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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Smoking Gun Found in Columbia Accident Investigation
Aired July 07, 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.
In a strange way it seemed we knew all along what brought the shuttle down even before the long and careful investigation between the string of tests. In our heart, we knew that moments after the shuttle was launched it was doomed. What most of us didn't understand is how something that was always described as foam could cause enough damage to cause the tragedy. Even looking at the early tests it didn't seem to make sense.
Today, it makes perfect sense and it leads "The Whip" with what one investigator is calling the smoking guns, Miles O'Brien of course, Miles the headline.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, that investigative team promised all along that it would be very difficult to come up with a smoking gun but, as you'll see with those pictures in just a few moments, today they got precisely just that a smoking gun.
BROWN: Miles, thank you, we'll get to you at the top tonight.
On to Liberia where a U.S. military team has arrived and the president continues to weigh in on whether to send more American troops. Brent Sadler is in the capital, Brent a headline.
BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Aaron. Yes, the U.S. military took its first tentative steps to help Liberia earlier today, not peacekeepers on the ground yet but a team of specialists here to assess this nation's dire humanitarian needs perhaps a forerunner to even greater U.S. involvement here.
BROWN: Brent, thank you.
And now to the arrest of three teenagers armed and, according to police, about to begin a murder spree. Deborah Feyerick is on that story from the Philadelphia suburb of Oaklyn, New Jersey, Deborah a headline.
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, they had rifles, shotguns, 2,000 rounds of ammunition and the police say they averted another Columbine, that the family of one of the teens paints a picture of a troubled boy.
BROWN: Deborah, thank you, back to you and the rest shortly. Also coming up tonight on this Monday, we'll look at two very deadly days for U.S. troops in Iraq and CNN's Jane Arraf gives us a sense of what it's really like for these young Americans on the ground in Baghdad, the spot decisions they have to make that could make the difference between life and death for them and the Iraqis they are trying to help.
And, a look at comments today from President Bush on making changes to the Head Start Program. The president says he wants to see better management to better help poor children. Critics, however, see a veiled threat.
We'll, of course, have our nightly worldwide exclusive not to be seen anywhere, anytime, anyplace, from anybody but us, our look at tomorrow morning's papers tonight.
And also tonight, someone who has a knack of finding a fascinating tale wherever he goes, Sebastian Younger just back from Liberia.
Jeffrey Toobin on the scandal at the San Francisco Police Department known as Fajita Gate and, we'll remember a beloved hillbilly actor Buddy Ebsen, all of that and more in the hour to come.
We begin with the Shuttle Columbia story and a moment today that brought to mind one about 15 years ago in the investigation into the Shuttle Challenger disaster, the smoking gun moment when everyone knew what had caused the explosion, when an investigator dunked a shuttle "O" ring into a glass of ice water; today, a similar moment in the investigation into the breakup of Columbia; once again CNN's Miles O'Brien.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN (voice-over): It struck like a thunderbolt and left behind a gaping hole and some slack in jaws.
SCOTT HUBBARD, COLUMBIA ACCIDENT BOARD MEMBER: What we got was something completely unexpected.
O'BRIEN: In a test that crash investigators say faithfully recreated what happened to the Space Shuttle Columbia 82 seconds after launch, the team looking into the cause of the orbiter's demise hit pay dirt.
HUBBARD: I believe that we have found the smoking gun. I believe that we've established that the foam block fell off of the external tank was in fact the most probable cause, the direct cause of the Columbia accident.
O'BRIEN: The insulating foam fell off Columbia's external fuel tank and struck the leading edge of her left wing at a relative speed of 500 miles an hour. NASA's shuttle team knew about the foam strike shortly after launch but presumed the light material could not pierce the tough carbon panels that protect the wings. But take a look at this view, captured during the test by a camera mounted inside the wing mock-up. It's clear proof Columbia flew more than two weeks with a huge hole in its wing.
HUBBARD: I felt surprise at how it appeared, such a dramatic punch through, but it is the kind of damage, the type of damage that must have occurred to bring down the orbiter.
O'BRIEN: A hole like this, 16 inches across, would have allowed 3,000 degree plasma to blowtorch the aluminum structure of the wing during reentry. Investigators believe the hole on Columbia's wing might have been a little smaller, perhaps ten inches in diameter but they still say this test leaves little room for doubt Columbia and her crew of seven were doomed one minute and 22 seconds into their mission.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: The Columbia Accident Investigation Board is recommending future shuttle crews are trained and equipped to conduct repairs to the shuttle on orbit but fixing a hole that size in orbit might be an insurmountable task. The board is also recommending, and NASA has already agreed to do this, to use spy observatories to take pictures of orbiters in flight.
NASA managers rejected suggestions from lower level engineers to use these secret eyes in the sky to photograph Columbia. They said it wouldn't show anything but a hole this size might very well have been detectable - Aaron.
BROWN: With all the sensors that are on these - on the shuttle, they seem to know everything about sort of what that aircraft is going through, that spacecraft is going through. Why wouldn't it pick up the fact there was a huge hole in the wing?
O'BRIEN: You would think they'd have a sensor for just that but, you know, as many sensors as they have you're talking about something with a million parts. You can't have a sensor for everything and so each and every one of those pieces of carbon was not set up to tell the crew that it was missing.
BROWN: Miles, thank you, and hang around. In about 30 minutes, NASA plans to launch the second of a pair of spacecraft bound for Mars, the Mars rover named Opportunity set to go at 10:35:23 as I recall. Miles will be around and if it's on time we'll cover it for you right here.
On now to Iraq where there was grim proof today of what an army commander of the allied forces in Iraq admitted last week that "we're still at war." Three U.S. troops have been killed in and around Baghdad since yesterday.
A bomb early today killed one soldier traveling in an Army convoy. A second American was shot to death Sunday during a gun battle and another was shot and killed early Sunday while drinking a soda at Baghdad University. That makes 30 Americans killed by hostile fire since May the 1st when the president declared major combat over in Iraq.
They are the facts, the terrible ones, that show the latest violence in Iraq but they don't always tell the overall story of what life is like for the American troops on the ground. There are growing reports of low morale.
There's an increased sense that the Americans face far more than some small time hit-and-miss operation but rather they are facing the beginning of a guerrilla war. For the soldiers on patrol these are difficult and stressful days.
Here's CNN's Jane Arraf.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): To a young American soldier this is what Baghdad looks and feels like at night.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You like go crazy and stuff, so many people around just calling your name. (Unintelligible) like the movies, you know.
ARRAF: They have night scopes to help them see in the dark but seeing isn't everything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's going to pull up to the right. Stop the engine. Turn off the lights. Just listen to (unintelligible).
ARRAF: On one street exuberant children on another gunfire, they don't know whether it's aimed at thieves or at them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just tell them to make sure that it's - don't shoot at American soldiers, right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, sorry, OK.
ARRAF: In Baghdad now, even many of the people with weapons are afraid, afraid of the soldiers but too afraid of the night to give up their weapons.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was about ten seconds away from getting shot.
ARRAF: The soldiers, mostly young and all very far from home are afraid too.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you get a call that there's a burning building that might be a Fedayeen ambush. No matter what they just, you know, those people just hate Americans.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes they don't give a (expletive).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They want to have, you know, just they don't want Americans around so, you know, what do you do?
ARRAF: What they do is try to protect themselves without antagonizing the neighborhood.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello.
ARRAF (on camera): And these Baghdad streets at night you just don't know what you're going to find. It could be kids wanting to say hello or it could be guns around the corner.
(voice-over): Even with their half million dollar thermal imaging that lets them spot people from miles away they're still vulnerable.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Night vision is good but only to a point.
ARRAF: They try to get to know the neighborhoods but with the culture and language barrier they miss an awful lot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I just wanted to see if he was OK.
ARRAF: They assume Abdul Afour (ph) is drunk but he's not drunk. He's alone. His friends say his mother, his brother, his nephew, and two uncles were killed by helicopter fire during the battle for Baghdad. He says it's true.
"I would prefer Saddam Hussein over this kind of life" he tells us.
The soldiers would much prefer not to be here. They continue to patrol.
Jane Arraf, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Other news today, U.S. troops of course dodging bullets and building nations in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the question now are they headed to Liberia next?
You may not know much about Liberia and the more you learn the more concerned you might be about the fate of U.S. troops. It would be heartless not to recognize the Liberian desperation and mindless not to see the extreme danger in getting involved.
President Bush is considering whether to send Americans to help end the civil war there just as he begins his trip to Africa, and today an American military team began assessing just how much help Liberia needs.
