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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

White House May Compromise Over Money to Reconstruct Iraq; New Twist in Gitmo Spy Scandal; Clark Attends New Hampshire Townhall Meeting

Aired September 26, 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.


MILES O'BRIEN, GUEST HOST: The last Friday in September, Rosh Hashana, the start of the new year for Jews all around the world.
It's still technically summer but it feels like a seasonal change very much in the air. This is the last weekend of the regular season for the major leagues and what seems like the beginning of the real push in the race for the White House as Democratic candidate number ten takes his first trip to New Hampshire. We'll deal with both of those stories tonight and a lot more.

Now, Aaron may be off tonight but he left his whip behind and I would face 40 lashes if I didn't use it myself, so let's get cracking.

To John King first and a possible new White House strategy in selling that $87 billion Iraq plan. John, a headline please.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Miles, because of a firestorm of criticism in Congress from both Democrats and Republicans the administration concedes it will be forced to compromise. The president won't be able to give all $20 billion of that reconstruction money in grants. The Iraqi government is going to have to eventually pay some of it back -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: John King at the White House.

The Pentagon next, CNN's Jamie McIntyre with some new twists in the case of the airman accused of spying at Guantanamo Bay, Jamie the headline.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well court records, Miles, shows that that Air Force translator was under investigation even before he was sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba where he is accused of espionage and aiding the enemy -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon thank you.

On to Arkansas and a first for the military since the Vietnam War, CNN's David Mattingly with the story tonight and a headline from there.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, he misses NASCAR, his girlfriend and his family not necessarily in that order but tonight a young GI comes home on a vacation from war -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: David Mattingly in Arkansas, thank you.

Finally to New Hampshire, D-Day plus one, that's D for debate for Wesley Clark. CNN's Dan Lothian was there as the former general showed he isn't taking that state for granted. Dan, a headline from you please.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Miles, roughly 17 weeks until the New Hampshire primary, Wesley Clark was here at a town hall meeting, meeting with supporters. He was also meeting on the streets trying to not only introduce himself but win over voters -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Thanks very much, Dan Lothian, back with all of you shortly.

Also coming up on the program tonight, the state of play in California, more endorsements for Arnold Schwarzenegger from key Republicans with an eye toward persuading the number two Republican to bow out of the race. He isn't budging.

A closer look at how the military chooses Muslim chaplains and whether the organization it turns to for help doing it has ties to terrorism.

And we'll close out the week with a look at my hapless hometown team, Motor City's Tigers in the tank. They're trying hard to do what they've had a hard time doing all year and that's winning a ballgame or two and staying out of the record books as the losing-est ball club in modern history, all that to come in the hour ahead.

Off tonight with the cost of rebuilding Iraq and who in the end will pay for it. After a week or so of taking it on the chin for the big number at the bottom line, the White House is finding even more resistance for its Iraq shopping list.

Do Americans want to foot the bill for everything from garbage trucks to zip codes? Well, if not how about a little creative financing. Here again, CNN's Senior White House Correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): Off to Camp David at the close of a contentious week knowing he likely will have no choice but to compromise on his $20 billion request to help rebuild Iraq.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECY.: We're continuing to fight for the package as we outlined it and as we presented it to Congress but obviously we recognize this is a process where we work together on it.

KING: Even some Republican White House allies say the reconstruction money should be a loan not a grant and the fine print is stirring up the president's critics, $9 million to develop a zip code postal system, $4 million to bring telephone area codes to Iraq, 40 garbage trucks at a cost of $50,000 each. SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Mr. President, this document is an insult to the American people. It's an insult to our troops who are paying for their lives.

KING: The $20 billion in reconstruction money is part of the president's $87 billion war budget request and opening the door to reconstruction loans instead of grants is a clear sign of White House worry.

Rounding up international help in Iraq is another worry and the focus of the president's hand-on diplomacy this weekend. The warm Camp David welcome is for good reason. President Putin says he is eager to reach agreement with the United States and is not ruling out offering Russian troops in Iraq down the road.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: And, senior administration officials tonight concede that at least a modest portion of that $20 billion in reconstruction money will have to be in the form of loans, not grants.

Some think the percentage might even be a bit higher than modest this uproar in Congress a sudden blow to a president. Even long time allies are now questioning his Iraq policy and not only the policy overseas but its impact on domestic politics here at home -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: John, I could have sworn I heard Paul Bremer, the civilian administrator in Iraq this past week say it's very important that this money not be loans that they be grants because Iraq has such a debt already.

KING: Such a fragile economy, Paul Bremer makes the case and an international debt that it inherits from Saddam Hussein. Dick Cheney told Republicans in a private meeting don't make this loans because then you could feed the perception this war was fought for oil because that is where the money to repay the loans would come from.

But, as members of Congress go home, their lawmakers were saying -- I mean their constituents are saying why not a bridge for us, why not a courthouse for us, and what about the debt here in the United States, a record federal budget deficit.

The heat on the president comes because when these members of Congress are going home, Miles, at a time of a difficult economy here they are getting heat from their own constituents.

O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, CNN's John King at the White House.

We learned more today about the young man who sits tonight in a brig at Vandenberg Air Force base in California charged with spying. CNN has obtained some court documents that show he was under investigation even before he showed up for duty as an Arabic translator at Guantanamo Bay perhaps the most sensitive and secret place in the U.S. military.

Here again, CNN's Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): Even before senior airman Ahmed al-Halabi arrived for duty in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, he had fallen under suspicion of military investigators.

Court documents say that in November of last year an "investigation was initiated based on reports of suspicious activity while he was stationed at Travis Air Force Base and also while deployed to Kuwait and Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba."

Al-Halabi served as an Arabic language translator at Camp Delta, the prison for Taliban and al Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo from November until July when he was arrested just before he planned to fly to Syria to marry his Syrian fiancee.

The court papers also allege: "Al-Halabi made statements criticizing United States policy with regard to the detainees and the Middle East and that he also expressed sympathy for and had unauthorized contact with the detainees."

Al-Halabi is accused of providing unauthorized comfort items to Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners and attempting to smuggle out more than 180 of their messages.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Now his attorneys insist that al-Halabi is not a spy that he's in fact a star performer in the Air Force who was even named airman of the year in his squadron but his defense attorneys say with most of the evidence in the case classified they can't say much more on his behalf.

However, they did put out a call today for experts in what they said was psycho sociology and Muslim culture that they're looking for to help with his defense -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Jamie, any sense just yet as to how much damage might have been done by the release of all this information?

MCINTYRE: Well, you know at this point and it's very early in this investigation, it doesn't appear that there's a lot of damage to national security.

What it looks like is that this person, assuming the charges are correct, was trying to give aid and comfort to the detainees that he perhaps sympathized with them and was trying to get messages from them out to sympathizers or their family. It's not a big damage to national security but it's a major violation of the security procedures at that base.

O'BRIEN: Well, and it's worth pointing out that the administration does not want to even release a list of those detainees. Just giving away their identity would be a violation of national security rules, right? MCINTYRE: That's right and the information that was found on his laptop computer included the identities, the numbers, the numbers that have been assigned to those prisoners, and information that he had taken from handwritten notes and turned into electronic communication.

O'BRIEN: CNN's Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon, thank you very much.

Of course Airman al-Halabi isn't the only one under suspicion tonight. James Yee, a chaplain at the base also finds himself in custody and the military finds itself under scrutiny over how it chooses its Muslim clerics. That part of the story coming up a little bit later in the program.

Now on to some other things, you can almost smell the home cooked meals and hear the Barry White tunes playing tonight as 192 military families torn apart by the war in Iraq are made whole once again. The servicemen and women were in the vanguard of a two-week R&R campaign to spell Iraqi-weary troops.

Watching the smiles and tears as they put boots on U.S. soil for the first time in a long while, you can't help but wonder how hard it will be when it is time to go back only 15 days from now.

Again, here's CNN's David Mattingly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY (voice-over): By the time he heard the welcome home applause in the Little Rock airport, Private First Class Dustin Bohannan was less than 36 hours removed from driving a tank in Baghdad.

His boots still covered with Iraqi dust, Bohannan is among the first wave of troops shuttling back home for brief R&R, a vacation from the war.

We followed him as he first set foot on U.S. soil in Baltimore, through the last legs of his journey home, a world away from the life he was leaving behind.

DUSTIN BOHANNAN, PRIVATE FIRST CLASS: I'd probably be on a patrol right now, you know. It's like 3:00 in the morning so that's patrol time.

MATTINGLY: His needs are simple, a hot shower, some civilian clothes and to lose himself in the embrace of family.

BOHANNAN: It's definitely tough on the people here. Like I said when you're over there you're not thinking about home. You're just thinking about, you know, what you have to do, what are you doing the next day. You all is too busy.

MATTINGLY: As a teenager, Bohannan would worry his parents racing his truck down the back roads in nearby Louisiana. Now, a full 20 years old, he conducts overnight patrols down the back streets of Baghdad looking for explosive devices.

