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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Bush Requests NATO Help In Training Iraqi Security Force; Interrogation practices at GITMO under scrutiny; Thousands File Through Capitol Rotunda To Pay Respects To President Reagan

Aired June 10, 2004 - 22:00   ET

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

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


AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
As you probably know or can imagine, thousands of people here in Washington have come to the rotunda of the capitol to pay their respects to President Reagan. This week, which has been so dominated by the president's passing is nearing its final acts. It has been a week full of challenge for us how to balance our desire to be respectful and an important national moment with our need to be what we are reporters.

Some on the left believe we have spent too little time examining the controversies of the Reagan years and there were plenty, some on the right, believing that any discussion of those controversies is at best in bad taste and at worst yet another example of media bias. From the start it was a no win situation on the extremes but then it always is.

So, we'll have at it again tonight, some ceremony, some issues, knowing there is no rule book for a week like this.

The whip tonight begins on Capitol Hill with CNN's Joe Johns, Joe the headline from there.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, for more than 24 hours, the crowds have filed past the casket of the former president. Most are ordinary people mixed in with some of the famous and powerful as this final tribute at the capitol continues.

BROWN: Joe, thank you. We'll get to you at the top tonight.

On to President Bush and his time at the summit which wrapped up earlier in the day, our Senior White House Correspondent John King, a headline John.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the G8 Summit ended with President Bush in an upbeat mood. He believes bitterness over the war in Iraq is in the past and that even a new dust up with France will be settled soon -- Aaron.

BROWN: Iraq next and the challenges of letting the Iraqis take care of the business of security. CNN's Guy Raz will join us from Najaf tonight.

And finally back to Washington by way of Libya, Saudi Arabia and a very tangled web of intrigue, CNN's Kelli Arena covering that for us tonight, so Kelli the headline.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the U.S. is investigating an alleged Libyan plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's crown prince, a shocking disclosure following what looked like a move toward more normal relations between Libya and the United States.

BROWN: Kelli, thank you. We'll get back to you and all the rest shortly.

Also coming up on NEWSNIGHT tonight, there is much new to report on the prisoner abuse scandal, generals recusing themselves, damaging memos and failing memories. Jamie McIntyre will sort it out.

Plus, the world loses a legend in music. Ray Charles has died. Mr. Charles was 73.

And both of those topics are likely to land on your doorstep tomorrow morning. We'll check morning papers tonight, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight at the capitol. All day people have been climbing the 108 steps to the rotunda where President Reagan's casket lies in state. Tomorrow with the funeral, then the long flight home, the last chapters will be written in a remarkable life. For thousands of people, though, famous and otherwise, from all around the country and all around the world, today was truly the last goodbye.

We begin with CNN's Joe Johns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS (voice-over): The unannounced appearance of the president and first lady in the rotunda startled visitors gathered around the Reagan casket. Later, the Bushes paid a courtesy call on Nancy Reagan joining a list of well wishers at Blair House, including former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a dear friend of Mr. Reagan. She wrote in the guestbook, "To Ronnie, Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev wrote: "I convey my deep feelings of condolences to dear Nancy and the whole family."

And former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney who will eulogize Reagan on Friday told reporters Mrs. Reagan is holding up well.

BRIAN MULRONEY, FORMER CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: Given the very painful circumstances in remarkably good shape.

JOHNS: At the capitol, the vigil continues. In the long line, one man came in full traditional dress. Some came in uniform, most in street clothes from all over the world. Frank Hola of Hungary drove down from Canada.

FRANK HOLA: Well, I came to pay homage to President Reagan who was my hero because he liberated my old country so my nephews and nieces can live in freedom.

JOHNS: Joyce Okine lives here now but moved to the U.S. from Ghana.

JOYCE OKINE: Yes, he changed my life. I'm an American citizen today because of Ronald Reagan and I'm a proud American.

JOHNS: Many waited for three hours plus just to get a five minute glimpse, more if they were lucky enough to arrive at the changing of the guard. There were some tears and a few last salutes for the former commander-in-chief, all in silence except for the footsteps or an occasional noisy baby.