Here's CNN's Brent Sadler.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SADLER (voice-over): The United States answers the call for help. U.S. military personnel touched down in Monrovia at the start of a fact-finding mission, not a peacekeeping mission but an effort to scope out Liberia's humanitarian crisis. A low-key start to operations here coincides with intense U.S. pressure on Liberia's President Charles Taylor to leave office but Mr. Taylor is still here accepting an offer of asylum in Nigeria but refusing to actually quit unless peacekeepers are on the streets of Monrovia.
The war-ravaged and impoverished capital of this ruined nation is at peace for now. Rebel forces besieging Mr. Taylor's stronghold have honored a ceasefire and held off storming the city center and Liberians are now hoping there's a chance the United States will soon commit troops to help stabilize their country. Refugees spell it out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Be there as police between the two or the three fighting forces in Liberia so that they will stop the people from fighting.
SADLER: But that's precisely what U.S. officials say they hope to avoid. The capital is full of homeless victims of conflict in desperate need.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need America's help. We want Americans to come to our aid.
SADLER: And U.S. aid may be on the way for people in desperate need of help.
JOHN BLANEY, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO LIBERIA: There are about one million people currently in deep trouble because of the war either in the sense of not having enough to eat and not enough medicine, no place to live. We have people living in the stadium down here downtown and that's, of course, a breeding ground for diseases.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SADLER: Assessing the dire needs of this country in chaos is in itself no easy mission but the task of laying the groundwork perhaps for wider U.S. involvement has clearly begun and most Liberians we've spoken to on the streets of the capital here say they desperately want to see U.S. engagement and soon - Aaron.
BROWN: Just quickly is the situation so chaotic that international relief agencies, non-government organizations, essentially cannot function?
SADLER: That's absolutely right, Aaron. I'll give you an example. The British Embassy closed its doors here back in 1991. The U.S. Embassy is here with a skeleton staff, very well protected, but NGOs are virtually non-existent, perhaps a handful of international staff working in this country relying on a very think network of field workers throughout the country. It is really, really very much a blind situation as far as what's going on in this country as a whole.
BROWN: Brent, thank you very much, Brent Sadler in Liberia tonight.
It's fair to say the president's interest in that country has been a bit of a surprise but then so was his support for more funding to fight AIDS in Africa. Some say it is the influence of African- Americans in his cabinet. Others say he's trying to emphasize the compassionate part of compassionate conservative. Still others say he's trying to show the world he's not some go-it- alone cowboy.
We'll probably never know all the factors at play, what's in the president's mind, but we do know it's made for quite a backdrop for Mr. Bush's trip to Africa this week.
Here's our Senior White House Correspondent John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An Africa trip postponed because of the looming war in Iraq is now overshadowed somewhat by efforts to end one of the continent's all too common civil wars.
The president will visit five countries in five days, Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Uganda, and Nigeria. Visiting a slave house in Senegal will open the trip with a haunting reminder.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Slavery was, of course, America's birth defect.
KING: The president is promising to help end the civil war in Liberia and this new effort in western Africa fits with his overriding theme for the trip.
SUSAN RICE, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: When you have this broad swath of conflict and failed states you have the opportunity that has already been exploited by al Qaeda to take precious minerals out of those countries and use them to finance the terrorist operations and terrorist organizations.
KING: But as Mr. Bush promises help there are many skeptics. The president, for example, talks of an unprecedented $15 billion U.S. commitment to fight HIV/AIDS and billions more in aid to African nations that prove their commitment to political and economic reforms but Congress has yet to approve the funding.
SALIH BOOKER, AFRICA ACTION: If these are revealed to be broken promises, then he risks being seen as really callous, as manipulating African suffering for political gain.
KING: Africa's elder statesman is missing from the president's agenda because the White House made clear it did not want to meet him. Nelson Mandela is a harsh Bush critic on the Iraq war and other issues and he decided to travel outside South Africa while Mr. Bush is in Pretoria.
BOOKER: George Bush should be honored to have an audience with Nelson Mandela but he didn't even request an appointment.
KING: The major goal of the Bush trip is to focus on the continent's economic progress and potential.
RICE: We get 16 percent of our imported oil from Africa. That's going to go up to 20 percent in the next ten years.
(on camera): The president says by the end of his trip, his commitment to Africa will no longer be in doubt. The immediate test comes in Liberia, a country that was hardly a major White House concern back when this trip was first put together.
John King, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Good pie party to report tonight, one that included singer Wayne Newton and the actor Robert DeNiro along with hundreds of troops from the U.S. Central Command. They were all there to honor the man who ran the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, General Tommy Franks who is retiring.
The general was true to character, offering up blunt assessments, a dry wit, and unwavering support for his commander-in-chief, more on the general's goodbye, and the man taking his place, from Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a classic goodbye from an old soldier.
GEN. TOMMY FRANKS, OUTGOING CENTCOM COMMANDER: Twenty-two months ago the United States of America, in fact the free world, looked into the face of evil. We came on that day to recognize our vulnerability and the world came to recognize America with attitude.
STARR: Tommy Franks bidding farewell to the troops but his heart still in the fight.
FRANKS: As President Bush said recently bring it on. That's been the attitude of this command, of this country, of the members of this powerful coalition for some 22 months and we'll still stand and we'll still say it. Rough road behind, rough road ahead, bring it on.
STARR: In Afghanistan, the Taliban have been overthrown. Al Qaeda is on the run, in Iraq, Saddam Hussein no longer in power. But, Franks awarded the Purple Heart three times for being wounded in Vietnam, leaves with a truly difficult road ahead. Some 30 troops killed by hostile fire in Iraq since major combat ended, the U.S. increasingly convinced Saddam is alive, and loyalists believe he will return.
Still no weapons of mass destruction found and Osama bin Laden still at large, al Qaeda launching more attacks, all the challenge for Frank's successor General John Abizaid.
Abizaid's command not expected to lead to policy changes but the two men could not be more different, Abizaid fluent in Arabic, an expert in regional affairs, Tommy Franks always the front line soldier.
MICHAEL O'HANLON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: He's the kind of guy you imagine throwing horseshoes in a southern state in his spare time or telling old stories with comrades or chomping on cigars.
FRANKS: Today is the day that I make myself an honest man, having told my wife 34 years ago that I was going to leave the United States Army. Today, I'm an honest man.
STARR: A long career, a final tour of duty at an extraordinary time that no one, even Tommy Franks, ever expected.
Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Before the president left today for his trip to Africa there was one domestic item on the agenda, the Head Start preschool program. The president says he wants to improve Head Start. Critics say it's really a plan to cut funding for the program.
Here's NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): During a visit to a Head Start center in Landover, Maryland, the president called for improvements in the widely-praised preschool program.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Even though most children in Head Start make some educational progress, most of them still leave the program with skills and knowledge levels that are far below what we expect.
NISSEN: The president's comments drew immediate response from defenders of the 38-year-old program which gives almost a million poor preschoolers nationwide a combination of nutritious meals, medical care, and a jump on learning the alphabet, learning to read.
STEVE BARNETT, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR EARLY EDUCATION RESEARCH AT RUTGERS UNIVERSITY: Nearly four decades of research on Head Start show that the program works. It reduces the percentage of kids who fail in school, increases their achievement test scores, decreases special education needs and even increases the rate at which they graduate from high school.
NISSEN: Head Start graduates do not have reading scores as good as their middle class counterparts or those in better funded preschool programs. The president suggested Head Start needs to be more accountable for better results if it wants to keep federal funding.
BUSH: We're not going to just spend money and hope something positive happens. We're going to spend money and see results.
NISSEN: The remarks referred to proposed legislation supported by the administration that would encourage more states to take over Head Start programs now directed by the Federal Department of Health and Human Services. The threat to federal funding for Head Start drew this response from the Congressional Black Caucus.
"If President Bush really wanted to do something to help disadvantaged children in Maryland, he would support full funding for the Head Start Program rather than gutting the program by turning it over to cash-strapped states."
Debate over who should pay for Head Start is expected to begin in the House within the next two weeks.
Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And, ahead on NEWSNIGHT, three teens from a small town in New Jersey and what might have happened if police hadn't intervened.
Plus, the scandal that started over an order of fajitas. Jeffrey Toobin takes us inside the San Francisco Police Department.
A break first, from New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: This is a story that makes you marvel in amazement and horror for what might have happened. Young men armed with rifles and knives and machetes and massive amounts of ammo who were caught after attempting an alleged carjacking.
This is not a story about hostile attackers bent on destruction at some checkpoint in Iraq. This involves a trio of teenagers in New Jersey who police say were intent on committing mass murder.
Here's CNN's Deborah Feyerick.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FEYERICK (voice-over): It called up images of Columbine, teenagers dressed in black, heavily armed with rifles, shotguns, and 2,000 rounds of ammunition. Police say they were looking to open fire on several classmates, then go on a shooting spree killing as many people as possible.