LISA BOHANNAN, DUSTIN BOHANNAN'S STEPMOTHER: I'm not worried about anything right now. I mean it's wonderful except (unintelligible).

MATTINGLY: In his brief time reunited with the family he said goodbye to when he deployed back in April, Bohannan seems remarkably unaffected by his experience in Iraq, a little taller, a little older according to his family and a little harder to say goodbye to a second time.

DON BOHANNAN, DUSTIN BOHANNAN'S FATHER: But you hear things like today. Somebody was killed yesterday then you start wondering was it him? And it's scary. It's scary and I'm glad he's home.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: But like so many of his fellow GIs, Private Bohannan knows that the clock is ticking. In just two weeks' time he has to go back to Iraq, back to that tank in the streets of Baghdad -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Well, it's short but it certainly will be sweet. We can certainly say that. What have they told the likes of Dustin about how long their stint will be in Iraq? It's still kind of up in the air isn't it?

MATTINGLY: It is up in the air and he says he tries not to think about how long it's going to be. He says he's in the Army now for three more years and he has no idea how long he's going to be in Iraq. He's just making the most of the time that he has here like the other troops that came home today say they're going to be doing and he's not thinking about just how long his life may be in Iraq.

O'BRIEN: David, are these troops getting younger or am I just getting older?

MATTINGLY: I thought the same thing when I saw him.

O'BRIEN: Wow.

MATTINGLY: I tell you what he has an awful lot of poise for a young man of 20 years old, of course an incredible experience he's going through right now along with so many other soldiers in Iraq.

O'BRIEN: All right, we should all be proud of the likes of Dustin Bohannan. Thank you very much David Mattingly, Eldorado, Arkansas tonight.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT for a Friday, big name Republicans line up behind Arnold Schwarzenegger with one notable exception and he could be a spoiler.

And later the bad news Tigers on the verge of becoming the losing-est team in modern baseball history.

From Atlanta, this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: A fire in the worst possible place begins our look at some of the other stories making news around the country tonight. It struck a nursing home in Nashville late last night.

It spread quickly through the four-story building. Eight died in the fire. Sixteen more suffered critical injuries. Among the dead the 96-year-old mother of the off duty fire chief who answered the call. The home was exempt from a state law requiring sprinklers.

Another bitter pill for the victims of the late John Geoghan, a Massachusetts court has erased his conviction on child molestation charges because the defrocked priest was killed in the process of an appeal. This is a customary thing under state law but a disappointment just the same to Father Geoghan's victims.

Just a few days after apologizing for the hit-and-run death of a motorcyclist, South Dakota Congressman Bill Janklow pleaded not guilty to manslaughter. You may remember authorities say Congressman Janklow was going 71 miles an hour in a 55 zone and had just run a stop sign when his car struck and killed the biker. The trial is scheduled for the first of December.

Finally, to California and word the family of Laci Peterson has filed a civil suit against her husband Scott to prevent him from receiving money for telling his story.

Sharon Rocha, Laci Peterson's mother, wants the money to go into a trust until the outcome of his murder trial. Scott Peterson, as you probably know unless you've been napping the last year or so, is charged with killing his pregnant wife.

On to California where the recall election is now just 11 days away, two headlines today to tell you about. Governor Gray Davis challenged Arnold Schwarzenegger to a debate and the man behind the recall in the first place gave an endorsement aimed at winnowing the Republican field. The answer to the first was no and to the second no, not yet.

With that and more tonight, here's CNN's Kelly Wallace.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An energized Governor Gray Davis after upping the ante on GOP frontrunner Arnold Schwarzenegger.

GOV. GRAY DAVIS (D), CALIFORNIA: I'm not going to take it anymore and right here, right now I challenge him to a debate. We have got to set the record straight.

WALLACE: Davis issued the challenge after getting a boost from Democratic heavyweight...

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), NEW YORK: Let's keep Gray Davis and let's get rid of George Bush.

WALLACE: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on the phone and former Texas Governor Ann Richards.

ANN RICHARD, FMR. TEXAS GOVERNOR: I think you're going to have to call him out and tell him one-on-one.

WALLACE: The move comes as Davis' aides concede their internal polls show the governor a few points shy of holding onto his job. The Davis team believes it's a winning strategy confident the governor would defeat Schwarzenegger in any debate and believing the actor turned candidate who started running ads critical of Davis earlier this week could lose some ground if he's accused of dodging the challenge.

The Schwarzenegger camp immediately responded saying it would not accept the invitation. Spokesman Todd Harris told CNN: "This is a page out of the desperate candidate's handbook."

Earlier, another influential Republican rallied behind Schwarzenegger.

REP. DARRELL ISSA (R), CALIFORNIA: I give you with my wholehearted support Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

WALLACE: Schwarzenegger in thanking Congressman Darrell Issa, the man who bankrolled the recall movement, seemed to be sending a message to someone else.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: When he saw his campaign for governor not progressing the way he expected what did he do? He did a selfless act. He stepped aside for other candidates to be successful.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: A possible hint to state Senator Tom McClintock, the Republican trailing Schwarzenegger but McClintock remains defiant. Instead on this day of making moves to get out of the race, he unveiled his latest television ad.

And speaking of television ads, Governor Gray Davis is now on the air statewide with a new ad of his own and for the first time in his ad he is directly mentioning Arnold Schwarzenegger.

ANNOUNCER: Why can't Schwarzenegger get his facts straight? He has no experience, won't answer press questions, won't debate unless he has the questions in advance, and didn't even bother to vote in 13 of the last 21 elections. Vote no on the recall.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: And we have some immediate reaction from the Schwarzenegger campaign. I just got off the phone with a Schwarzenegger adviser who said this is a desperate move by the embattled governor saying this is part of the "puke politics" that Californians have grown to reject -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: OK, so with 11 days to go it's starting to get nasty. What do you expect more of the same and are the air waves just blanketed and will they be blanketed for the time that remains in this election?

WALLACE: More of the same, Miles. The air waves are already blanketed but expect more ads by the Davis campaign, by Schwarzenegger. They both have millions in their war chests to spend.

It's taken a negative tone and it is likely to continue for these 11 days. Davis still does not have enough votes to stay in office and, obviously, Schwarzenegger is battling a Republican as well as a Democrat on the battle, Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, so he has his work cut out for him as well -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: It's going to be an interesting week and a half. Kelly Wallace in Los Angeles thank you very much.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, more on the political front for you as the newest presidential contended heads to New Hampshire, he insists he is a Democrat but his opponents aren't convinced.

From CNN headquarters in Atlanta, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Welcome back.

A milestone this weekend for retired General Wesley Clark. His presidential campaign will hit the double digits. It will be ten days old this in a field of opponents who have been shaking hands and kissing babies for the better part of a year, some even longer than that. So, with a lot of catching up to do and with the first tempest brewing in his campaign teapot the general went looking for votes in New Hampshire.

CNN's Dan Lothian went along for the ride.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN (voice-over): When retired General Wesley Clark walked into this Manchester, New Hampshire hair salon he wasn't looking for a haircut.

WESLEY CLARK (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I got a haircut yesterday.

LOTHIAN: He was looking for votes.

CLARK: I'm running for president.

LOTHIAN: Late to the race, especially late at getting his campaign boots on the ground in this critical primary state, Clark is trying to stand out in a crowded field of tough contenders.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please join me in welcoming Democratic candidate for president General Wesley Clark.

LOTHIAN: At New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire, a town hall meeting puts him face-to-face with the issues important to voters.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I just want to know how you would support the funding of healthcare for children under 18 as well as the adults.

CLARK: Well, we're going to have to support it out of tax revenues.

LOTHIAN: Clark is finding supporters as he pushes his $100 billion jobs plan, while still tweaking his position on many key issues, something that's drawn a lot of criticism.

He's also having to answer questions about his commitment to the Democratic Party after admitting that he voted for Republicans and even supported them. Here's home video of Clark's remarks in the spring of 2001.

CLARK: Our President George W. Bush, we need him there because we got some tough challenges.

LOTHIAN: Here's Clark now.

CLARK: I was going to be either a very, very lonely Republican or I was going to be a very happy Democrat and I am a Democrat and I'm proud to be one. I'm a new Democrat.

LOTHIAN: A new Democrat trying to play catch up in the backyard of two other top tier candidates, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, who currently leads the polls in New Hampshire.

Back at the beauty salon...

CLARK: I would take the money back from the tax cut.

LOTHIAN: Clark was making a case for his economic plan and finding potential converts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The man was prepared. He knew what he was talking about, which was good, which was good, you know.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN: While Clark has been leading in two polls, two national polls, here in New Hampshire he does have some ground to make up. He's at 11 percent behind Kerry at 22 percent, behind Dean with 35 percent -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Well, Dan, as you well know there are folks in New Hampshire who won't vote for anybody they haven't met. He doesn't have a lot of time to do that kind of campaigning. Given all that how important will New Hampshire be for the general, retired general? LOTHIAN: Well, it will certainly be very important for him and he understands that and that's why he was out today at that diner meeting with various people, some who were supporting him, others who didn't know a whole lot about him.

