cash.

WEDEMAN: Also found a passport belonging to Saddam Hussein's wife Sajida.

(on camera): Daily attacks on U.S. forces, daily American casualties, steadily mounting Iraq anger and frustration it all adds up to a far more complicated and dangerous scenario than anyone ever expected for the new post-Saddam Iraq.

Ben Wedeman, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Next to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and two items of note tonight. The first is one we've become accustomed to seeing, a suicide bombing. It happened at a grocery store in an Israeli village that borders the West Bank. The grocer was killed, Islamic Jihad taking responsibility for the attack.

Today's other development looked familiar also, Israeli forces dismantling homes in the West Bank but these were Israeli homes, here again CNN's Sheila MacVicar.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MACVICAR (voice-over): This is one of the victories the Israeli army had today, holding back hundreds of Jewish settlers long enough to tear down a ramshackle shed.

On a windy West Bank hilltop dozens of Israeli soldiers and police struggled for hours to demolish the illegal settlement outpost of Yitzar (ph). As the tents came down they fought over cupboards and (unintelligible) and parts of a tarpaulin.

(on camera): This outpost is one of 62 that the Israeli activist group Peace Now that monitors settlement activity says is illegal and is built since the intafada began in the fall of 2000. It's one of 12 that the prime minister had said must go, an idea of how difficult and what a long, hot summer it's going to be here.

(voice-over): The settlers say they are determined to make it as difficult as they can for Prime Minister Sharon to implement this small part of President Bush's roadmap. The prime minister was considered a friend and a supporter, not now.

ADI MEANS, SETTLERS COUNCIL MEMBER: He is taking Israel to dangerous places and if he will keep going in the old (unintelligible) this will -- we will arise to destroy all the state of Israel.

MACVICAR: There were no guns today but force and the strength of numbers. Dozens were hurt including soldiers. The settler say as soon as the soldiers leave here they will be back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They leave. We'll put it up again. They take it down. We'll put it up again. And not only there but for every one they take down we'll put up ten.

MACVICAR: The settlers believe this is their land given to them by God. No one, they say, has the right to take it from them. The Palestinians and the international community say the settlements and their outposts sit on illegally occupied land and if there is to be peace between Israelis and Palestinians much more than a dozen outposts of tents and shacks will have to go. If it is hard now, it could get much, much harder and what Prime Minister Sharon needs is an agreement with the settlers not a struggle for every carpet.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACVICAR: Aaron, we know now that it took the IDF and the Israeli police, 1,200 of them in total, 12 hours to dismantle that ramshackle collection of sheds and tents. We're told that the Israeli army remains there tonight and any glimpse of what may come in the future the settler movement says that every time they attempt to dismantle one of these outposts they will be there again in numbers and they are promising more confrontation -- Aaron.

BROWN: And Israeli public opinion generally supportive of the settlers or supportive of the government's effort to dismantle them?

MACVICAR: This is a very good question. At the moment, there has been an increase in support for the settler movement over the course of the last year or 18 months but the majority of Israelis still do not believe that the settlers should represent an obstacle to peace. The question of course is really whether or not Israelis believe there can be a peace agreement, a workable peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians.

You can look at what happened yesterday, as the settlers charge, as a kind of gift if you will for Secretary of State Colin Powell who is due here in just a couple of hours, a demonstration on the part of Prime Minister Sharon that, look, I'm doing what you asked. Look at how hard it is for us and basically perhaps also an attempt to buy a little more time.

But, Aaron, if you think about all those hilltops out there just in the West Bank that are dotted with settlements this could be a very long and difficult process.

BROWN: Sheila, thank you very much, Sheila MacVicar tonight.

As NEWSNIGHT continues more trouble in the Catholic priesthood just as American bishops gather to talk about progress in their dealings with sexual abuse in the ranks.

And later, more of our conversation with Walter Cronkite, his thoughts about the war in Iraq, the coverage of the war and the assassination of President Kennedy so long ago.