VINCENT SARUBBI, CAMDEN COUNTY PROSECUTOR: They had identified three juveniles that they had planned to execute. Once they had completed that aspect of the plan they were going to move on and randomly kill people throughout the borough of Oaklyn.
FEYERICK: Police say the plan unraveled before dawn Sunday when 18-year-old Matthew Lovett and two younger friends tried hijacking a car.
MATTHEW RICH, ALLEGED CARJACKING VICTIM: They had the intent to kill. I mean I've seen that look before. They had the intent to kill and that's when I knew, my sixth sense told me it's time to move on. FEYERICK: The driver alerted police and the teens were arrested with no struggle. A search of Lovett's New Jersey apartment where he lives with his dad and brother turned up several guns registered to the father. A lawyer for Matthew Lovett denies the carjacking and says Lovett never intended to hurt anyone but police say they also found a disturbing letter.
CHRISTOPHER FERRARI, OAKLYN POLICE CHIEF: In the letter there is one line that says they thought you would like to know that they're warriors and fighting for mankind's freedom, freedom from the society.
FEYERICK: Lovett's father tells CNN his son Matthew was happy but shy, a loner scarred at age nine by his mother's death from pancreatic cancer. Lovett's uncle believes Matthew would never have pulled the trigger.
TOM CRYMES, UNCLE: If he was determined to do that sort of thing, he would have shot at the officers. He would have done something else. He didn't do that.
FEYERICK: Lovett graduated Collingswood High School three weeks ago. He got As in computers and graphic design but struggled with journalism.
In journalism class what kind of stories did you guys cover?
DANA PANZONE, CLASSMATE: We covered Columbine and snipers. We covered everything.
FEYERICK: OK, so did you ever hear him talk about any of those incidents?
PANZONE: No, totally, totally unaffected.
FEYERICK: Other classmates say that Lovett's younger brother who had a cleft palate were often picked on.
NATALIE WILKERSON, CLASSMATE: He wouldn't defend himself, like he wouldn't say anything back so I guess he tried to ignore it and bottle it up inside.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FEYERICK: All three teenagers have been charged with conspiracy to murder, carjacking, and possessing firearms. The two younger teenagers are not being identified because they are minors. In the meantime, Matthew Lovett is being held in the medical ward of the county jail. He will be undergoing psychological testing. Through his lawyer he has denied all charges - Aaron.
BROWN: Deborah, thank you, Deborah Feyerick in New Jersey tonight.
By comparison, the next story is small time stuff, no mass murder here just a bar fight with a few scrapes and bruises, small time except for this. This small time bar fight led to the indictment of virtually the entire command structure of the San Francisco Police Department, charges later dropped.
The case was called Fajita Gate because a bag of fajitas started it all and it's the most recent work or our legal analyst and "New Yorker" writer Jeffrey Toobin who is with us tonight. The piece you wrote for "New Yorker" is essentially a character study of three characters in San Francisco, all of whom are fascinating.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: The Chief of Police Earl Sanders, the first Black chief, a real civil rights pioneer; Mayor Willie Brown, a legendary figure; and perhaps the most extraordinary of all Terrence Hallinan, the district attorney, a man who was arrested for fighting so often in his youth that his nickname was and is KO. Those are the three.
BROWN: Those are the three central characters and basically what happened is it is alleged that three cops set upon two guys, beat them up pretty bad and then...
TOOBIN: And took their fajitas.
BROWN: And took their fajitas.
TOOBIN: And took their fajitas.
BROWN: And then what?
TOOBIN: And then Fajita Gate, as it is called in San Francisco, is the claim that the police covered up the involvement of these three cops and Terrence Hallinan, the district attorney who has terrible relations with the police, had a grand jury investigation and the grand jury, to the surprise of virtually everyone, didn't just indict the three cops who got into the fight but the entire command structure, including Earl Sanders, the chief of police.
BROWN: Now, it helps in understanding the story to know that one of the cops who was involved in the bar fight is the son of a powerful police officer in the city as well, correct?
TOOBIN: Who was indicted, father and son were indicted, and the other thing you have to understand about the story, it's really all about San Francisco.
BROWN: I was going to say could this happen anywhere but?
TOOBIN: Nowhere else. I mean here you have a district attorney who gets more politically popular by attacking the police.
BROWN: Yes.
TOOBIN: This is the only city in America where I think that could happen and though he's up for reelection this year it's not clear how this will all play out, but it is so much a liberal city that that political undercurrent is the key to this whole story.
BROWN: We've got about a minute. They are -- they were, by the grand jury, essentially accused of conspiring to cover this up or to protect the other cops. Was there any evidence at all that they conspired to do anything?
TOOBIN: One of the extraordinary things about this is that the grand jury testimony has become public. And I have read it. And there's just no evidence against these people.
Hallinan, the district attorney, wound out throwing out the charges himself against the two top officers. The judge threw out the rest against the other supervisors. So the case now is left to the original fajita three, the three cops in the bar fight. That's all that's left. At this point, they have not gone to trial. And we'll see what happens. And it's just -- as Willie Brown said to me, the whole thing is odd.
BROWN: Yes. And it's too bad. Willie Brown is one of the great politicians, great California politicians of our lifetime.
Nice to see you.
TOOBIN: Good to see you, sir.
BROWN: Glad to know you are working this summer. Thank you.
Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT: destination mars, the Mars exploration rover expected to launch in a few moments. CNN's Miles O'Brien is standing by. He will join us live, as we cover this launch if and when it happens -- a break first.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: That is the rocket that will carry the Mars rover Opportunity, if all goes well, to the planet Mars, now in less a minute and a half, as you take a look at mission control and we bring in Miles O'Brien in.
Miles, there's already one rover up there, on its way, right?
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that one is called Spirit. And those were named by a contest, Spirit and Opportunity.
NASA could probably rename them, if they wanted to, Hope Against Hope, because they had a rough go, as you recall, back in December of 1999, with the Mars polar lander. You'll remember that attempt to land on the red planet.
And let's listen to the launch here for just a moment, 30 seconds to go here, Aaron. And this is an important mission, because it would give them an opportunity to get down on the surface and continue their hunt for water. Where there's water, there's life.
Let's listen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All go for a launch in 20 seconds, 15 seconds. Hold. We've had a hold. O'BRIEN: Oh boy.
BROWN: Oh, boy. They have a very narrow window here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... closure valve failure.
O'BRIEN: Yes. And I'm going to listen here to see what it is. But I'm willing to -- there are any number of parameters as they get down to a launch. When they say recycle, there's another opportunity at 11:10:44.
And it always amazes me, Aaron, when you're talking about a journey of several hundred million miles, that it comes down to just precise seconds like this that it has to launch.
BROWN: And correct me if I am wrong here, but, if they miss that 11:10-ish window, then the window is closed for a good long time.
O'BRIEN: No, we still have a little opportunity. We have until July 15 to get this particular mission off. And then the window closes down for about 52 months, 52 months. Mars is only reachable every 26 months because of a lot of orbital mechanics. You can think of Mars and Earth going around a racetrack. And it's only when they happen to kind of merge together that you have an opportunity to reach Mars with a rocket.
Now, for whatever reason, they're not going to try on the next 26-month period. It would be 52 months out. By that time, this rover will probably be outmoded. So this is -- we are getting down to the wire here. July 15 still allows them a week or so to play with. We will see if they get it off at 11:10.
BROWN: Well, they got it down to 15 seconds and they put a hold on it. And we will keep an eye on that, as the clock moves towards 11:00 here in the East.
Miles, thank you. It was close. We almost got there.
A few of other stories from around the country tonight, beginning with the story surrounding NBA superstar Kobe Bryant. You probably heard some of this. The L.A. Laker turned himself in to authorities in Colorado after an arrest warrant was issued on a sexual assault allegation. He posted $25,000 bond. Police say a woman accused Bryant of sexual misconduct at a hotel in Edwards, Colorado, near Vail last week. Authorities say no charges have been filed yet, probably won't be until the end of the week, if at all. Bryant says he is innocent.
The FBI now helping arson investigators in the Washington, D.C., area who are looking into at least 29 suspicious fires that may be the work of a serial arsonist. The first fire was in late March, the most recent last week. Investigators say someone is throwing flammable liquid on front or back doors and setting them aflame.
And then Vice President Dick Cheney will undergo what his office describes as a routine heart examination tomorrow at a hospital in the D.C. area. He will have a physical exam, an EKG, an electrocardiogram, and a stress test, the full-meal deal there. The vice president has had four heart attacks sense 1978, none since he was elected vice president.
Still to come on NEWSNIGHT: the dangerous situation in Liberia. We visit it again. Should the United States intervene? We will talk with Sebastian Junger. And then, goodbye to Buddy Ebsen, the man who made Jed Clampett and "The Beverly Hillbillies" live.
A break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: And when we return: the debate over Liberia. Should U.S. troops be sent to keep the peace? We will talk with one journalist who has just come from there.