One woman, he was talking to her and she said you know I don't really know a lot about you and he sat down and started laying out the various issues. Of course, he hasn't been that clear on some of those issues.

He admits that he still has some work to do to clarify his issues and, perhaps, that will attract some voters here in this state. Tomorrow also he will be meeting with some firefighters in Manchester dealing with issues of homeland security -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: CNN's Dan Lothian in New Hampshire thank you.

You know the motto in New Hampshire is live free or die. They take their politics and their pivotal place in the process very seriously but even on this last Friday in September, the presidential horserace still isn't quite on the front burner in New England, not with the Red Sox in the playoffs.

With that in mind, we turn to someone who cares more about Dean and Clark than Martinez and Nixon, Trot Nixon that is. We spoke earlier this evening with Peter Beinart of "The New Republic" magazine.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: First of all, I'd like to start off, give us a report card of the debate. Who do you think did well, who did poorly?

PETER BEINART, "THE NEW REPUBLIC": I think Dean is the winner because at this point given his commanding lead any debate where Dean doesn't really stumble badly is a big win for Dean.

I mean he has a tremendous amount of momentum. He will come out in the next couple of weeks with an enormous fundraising total for this quarter and the fact that nobody really significantly drew blood I think means that his momentum remains strong.

O'BRIEN: Now, as far as Clark goes he's sort of having to prove his Democratic credentials and by some accounts they're a little thin is that a problem for him?

BEINART: I think it is a problem for him. I think what you're referring to specifically is this revelation that in early 2001 in May he spoke at an Arkansas Republican dinner, said some nice things about Ronald Reagan and this President Bush.

I think that wouldn't be so much of a problem if he had established some other Democratic bona fides or even if he had had a more kind of substantive kind of set of Democratic sounding ideas but so far he hasn't done that. He was very vague at the debate and I think this could be a little bit of a problem, particularly given that there is a kind of a pretty strong kind of conservative Republican attempt to smear him going on already which may be having some effect.

O'BRIEN: Of course one way to look at that is you could say it's a recipe for electoral success. You could say a southern Democrat who pays homage to the likes of Ronald Reagan that's going to appeal to a lot of those so-called Reagan Democrats ultimately.

BEINART: Yes, that's true but you have to win the nomination first, you know.

O'BRIEN: Details.

BEINART: That's right. You know Bill Clinton was good at doing that to some degree but he had a very firm base in the Democratic Party and he understood the way to connect with Democrats.

I think that Clark is really finding his feet here. You could see that in the debate, where, on most of the specifics on economic policy, he didn't have a lot to say. And one of the difficulties of coming in at this late date is that the other candidates have already laid out their positions on many issues. So it's hard to come up and say much that is going to sound new. Most of it may end up sounding pretty similar to what most of the other candidates have been saying for almost a year now.

O'BRIEN: And then there is that whole issue of how you get to New Hampshire and Iowa voters. They insist on this retail approach to politics. There is not a lot of time for Wes Clark to play that game. Does he just have to write off those primaries, and, if so, at what cost?

BEINART: Well, I would imagine Iowa will be very hard for him to compete in, because Iowa really is an organizational test. You have to get people to caucuses, which is a lot more involved than just voting.

I would suspect that he is going to focus more on New Hampshire and particularly South Carolina, which is known for having a very large military population. And this is why I think partly you may have seen Joe Lieberman be the first Democrat today to go after Clark, because Lieberman is banking a lot on South Carolina with his somewhat more conservative persona. And Lieberman needs at least a third-place showing in New Hampshire.

If that's threatened by Clark, as it is may be, according to some new polls, Lieberman is in trouble. So I think that's why you saw him go after Clark.

O'BRIEN: So what is the issue, though, where this will all hinge on? Is it the economy or is it concerns about Iraq and national security in general?

BEINART: Well, I think, in the Democratic primary, it's probably both.

The first thing is, do you seem like you have an alternative vision on the war on terrorism to the Bush administration, one that's credible enough that you can stand toe-to-toe with Bush and take the inevitable attacks that you would be soft on terrorism that will inevitably come?

And the second one is, can you convince Democrats and then other voters that, if you had been president, this recession wouldn't be so bad, that you might have been able to do something else, not just that wouldn't have made the budget deficit so bad, but that actually might have affected jobs? Those are the two thresholds. I don't think any of the Democrats have quite met them yet. That will be Clark's challenge, too.

O'BRIEN: All right, if the whole thing came down to resume, it would be hard to beat Wes Clark, wouldn't it?

BEINART: The resume is very impressive. That's right.

But I suspect that Democrats may be putting too much emphasis on this. Democrats know they have a really serious problem on national security, which is that the people give the Republicans a big edge. And that really I think has to do with a commentary on people not thinking the Democrats have a real vision on what to do in this new political era, after September 11. You can't solve that problem just with a resume, just with biography. I think the Kerry campaign has learned that a little bit, too.

It wasn't enough just to say that John Kerry had been heroic in Vietnam. George W. Bush does not have a stellar war record himself. And it hasn't mattered, because people feel like he has an aggressive, coherent set of policies. That's what the Democrats need to present. That will matter more than their resumes, I think.

O'BRIEN: Yes, let's not forget, George McGovern was a war hero, too.

BEINART: And Max Cleland in 2002.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: Yes. Thank you very much, Peter Beinart.

BEINART: Pleasure.

O'BRIEN: Appreciate it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: And we spoke to Mr. Beinart earlier today.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT: more on the military chaplain controversy, a continuing and expanding investigation into the groups that approve Muslim clerics in uniform.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Back to Guantanamo now, the Alcatraz for the war on terror and the burgeoning espionage investigation there.

There are 660 suspected al Qaeda terrorists or sympathizers still held there as enemy combatants. And it appears, they might have found, at the very least, their jailers were sympathetic to their plight. At least one of the servicemen accused of aiding the enemy is an Islamic chaplain. And this has focused on the process of just how these people are trained and selected.

Here's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ever since the arrest of Army Chaplain James Yee on the suspension of espionage, the three institutions that have trained or endorsed Muslim chaplains for the military have come under fire.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: All of these groups, including the group that trained and selected Captain Yee, have a number of disturbing connections to terrorism.

ARENA: Government officials tell CNN, all three organizations are part of a larger investigation into whether they're recruiting and funneling money to terrorists. But after nearly two years, no charges have been filed.

NANCY LUQUE, ATTORNEY, GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ISLAMIC & SOCIAL SCIENCES: They have nothing to show for it. They will have nothing to show for it. These people could not be more moderate and loyal American citizens.

ARENA: Captain Yee was certified by the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council, one of two organizations that endorse chaplains. The other is the Islamic Society of North America, which also serves as an endorser for the Bureau of Prisons.

JACK WILLIAMSON, NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MINISTRY TO THE ARMED FORCES: The endorsing agency has the ability to certify that an individual has met the requirements to be a clergy in that particular religious tradition.

ARENA: Endorsers do not offer chaplain training. One group that did, but doesn't anymore, is the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences. It trained nine out of the 13 Muslim chaplains currently serving in the military. It also gave Yee a letter of equivalency for his schooling in Syria, but denies any further relationship. All three groups vehemently deny any links to terrorism.

SAYYID SYEED, ISLAMIC SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA: Everything is open. ARENA: One Islamic Society board member, though, has been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the first World Trade Center bombing.

But some say focusing on the endorsing agencies or training facilities is misguided. It is the government's responsibility to conduct background checks on those who apply to be chaplains.

SYEED: This is the job of the intelligence and security institutions. They will have to come forward. They will have to identify, they will have to set certain rules and requirements.

ARENA: Both the Justice and Defense departments have launched a review of how chaplains are selected and screened.

(on camera): But sources say there really isn't much momentum to change things, especially regarding Muslim chaplains. The one reason, there isn't a single other group that has met the requirements to do the job.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Elaine Shannon has been covering the Guantanamo story for "TIME" magazine. She joins us now from Washington.

Elaine, good to have you with us.

ELAINE SHANNON, "TIME": Good evening.

O'BRIEN: Give us a sense of what sorts of things these alleged spies had in their possession, according to the government so far?

SHANNON: Well, one thing that al-Halabi is accused of doing is e-mailing messages, names of people who are interned and their interment serial numbers, and collecting a much larger list of names and serial numbers, also taking photographs in an unauthorized manner. And there is a reference to maps as well.

O'BRIEN: All right, and just compiling a list of the detainees there would be a violation of national security, right?

SHANNON: Right.

Well, this is certainly the military's argument, that they think it is dangerous to let people who may publish it or give it to al Qaeda have a complete list of the detainees, because if you know -- if al Qaeda knows everybody who is there, then they could take a lot of countermeasures to protect the plans or change the plans that these people may be talking about to their interrogators.

O'BRIEN: But these people are allowed to send back messages home, correct?

SHANNON: That's right. At least that's what the military said, that they're able to send pretty short messages that are read by the military and the Red Cross. And there's been a lot of concern about coded messages and whether innocent-looking words could mean something. But they have allowed some communication. But one presumes that al Qaeda is not so organized and efficient that they're able to get to all of the family members of the potential detainees and find out who is exactly in Guantanamo and who is not.