We take a break. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's been a year since the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops met in Dallas to confront the sex abuse scandals that were raging. A year ago the pressure on the leaders of the church was enormous and the reforms they passed were sweeping. A year later as they gather in St. Louis, there are questions about whether the bishops are living up to the bargain or simply trying to avoid it.

Here's CNN's Jason Carroll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL (voice-over): The bishops' goal here evaluate progress made in dealing with priests accused of sexual abuse, their early verdict the church is a better place now than it was one year ago.

WILTON GREGORY, PRESIDENT, U.S. CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS: We have in place the means to assure our people that their children are safe from abuse by clergy.

CARROLL: In attendance Boston's former Cardinal Bernard Law who resigned after church documents showed he protected abusive priests.

Can we just get your opinion on how things are progressing so far? Thanks a lot. We'll see you. Law didn't want to talk about progress or anything else but Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony did. Mahoney says church leaders have not been slow to cooperate with a survey on the scope of abuse but the man who was leading the church's National Review Board, former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating resigned this week after comparing the cardinal, whom he never met, and other bishops to the Mafia for their stonewalling.

CARDINAL ROGER MAHONY, LOS ANGELES: We're not dragging our feet. We're trying to get this resolved ourselves. We don't want this going on forever.

CARROLL: Shortly after our interview two Los Angeles priests, the tenth and eleventh to date were arrested for sexual abuse in California. On Saturday the archbishop from Minneapolis-St. Paul will report on how well the church's 195 diocese are following the tough new policies for problem priests.

ARCHBISHOP HARRY FLYNN, MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL: There's been an enormous amount of cooperation on the part of the bishops. There's been an enormous amount of openness on the part of the bishops.

CARROLL: But not enough according to victims like Chris Dixon.

CHRIS DIXON, PRIEST ABUSE VICTIM: I feel disappointed because I think some of the bishops are still being so protective of themselves, their priests, that victims are still being victimized.

CARROLL: And Dixon, who had become a priest himself, quit when he says he could no longer suppress the pain of his past. Dixon says one of the priests that abused him in high school later became a bishop in Florida. Anthony O'Connell resigned last year after admitting to abusing Dixon in the 1970s. The church paid Dixon a settlement and when bishops promised last year to reach out to victims Dixon hoped that would include him.

DIXON: They haven't reached out to me. They say that their first priority is to reach out to victims. Here I am. I'm waiting.

CARROLL: The bishops here say give them more time to do what's right.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: And, church leaders say they acknowledge that the church does have a credibility problem with certain lay people but they also say that they're confident that the good work of some bishops and priests out there will help alleviate some of the damage that has been done -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jason, thank you, Jason Carroll in St. Louis.

We'll talk a little bit more about this tonight. We're joined by a member of the Catholic Church Lay Review Board, the board that was set up a year ago in Dallas. Bob Bennett, prominent Washington, D.C. lawyer is on the board, Mr. Bennett with us tonight. It's nice to see you, sir.

Which is it have bishops been enormously cooperative, as one put it, or have they been a little slow at least in some parts of the country to cooperate at all?

ROBERT BENNETT, ATTORNEY: Well, I think it's a mixed bag. I think thus far it appears that most of the bishops are committed to the charter and are committed to cooperating with the board. Some are not but before we pass judgment on that we have to wait and see what returns we get from our various surveys.

But I certainly think based on my meetings here and in St. Louis that the overwhelming number of bishops are committed to cooperating with us but we, you know, we have to wait and see what the final result is.

BROWN: Mr. Bennett, is it fair to say that ultimately it's not your board that really can apply pressure on the bishops who have been a bit slow to cooperate that it has to come from a sort of broad cross-section of the Catholic community?

BENNETT: I think the only way you're going to get a recalcitrant of bishops to cooperate is fellow bishops pressuring that bishop and reminding him that all of them are paying an enormous price by their not cooperating.