A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: More now on Liberia and the question of whether the U.S. will send troops, what they will find when they get there. Liberia may be little-known to many Americans, but, according to journalist Sebastian Junger, it is precisely the opposite for Liberians. As the country founded by former American slaves, they think of themselves as Americans in some respects who passionately want and expect U.S. help. Mr. Junger has just returned from the capital -- he was on assignment for "Vanity Fair" -- a city he describes as being in a state of anarchy.
And he's here with us now.
Dangerous place?
SEBASTIAN JUNGER, "VANITY FAIR": I thought it was very dangerous. It was certainly terrifying.
BROWN: The danger comes from all directions? Or were you able to say, OK, I will just stay away from the army and I'll be fine or...
JUNGER: Well, it was a horrible sort of stew of different kinds of danger, I thought. The front line was just outside the city. We could hear the artillery bombardments. Mortars landed very near our hotel. On top of that, the militias were completely out of control. They were looting, terrifying the civilians.
BROWN: The militias are -- we got to keep the players straight here.
JUNGER: Yes.
BROWN: The militias are not the insurgents. They're the government's troops.
JUNGER: The government's troops. BROWN: OK.
JUNGER: And they're not paid. They haven't been paid in two years.
BROWN: So they just loot for income?
JUNGER: Exactly. That's the arrangement they have with the government, is, we will fight for you if you let us loot. So they loot the neighborhoods that people have fled because of the fighting. Fighting is an opportunity to loot for them.
Towards the end of the time that I was there, they started looking for Americans at checkpoints, because they thought Americans were behind the rebels that were attacking them. So I came under a lot of suspicion.
BROWN: I'm going to get to the question of American troops in a second.
Is there anything ideological about this civil war or do they just -- do the insurgents or the rebels just want to get rid of President Taylor?
JUNGER: I think pretty much, they want to get rid of Taylor.
What I heard from the civilians who had been -- who had met the rebels, who had their neighbors taken over by the rebels, was that the rebels treated them fairly well. They didn't loot private homes. Sometimes, they even told the civilians to come loot food with them, so they'd have food to eat, but food from stores. So it's all degrees of horribleness. But, no, I didn't sense that there was an ideology. It really seemed like a power struggle, more than anything.
BROWN: Can a small group of Americans, 1,000 Americans, make a difference there?
JUNGER: Personally, I think they could make a huge difference, for a couple of reasons.
The numbers of fighters there are very small and they're incredibly unprofessional. They really are kids in pickup trucks. They don't even build sandbag positions to defend bridges, things like that, mainly because they can't rely on any other units to protect their back. So it's completely unprofessional.
And, more importantly, the mood, the sentiment in Liberia towards America is one of sort of -- sort of love and puzzlement, like, why aren't you helping us? The soldiers wear the American flag. They style themselves after rap performers or after U.S. soldiers. They emulate Americans in every way conceivable. I can't imagine them fighting us.
BROWN: We ran a piece last week where there was absolute celebration at the prospect that the Americans would come in. I think what Americans worry about is that there will be another Mogadishu. Will there be another Mogadishu?
JUNGER: Well, I'm not a fortune teller, but I didn't get....
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: ... fortune teller, but you know what I mean.
JUNGER: Yes.
BROWN: Is the kindling set?
JUNGER: Yes.
I don't think so. It's not a situation where there's five warlords vying for power. There is a government there. It's hard to tell in Africa what's going to happen. It's a very chaotic place. But my sense was that the anger they have towards Americans is not because they might come. It's because they won't come, as opposed to Iraq, for example, where a lot of the population doesn't want us there.
In Liberia, if they're mad at us -- or, say, mad at me as I was walking around the streets as an American, it's because we are ignoring them. I think they would be falling on their knees if we arrived there. That was my impression.
BROWN: And just one other question. One of the things that has happened -- correct me if I am wrong -- is that the country essentially is all collapsing on the capital. People are fleeing everywhere else and they're all ending up in the capital.
JUNGER: Yes. It's a disastrous situation.
I think, if that goes on, it will kill more people than the fighting, just hundreds of thousands of people that I saw just in the streets getting cholera. They had no food, no rice, no water, I mean, really indescribable chaos.
BROWN: Nice to see you again. Welcome back.
JUNGER: Thank you very much.
BROWN: Thank you, Sebastian Junger and "Vanity Fair."
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT: Buddy Ebsen. We'll take a look at his life -- a break first.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: For Americans of a certain age, he's always be remembered as a hillbilly who struck it rich, moved his family to Beverly Hills. But buddy Ebsen, who died Sunday in Southern California, was much, much more. He was a singer, an actor, a man who excelled at sailing. He probably would have been a doctor, except for his mom.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: Before he was Jed Clampett on the television series "The Beverly Hillbillies" and before he was Davy Crockett's side kick, Christian Rudolph Ebsen was a song-and-dance man, and a probably good one at that. It was not his first career choice.
BUDDY EBSEN, ACTOR: I studied premed for two years, but my mother was always pushing me towards show business.
BROWN: He co-starred with Shirley Temple -- this is a movie called "Captain January" -- in 1936 and with Judy Garland in "Broadway Melody" in 1938. And for 10 days, he was the original Tin Man in "The Wizard of Oz," but the aluminum dust used in the makeup nearly killed him and Jack Haley got the role of a lifetime.
EBSEN: I didn't want to leave the picture, but I was in the hospital. There was not a chance of not leaving it.
BROWN: After a bitter contract fight with MGM, Buddy Ebsen, in effect, disappeared from the screen, blackballed by studio chief Louis B. Mayer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EBSEN: Well, captain, meet up with Davy Crockett.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: It wasn't until the mid-'50s that he was hired to play George Russel to Fess Parker Davy Crockett on TV.
And then, of course, to television immortality playing Jed Clampett in the series "The Beverly Hillbillies," panned by the critics, but an enormous hit in the ratings and a favorite of President Lyndon Johnson.
DONNA DOUGLAS, ACTRESS: Our show hit No. 1, I think it was the second or third week. And we were No. 1 on national television for two solid years. We were close. We were close. We were really like a family. And I think that's what came across on the screen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: Barnaby Jones' office. May I help you?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Later, he was television detective Barnaby Jones. And when he finally retired, he painted. He told interviewers he first arrived in New York City with only $1 and change in his pocket and another $25 in a sock. He endured in a very tough business for more than 60 years.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Buddy Ebsen.
Morning papers after the break. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: I missed that. I was off for a couple of days. I missed that.
Time to check morning papers from around the country and, tonight, literally from around the world, because we begin in Australia, where it is already tomorrow. Well, it's almost tomorrow here anyway.
"The Daily Telegraph," it's an unbelievable story. Murdered -- they have a picture of it -- "Murdered at 13,000 feet, skydiver Stephen Hilder leaps from aircraft unaware someone had decided to kill him." Someone had cut his parachute. And they have the picture. Take that shot one more time. You got it? Man oh, man. Anyway, that's "The Daily Telegraph."
And while we are abroad, "The Guardian." "Blair Told It's Time to Answer Vital Questions." They're still kicking around what the government said or knew about Iraq. And then this story: Does your English let you down? Oh, wait, that's an ad. I thought maybe it was directed at me. I wasn't sure.
"USA Today," if you are traveling. Down at the bottom, "USA Today." The shuttle is the big story. "Vidal Sassoon Takes on a Hairy Fight Against P&G," Procter & Gamble. I didn't know that was a big issue, but apparently it is, and a terrific shot of the shuttle hole in -- or the reenactment -- in "USA Today."
The Detroit papers. "The Detroit News" first. Do you think there is a car story? Well, yes, interestingly enough, there is, sort of: "Chrysler Rescues Boat Races," two for one there. The hydroplane is really kind of a niche sport, if you ask me. You see these in Seattle. "GOP Shuns Affirmative Action Vote. State party denounces Connerly effort to put issue on the state ballot." That's Ward Connerly, who ran an initiative in California to kill off all affirmative action programs, is threatening to go into Michigan to do likewise. And the Republican Party ain't too thrilled -- it's not too thrilled about that.
I can't believe I just said ain't. Oh, my goodness.
How much time, David?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A little bit less than a minute.
BROWN: Medicare. This is the "Detroit Free Press." The Medicare drug plan may save carmakers millions. And that's likely to affect the negotiations with the UAW. That's the big story there.
What did I like here? Oh, I love this story, "The Miami Herald." Forty seconds? OK. Down at the bottom here, OK? "Blind Baseball Announcer a Star at Calling the Shots." This is a man who has been blind since birth, calls the Spanish-language Tampa Bay games. We ought to go down there and do that story. That is a great story. Twenty seconds?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
BROWN: That's it. No more. That's our report. It's Monday. We will see you again tomorrow. We hope you are all back.