For those with special privileges or higher office or ties to the former president, there was a separate line or no waiting at all. Former Republican Senator Bob Dole paid his respects, as did Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist brought the new Iraqi president. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz came with Corporal James Wright, a decorated Marine badly injured in Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: The vigil ends tomorrow with a brief departure service as the late president is taken from the capitol for the last time and on to a funeral at Washington National Cathedral -- Aaron.

BROWN: Do they keep the capitol open all night tonight?

JOHNS: Yes. They will keep it all open tonight until early tomorrow morning. They'll close it down briefly to prepare for the departure service.

BROWN: And is there still, as you and I are sitting here talking, is there still a long line of people wanting to get in?

JOHNS: Yes. People have been here throughout the day, throughout the night. It is really quite amazing if you walk through the rotunda, very silent. You go up marble stairs through a black drapery on into the rotunda, total silence. All you can hear is people walking and, as I said, occasionally the baby crying.

BROWN: Joe, thank you, Joe Johns on the Hill. I imagine many of the people who were walking into the capitol today had never been there before. This was their first moment in their house.

As Joe Johns reported a moment ago, the G8 Summit did wrap up today. The president went into it looking to mend fences with European allies to get more help in policing Iraq. He got a bit of the first, less of the second, and some pretty tough questions at the end of it all.

Covering the president our Senior White House Correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): Upbeat to say the least, quick with a quip when asked how G8 leaders resolve major policy disputes.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, we go to different corners of the room and we face the wall -- no.

KING: The good mood followed a summit where unity was common, major differences few. The one significant dust up was over the president's call for a bigger NATO role in post war Iraq. Mr. Bush says all he needs is more help training Iraqi security forces.

BUSH: I don't expect more troops from NATO to be offered up. That's an unrealistic expectation. Nobody is suggesting that.

KING: French President Jacques Chirac is skeptical about a bigger NATO role but nonetheless determined to present a friendly front.

BUSH: He particularly liked the cheeseburger he had yesterday.

JACQUES CHIRAC, FRENCH PRESIDENT: It was excellent, excellent.

KING: Germany sided with France in the war debate and Chancellor Schroeder won't send troops now but...

GERHARD SCHROEDER, GERMAN CHANCELLOR (through translator): We also made clear that we will not block any decision of NATO.

KING: The president voiced confidence Iraqis will quickly assume more responsibility for security, not that he can say when U.S. troops will start coming home.

BUSH: When the job's done.

KING: Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kuwait refused to attend a session on Middle East political reform. Mr. Bush wasn't happy but insists he doesn't take it personally.

BUSH: There was some concern when the initiative was first proposed that this was America trying to make the world look like America. It's not going to happen.

KING: The president didn't like and didn't answer a question about Vice President Cheney's recent session with federal prosecutors trying to find out who leaked the name of an undercover CIA operative.

BUSH: You talk to the U.S. attorney about that.

KING: He did answer when asked whether he would give the new Iraqi government a pistol Saddam Hussein was holding when captured. Mr. Bush has it mounted at the White House and plans to keep it.

BUSH: It's not the property of the U.S. government.

KING (on camera): U.S. officials believe even this new dispute with France will be settled by the NATO Summit later this month. If the new Iraqi government makes a specific request for expanded NATO training, and the White House says it will, French officials say they are all but certain to go along.

John King, CNN, Savannah, Georgia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: You can understand NATO's reluctance to get involved in Iraq, if you visit Najaf. In a growing way, American commanders want no part of it either. With a ceasefire in Najaf now pretty much a dead letter, a decision has apparently been made to let the forces, Iraqi forces, handle Muqtada al-Sadr's militia on their own.

Reporting from Najaf tonight, CNN's Guy Raz.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUY RAZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The sound of gunfire in Najaf, the shooting this time Iraqi versus Iraqi more than two hours of fighting after an Iraqi police station came under small arms fire and a rocket-propelled grenade attack.

Najaf's police chief called for U.S. forces to back up his men. The request was denied, senior officers believing a U.S. presence would have exacerbated the problem.