Also, it should be absolutely clear to all the bishops that the National Review Board is very strong on this. You know, our goal here is to protect children and young people and we will identify and name those bishops who at the end of the day are not cooperative with us.

BROWN: And then will there still be a review board after you're done doing that?

BENNETT: It's my understanding that it is the intention of the conference to have this review board in existence for many years. That's my understanding.

BROWN: Mr. Bennett, what do you hope will come out of these meetings in St. Louis on this particular issue?

BENNETT: Well, I'm rather pleased based on my meetings with the bishops today. We met with about 300 of them and it was absolutely clear that the overwhelming number of them are absolutely committed to the work of the board and they have assured us of their cooperation.

Several of the dioceses in California were not in our view cooperating but Cardinal Mahony personally committed to me and they publicly committed to their fellow bishops today that they would be cooperating with our survey. So, we're grateful for that and that's going to help us towards our goal of protecting children.

BROWN: Those bishops who express concerns, there are a couple of surveys out there that have to do with the extent of abuse of minors by the clergy, their concerns are what? BENNETT: Well, I think they run the gamut. I mean I think they are concerned about protecting identities of priests of creating fodder for more and future lawsuits and there's a whole variety of reasons, some are reasonable and others are not reasonable but we are not going to, as a board we are not going to accept any of those reasons.

We are requiring a full and complete response to our questions because that's the only way we can protect children. We can't make them do it and if some bishop doesn't do it, all we have is the bully pulpit but that bishop should clearly understand we will identify him and make it clear that he is not honoring the charter which he was one member of passing.

But, again, I want to say that based on my presence here in St. Louis at these meetings the overwhelming number of bishops were very strong behind the charter and the work of the board.

BROWN: Just very briefly are children safer today than they were a year ago in the Catholic Church?

BENNETT: I think clearly they are safer today than they were a year ago because of zero tolerance, because of the requirement of reporting to authorities, and because this scandal is out in the open and you now have a review board which is very active. You know we have probably spent in the past year thousands of hours literally in working on these issues.

We will be sending, starting June 23rd just a few days from now, we will be sending out audit teams to each of the diocese, very experienced auditors most of whom were former law enforcement auditors to see to it that each of the diocese has lived up to the charter.

BROWN: Mr. Bennett.

BENNETT: So, clearly children are a lot safer today but I'm not saying they're all safe and totally safe. We've got a lot more work to do.

BROWN: Mr. Bennett, thank you for joining us tonight. It will be an interesting couple of days in St. Louis for you and everyone. Thank you, sir, very much.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, is the environment in trouble or not?

And, questions about whether the Bush administration is trying to downplay the dangers of global warming.

A break first, around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Once upon a time a scientist named Galileo said the earth was round and the political leaders of the time said no, no, Galileo it's flat, and Galileo got life under house arrest for his little theory. Today, the vast majority of scientists will tell you the earth is getting warmer and most would agree that industry is at least in part to blame.

So far nobody has gone to jail for saying that, which doesn't mean the idea isn't squarely at the center of a political dust-up, and not an insignificant one at that because if the charges leveled against the White House are true, an important environmental question is being twisted or ignored for the sake of politics.

Here's CNN's Chris Burns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS BURNS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a battle long fought between the Bush administration and environmentalists over the dangers of global warming and the greenhouse emissions linked to it.

The White House acknowledges it has revisions in a report to be released Monday by the Environmental Protection Agency. Leaks to the media they're revisions that critics say downplay the threat to humans as well as the ecology.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I see it as an inexcusable case of the Bush administration censoring the truth and sound science about global warming in order to benefit their political friends in the oil and coal industries.

BURNS: Initial documents show one section of the report reads, "climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment." A subsequent draft of that passage reads, "The complexity of the Earth system and the interconnections among its components make it a scientific challenge to document change, and diagnose its causes."

(on camera): Secretary, this report, was a doctored?