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
Aired July 7, 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.
In a strange way it seemed we knew all along what brought the shuttle down even before the long and careful investigation between the string of tests. In our heart, we knew that moments after the shuttle was launched it was doomed. What most of us didn't understand is how something that was always described as foam could cause enough damage to cause the tragedy. Even looking at the early tests it didn't seem to make sense.
Today, it makes perfect sense and it leads "The Whip" with what one investigator is calling the smoking guns, Miles O'Brien of course, Miles the headline.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, that investigative team promised all along that it would be very difficult to come up with a smoking gun but, as you'll see with those pictures in just a few moments, today they got precisely just that a smoking gun.
BROWN: Miles, thank you, we'll get to you at the top tonight.
On to Liberia where a U.S. military team has arrived and the president continues to weigh in on whether to send more American troops. Brent Sadler is in the capital, Brent a headline.
BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Aaron. Yes, the U.S. military took its first tentative steps to help Liberia earlier today, not peacekeepers on the ground yet but a team of specialists here to assess this nation's dire humanitarian needs perhaps a forerunner to even greater U.S. involvement here.
BROWN: Brent, thank you.
And now to the arrest of three teenagers armed and, according to police, about to begin a murder spree. Deborah Feyerick is on that story from the Philadelphia suburb of Oaklyn, New Jersey, Deborah a headline.
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, they had rifles, shotguns, 2,000 rounds of ammunition and the police say they averted another Columbine, that the family of one of the teens paints a picture of a troubled boy.
BROWN: Deborah, thank you, back to you and the rest shortly. Also coming up tonight on this Monday, we'll look at two very deadly days for U.S. troops in Iraq and CNN's Jane Arraf gives us a sense of what it's really like for these young Americans on the ground in Baghdad, the spot decisions they have to make that could make the difference between life and death for them and the Iraqis they are trying to help.
And, a look at comments today from President Bush on making changes to the Head Start Program. The president says he wants to see better management to better help poor children. Critics, however, see a veiled threat.
We'll, of course, have our nightly worldwide exclusive not to be seen anywhere, anytime, anyplace, from anybody but us, our look at tomorrow morning's papers tonight.
And also tonight, someone who has a knack of finding a fascinating tale wherever he goes, Sebastian Younger just back from Liberia.
Jeffrey Toobin on the scandal at the San Francisco Police Department known as Fajita Gate and, we'll remember a beloved hillbilly actor Buddy Ebsen, all of that and more in the hour to come.
We begin with the Shuttle Columbia story and a moment today that brought to mind one about 15 years ago in the investigation into the Shuttle Challenger disaster, the smoking gun moment when everyone knew what had caused the explosion, when an investigator dunked a shuttle "O" ring into a glass of ice water; today, a similar moment in the investigation into the breakup of Columbia; once again CNN's Miles O'Brien.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN (voice-over): It struck like a thunderbolt and left behind a gaping hole and some slack in jaws.
SCOTT HUBBARD, COLUMBIA ACCIDENT BOARD MEMBER: What we got was something completely unexpected.
O'BRIEN: In a test that crash investigators say faithfully recreated what happened to the Space Shuttle Columbia 82 seconds after launch, the team looking into the cause of the orbiter's demise hit pay dirt.
HUBBARD: I believe that we have found the smoking gun. I believe that we've established that the foam block fell off of the external tank was in fact the most probable cause, the direct cause of the Columbia accident.
O'BRIEN: The insulating foam fell off Columbia's external fuel tank and struck the leading edge of her left wing at a relative speed of 500 miles an hour. NASA's shuttle team knew about the foam strike shortly after launch but presumed the light material could not pierce the tough carbon panels that protect the wings. But take a look at this view, captured during the test by a camera mounted inside the wing mock-up. It's clear proof Columbia flew more than two weeks with a huge hole in its wing.
HUBBARD: I felt surprise at how it appeared, such a dramatic punch through, but it is the kind of damage, the type of damage that must have occurred to bring down the orbiter.
O'BRIEN: A hole like this, 16 inches across, would have allowed 3,000 degree plasma to blowtorch the aluminum structure of the wing during reentry. Investigators believe the hole on Columbia's wing might have been a little smaller, perhaps ten inches in diameter but they still say this test leaves little room for doubt Columbia and her crew of seven were doomed one minute and 22 seconds into their mission.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: The Columbia Accident Investigation Board is recommending future shuttle crews are trained and equipped to conduct repairs to the shuttle on orbit but fixing a hole that size in orbit might be an insurmountable task. The board is also recommending, and NASA has already agreed to do this, to use spy observatories to take pictures of orbiters in flight.
NASA managers rejected suggestions from lower level engineers to use these secret eyes in the sky to photograph Columbia. They said it wouldn't show anything but a hole this size might very well have been detectable - Aaron.
BROWN: With all the sensors that are on these - on the shuttle, they seem to know everything about sort of what that aircraft is going through, that spacecraft is going through. Why wouldn't it pick up the fact there was a huge hole in the wing?
O'BRIEN: You would think they'd have a sensor for just that but, you know, as many sensors as they have you're talking about something with a million parts. You can't have a sensor for everything and so each and every one of those pieces of carbon was not set up to tell the crew that it was missing.
BROWN: Miles, thank you, and hang around. In about 30 minutes, NASA plans to launch the second of a pair of spacecraft bound for Mars, the Mars rover named Opportunity set to go at 10:35:23 as I recall. Miles will be around and if it's on time we'll cover it for you right here.
On now to Iraq where there was grim proof today of what an army commander of the allied forces in Iraq admitted last week that "we're still at war." Three U.S. troops have been killed in and around Baghdad since yesterday.
A bomb early today killed one soldier traveling in an Army convoy. A second American was shot to death Sunday during a gun battle and another was shot and killed early Sunday while drinking a soda at Baghdad University. That makes 30 Americans killed by hostile fire since May the 1st when the president declared major combat over in Iraq.
They are the facts, the terrible ones, that show the latest violence in Iraq but they don't always tell the overall story of what life is like for the American troops on the ground. There are growing reports of low morale.
There's an increased sense that the Americans face far more than some small time hit-and-miss operation but rather they are facing the beginning of a guerrilla war. For the soldiers on patrol these are difficult and stressful days.
Here's CNN's Jane Arraf.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): To a young American soldier this is what Baghdad looks and feels like at night.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You like go crazy and stuff, so many people around just calling your name. (Unintelligible) like the movies, you know.
ARRAF: They have night scopes to help them see in the dark but seeing isn't everything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's going to pull up to the right. Stop the engine. Turn off the lights. Just listen to (unintelligible).
ARRAF: On one street exuberant children on another gunfire, they don't know whether it's aimed at thieves or at them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just tell them to make sure that it's - don't shoot at American soldiers, right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, sorry, OK.
ARRAF: In Baghdad now, even many of the people with weapons are afraid, afraid of the soldiers but too afraid of the night to give up their weapons.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was about ten seconds away from getting shot.
ARRAF: The soldiers, mostly young and all very far from home are afraid too.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you get a call that there's a burning building that might be a Fedayeen ambush. No matter what they just, you know, those people just hate Americans.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes they don't give a (expletive).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They want to have, you know, just they don't want Americans around so, you know, what do you do?
ARRAF: What they do is try to protect themselves without antagonizing the neighborhood.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello.
ARRAF (on camera): And these Baghdad streets at night you just don't know what you're going to find. It could be kids wanting to say hello or it could be guns around the corner.
(voice-over): Even with their half million dollar thermal imaging that lets them spot people from miles away they're still vulnerable.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Night vision is good but only to a point.
ARRAF: They try to get to know the neighborhoods but with the culture and language barrier they miss an awful lot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I just wanted to see if he was OK.
ARRAF: They assume Abdul Afour (ph) is drunk but he's not drunk. He's alone. His friends say his mother, his brother, his nephew, and two uncles were killed by helicopter fire during the battle for Baghdad. He says it's true.
"I would prefer Saddam Hussein over this kind of life" he tells us.
The soldiers would much prefer not to be here. They continue to patrol.
Jane Arraf, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Other news today, U.S. troops of course dodging bullets and building nations in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the question now are they headed to Liberia next?
You may not know much about Liberia and the more you learn the more concerned you might be about the fate of U.S. troops. It would be heartless not to recognize the Liberian desperation and mindless not to see the extreme danger in getting involved.
President Bush is considering whether to send Americans to help end the civil war there just as he begins his trip to Africa, and today an American military team began assessing just how much help Liberia needs.
Here's CNN's Brent Sadler.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SADLER (voice-over): The United States answers the call for help. U.S. military personnel touched down in Monrovia at the start of a fact-finding mission, not a peacekeeping mission but an effort to scope out Liberia's humanitarian crisis. A low-key start to operations here coincides with intense U.S. pressure on Liberia's President Charles Taylor to leave office but Mr. Taylor is still here accepting an offer of asylum in Nigeria but refusing to actually quit unless peacekeepers are on the streets of Monrovia.