MAJ. GEN. MARTIN DEMPSEY, U.S. ARMY: What we did today was instead of rushing in with our tanks and Bradleys and aircraft, which we could have done, but certainly that would have set us back a bit in terms of the political outcome. We're going to help the police figure out what they might have done differently.

RAZ: Four hundred Iraqi police were deployed to these streets last week. They took the place of U.S. forces. The switch was supposed to usher in a period of stability. It's still not clear whether the gunmen who attacked Iraqi police were acting in the name of the defiantly anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Some eyewitnesses said this fighting was a personal feud. With only 20 days to go before administrative authority is handed over to Iraqis, some U.S. officers privately wonder whether Iraqi police can handle stability in Najaf.

Guy Raz, CNN, Najaf in southern Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: On to Libya and a possible bump in the road to reforming its image. Last December, Moammar Gadhafi agreed to give up Libya's weapons of mass destruction which led to negotiations to lift the longstanding U.S. sanctions against that country.

Now it turns out that Colonel Gadhafi may have been tied to an alleged plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ruler during the same period of time. U.S. officials have now launched an investigation. Reporting for us tonight, CNN's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA (voice-over): Government officials confirm the investigation into the alleged plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's crown prince has been underway for months.

BUSH: We're looking into it. That's the best way I can tell you. And when we find out the facts we will deal with them accordingly.

ARENA: The plot was allegedly hatched as Libya's leader Moammar Gadhafi was negotiating with the United States to lift terror sanctions.

ABDEL RAHMAN SHALOAM, LIBYAN FOREIGN MINISTER: I am sure it's just lies, not allegations, and let them to go for a while in these investigations. The details will come and the truth will appear.

ARENA: Sources say the FBI and other agencies are investigating claims made by Abdurrahman Alamoudi, an American Muslim activist in U.S. custody and Colonel Mohamed Ismael, a Libyan intelligence officer in Saudi custody.

Officials say both men offered separate and similar accounts of a plan to kill the crown prince. In March last year, just before the war with Iraq, Gadhafi and Abdullah publicly traded insults at the Arab Summit.

CROWN PRINCE ABDULLAH, SAUDI ARABIA (through translator): The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not an agent of imperialism. Don't try to pose your opinion in this context if you're not aware of real facts.

ARENA: Investigators are trying to determine if the claims about an assassination are real and whether Gadhafi himself was involved. Saudi Arabia is not commenting. The State Department says it was aware of the allegations when it was negotiating with Libya late last fall.

RICHARD BOUCHER, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: Libyan leaders assured us that they would not support the use of violence for settling political differences with any state.

ARENA: In December, Libya agreed to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction program. The United States in return took some steps to normalize economic relations.

JON ALTERMAN, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTL. STUDIES: It certainly seems to me that if all this is confirmed that there will have to be a change in leadership in Tripoli before the U.S. has anything beginning to resemble normal relations with Libya.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: The U.S. still lists Libya as a state sponsor of terrorism and State Department officials say given the current allegations and other issues they are not convinced that Libya has totally eliminated its terrorist support -- Aaron.

BROWN: And is the motivation, as best we know it, this personal dispute that took place at this meeting or does it go deeper than that?

ARENA: Well, some speculate that that really may have been the last straw for Gadhafi that he was publicly dissed, if you will, but they do say that the hostilities went on for years before that.

BROWN: I guess that's the diplomatic term for what they did. Thank you, Kelli Arena.

One other quick note, the State Department has now backed away from its annual report on terrorism. In it the State Department said attacks were at their lowest point in 34 years. That conclusion drew howls of protests from academics, lawmakers and others.

And today a State Department spokesman and the secretary of state himself conceded that the report contained errors and that a revised report would be forthcoming and will show that attacks increased as did the number of victims. The erroneous report was used to argue that the president's war on terror was showing strong signs of success.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, the woman who always stood by Ronald Reagan's side now stands alone. We'll talk with one of her closest friends.

Plus another legend to mourn tonight, Ray Charles has died.