O'BRIEN: Of course, that could be a faulty presumption.

(CROSSTALK)

SHANNON: Yes.

O'BRIEN: We'll just have to leave that there for now.

Let's talk for a moment about these security clearances. The point is well taken. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the government to clear them, these people, one way or another. Some of these clearances, I'm told, predated 9/11, because a clearance is good for as long as five years. Do you think that might have been a mistake?

SHANNON: Well, this is what the military has to deal with now. The American military is huge.

And I was looking today at the FBI. They have to have linguists and translators. These are people -- they need people who can speak the language, not as one learns it in college, but people who have grown up speaking it. If you want to translate effectively, if you want to listen to wiretaps effectively, if you want to read messages and catch the nuances and the slang, the double meanings, you need to have people who know these languages because they were born in them.

But you have people who come here from other countries. And even though they may be naturalized or have green cards, there's always still going to be a tension between the security issue and -- and maybe loyalty elsewhere. And, of course, Americans have shown themselves quite able to betray secrets to foreign powers

(CROSSTALK)

SHANNON: ... born here.

O'BRIEN: Right.

What do you know about the possibility that this was all organized and some of these people might have been acting in concert with each other? Or is this just a coincidence that there are multiple suspects right now?

SHANNON: Well, the charges against al-Halabi talk about how he did not report what he saw, in terms of people communicating with detainees -- military people communicating with detainees that weren't supposed to communicate in that way. But what -- it's not clear from this is whether these are people who were just kind and who had agreed to send a message to somebody, maybe a family member, somebody that they thought was a family member, or whether this is a ring. The concern on the part of the military -- one concern is that a surreptitious communications channel might be set up by a ring, perhaps manipulating people who work at Guantanamo, so that they could get messages to these detainees to give false information, misleading information, disinformation to the U.S., as well as to coordinate what was being said about the actual al Qaeda plots that these people may know about.

O'BRIEN: And just quickly, Elaine, what's your sense of how much damage has been done?

SHANNON: Well, we don't know yet.

They do say in the charges that al-Halabi did e-mail a few names. He had many, many more on his laptop, allegedly, and he was about to go to Syria, supposedly to get married. So they evidently stopped him before he sent a great deal of information. They have now said that they were suspicious of him and started watching him before he was ever assigned to Guantanamo.

So either they messed up and let him e-mail it, despite being watched, or this was what they call a controlled delivery and they let him send some information they didn't think was very important.

O'BRIEN: Elaine Shannon, with "TIME" magazine, thanks very much. Appreciate it.

SHANNON: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: As NEWSNIGHT continues: the passing of the "Paper Lion." We'll look at the life of the man who tried everything, at least for a moment, in a moment.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: These days, you can't turn on the television without television grabbing you by the throat, dragging you off the couch and putting you right smack in the middle of something. But long before helmet cam and cockpit cam and videophones, there was George Plimpton.

George Plimpton put himself into the thick of things and then wrote so compellingly about it, you thought you were right there with him. George Plimpton was also a socialite, a literary lion, an actor, and a whole lot of other things, too. He died last night at his townhouse in Manhattan at age 76 after a life everyone should live.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN (voice-over): Talk about reporter involvement. George Plimpton took first-person journalism into a new league, defining the genre. It seems he would try anything, movie star, musician or professional athlete, and then write about it in a way mere observers cannot.

He did stand-up in Vegas, played percussion with the New York Philharmonic, goal-tended for the Boston Bruins, and tried out for the circus. He was cut. But he said his most nerve-wracking assignment of all, playing percussion for the New York Philharmonic.

GEORGE PLIMPTON, JOURNALIST: In music, unlike sport, you simply can't make a mistake, because, if you make a mistake, you destroy something. And you've got an audience out there that have all paid $30, $40, $50, $60 to hear one of the greatest orchestras in the world. And they don't know that, in the back of the orchestra, there is a guy who can't read music. That is terror, pure, pure terror.

O'BRIEN: Perhaps Plimpton's best-known book, "Paper Lion," documented his mishaps training with the Detroit Lions. He actually got into a game briefly, but was booed off the field.

He wrote almost three dozen other books about his adventures as a professional amateur, which included harness racing, dancing, golfing, boxing, even sleigh bell and gong playing. He tried movies, too, appearing in a number of films, including "Good Will Hunting" and "Lawrence of Arabia."

Born in 1927 to a well-connected New York diplomat, Plimpton seemed to be everywhere and know everyone, A-list all the way. He played tennis with former President Bush, rode on Air Force One with President Clinton, sailed with John Kennedy, and attended Caroline Kennedy's wedding.

He was a classmate of Robert Kennedy's at Harvard and was walking in front of the senator when he was assassinated. He wasn't just a spectator here either. He helped wrestle Sirhan Sirhan to the ground. As creator of "The Paris Review," a high-brow intellectual journal, Plimpton became friends with Ernest Hemingway and published early works by writers like Philip Roth and Terry Southern.

PLIMPTON: This magazine, "The Paris Review," which I've been working on all these years, editing all these years, because, in there, I've seen, to my great delight, writers get going and become famous. So "The Review" would be a huge legacy to leave, I think.

O'BRIEN: Plimpton tried everything once, except marriage, which he tried twice, first to Freddy Medora Espy, and later to Sara Whitehead Dudley. He had four children.

Plimpton's career might best be summarized by this cartoon that once appeared in "The New Yorker." The patient asks his surgeon, "How do I know you're not George Plimpton?"

George Plimpton tried it all. And when some called him a dilettante, he had a quick reply. "I have never been convinced," said he, "that there is anything inherently wrong with having fun."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Another untimely death, this one in the music world, to tell you about. Robert Palmer died today of a heart attack. It happened in Paris, where Mr. Palmer was taking a break from a recording session. Robert Palmer was the button-down singer best known for his hits "Simply Irresistible" and "Addicted to Love." But his career stretched well back into the '70s. Robert Palmer was just 54.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, segment seven goes to the ballpark. And the Detroit Tigers, could they become the worst team in modern baseball history?

From the Atlanta bureau, this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Finally from us tonight, ever since writers and baseball players began walking the earth together, writers have tried to turn baseball into a metaphor for life. Most baseball players would call it a lot of hooey, but there does seem to be at least one parallel. In baseball, as in life, you win some and you lose some, unless you happen to play in Detroit.

Here's CNN's Gary Tuchman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Across the parking lot from Detroit's new ballpark is a church, where it's explicitly noted, prayers are offered for the city's underachieving baseball and football teams. But the prayerful emphasis these days is on the Tigers.

REV. STEVEN KELLY, ST. JOHN'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH: God willing, over the course of the summer, they'll make the right moves and develop the talent. And next year, we'll be a lot happier at the end of the season.

TUCHMAN: For the most part, what Tiger fans have seen this year has not made them very happy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think that's really sad. It's embarrassing, a little bit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't want to be the losingest team.

TUCHMAN: The Detroit Tigers are on the verge of matching the New York Mets for the most losses in a season in the post-1900 era of baseball. The Mets lost 120 games in 1962, but it came in their first year as a team. The Tigers are in their 103rd year.

Detroit's Dmitri Young has the highest batting average on this team.

DMITRI YOUNG, DETROIT TIGERS: This has been a trying season. And having to watch television and watch everybody make a mockery of us, it's -- you got to take it.

TUCHMAN (on camera): It's hard, isn't it?

YOUNG: It's a little difficult. But, at the same time, we're professional. We've got to come out here and play ball.

TUCHMAN: It's been nearly two decades since the Tigers last won a World Series, electrifying their fans in 1984. But now the city of Detroit has gone 10 seasons without even seeing the Tigers even post a winning record.

Ernie Harwell is the legendary Tigers sportscaster who retired last season after 42 years for broadcasting their games.

ERNIE HARWELL, FORMER TIGERS ANNOUNCER: I think the players just don't play very well. And then it begins to feed on itself and then ate into their psyche. And they become losers. And people label them as losers and they hear all of that, so that eats on them, too.

TUCHMAN: New York Yankee coach Don Zimmer knows it all firsthand. He was on the '62 Mets.

DON ZIMMER, FORMER NEW YORK METS PLAYER: There's no question that they're not having a lot of fun. Baseball should be a fun game, a kids game.

TUCHMAN (on camera): Before the modern era of baseball, there was a ball club with even more losses than these Tigers and the '62 Mets. They were the National League's Cleveland Spiders, who lost 134 games in 1889. The Spiders then crawled into oblivion, the team disbanding after that season of ineptitude.

(voice-over): The Tigers, though, will be back in 2004, with this prediction.

HARWELL: Next year, we'll be a little bit better.

TUCHMAN (on camera): Always an optimist, right?

HARWELL: Always an optimist.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): Gary Tuchman, CNN, Detroit.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: And they lost tonight, one away from tying the record.

That's all that time we have for NEWSNIGHT. I'm Miles O'Brien. Aaron will be back on Monday.

Good night.