The war-ravaged and impoverished capital of this ruined nation is at peace for now. Rebel forces besieging Mr. Taylor's stronghold have honored a ceasefire and held off storming the city center and Liberians are now hoping there's a chance the United States will soon commit troops to help stabilize their country. Refugees spell it out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Be there as police between the two or the three fighting forces in Liberia so that they will stop the people from fighting.
SADLER: But that's precisely what U.S. officials say they hope to avoid. The capital is full of homeless victims of conflict in desperate need.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need America's help. We want Americans to come to our aid.
SADLER: And U.S. aid may be on the way for people in desperate need of help.
JOHN BLANEY, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO LIBERIA: There are about one million people currently in deep trouble because of the war either in the sense of not having enough to eat and not enough medicine, no place to live. We have people living in the stadium down here downtown and that's, of course, a breeding ground for diseases.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SADLER: Assessing the dire needs of this country in chaos is in itself no easy mission but the task of laying the groundwork perhaps for wider U.S. involvement has clearly begun and most Liberians we've spoken to on the streets of the capital here say they desperately want to see U.S. engagement and soon - Aaron.
BROWN: Just quickly is the situation so chaotic that international relief agencies, non-government organizations, essentially cannot function?
SADLER: That's absolutely right, Aaron. I'll give you an example. The British Embassy closed its doors here back in 1991. The U.S. Embassy is here with a skeleton staff, very well protected, but NGOs are virtually non-existent, perhaps a handful of international staff working in this country relying on a very think network of field workers throughout the country. It is really, really very much a blind situation as far as what's going on in this country as a whole.
BROWN: Brent, thank you very much, Brent Sadler in Liberia tonight.
It's fair to say the president's interest in that country has been a bit of a surprise but then so was his support for more funding to fight AIDS in Africa. Some say it is the influence of African- Americans in his cabinet. Others say he's trying to emphasize the compassionate part of compassionate conservative. Still others say he's trying to show the world he's not some go-it- alone cowboy.
We'll probably never know all the factors at play, what's in the president's mind, but we do know it's made for quite a backdrop for Mr. Bush's trip to Africa this week.
Here's our Senior White House Correspondent John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An Africa trip postponed because of the looming war in Iraq is now overshadowed somewhat by efforts to end one of the continent's all too common civil wars.
The president will visit five countries in five days, Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Uganda, and Nigeria. Visiting a slave house in Senegal will open the trip with a haunting reminder.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Slavery was, of course, America's birth defect.
KING: The president is promising to help end the civil war in Liberia and this new effort in western Africa fits with his overriding theme for the trip.
SUSAN RICE, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: When you have this broad swath of conflict and failed states you have the opportunity that has already been exploited by al Qaeda to take precious minerals out of those countries and use them to finance the terrorist operations and terrorist organizations.
KING: But as Mr. Bush promises help there are many skeptics. The president, for example, talks of an unprecedented $15 billion U.S. commitment to fight HIV/AIDS and billions more in aid to African nations that prove their commitment to political and economic reforms but Congress has yet to approve the funding.
SALIH BOOKER, AFRICA ACTION: If these are revealed to be broken promises, then he risks being seen as really callous, as manipulating African suffering for political gain.
KING: Africa's elder statesman is missing from the president's agenda because the White House made clear it did not want to meet him. Nelson Mandela is a harsh Bush critic on the Iraq war and other issues and he decided to travel outside South Africa while Mr. Bush is in Pretoria.
BOOKER: George Bush should be honored to have an audience with Nelson Mandela but he didn't even request an appointment.
KING: The major goal of the Bush trip is to focus on the continent's economic progress and potential.
RICE: We get 16 percent of our imported oil from Africa. That's going to go up to 20 percent in the next ten years.
(on camera): The president says by the end of his trip, his commitment to Africa will no longer be in doubt. The immediate test comes in Liberia, a country that was hardly a major White House concern back when this trip was first put together.
John King, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Good pie party to report tonight, one that included singer Wayne Newton and the actor Robert DeNiro along with hundreds of troops from the U.S. Central Command. They were all there to honor the man who ran the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, General Tommy Franks who is retiring.
The general was true to character, offering up blunt assessments, a dry wit, and unwavering support for his commander-in-chief, more on the general's goodbye, and the man taking his place, from Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a classic goodbye from an old soldier.
GEN. TOMMY FRANKS, OUTGOING CENTCOM COMMANDER: Twenty-two months ago the United States of America, in fact the free world, looked into the face of evil. We came on that day to recognize our vulnerability and the world came to recognize America with attitude.
STARR: Tommy Franks bidding farewell to the troops but his heart still in the fight.
FRANKS: As President Bush said recently bring it on. That's been the attitude of this command, of this country, of the members of this powerful coalition for some 22 months and we'll still stand and we'll still say it. Rough road behind, rough road ahead, bring it on.
STARR: In Afghanistan, the Taliban have been overthrown. Al Qaeda is on the run, in Iraq, Saddam Hussein no longer in power. But, Franks awarded the Purple Heart three times for being wounded in Vietnam, leaves with a truly difficult road ahead. Some 30 troops killed by hostile fire in Iraq since major combat ended, the U.S. increasingly convinced Saddam is alive, and loyalists believe he will return.
Still no weapons of mass destruction found and Osama bin Laden still at large, al Qaeda launching more attacks, all the challenge for Frank's successor General John Abizaid.
Abizaid's command not expected to lead to policy changes but the two men could not be more different, Abizaid fluent in Arabic, an expert in regional affairs, Tommy Franks always the front line soldier.
MICHAEL O'HANLON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: He's the kind of guy you imagine throwing horseshoes in a southern state in his spare time or telling old stories with comrades or chomping on cigars.
FRANKS: Today is the day that I make myself an honest man, having told my wife 34 years ago that I was going to leave the United States Army. Today, I'm an honest man.
STARR: A long career, a final tour of duty at an extraordinary time that no one, even Tommy Franks, ever expected.
Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Before the president left today for his trip to Africa there was one domestic item on the agenda, the Head Start preschool program. The president says he wants to improve Head Start. Critics say it's really a plan to cut funding for the program.
Here's NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): During a visit to a Head Start center in Landover, Maryland, the president called for improvements in the widely-praised preschool program.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Even though most children in Head Start make some educational progress, most of them still leave the program with skills and knowledge levels that are far below what we expect.
NISSEN: The president's comments drew immediate response from defenders of the 38-year-old program which gives almost a million poor preschoolers nationwide a combination of nutritious meals, medical care, and a jump on learning the alphabet, learning to read.
STEVE BARNETT, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR EARLY EDUCATION RESEARCH AT RUTGERS UNIVERSITY: Nearly four decades of research on Head Start show that the program works. It reduces the percentage of kids who fail in school, increases their achievement test scores, decreases special education needs and even increases the rate at which they graduate from high school.
NISSEN: Head Start graduates do not have reading scores as good as their middle class counterparts or those in better funded preschool programs. The president suggested Head Start needs to be more accountable for better results if it wants to keep federal funding.
BUSH: We're not going to just spend money and hope something positive happens. We're going to spend money and see results.
NISSEN: The remarks referred to proposed legislation supported by the administration that would encourage more states to take over Head Start programs now directed by the Federal Department of Health and Human Services. The threat to federal funding for Head Start drew this response from the Congressional Black Caucus.
"If President Bush really wanted to do something to help disadvantaged children in Maryland, he would support full funding for the Head Start Program rather than gutting the program by turning it over to cash-strapped states."
Debate over who should pay for Head Start is expected to begin in the House within the next two weeks.
Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And, ahead on NEWSNIGHT, three teens from a small town in New Jersey and what might have happened if police hadn't intervened.
Plus, the scandal that started over an order of fajitas. Jeffrey Toobin takes us inside the San Francisco Police Department.
A break first, from New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: This is a story that makes you marvel in amazement and horror for what might have happened. Young men armed with rifles and knives and machetes and massive amounts of ammo who were caught after attempting an alleged carjacking.
This is not a story about hostile attackers bent on destruction at some checkpoint in Iraq. This involves a trio of teenagers in New Jersey who police say were intent on committing mass murder.
Here's CNN's Deborah Feyerick.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FEYERICK (voice-over): It called up images of Columbine, teenagers dressed in black, heavily armed with rifles, shotguns, and 2,000 rounds of ammunition. Police say they were looking to open fire on several classmates, then go on a shooting spree killing as many people as possible.
VINCENT SARUBBI, CAMDEN COUNTY PROSECUTOR: They had identified three juveniles that they had planned to execute. Once they had completed that aspect of the plan they were going to move on and randomly kill people throughout the borough of Oaklyn.