We take a break. From Washington this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We noted earlier this week that most of us are fortunate enough to have privacy in our most painful moments. President Reagan outlined his funeral plans after he left office as president. All presidents are asked to do that. The state funeral unfolding in Washington is how he and his family wanted it to be, how he wanted to be remembered.

Sheila Tate was Nancy Reagan's press secretary for five years, has remained a close friend. She was watching as the president's casket was brought up the steps of the capitol and earlier today when we talked we began by asking her how the former first lady was holding up.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHEILA TATE, FORMER NANCY REAGAN PRESS SECRETARY: Well, she's in really the toughest week of her life I think. I mean she's saying goodbye. This is the final goodbye, you know. It's sort of like, well, step back. When Ronald Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's she was so -- the only word I can use to describe is sad. She was just overwhelmed with sadness and remorse and regret and concern and upset and over the years...

BROWN: Why remorse?

TATE: Well, for what she was going to lose.

BROWN: Oh, OK.

TATE: Over the years she came to accept the disease, the illness, and think more about what she could do to help other people in terms of Alzheimer's and she's done a lot in that regard.

BROWN: Does she worry about how the public sees her now?

TATE: I don't think so. I mean look at her. She's wearing these big glasses. Have you noticed the glasses?

BROWN: Of course. Of course.

TATE: She would never have worn those glasses in public before.

BROWN: I said that to someone yesterday. I said I can't imagine she would have worn those glasses publicly before.

TATE: She wants to see what's happening now very carefully I think and she wants to remember all of this.

BROWN: What does she want in a sense out of this? She has to share this most intimate difficult moment with the country.

TATE: She wants people to have a chance to say goodbye to him. She wants -- this is a huge opportunity for generations who didn't know him, who weren't even alive when he was president to learn about him and his legacy. I think, you know, she feels he was a great president and a great human being and she wants to use it to -- use the opportunity as best she can to make sure people remember.

BROWN: In the last ten years do you think it's changed her?

TATE: This lady, this is the lady who took so much grief for protecting her husband when he was president and she then spent his last ten years of life protecting him and his dignity and I think we're all grateful for that and that's her last big job this week is to protect him. That's why she keeps trying to reach him.

BROWN: Those are -- when you see those moments, I know how I react to them, when you saw her put her...

TATE: Oh, that was it for me, the one yesterday where she -- I have so many times seen her do that where she touches something and she keeps smoothing it out. I mean I've seen her do that. It was really, really quite amazing.

BROWN: This is an American moment.

TATE: Yes, it is.

BROWN: I mean in the best sense of the term. A head of state who clearly mattered, whether you agreed with him or not, I mean that's not the point.

TATE: You know who said that to me, standing in the window of Bill Frist's office as they were -- as we watched the caisson being brought up those steps was Margaret Thatcher and when the jets came over in the missing man formation she said, oh the ceremony, the ceremony it's so American.

BROWN: The country gets in a way that it didn't or it hasn't in a long time that an American president whatever his party is an important person, something that we care about.

TATE: And I think they're very -- they want to embrace the knowledge that he was a good and kind and decent man, as well as a powerful man.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Sheila Tate and we talked to her late this afternoon.

Coming up on the program tonight back to the serious business of today. We'll be getting to the bottom of the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal or will get to the bottom of it requiring going to the top of the chain of command.

Plus later the life of Ronald Reagan through the lens of time. He lived 93 years. How we have changed in all that time, a break first.

From Washington, D.C., this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In the U.S. military's chain of command a two-star general cannot question higher ranking officers, even if the two-star general is investigating a high profile prisoner abuse scandal, even if part of the general's job is figuring out how high up the chain of command the blame, the responsibility goes.

The two-star general investigating the abuse at Abu Ghraib has almost completed his work but now may be replaced by a higher ranking officer delaying the release of the report, this as documents appearing to make the case for torture have put some considerable heat on the administration.

Covering the story from the Pentagon, CNN's Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At the G8 Summit in Georgia, President Bush insisted he never authorized torture despite some recently disclosed administration memos arguing the U.S. is not bound by international laws in its war on terror.