WHITMAN: Not at all. Not doctored. It represents the way any report comes out, which is you have your best science, you have your best research.

BURNS (voice-over): Including studies that the Bush administration says conflict over the causes and effects of global warming. But the Democrats are on the attack. Senator and presidential hopeful Joseph Lieberman has demanded that the president release the entire original reports. Environmentalists were outraged two years ago when President Bush quit the U.N.'s Kyoto treaty on fighting climate change. The president called Kyoto...

BUSH: Fatally flawed.

BURNS: He argued it's a job killer because it would require deep cuts in industrial emissions and that China and India were unfairly exempted.

(on camera): The Bush administration insists its serious about climate change, that it signed up dozens of leading companies to a voluntary program aimed at cutting greenhouse emissions 18 percent over the next ten years. Environmentalists say, that's not nearly enough.

Chris Burns, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up, our conversation with Walter Cronkite, part two. We get his thoughts on the coverage of the war in Iraq and the Kennedy assassination too. A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT, Walter Cronkite on the war in Iraq. A break first, be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: When you sit down to talk with Walter Cronkite, it's not hard to figure out where to stop. Stopping is another matter. So when we sat down with Mr. Cronkite yesterday, no notes, no agenda, just a conversation. Well let's just say we went a little past the wrap queues from the control room.

So tonight, another part of the conversation on subjects including the war in Iraq and the Kennedy assassination.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: What did you think of both technologically and journalistically how the war was covered?

WALTER CRONKITE, FORMER CBS ANCHOR: The war was covered? I thought that technically, it was -- it was grand. I mean, incredible. Absolutely incredible.

I have long believed we would never have live coverage of war the battlefield because I had never realized that they could -- somehow or rather send up a satellite signal that could not be intercepted. And I assumed you could not possibly send up a picture of a scene behind your lines when the opposing general sits in a blockhouse three miles away, looking at the same picture. You couldn't reeled that thing to them. It would be incredible.

But obviously they beat that problem. And I think that journalistically, where the embedded correspondent -- I hate that word, it sounds too much like in bed with, which I hope it wasn't in most cases -- but any rate, where the correspondent had a story, it was pretty good.

The trouble was that many of the correspondents, of course, found themselves with units that weren't doing anything. And yet the networks had put all of money in having them there, and they had a satellite available so the networks went to them, including CNN, went to them and they didn't have anything to say, really, basically. So it was kind of a wasted report.

Where they had something to say, it was quite valuable reporting. And the important thing about the embedded correspondent tactic was the fact that the military let us be there at all after Persian War I. In that war, as you know, we had no coverage whatsoever. This -- this nation of ours, our people, our history was denied the facts about the Persian Gulf War I. We don't know now today what really happened as the troops progressed around the desert.

There were no reporters with them except those reporters who were assigned by the military. I mean a the soldier reporters reporting for history. And that history of course is obviously somewhat unbalanced. It's a version that the military wanted of what we did in that war.

What we didn't -- my gosh, of all of the important -- important events of our time, when the president orders the American boys and girls into action somewhere, there's no more serious time for us to be shut out of all information. We're not only entitled to know what our boys and girls do in our name, it's our duty to what boys and girls are doing in our name in case of what they are doing in our name is not what we want them to do. We should have a voice in them.

BROWN: In moments like that, when the nation's at war, on the 9/11s, on those days of enormous journalistic and national importance, do you wish you were still sitting in the chair?

CRONKITE: Always. It doesn't take even a big story like that. Daily, I miss not being on the air, but I miss the managing editor role of helping set the agenda, if you please. Deciding what is the more important story that what is the story most likely to affect our viewing audience, the American people in our case. This is the highest journalistic calling. And I miss it.

BROWN: I don't think I've ever asked you this.

CRONKITE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) too polite.

BROWN: Sometimes.

CRONKITE: If so, don't ask it now.

BROWN: Sometimes I am too polite.