FEYERICK: Police say the plan unraveled before dawn Sunday when 18-year-old Matthew Lovett and two younger friends tried hijacking a car.
MATTHEW RICH, ALLEGED CARJACKING VICTIM: They had the intent to kill. I mean I've seen that look before. They had the intent to kill and that's when I knew, my sixth sense told me it's time to move on. FEYERICK: The driver alerted police and the teens were arrested with no struggle. A search of Lovett's New Jersey apartment where he lives with his dad and brother turned up several guns registered to the father. A lawyer for Matthew Lovett denies the carjacking and says Lovett never intended to hurt anyone but police say they also found a disturbing letter.
CHRISTOPHER FERRARI, OAKLYN POLICE CHIEF: In the letter there is one line that says they thought you would like to know that they're warriors and fighting for mankind's freedom, freedom from the society.
FEYERICK: Lovett's father tells CNN his son Matthew was happy but shy, a loner scarred at age nine by his mother's death from pancreatic cancer. Lovett's uncle believes Matthew would never have pulled the trigger.
TOM CRYMES, UNCLE: If he was determined to do that sort of thing, he would have shot at the officers. He would have done something else. He didn't do that.
FEYERICK: Lovett graduated Collingswood High School three weeks ago. He got As in computers and graphic design but struggled with journalism.
In journalism class what kind of stories did you guys cover?
DANA PANZONE, CLASSMATE: We covered Columbine and snipers. We covered everything.
FEYERICK: OK, so did you ever hear him talk about any of those incidents?
PANZONE: No, totally, totally unaffected.
FEYERICK: Other classmates say that Lovett's younger brother who had a cleft palate were often picked on.
NATALIE WILKERSON, CLASSMATE: He wouldn't defend himself, like he wouldn't say anything back so I guess he tried to ignore it and bottle it up inside.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FEYERICK: All three teenagers have been charged with conspiracy to murder, carjacking, and possessing firearms. The two younger teenagers are not being identified because they are minors. In the meantime, Matthew Lovett is being held in the medical ward of the county jail. He will be undergoing psychological testing. Through his lawyer he has denied all charges - Aaron.
BROWN: Deborah, thank you, Deborah Feyerick in New Jersey tonight.
By comparison, the next story is small time stuff, no mass murder here just a bar fight with a few scrapes and bruises, small time except for this. This small time bar fight led to the indictment of virtually the entire command structure of the San Francisco Police Department, charges later dropped.
The case was called Fajita Gate because a bag of fajitas started it all and it's the most recent work or our legal analyst and "New Yorker" writer Jeffrey Toobin who is with us tonight. The piece you wrote for "New Yorker" is essentially a character study of three characters in San Francisco, all of whom are fascinating.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: The Chief of Police Earl Sanders, the first Black chief, a real civil rights pioneer; Mayor Willie Brown, a legendary figure; and perhaps the most extraordinary of all Terrence Hallinan, the district attorney, a man who was arrested for fighting so often in his youth that his nickname was and is KO. Those are the three.
BROWN: Those are the three central characters and basically what happened is it is alleged that three cops set upon two guys, beat them up pretty bad and then...
TOOBIN: And took their fajitas.
BROWN: And took their fajitas.
TOOBIN: And took their fajitas.
BROWN: And then what?
TOOBIN: And then Fajita Gate, as it is called in San Francisco, is the claim that the police covered up the involvement of these three cops and Terrence Hallinan, the district attorney who has terrible relations with the police, had a grand jury investigation and the grand jury, to the surprise of virtually everyone, didn't just indict the three cops who got into the fight but the entire command structure, including Earl Sanders, the chief of police.
BROWN: Now, it helps in understanding the story to know that one of the cops who was involved in the bar fight is the son of a powerful police officer in the city as well, correct?
TOOBIN: Who was indicted, father and son were indicted, and the other thing you have to understand about the story, it's really all about San Francisco.
BROWN: I was going to say could this happen anywhere but?
TOOBIN: Nowhere else. I mean here you have a district attorney who gets more politically popular by attacking the police.
BROWN: Yes.
TOOBIN: This is the only city in America where I think that could happen and though he's up for reelection this year it's not clear how this will all play out, but it is so much a liberal city that that political undercurrent is the key to this whole story.
BROWN: We've got about a minute. They are -- they were, by the grand jury, essentially accused of conspiring to cover this up or to protect the other cops. Was there any evidence at all that they conspired to do anything?
TOOBIN: One of the extraordinary things about this is that the grand jury testimony has become public. And I have read it. And there's just no evidence against these people.
Hallinan, the district attorney, wound out throwing out the charges himself against the two top officers. The judge threw out the rest against the other supervisors. So the case now is left to the original fajita three, the three cops in the bar fight. That's all that's left. At this point, they have not gone to trial. And we'll see what happens. And it's just -- as Willie Brown said to me, the whole thing is odd.
BROWN: Yes. And it's too bad. Willie Brown is one of the great politicians, great California politicians of our lifetime.
Nice to see you.
TOOBIN: Good to see you, sir.
BROWN: Glad to know you are working this summer. Thank you.
Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT: destination mars, the Mars exploration rover expected to launch in a few moments. CNN's Miles O'Brien is standing by. He will join us live, as we cover this launch if and when it happens -- a break first.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: That is the rocket that will carry the Mars rover Opportunity, if all goes well, to the planet Mars, now in less a minute and a half, as you take a look at mission control and we bring in Miles O'Brien in.
Miles, there's already one rover up there, on its way, right?
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that one is called Spirit. And those were named by a contest, Spirit and Opportunity.
NASA could probably rename them, if they wanted to, Hope Against Hope, because they had a rough go, as you recall, back in December of 1999, with the Mars polar lander. You'll remember that attempt to land on the red planet.
And let's listen to the launch here for just a moment, 30 seconds to go here, Aaron. And this is an important mission, because it would give them an opportunity to get down on the surface and continue their hunt for water. Where there's water, there's life.
Let's listen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All go for a launch in 20 seconds, 15 seconds. Hold. We've had a hold. O'BRIEN: Oh boy.
BROWN: Oh, boy. They have a very narrow window here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... closure valve failure.
O'BRIEN: Yes. And I'm going to listen here to see what it is. But I'm willing to -- there are any number of parameters as they get down to a launch. When they say recycle, there's another opportunity at 11:10:44.
And it always amazes me, Aaron, when you're talking about a journey of several hundred million miles, that it comes down to just precise seconds like this that it has to launch.
BROWN: And correct me if I am wrong here, but, if they miss that 11:10-ish window, then the window is closed for a good long time.
O'BRIEN: No, we still have a little opportunity. We have until July 15 to get this particular mission off. And then the window closes down for about 52 months, 52 months. Mars is only reachable every 26 months because of a lot of orbital mechanics. You can think of Mars and Earth going around a racetrack. And it's only when they happen to kind of merge together that you have an opportunity to reach Mars with a rocket.
Now, for whatever reason, they're not going to try on the next 26-month period. It would be 52 months out. By that time, this rover will probably be outmoded. So this is -- we are getting down to the wire here. July 15 still allows them a week or so to play with. We will see if they get it off at 11:10.
BROWN: Well, they got it down to 15 seconds and they put a hold on it. And we will keep an eye on that, as the clock moves towards 11:00 here in the East.
Miles, thank you. It was close. We almost got there.
A few of other stories from around the country tonight, beginning with the story surrounding NBA superstar Kobe Bryant. You probably heard some of this. The L.A. Laker turned himself in to authorities in Colorado after an arrest warrant was issued on a sexual assault allegation. He posted $25,000 bond. Police say a woman accused Bryant of sexual misconduct at a hotel in Edwards, Colorado, near Vail last week. Authorities say no charges have been filed yet, probably won't be until the end of the week, if at all. Bryant says he is innocent.
The FBI now helping arson investigators in the Washington, D.C., area who are looking into at least 29 suspicious fires that may be the work of a serial arsonist. The first fire was in late March, the most recent last week. Investigators say someone is throwing flammable liquid on front or back doors and setting them aflame.
And then Vice President Dick Cheney will undergo what his office describes as a routine heart examination tomorrow at a hospital in the D.C. area. He will have a physical exam, an EKG, an electrocardiogram, and a stress test, the full-meal deal there. The vice president has had four heart attacks sense 1978, none since he was elected vice president.
Still to come on NEWSNIGHT: the dangerous situation in Liberia. We visit it again. Should the United States intervene? We will talk with Sebastian Junger. And then, goodbye to Buddy Ebsen, the man who made Jed Clampett and "The Beverly Hillbillies" live.
A break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: And when we return: the debate over Liberia. Should U.S. troops be sent to keep the peace? We will talk with one journalist who has just come from there.