BUSH: Look, I'm going to say it one more time if I -- maybe I can be more clear. The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law.

MCINTYRE: Meanwhile, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, who originally ordered the investigation into Iraq prisoner abuse, has asked for an officer senior to him to be put in charge of the probe so his actions can also be scrutinized.

LT. GEN. RICARDO SANCHEZ, U.S. IRAQ COMMANDER: I am fully committed to thorough and impartial investigations that examine the role, commissions and omissions of the entire chain of command and that includes me.

MCINTYRE: It was Sanchez who put military intelligence in charge of parts of the Abu Ghraib Prison and whose orders outlined how the prisoners could be interrogated. Questions about whether Sanchez' orders were clear and correctly applied and even an accusation, which Sanchez firmly denies, that he was aware of the abuse are the subject of a nearly completed investigation by two-star General George Fay.

But Pentagon officials say by putting a four-star officer in charge, who unlike Fay would have the authority to question Sanchez himself, will make it easier for Sanchez to defend his actions and dispel any suggestion of conflict of interest. A Pentagon spokesman says granting Sanchez' request will "ensure a complete, thorough, and transparent investigation that leaves no doubts as to the veracity of its findings."

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has just issued strict new procedures to preserve evidence in the event prisoners die in U.S. custody, including requiring autopsies and mandating that he is personally notified. In addition, Rumsfeld's memo orders the remains will not be washed and all items on or in the body will be left undisturbed.

(on camera): The investigation into questionable interrogation practices was due to be wrapped up this week but will now be delayed, in part because it will take time to find a higher ranking general to put in charge but also because sources say a key member of a military intelligence unit, who wasn't talking, is now providing new important information.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Interrogation practices at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba are also under scrutiny today. A report in "The Wall Street Journal" details the list of interrogation techniques used at GITMO but discontinued after complaints that they were too severe. The paper says the Defense Secretary Rumsfeld approved the techniques in December of 2002.

Jess Bravin is a senior special writer at "The Wall Street Journal" and shared the byline on the article today, Jess good to see you.

JESS BRAVIN, "WALL STREET JOURNAL" REPORTER: Hi, Aaron.

BROWN: Is it -- before we get into the detail here, is it surprising that the secretary himself signed off on this that it went that high?

BRAVIN: Well, it's not surprising given how sensitive the operation is at Guantanamo and the intense interest in heading off terrorist attacks, which is what the Pentagon says prompted the review of interrogation techniques.

BROWN: And the techniques that were judged too harsh, do we know most of them, all of them?

BRAVIN: Well, we know which techniques were used in a one month period from December to January, December, 2002 to January, 2003, and many of them appear in conventional Army doctrine that's been used for years, things that basically are intended to fool prisoners into thinking that they better cooperate or something really bad might happen to them.

There are a number of techniques, though, that certainly seem unusual compared to a traditional Army doctrine. They involve isolation for up to 30 days. They involve stripping what they call comfort items and personal religious items, inducing phobias, such as fear of dogs. Things like that appear on the list. We don't know exactly how interrogators interpreted this very terse list of things, but we do know that some of those techniques did require permission from superior offices.

BROWN: And we know that -- from your reporting, that, at some point, somebody found those techniques too severe and went back to the Pentagon, I guess, to argue the point. Do we know who those people were?

BRAVIN: Well, there were -- objections were raised by military lawyers who were uncomfortable with some of the things that interrogators were doing at Guantanamo Bay.

And this whole issue of what was the right way to interrogate prisoners who aren't really motivated by the things that Army doctrine had prepared for. The Army doctrine is based on preparing for interrogations of soldiers from the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet Union, countries -- soldiers in conventional wars. They weren't really designed to deal with what the Pentagon believes now are fanatical, committed terrorists, if that's indeed who they are.

So -- but, you know, the Army has a very structured system where lawyers think they know what the Geneva Convention means. They are trained to follow those doctrines. And they had problems with some of these issues. I think that the way to look at this story is to look at what happened next. Rumsfeld ordered a review in January 2003 of what techniques would be appropriate, but also -- and this is really what we've been focusing on for most of the week -- also, the broader legal and policy context of interrogations. And it's some of those conclusions that, at least to us, seem more striking than the particular nitty-gritty of whether someone could be made to stand for four hours or three hours or whether 20 hours of nonstop interrogation is OK, vis-a-vis 18 hours of nonstop interrogation.