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





New Twist in Gitmo Spy Scandal; Clark Attends New Hampshire Townhall Meeting>


Aired September 26, 2003 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, GUEST HOST: The last Friday in September, Rosh Hashana, the start of the new year for Jews all around the world.
It's still technically summer but it feels like a seasonal change very much in the air. This is the last weekend of the regular season for the major leagues and what seems like the beginning of the real push in the race for the White House as Democratic candidate number ten takes his first trip to New Hampshire. We'll deal with both of those stories tonight and a lot more.

Now, Aaron may be off tonight but he left his whip behind and I would face 40 lashes if I didn't use it myself, so let's get cracking.

To John King first and a possible new White House strategy in selling that $87 billion Iraq plan. John, a headline please.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Miles, because of a firestorm of criticism in Congress from both Democrats and Republicans the administration concedes it will be forced to compromise. The president won't be able to give all $20 billion of that reconstruction money in grants. The Iraqi government is going to have to eventually pay some of it back -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: John King at the White House.

The Pentagon next, CNN's Jamie McIntyre with some new twists in the case of the airman accused of spying at Guantanamo Bay, Jamie the headline.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well court records, Miles, shows that that Air Force translator was under investigation even before he was sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba where he is accused of espionage and aiding the enemy -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon thank you.

On to Arkansas and a first for the military since the Vietnam War, CNN's David Mattingly with the story tonight and a headline from there.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, he misses NASCAR, his girlfriend and his family not necessarily in that order but tonight a young GI comes home on a vacation from war -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: David Mattingly in Arkansas, thank you.

Finally to New Hampshire, D-Day plus one, that's D for debate for Wesley Clark. CNN's Dan Lothian was there as the former general showed he isn't taking that state for granted. Dan, a headline from you please.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Miles, roughly 17 weeks until the New Hampshire primary, Wesley Clark was here at a town hall meeting, meeting with supporters. He was also meeting on the streets trying to not only introduce himself but win over voters -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Thanks very much, Dan Lothian, back with all of you shortly.

Also coming up on the program tonight, the state of play in California, more endorsements for Arnold Schwarzenegger from key Republicans with an eye toward persuading the number two Republican to bow out of the race. He isn't budging.

A closer look at how the military chooses Muslim chaplains and whether the organization it turns to for help doing it has ties to terrorism.

And we'll close out the week with a look at my hapless hometown team, Motor City's Tigers in the tank. They're trying hard to do what they've had a hard time doing all year and that's winning a ballgame or two and staying out of the record books as the losing-est ball club in modern history, all that to come in the hour ahead.

Off tonight with the cost of rebuilding Iraq and who in the end will pay for it. After a week or so of taking it on the chin for the big number at the bottom line, the White House is finding even more resistance for its Iraq shopping list.

Do Americans want to foot the bill for everything from garbage trucks to zip codes? Well, if not how about a little creative financing. Here again, CNN's Senior White House Correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): Off to Camp David at the close of a contentious week knowing he likely will have no choice but to compromise on his $20 billion request to help rebuild Iraq.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECY.: We're continuing to fight for the package as we outlined it and as we presented it to Congress but obviously we recognize this is a process where we work together on it.

KING: Even some Republican White House allies say the reconstruction money should be a loan not a grant and the fine print is stirring up the president's critics, $9 million to develop a zip code postal system, $4 million to bring telephone area codes to Iraq, 40 garbage trucks at a cost of $50,000 each. SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Mr. President, this document is an insult to the American people. It's an insult to our troops who are paying for their lives.

KING: The $20 billion in reconstruction money is part of the president's $87 billion war budget request and opening the door to reconstruction loans instead of grants is a clear sign of White House worry.

Rounding up international help in Iraq is another worry and the focus of the president's hand-on diplomacy this weekend. The warm Camp David welcome is for good reason. President Putin says he is eager to reach agreement with the United States and is not ruling out offering Russian troops in Iraq down the road.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: And, senior administration officials tonight concede that at least a modest portion of that $20 billion in reconstruction money will have to be in the form of loans, not grants.

Some think the percentage might even be a bit higher than modest this uproar in Congress a sudden blow to a president. Even long time allies are now questioning his Iraq policy and not only the policy overseas but its impact on domestic politics here at home -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: John, I could have sworn I heard Paul Bremer, the civilian administrator in Iraq this past week say it's very important that this money not be loans that they be grants because Iraq has such a debt already.

KING: Such a fragile economy, Paul Bremer makes the case and an international debt that it inherits from Saddam Hussein. Dick Cheney told Republicans in a private meeting don't make this loans because then you could feed the perception this war was fought for oil because that is where the money to repay the loans would come from.

But, as members of Congress go home, their lawmakers were saying -- I mean their constituents are saying why not a bridge for us, why not a courthouse for us, and what about the debt here in the United States, a record federal budget deficit.

The heat on the president comes because when these members of Congress are going home, Miles, at a time of a difficult economy here they are getting heat from their own constituents.

O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, CNN's John King at the White House.

We learned more today about the young man who sits tonight in a brig at Vandenberg Air Force base in California charged with spying. CNN has obtained some court documents that show he was under investigation even before he showed up for duty as an Arabic translator at Guantanamo Bay perhaps the most sensitive and secret place in the U.S. military.

Here again, CNN's Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): Even before senior airman Ahmed al-Halabi arrived for duty in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, he had fallen under suspicion of military investigators.

Court documents say that in November of last year an "investigation was initiated based on reports of suspicious activity while he was stationed at Travis Air Force Base and also while deployed to Kuwait and Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba."

Al-Halabi served as an Arabic language translator at Camp Delta, the prison for Taliban and al Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo from November until July when he was arrested just before he planned to fly to Syria to marry his Syrian fiancee.

The court papers also allege: "Al-Halabi made statements criticizing United States policy with regard to the detainees and the Middle East and that he also expressed sympathy for and had unauthorized contact with the detainees."

Al-Halabi is accused of providing unauthorized comfort items to Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners and attempting to smuggle out more than 180 of their messages.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Now his attorneys insist that al-Halabi is not a spy that he's in fact a star performer in the Air Force who was even named airman of the year in his squadron but his defense attorneys say with most of the evidence in the case classified they can't say much more on his behalf.

However, they did put out a call today for experts in what they said was psycho sociology and Muslim culture that they're looking for to help with his defense -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Jamie, any sense just yet as to how much damage might have been done by the release of all this information?

MCINTYRE: Well, you know at this point and it's very early in this investigation, it doesn't appear that there's a lot of damage to national security.

What it looks like is that this person, assuming the charges are correct, was trying to give aid and comfort to the detainees that he perhaps sympathized with them and was trying to get messages from them out to sympathizers or their family. It's not a big damage to national security but it's a major violation of the security procedures at that base.

O'BRIEN: Well, and it's worth pointing out that the administration does not want to even release a list of those detainees. Just giving away their identity would be a violation of national security rules, right? MCINTYRE: That's right and the information that was found on his laptop computer included the identities, the numbers, the numbers that have been assigned to those prisoners, and information that he had taken from handwritten notes and turned into electronic communication.

O'BRIEN: CNN's Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon, thank you very much.

Of course Airman al-Halabi isn't the only one under suspicion tonight. James Yee, a chaplain at the base also finds himself in custody and the military finds itself under scrutiny over how it chooses its Muslim clerics. That part of the story coming up a little bit later in the program.

Now on to some other things, you can almost smell the home cooked meals and hear the Barry White tunes playing tonight as 192 military families torn apart by the war in Iraq are made whole once again. The servicemen and women were in the vanguard of a two-week R&R campaign to spell Iraqi-weary troops.

Watching the smiles and tears as they put boots on U.S. soil for the first time in a long while, you can't help but wonder how hard it will be when it is time to go back only 15 days from now.

Again, here's CNN's David Mattingly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY (voice-over): By the time he heard the welcome home applause in the Little Rock airport, Private First Class Dustin Bohannan was less than 36 hours removed from driving a tank in Baghdad.

His boots still covered with Iraqi dust, Bohannan is among the first wave of troops shuttling back home for brief R&R, a vacation from the war.

We followed him as he first set foot on U.S. soil in Baltimore, through the last legs of his journey home, a world away from the life he was leaving behind.

DUSTIN BOHANNAN, PRIVATE FIRST CLASS: I'd probably be on a patrol right now, you know. It's like 3:00 in the morning so that's patrol time.

MATTINGLY: His needs are simple, a hot shower, some civilian clothes and to lose himself in the embrace of family.

BOHANNAN: It's definitely tough on the people here. Like I said when you're over there you're not thinking about home. You're just thinking about, you know, what you have to do, what are you doing the next day. You all is too busy.

MATTINGLY: As a teenager, Bohannan would worry his parents racing his truck down the back roads in nearby Louisiana. Now, a full 20 years old, he conducts overnight patrols down the back streets of Baghdad looking for explosive devices.

LISA BOHANNAN, DUSTIN BOHANNAN'S STEPMOTHER: I'm not worried about anything right now. I mean it's wonderful except (unintelligible).