A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: More now on Liberia and the question of whether the U.S. will send troops, what they will find when they get there. Liberia may be little-known to many Americans, but, according to journalist Sebastian Junger, it is precisely the opposite for Liberians. As the country founded by former American slaves, they think of themselves as Americans in some respects who passionately want and expect U.S. help. Mr. Junger has just returned from the capital -- he was on assignment for "Vanity Fair" -- a city he describes as being in a state of anarchy.
And he's here with us now.
Dangerous place?
SEBASTIAN JUNGER, "VANITY FAIR": I thought it was very dangerous. It was certainly terrifying.
BROWN: The danger comes from all directions? Or were you able to say, OK, I will just stay away from the army and I'll be fine or...
JUNGER: Well, it was a horrible sort of stew of different kinds of danger, I thought. The front line was just outside the city. We could hear the artillery bombardments. Mortars landed very near our hotel. On top of that, the militias were completely out of control. They were looting, terrifying the civilians.
BROWN: The militias are -- we got to keep the players straight here.
JUNGER: Yes.
BROWN: The militias are not the insurgents. They're the government's troops.
JUNGER: The government's troops. BROWN: OK.
JUNGER: And they're not paid. They haven't been paid in two years.
BROWN: So they just loot for income?
JUNGER: Exactly. That's the arrangement they have with the government, is, we will fight for you if you let us loot. So they loot the neighborhoods that people have fled because of the fighting. Fighting is an opportunity to loot for them.
Towards the end of the time that I was there, they started looking for Americans at checkpoints, because they thought Americans were behind the rebels that were attacking them. So I came under a lot of suspicion.
BROWN: I'm going to get to the question of American troops in a second.
Is there anything ideological about this civil war or do they just -- do the insurgents or the rebels just want to get rid of President Taylor?
JUNGER: I think pretty much, they want to get rid of Taylor.
What I heard from the civilians who had been -- who had met the rebels, who had their neighbors taken over by the rebels, was that the rebels treated them fairly well. They didn't loot private homes. Sometimes, they even told the civilians to come loot food with them, so they'd have food to eat, but food from stores. So it's all degrees of horribleness. But, no, I didn't sense that there was an ideology. It really seemed like a power struggle, more than anything.
BROWN: Can a small group of Americans, 1,000 Americans, make a difference there?
JUNGER: Personally, I think they could make a huge difference, for a couple of reasons.
The numbers of fighters there are very small and they're incredibly unprofessional. They really are kids in pickup trucks. They don't even build sandbag positions to defend bridges, things like that, mainly because they can't rely on any other units to protect their back. So it's completely unprofessional.
And, more importantly, the mood, the sentiment in Liberia towards America is one of sort of -- sort of love and puzzlement, like, why aren't you helping us? The soldiers wear the American flag. They style themselves after rap performers or after U.S. soldiers. They emulate Americans in every way conceivable. I can't imagine them fighting us.
BROWN: We ran a piece last week where there was absolute celebration at the prospect that the Americans would come in. I think what Americans worry about is that there will be another Mogadishu. Will there be another Mogadishu?
JUNGER: Well, I'm not a fortune teller, but I didn't get....
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: ... fortune teller, but you know what I mean.
JUNGER: Yes.
BROWN: Is the kindling set?
JUNGER: Yes.
I don't think so. It's not a situation where there's five warlords vying for power. There is a government there. It's hard to tell in Africa what's going to happen. It's a very chaotic place. But my sense was that the anger they have towards Americans is not because they might come. It's because they won't come, as opposed to Iraq, for example, where a lot of the population doesn't want us there.
In Liberia, if they're mad at us -- or, say, mad at me as I was walking around the streets as an American, it's because we are ignoring them. I think they would be falling on their knees if we arrived there. That was my impression.
BROWN: And just one other question. One of the things that has happened -- correct me if I am wrong -- is that the country essentially is all collapsing on the capital. People are fleeing everywhere else and they're all ending up in the capital.
JUNGER: Yes. It's a disastrous situation.
I think, if that goes on, it will kill more people than the fighting, just hundreds of thousands of people that I saw just in the streets getting cholera. They had no food, no rice, no water, I mean, really indescribable chaos.
BROWN: Nice to see you again. Welcome back.
JUNGER: Thank you very much.
BROWN: Thank you, Sebastian Junger and "Vanity Fair."
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT: Buddy Ebsen. We'll take a look at his life -- a break first.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: For Americans of a certain age, he's always be remembered as a hillbilly who struck it rich, moved his family to Beverly Hills. But buddy Ebsen, who died Sunday in Southern California, was much, much more. He was a singer, an actor, a man who excelled at sailing. He probably would have been a doctor, except for his mom.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: Before he was Jed Clampett on the television series "The Beverly Hillbillies" and before he was Davy Crockett's side kick, Christian Rudolph Ebsen was a song-and-dance man, and a probably good one at that. It was not his first career choice.
BUDDY EBSEN, ACTOR: I studied premed for two years, but my mother was always pushing me towards show business.
BROWN: He co-starred with Shirley Temple -- this is a movie called "Captain January" -- in 1936 and with Judy Garland in "Broadway Melody" in 1938. And for 10 days, he was the original Tin Man in "The Wizard of Oz," but the aluminum dust used in the makeup nearly killed him and Jack Haley got the role of a lifetime.
EBSEN: I didn't want to leave the picture, but I was in the hospital. There was not a chance of not leaving it.
BROWN: After a bitter contract fight with MGM, Buddy Ebsen, in effect, disappeared from the screen, blackballed by studio chief Louis B. Mayer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EBSEN: Well, captain, meet up with Davy Crockett.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: It wasn't until the mid-'50s that he was hired to play George Russel to Fess Parker Davy Crockett on TV.
And then, of course, to television immortality playing Jed Clampett in the series "The Beverly Hillbillies," panned by the critics, but an enormous hit in the ratings and a favorite of President Lyndon Johnson.
DONNA DOUGLAS, ACTRESS: Our show hit No. 1, I think it was the second or third week. And we were No. 1 on national television for two solid years. We were close. We were close. We were really like a family. And I think that's what came across on the screen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: Barnaby Jones' office. May I help you?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Later, he was television detective Barnaby Jones. And when he finally retired, he painted. He told interviewers he first arrived in New York City with only $1 and change in his pocket and another $25 in a sock. He endured in a very tough business for more than 60 years.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Buddy Ebsen.
Morning papers after the break. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: I missed that. I was off for a couple of days. I missed that.
Time to check morning papers from around the country and, tonight, literally from around the world, because we begin in Australia, where it is already tomorrow. Well, it's almost tomorrow here anyway.
"The Daily Telegraph," it's an unbelievable story. Murdered -- they have a picture of it -- "Murdered at 13,000 feet, skydiver Stephen Hilder leaps from aircraft unaware someone had decided to kill him." Someone had cut his parachute. And they have the picture. Take that shot one more time. You got it? Man oh, man. Anyway, that's "The Daily Telegraph."
And while we are abroad, "The Guardian." "Blair Told It's Time to Answer Vital Questions." They're still kicking around what the government said or knew about Iraq. And then this story: Does your English let you down? Oh, wait, that's an ad. I thought maybe it was directed at me. I wasn't sure.
"USA Today," if you are traveling. Down at the bottom, "USA Today." The shuttle is the big story. "Vidal Sassoon Takes on a Hairy Fight Against P&G," Procter & Gamble. I didn't know that was a big issue, but apparently it is, and a terrific shot of the shuttle hole in -- or the reenactment -- in "USA Today."
The Detroit papers. "The Detroit News" first. Do you think there is a car story? Well, yes, interestingly enough, there is, sort of: "Chrysler Rescues Boat Races," two for one there. The hydroplane is really kind of a niche sport, if you ask me. You see these in Seattle. "GOP Shuns Affirmative Action Vote. State party denounces Connerly effort to put issue on the state ballot." That's Ward Connerly, who ran an initiative in California to kill off all affirmative action programs, is threatening to go into Michigan to do likewise. And the Republican Party ain't too thrilled -- it's not too thrilled about that.
I can't believe I just said ain't. Oh, my goodness.
How much time, David?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A little bit less than a minute.
BROWN: Medicare. This is the "Detroit Free Press." The Medicare drug plan may save carmakers millions. And that's likely to affect the negotiations with the UAW. That's the big story there.
What did I like here? Oh, I love this story, "The Miami Herald." Forty seconds? OK. Down at the bottom here, OK? "Blind Baseball Announcer a Star at Calling the Shots." This is a man who has been blind since birth, calls the Spanish-language Tampa Bay games. We ought to go down there and do that story. That is a great story. Twenty seconds?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
BROWN: That's it. No more. That's our report. It's Monday. We will see you again tomorrow. We hope you are all back.
Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
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