It's been a generation since you sat in the chair every night. And still today both to people who do this work, but to viewers you are the standard. Why is that? What was it about Cronkite that separated him from Huntley or separated him from...

CRONKITE: It wasn't Cronkite, it was the CBS News team, CBS News ethic, the CBS News, if I may please, superiority of correspondent core. The core that originally Ed Murrow put together in World War II and that carried in the peace afterwards, where I was lucky enough to be the front man.

I did have -- and I do have, and I'm very proud, I think I have a very keenly developed journalistic ethic. I had very good mentors, beginning in high school. I was lucky enough to be in high school, which at an early age when most high schools didn't have journalism teachers or journalism courses, I had an old city editor from a local paper who donated his time to teach us journalism.

And he was -- he had journalism in his gut. And he just was so firm on honesty, impartiality, lack of prejudice and accuracy. It was embedded in me. And I was lucky enough in my college and then in my very early jobs to have that kind of a mentor.

And I think -- I'm not saying that I'm that different from others. I think there are many of us who have that. But I'm one of them. And it was just a point of pride to me every night that we did our job, adhering to the finest principles of ethical journalism.

BROWN: Let me ask one more question on this. With due respect to your colleagues at CBS who were remarkable journalists, how important do you think it was that you were in the chair when President Kennedy was assassinated, in terms of how people from that point on viewed you as the anchorman? That day...

CRONKITE: Well, I suppose it's a moment clearly when you're reaching directly into their hearts. We are all suffering the same emotional reaction to a tragedy. The tragedy that affected people whether they were Republicans or Democrats, whether liberals or conservatives. It was the youth of the president and being denied his future. And our future with him, whether you agree with his particular policies or not.

This was a moment of high emotion. And I was sharing it with them. I don't know why this would seem to apply to me more than to the people on the air at NBC and ABC at the time. I don't know because I don't know what they did. I have no idea what was on over there. They may have been that they shifted back and forth to people where I stayed at the desk the entire day and night and for three days and three nights with various, very little relief.

And that might have -- I don't know. I really don't know. It may have been the moment when I just seemed to lose it there for a second when I had to announce that the president was dead. And it was certainly not, you know a long delay in the broadcast. It was just a momentary thing where my voice caught...

BROWN: You take your glasses off. You take your glasses off and you take a tear from your eye.

CRONKITE: Yes, right.

BROWN: And do you -- are you embarrassed by that moment? Do you regret that moment?

CRONKITE: No, not at all. Not at all. And I don't criticize any reporter for showing that he or she is human. I that deny that is almost the mistake to suggest that we are so hardened at our work that we don't react like our viewers do. I don't find that despicable at all or in any way damaging to our pose of impartiality and that sort of thing.

BROWN: I know you have a busy summer. And you know how much I look forward to these conversations. Thanks for some time today. CRONKITE: You bet. Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you.

CRONKITE: Good to be with you. I am a great admirer of your broadcast.

BROWN: You're a very kind man. Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A guy named Cronkite. It's good to have him here.

Ahead on "Segment 7", America's most infamous traders, or were they? The story of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg on the 50th anniversary of their execution here in New York. Take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It was a muggy evening 50 years ago tonight, 8:00 p.m. Eastern daylight time, June the 19th, 1953. The two admitted members of the American Communist Party, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed. They went to their deaths at the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison in New York, for conspiring to spy for the Soviet Union. And ever since, there has been a persistent debate about their crime and their punishment.

Here in New York City tonight, one of their sons is leading what he calls a public commemoration of what happened, an event that seems is still fresh in the minds of those who lived it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Robert Meerapol will not give up. He continues to try to prove to himself and to the country that his parents did not deserve to die 50 years ago for conspiring to pass America's atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.

ROBERT MEERAPOL, AUTHOR, "AN EXECUTION IN THE FAMILY": They were actually charged with conspiracy to commit espionage. They weren't even executed for spying but -- so they were executed for conspiracy.