MATTINGLY: In his brief time reunited with the family he said goodbye to when he deployed back in April, Bohannan seems remarkably unaffected by his experience in Iraq, a little taller, a little older according to his family and a little harder to say goodbye to a second time.

DON BOHANNAN, DUSTIN BOHANNAN'S FATHER: But you hear things like today. Somebody was killed yesterday then you start wondering was it him? And it's scary. It's scary and I'm glad he's home.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: But like so many of his fellow GIs, Private Bohannan knows that the clock is ticking. In just two weeks' time he has to go back to Iraq, back to that tank in the streets of Baghdad -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Well, it's short but it certainly will be sweet. We can certainly say that. What have they told the likes of Dustin about how long their stint will be in Iraq? It's still kind of up in the air isn't it?

MATTINGLY: It is up in the air and he says he tries not to think about how long it's going to be. He says he's in the Army now for three more years and he has no idea how long he's going to be in Iraq. He's just making the most of the time that he has here like the other troops that came home today say they're going to be doing and he's not thinking about just how long his life may be in Iraq.

O'BRIEN: David, are these troops getting younger or am I just getting older?

MATTINGLY: I thought the same thing when I saw him.

O'BRIEN: Wow.

MATTINGLY: I tell you what he has an awful lot of poise for a young man of 20 years old, of course an incredible experience he's going through right now along with so many other soldiers in Iraq.

O'BRIEN: All right, we should all be proud of the likes of Dustin Bohannan. Thank you very much David Mattingly, Eldorado, Arkansas tonight.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT for a Friday, big name Republicans line up behind Arnold Schwarzenegger with one notable exception and he could be a spoiler.

And later the bad news Tigers on the verge of becoming the losing-est team in modern baseball history.

From Atlanta, this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: A fire in the worst possible place begins our look at some of the other stories making news around the country tonight. It struck a nursing home in Nashville late last night.

It spread quickly through the four-story building. Eight died in the fire. Sixteen more suffered critical injuries. Among the dead the 96-year-old mother of the off duty fire chief who answered the call. The home was exempt from a state law requiring sprinklers.

Another bitter pill for the victims of the late John Geoghan, a Massachusetts court has erased his conviction on child molestation charges because the defrocked priest was killed in the process of an appeal. This is a customary thing under state law but a disappointment just the same to Father Geoghan's victims.

Just a few days after apologizing for the hit-and-run death of a motorcyclist, South Dakota Congressman Bill Janklow pleaded not guilty to manslaughter. You may remember authorities say Congressman Janklow was going 71 miles an hour in a 55 zone and had just run a stop sign when his car struck and killed the biker. The trial is scheduled for the first of December.

Finally, to California and word the family of Laci Peterson has filed a civil suit against her husband Scott to prevent him from receiving money for telling his story.

Sharon Rocha, Laci Peterson's mother, wants the money to go into a trust until the outcome of his murder trial. Scott Peterson, as you probably know unless you've been napping the last year or so, is charged with killing his pregnant wife.

On to California where the recall election is now just 11 days away, two headlines today to tell you about. Governor Gray Davis challenged Arnold Schwarzenegger to a debate and the man behind the recall in the first place gave an endorsement aimed at winnowing the Republican field. The answer to the first was no and to the second no, not yet.

With that and more tonight, here's CNN's Kelly Wallace.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An energized Governor Gray Davis after upping the ante on GOP frontrunner Arnold Schwarzenegger.

GOV. GRAY DAVIS (D), CALIFORNIA: I'm not going to take it anymore and right here, right now I challenge him to a debate. We have got to set the record straight.

WALLACE: Davis issued the challenge after getting a boost from Democratic heavyweight...

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), NEW YORK: Let's keep Gray Davis and let's get rid of George Bush.

WALLACE: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on the phone and former Texas Governor Ann Richards.

ANN RICHARD, FMR. TEXAS GOVERNOR: I think you're going to have to call him out and tell him one-on-one.

WALLACE: The move comes as Davis' aides concede their internal polls show the governor a few points shy of holding onto his job. The Davis team believes it's a winning strategy confident the governor would defeat Schwarzenegger in any debate and believing the actor turned candidate who started running ads critical of Davis earlier this week could lose some ground if he's accused of dodging the challenge.

The Schwarzenegger camp immediately responded saying it would not accept the invitation. Spokesman Todd Harris told CNN: "This is a page out of the desperate candidate's handbook."

Earlier, another influential Republican rallied behind Schwarzenegger.

REP. DARRELL ISSA (R), CALIFORNIA: I give you with my wholehearted support Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

WALLACE: Schwarzenegger in thanking Congressman Darrell Issa, the man who bankrolled the recall movement, seemed to be sending a message to someone else.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: When he saw his campaign for governor not progressing the way he expected what did he do? He did a selfless act. He stepped aside for other candidates to be successful.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: A possible hint to state Senator Tom McClintock, the Republican trailing Schwarzenegger but McClintock remains defiant. Instead on this day of making moves to get out of the race, he unveiled his latest television ad.

And speaking of television ads, Governor Gray Davis is now on the air statewide with a new ad of his own and for the first time in his ad he is directly mentioning Arnold Schwarzenegger.

ANNOUNCER: Why can't Schwarzenegger get his facts straight? He has no experience, won't answer press questions, won't debate unless he has the questions in advance, and didn't even bother to vote in 13 of the last 21 elections. Vote no on the recall.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: And we have some immediate reaction from the Schwarzenegger campaign. I just got off the phone with a Schwarzenegger adviser who said this is a desperate move by the embattled governor saying this is part of the "puke politics" that Californians have grown to reject -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: OK, so with 11 days to go it's starting to get nasty. What do you expect more of the same and are the air waves just blanketed and will they be blanketed for the time that remains in this election?

WALLACE: More of the same, Miles. The air waves are already blanketed but expect more ads by the Davis campaign, by Schwarzenegger. They both have millions in their war chests to spend.

It's taken a negative tone and it is likely to continue for these 11 days. Davis still does not have enough votes to stay in office and, obviously, Schwarzenegger is battling a Republican as well as a Democrat on the battle, Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, so he has his work cut out for him as well -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: It's going to be an interesting week and a half. Kelly Wallace in Los Angeles thank you very much.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, more on the political front for you as the newest presidential contended heads to New Hampshire, he insists he is a Democrat but his opponents aren't convinced.

From CNN headquarters in Atlanta, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Welcome back.

A milestone this weekend for retired General Wesley Clark. His presidential campaign will hit the double digits. It will be ten days old this in a field of opponents who have been shaking hands and kissing babies for the better part of a year, some even longer than that. So, with a lot of catching up to do and with the first tempest brewing in his campaign teapot the general went looking for votes in New Hampshire.

CNN's Dan Lothian went along for the ride.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN (voice-over): When retired General Wesley Clark walked into this Manchester, New Hampshire hair salon he wasn't looking for a haircut.

WESLEY CLARK (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I got a haircut yesterday.

LOTHIAN: He was looking for votes.

CLARK: I'm running for president.

LOTHIAN: Late to the race, especially late at getting his campaign boots on the ground in this critical primary state, Clark is trying to stand out in a crowded field of tough contenders.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please join me in welcoming Democratic candidate for president General Wesley Clark.

LOTHIAN: At New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire, a town hall meeting puts him face-to-face with the issues important to voters.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I just want to know how you would support the funding of healthcare for children under 18 as well as the adults.

CLARK: Well, we're going to have to support it out of tax revenues.

LOTHIAN: Clark is finding supporters as he pushes his $100 billion jobs plan, while still tweaking his position on many key issues, something that's drawn a lot of criticism.

He's also having to answer questions about his commitment to the Democratic Party after admitting that he voted for Republicans and even supported them. Here's home video of Clark's remarks in the spring of 2001.

CLARK: Our President George W. Bush, we need him there because we got some tough challenges.

LOTHIAN: Here's Clark now.

CLARK: I was going to be either a very, very lonely Republican or I was going to be a very happy Democrat and I am a Democrat and I'm proud to be one. I'm a new Democrat.

LOTHIAN: A new Democrat trying to play catch up in the backyard of two other top tier candidates, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, who currently leads the polls in New Hampshire.

Back at the beauty salon...

CLARK: I would take the money back from the tax cut.

LOTHIAN: Clark was making a case for his economic plan and finding potential converts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The man was prepared. He knew what he was talking about, which was good, which was good, you know.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN: While Clark has been leading in two polls, two national polls, here in New Hampshire he does have some ground to make up. He's at 11 percent behind Kerry at 22 percent, behind Dean with 35 percent -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Well, Dan, as you well know there are folks in New Hampshire who won't vote for anybody they haven't met. He doesn't have a lot of time to do that kind of campaigning. Given all that how important will New Hampshire be for the general, retired general? LOTHIAN: Well, it will certainly be very important for him and he understands that and that's why he was out today at that diner meeting with various people, some who were supporting him, others who didn't know a whole lot about him.

One woman, he was talking to her and she said you know I don't really know a lot about you and he sat down and started laying out the various issues. Of course, he hasn't been that clear on some of those issues.

He admits that he still has some work to do to clarify his issues and, perhaps, that will attract some voters here in this state. Tomorrow also he will be meeting with some firefighters in Manchester dealing with issues of homeland security -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: CNN's Dan Lothian in New Hampshire thank you.

You know the motto in New Hampshire is live free or die. They take their politics and their pivotal place in the process very seriously but even on this last Friday in September, the presidential horserace still isn't quite on the front burner in New England, not with the Red Sox in the playoffs.

With that in mind, we turn to someone who cares more about Dean and Clark than Martinez and Nixon, Trot Nixon that is. We spoke earlier this evening with Peter Beinart of "The New Republic" magazine.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: First of all, I'd like to start off, give us a report card of the debate. Who do you think did well, who did poorly?

PETER BEINART, "THE NEW REPUBLIC": I think Dean is the winner because at this point given his commanding lead any debate where Dean doesn't really stumble badly is a big win for Dean.

I mean he has a tremendous amount of momentum. He will come out in the next couple of weeks with an enormous fundraising total for this quarter and the fact that nobody really significantly drew blood I think means that his momentum remains strong.

O'BRIEN: Now, as far as Clark goes he's sort of having to prove his Democratic credentials and by some accounts they're a little thin is that a problem for him?

BEINART: I think it is a problem for him. I think what you're referring to specifically is this revelation that in early 2001 in May he spoke at an Arkansas Republican dinner, said some nice things about Ronald Reagan and this President Bush.

I think that wouldn't be so much of a problem if he had established some other Democratic bona fides or even if he had had a more kind of substantive kind of set of Democratic sounding ideas but so far he hasn't done that. He was very vague at the debate and I think this could be a little bit of a problem, particularly given that there is a kind of a pretty strong kind of conservative Republican attempt to smear him going on already which may be having some effect.

O'BRIEN: Of course one way to look at that is you could say it's a recipe for electoral success. You could say a southern Democrat who pays homage to the likes of Ronald Reagan that's going to appeal to a lot of those so-called Reagan Democrats ultimately.

BEINART: Yes, that's true but you have to win the nomination first, you know.

O'BRIEN: Details.

BEINART: That's right. You know Bill Clinton was good at doing that to some degree but he had a very firm base in the Democratic Party and he understood the way to connect with Democrats.

I think that Clark is really finding his feet here. You could see that in the debate, where, on most of the specifics on economic policy, he didn't have a lot to say. And one of the difficulties of coming in at this late date is that the other candidates have already laid out their positions on many issues. So it's hard to come up and say much that is going to sound new. Most of it may end up sounding pretty similar to what most of the other candidates have been saying for almost a year now.

O'BRIEN: And then there is that whole issue of how you get to New Hampshire and Iowa voters. They insist on this retail approach to politics. There is not a lot of time for Wes Clark to play that game. Does he just have to write off those primaries, and, if so, at what cost?

BEINART: Well, I would imagine Iowa will be very hard for him to compete in, because Iowa really is an organizational test. You have to get people to caucuses, which is a lot more involved than just voting.

I would suspect that he is going to focus more on New Hampshire and particularly South Carolina, which is known for having a very large military population. And this is why I think partly you may have seen Joe Lieberman be the first Democrat today to go after Clark, because Lieberman is banking a lot on South Carolina with his somewhat more conservative persona. And Lieberman needs at least a third-place showing in New Hampshire.

If that's threatened by Clark, as it is may be, according to some new polls, Lieberman is in trouble. So I think that's why you saw him go after Clark.

O'BRIEN: So what is the issue, though, where this will all hinge on? Is it the economy or is it concerns about Iraq and national security in general?

BEINART: Well, I think, in the Democratic primary, it's probably both.

The first thing is, do you seem like you have an alternative vision on the war on terrorism to the Bush administration, one that's credible enough that you can stand toe-to-toe with Bush and take the inevitable attacks that you would be soft on terrorism that will inevitably come?

And the second one is, can you convince Democrats and then other voters that, if you had been president, this recession wouldn't be so bad, that you might have been able to do something else, not just that wouldn't have made the budget deficit so bad, but that actually might have affected jobs? Those are the two thresholds. I don't think any of the Democrats have quite met them yet. That will be Clark's challenge, too.

O'BRIEN: All right, if the whole thing came down to resume, it would be hard to beat Wes Clark, wouldn't it?

BEINART: The resume is very impressive. That's right.

But I suspect that Democrats may be putting too much emphasis on this. Democrats know they have a really serious problem on national security, which is that the people give the Republicans a big edge. And that really I think has to do with a commentary on people not thinking the Democrats have a real vision on what to do in this new political era, after September 11. You can't solve that problem just with a resume, just with biography. I think the Kerry campaign has learned that a little bit, too.

It wasn't enough just to say that John Kerry had been heroic in Vietnam. George W. Bush does not have a stellar war record himself. And it hasn't mattered, because people feel like he has an aggressive, coherent set of policies. That's what the Democrats need to present. That will matter more than their resumes, I think.

O'BRIEN: Yes, let's not forget, George McGovern was a war hero, too.

BEINART: And Max Cleland in 2002.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: Yes. Thank you very much, Peter Beinart.

BEINART: Pleasure.

O'BRIEN: Appreciate it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: And we spoke to Mr. Beinart earlier today.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT: more on the military chaplain controversy, a continuing and expanding investigation into the groups that approve Muslim clerics in uniform.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Back to Guantanamo now, the Alcatraz for the war on terror and the burgeoning espionage investigation there.

There are 660 suspected al Qaeda terrorists or sympathizers still held there as enemy combatants. And it appears, they might have found, at the very least, their jailers were sympathetic to their plight. At least one of the servicemen accused of aiding the enemy is an Islamic chaplain. And this has focused on the process of just how these people are trained and selected.

Here's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ever since the arrest of Army Chaplain James Yee on the suspension of espionage, the three institutions that have trained or endorsed Muslim chaplains for the military have come under fire.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: All of these groups, including the group that trained and selected Captain Yee, have a number of disturbing connections to terrorism.

ARENA: Government officials tell CNN, all three organizations are part of a larger investigation into whether they're recruiting and funneling money to terrorists. But after nearly two years, no charges have been filed.

NANCY LUQUE, ATTORNEY, GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ISLAMIC & SOCIAL SCIENCES: They have nothing to show for it. They will have nothing to show for it. These people could not be more moderate and loyal American citizens.

ARENA: Captain Yee was certified by the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council, one of two organizations that endorse chaplains. The other is the Islamic Society of North America, which also serves as an endorser for the Bureau of Prisons.

JACK WILLIAMSON, NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MINISTRY TO THE ARMED FORCES: The endorsing agency has the ability to certify that an individual has met the requirements to be a clergy in that particular religious tradition.

ARENA: Endorsers do not offer chaplain training. One group that did, but doesn't anymore, is the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences. It trained nine out of the 13 Muslim chaplains currently serving in the military. It also gave Yee a letter of equivalency for his schooling in Syria, but denies any further relationship. All three groups vehemently deny any links to terrorism.

SAYYID SYEED, ISLAMIC SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA: Everything is open. ARENA: One Islamic Society board member, though, has been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the first World Trade Center bombing.

But some say focusing on the endorsing agencies or training facilities is misguided. It is the government's responsibility to conduct background checks on those who apply to be chaplains.

SYEED: This is the job of the intelligence and security institutions. They will have to come forward. They will have to identify, they will have to set certain rules and requirements.

ARENA: Both the Justice and Defense departments have launched a review of how chaplains are selected and screened.

(on camera): But sources say there really isn't much momentum to change things, especially regarding Muslim chaplains. The one reason, there isn't a single other group that has met the requirements to do the job.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Elaine Shannon has been covering the Guantanamo story for "TIME" magazine. She joins us now from Washington.

Elaine, good to have you with us.

ELAINE SHANNON, "TIME": Good evening.

O'BRIEN: Give us a sense of what sorts of things these alleged spies had in their possession, according to the government so far?

SHANNON: Well, one thing that al-Halabi is accused of doing is e-mailing messages, names of people who are interned and their interment serial numbers, and collecting a much larger list of names and serial numbers, also taking photographs in an unauthorized manner. And there is a reference to maps as well.

O'BRIEN: All right, and just compiling a list of the detainees there would be a violation of national security, right?

SHANNON: Right.

Well, this is certainly the military's argument, that they think it is dangerous to let people who may publish it or give it to al Qaeda have a complete list of the detainees, because if you know -- if al Qaeda knows everybody who is there, then they could take a lot of countermeasures to protect the plans or change the plans that these people may be talking about to their interrogators.

O'BRIEN: But these people are allowed to send back messages home, correct?

SHANNON: That's right. At least that's what the military said, that they're able to send pretty short messages that are read by the military and the Red Cross. And there's been a lot of concern about coded messages and whether innocent-looking words could mean something. But they have allowed some communication. But one presumes that al Qaeda is not so organized and efficient that they're able to get to all of the family members of the potential detainees and find out who is exactly in Guantanamo and who is not.