BROWN: Robert was 6-years-old, his about brother Michael 10 when their parents Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were electrocuted in the New York's Sing Sing Prison. They were adopted by a couple sympathetic to their parents, their names changed.

MEERAPOL: I'm quite certain they didn't do the thing they were killed for.

BROWN: Meerapol has just written this memoir, "An Execution in the Family". And in it, he says he firmly believes that his mother was completely innocent of any of the charges brought against her.

And as for his father, whom he once believed was completely innocent in as well, he says this now...

MEERAPOL: The evidence points towards Julius Rosenberg being involved not in atomic espionage, but nevertheless, an espionage during World War II.

BROWN: But that evidence, says another author, can be read two ways. Julius Rosenberg, he says, was a very successful spy.

RON RADOSH, CO-AUTHOR, "THE ROSENBERG FILE": He stole major military and technological secrets for the Soviets that were of extreme importance and dangerous to our security including the first design of the American jet fighter that was used by the Russians for the MiGs, used in the Korean War. And they stole something called the "proximity fuse" that allowed a direct hit on airplanes and that the Russians used in the '50s on the eve of the Khruschev-Eisenhower Summit to shoot down the famed Gary Powers' U-2 plane.

BROWN: The conspiracy the Rosenbergs were convicted of centered around their enlistment of Ethel's brother, David Greenglass, to steal secrets from the Los Alamos weapons lab. The Rosenbergs were never charged with treason, and Robert Meerapol says more information is still out there, still available.

MEERAPOL: New evidence could come out. There's unreleased KGB files. Unreleased CIA files and FBI files. And my parents and a lot of the people who they were close to, and who were supposedly involved in this, were very young at the time. Some of them are still alive. We may yet hear from some of their contemporaries and this may tip the balance one way or another.

BROWN: Perhaps. But even those who believe in their guilt say they didn't have to die.

RADOSH: They could have cleared themselves by telling the truth and they didn't. They chose to be martyrs for the cause.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The Rosenberg case, a big news story 50 years ago tonight. We'll take a break and tell you what big news stories of tomorrow are. We'll check morning papers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: I don't get that whole Clay-Rubin thing. That's because I work at night, isn't it? This is work.

Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. Here we go. Are you ready? "The New York Times," a number of good stories. Got a great picture. We will get to that a second. "Hussein likely alive and in Iraq, U.S. experts say," citing intercepts. This one of those stories that will dominate the news cycle tomorrow. I don't know if you can get to that down at the bottom of the page. A terrific still, though -- well, of course it's a still. What would they do? Put a movie in "The New York Times"? They can't do that -- of the Israel settlers in the IDF battling out today. Pretty good picture in "The New York Times" if you can get that and everyone can and probably should.

"USA Today." "The Hulk" is their big story. That's what you'll be getting if you're on the road. You'll be begging for news but you'll be getting the hulk. I didn't mean that. I take that back. I guess a little late for that isn't it? "USA Today."

OK, the Detroit papers. Man, I don't get it. If it's not a car story in the Detroit papers, what is it? You're right, it's a police corruption story. "Seventeen officers named as rogues in indictment." And then a sidebar story. "Detroit polices robocop indicted". This is a guy who's had some problem with excessive violence, so it is said. And then over here, even another one of those. The Oakland County executive got stopped in a traffic mess, and he says, "I work hard and I have allowed myself to play hard." Yes! "I intend to play a hell of a lot less," he says. That's "The Free Press."

"Detroit News." Detroit indictments talked about that and a Fedorov. That's a hockey player. "I'm unemployed." He's unhappy. I'm not sure why that's a front page story. But it is Hockey Town, USA. The weather in tomorrow, in Chicago? No the weather tomorrow in Chicago is primo, according to "The Sun-Times".

And -- we out of time? We're out of time. That's it. We're all back tomorrow, or at least a lot of us are. Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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