O'BRIEN: Of course, that could be a faulty presumption.

(CROSSTALK)

SHANNON: Yes.

O'BRIEN: We'll just have to leave that there for now.

Let's talk for a moment about these security clearances. The point is well taken. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the government to clear them, these people, one way or another. Some of these clearances, I'm told, predated 9/11, because a clearance is good for as long as five years. Do you think that might have been a mistake?

SHANNON: Well, this is what the military has to deal with now. The American military is huge.

And I was looking today at the FBI. They have to have linguists and translators. These are people -- they need people who can speak the language, not as one learns it in college, but people who have grown up speaking it. If you want to translate effectively, if you want to listen to wiretaps effectively, if you want to read messages and catch the nuances and the slang, the double meanings, you need to have people who know these languages because they were born in them.

But you have people who come here from other countries. And even though they may be naturalized or have green cards, there's always still going to be a tension between the security issue and -- and maybe loyalty elsewhere. And, of course, Americans have shown themselves quite able to betray secrets to foreign powers

(CROSSTALK)

SHANNON: ... born here.

O'BRIEN: Right.

What do you know about the possibility that this was all organized and some of these people might have been acting in concert with each other? Or is this just a coincidence that there are multiple suspects right now?

SHANNON: Well, the charges against al-Halabi talk about how he did not report what he saw, in terms of people communicating with detainees -- military people communicating with detainees that weren't supposed to communicate in that way. But what -- it's not clear from this is whether these are people who were just kind and who had agreed to send a message to somebody, maybe a family member, somebody that they thought was a family member, or whether this is a ring. The concern on the part of the military -- one concern is that a surreptitious communications channel might be set up by a ring, perhaps manipulating people who work at Guantanamo, so that they could get messages to these detainees to give false information, misleading information, disinformation to the U.S., as well as to coordinate what was being said about the actual al Qaeda plots that these people may know about.

O'BRIEN: And just quickly, Elaine, what's your sense of how much damage has been done?

SHANNON: Well, we don't know yet.

They do say in the charges that al-Halabi did e-mail a few names. He had many, many more on his laptop, allegedly, and he was about to go to Syria, supposedly to get married. So they evidently stopped him before he sent a great deal of information. They have now said that they were suspicious of him and started watching him before he was ever assigned to Guantanamo.

So either they messed up and let him e-mail it, despite being watched, or this was what they call a controlled delivery and they let him send some information they didn't think was very important.

O'BRIEN: Elaine Shannon, with "TIME" magazine, thanks very much. Appreciate it.

SHANNON: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: As NEWSNIGHT continues: the passing of the "Paper Lion." We'll look at the life of the man who tried everything, at least for a moment, in a moment.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: These days, you can't turn on the television without television grabbing you by the throat, dragging you off the couch and putting you right smack in the middle of something. But long before helmet cam and cockpit cam and videophones, there was George Plimpton.

George Plimpton put himself into the thick of things and then wrote so compellingly about it, you thought you were right there with him. George Plimpton was also a socialite, a literary lion, an actor, and a whole lot of other things, too. He died last night at his townhouse in Manhattan at age 76 after a life everyone should live.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN (voice-over): Talk about reporter involvement. George Plimpton took first-person journalism into a new league, defining the genre. It seems he would try anything, movie star, musician or professional athlete, and then write about it in a way mere observers cannot.

He did stand-up in Vegas, played percussion with the New York Philharmonic, goal-tended for the Boston Bruins, and tried out for the circus. He was cut. But he said his most nerve-wracking assignment of all, playing percussion for the New York Philharmonic.

GEORGE PLIMPTON, JOURNALIST: In music, unlike sport, you simply can't make a mistake, because, if you make a mistake, you destroy something. And you've got an audience out there that have all paid $30, $40, $50, $60 to hear one of the greatest orchestras in the world. And they don't know that, in the back of the orchestra, there is a guy who can't read music. That is terror, pure, pure terror.

O'BRIEN: Perhaps Plimpton's best-known book, "Paper Lion," documented his mishaps training with the Detroit Lions. He actually got into a game briefly, but was booed off the field.

He wrote almost three dozen other books about his adventures as a professional amateur, which included harness racing, dancing, golfing, boxing, even sleigh bell and gong playing. He tried movies, too, appearing in a number of films, including "Good Will Hunting" and "Lawrence of Arabia."

Born in 1927 to a well-connected New York diplomat, Plimpton seemed to be everywhere and know everyone, A-list all the way. He played tennis with former President Bush, rode on Air Force One with President Clinton, sailed with John Kennedy, and attended Caroline Kennedy's wedding.

He was a classmate of Robert Kennedy's at Harvard and was walking in front of the senator when he was assassinated. He wasn't just a spectator here either. He helped wrestle Sirhan Sirhan to the ground. As creator of "The Paris Review," a high-brow intellectual journal, Plimpton became friends with Ernest Hemingway and published early works by writers like Philip Roth and Terry Southern.

PLIMPTON: This magazine, "The Paris Review," which I've been working on all these years, editing all these years, because, in there, I've seen, to my great delight, writers get going and become famous. So "The Review" would be a huge legacy to leave, I think.

O'BRIEN: Plimpton tried everything once, except marriage, which he tried twice, first to Freddy Medora Espy, and later to Sara Whitehead Dudley. He had four children.

Plimpton's career might best be summarized by this cartoon that once appeared in "The New Yorker." The patient asks his surgeon, "How do I know you're not George Plimpton?"

George Plimpton tried it all. And when some called him a dilettante, he had a quick reply. "I have never been convinced," said he, "that there is anything inherently wrong with having fun."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Another untimely death, this one in the music world, to tell you about. Robert Palmer died today of a heart attack. It happened in Paris, where Mr. Palmer was taking a break from a recording session. Robert Palmer was the button-down singer best known for his hits "Simply Irresistible" and "Addicted to Love." But his career stretched well back into the '70s. Robert Palmer was just 54.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, segment seven goes to the ballpark. And the Detroit Tigers, could they become the worst team in modern baseball history?

From the Atlanta bureau, this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Finally from us tonight, ever since writers and baseball players began walking the earth together, writers have tried to turn baseball into a metaphor for life. Most baseball players would call it a lot of hooey, but there does seem to be at least one parallel. In baseball, as in life, you win some and you lose some, unless you happen to play in Detroit.

Here's CNN's Gary Tuchman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Across the parking lot from Detroit's new ballpark is a church, where it's explicitly noted, prayers are offered for the city's underachieving baseball and football teams. But the prayerful emphasis these days is on the Tigers.

REV. STEVEN KELLY, ST. JOHN'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH: God willing, over the course of the summer, they'll make the right moves and develop the talent. And next year, we'll be a lot happier at the end of the season.

TUCHMAN: For the most part, what Tiger fans have seen this year has not made them very happy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think that's really sad. It's embarrassing, a little bit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't want to be the losingest team.

TUCHMAN: The Detroit Tigers are on the verge of matching the New York Mets for the most losses in a season in the post-1900 era of baseball. The Mets lost 120 games in 1962, but it came in their first year as a team. The Tigers are in their 103rd year.

Detroit's Dmitri Young has the highest batting average on this team.

DMITRI YOUNG, DETROIT TIGERS: This has been a trying season. And having to watch television and watch everybody make a mockery of us, it's -- you got to take it.

TUCHMAN (on camera): It's hard, isn't it?

YOUNG: It's a little difficult. But, at the same time, we're professional. We've got to come out here and play ball.

TUCHMAN: It's been nearly two decades since the Tigers last won a World Series, electrifying their fans in 1984. But now the city of Detroit has gone 10 seasons without even seeing the Tigers even post a winning record.

Ernie Harwell is the legendary Tigers sportscaster who retired last season after 42 years for broadcasting their games.

ERNIE HARWELL, FORMER TIGERS ANNOUNCER: I think the players just don't play very well. And then it begins to feed on itself and then ate into their psyche. And they become losers. And people label them as losers and they hear all of that, so that eats on them, too.

TUCHMAN: New York Yankee coach Don Zimmer knows it all firsthand. He was on the '62 Mets.

DON ZIMMER, FORMER NEW YORK METS PLAYER: There's no question that they're not having a lot of fun. Baseball should be a fun game, a kids game.

TUCHMAN (on camera): Before the modern era of baseball, there was a ball club with even more losses than these Tigers and the '62 Mets. They were the National League's Cleveland Spiders, who lost 134 games in 1889. The Spiders then crawled into oblivion, the team disbanding after that season of ineptitude.

(voice-over): The Tigers, though, will be back in 2004, with this prediction.

HARWELL: Next year, we'll be a little bit better.

TUCHMAN (on camera): Always an optimist, right?

HARWELL: Always an optimist.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): Gary Tuchman, CNN, Detroit.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: And they lost tonight, one away from tying the record.

That's all that time we have for NEWSNIGHT. I'm Miles O'Brien. Aaron will be back on Monday.

Good night.

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New Twist in Gitmo Spy Scandal; Clark Attends New Hampshire Townhall Meeting>