BROWN: Just one practical question. How is it that -- when these techniques are applied, when harsh techniques are applied, how, then, does anyone evaluate the truthfulness of what the detainee is confessing to? Because, under some circumstances, this stuff can be used against him and, under some circumstances, you might say anything to get it to stop.

BRAVIN: Well, that's true.

And it even said in the document we wrote about on Monday that many Army experts don't believe that physical coercion provides reliable results. And, of course, results is what they are after. On the other hand, if you can't -- if you are talking to a lot of detainees and you're asking similar questions and their answers line up, then maybe you've got some reason to believe that what you are learning is true.

And it's also -- incidentally, it's important to note that the Pentagon says that they were really looking at a handful of high- valued prisoners, not the overwhelming majority of about 600 who are there now, and it went up to about 800 at some point. They say that these are techniques that they were looking at for use in people who they had strong suspicion knew something and wouldn't talk, as opposed to up-and-down-the-line harsh techniques on prisoners.

BROWN: Jess, you and your colleagues at "The Journal" have done some terrific work this week. Thanks for joining us tonight.

BRAVIN: Thanks.

BROWN: Thank you.

Still to come on the program, Jeff Greenfield takes a look at what makes the president great and perhaps, more correctly, admired. It's not always the same thing. And when he was born, Buffalo Bill Cody was still alive. The tragedies, the triumphs, the changes of Ronald Reagan's world.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The U.S. Capitol on this Thursday night, people coming, as they have all day, since last night, really, to make that five- minute circle. They wait hours to do it, to pay their last respects to President Ronald Reagan.

We have heard so many voices this week remembering the former president, reflecting on his life and his character. Tomorrow, there will be more in the eulogies and the final goodbyes. Earlier this week, we remarked that the memories of a public life are softened in the wake of loss. Time can change that focus and reorder a president's place in collective memory. Predicting how exactly is the tricky part.

Here's our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): Here's one way to tell how presidents rank: if we carve their faces into a mountain. There is room on Rushmore for one more. FDR, some say. "How about Reagan?" his admirers ask.

Here's another way: if they are part of legal tender. But it's dicey. Grant is on the $50 bill, but he's generally ranked among the worst. Jefferson is on the rarely used $2 bill. And Teddy Roosevelt isn't on any money at all.

You can poll the public, but public memory goes back only so far. A just-released Gallup poll puts FDR and JFK highest among the last 10 presidents, with Richard Nixon getting the worst marks by far. Resignation amid scandal will do that. And the current president registers very high disapproval ratings, but, remember, he's up for election in a polarized time.

Now, a "Wall Street Journal" editor and a conservative scholar have produced a book that tries to rate presidents. They gathered opinions from left and right and produced some intriguing findings, to which we'll add one or two of our own. Only three presidents rank great, Washington, Lincoln, FDR. Reagan ranked near great. JFK and LBJ were ranked above average, the first Bush and Clinton average, Nixon, Ford and Carter below average. George W. Bush wasn't ranked because he's still in office.

What do we see here? First, all three great presidents faced great crises, helping a new nation survive, keeping it together during the Civil War, battling a Great Depression and a World War. Second, if you haven't faced a crisis, it is hard for you to be considered great. Only Teddy Roosevelt gets high marks from historians while presiding in a tranquil time. President Clinton was said to worry about this.

Third, if you lose a reelection fight, you don't get good marks. Maybe we figure that, if you couldn't convince the public you deserved a second term, you're out. Maybe the best-selling book on John Adams will help his rankings. And if you were the president just before a great crisis, you tend to get the blame for not dealing with it.

James Buchanan, who preceded Lincoln, and Herbert Hoover, who came before FDR, suffer on this point. Some say it's possible that Clinton and the first President Bush may take heat for not dealing with the terrorism threat earlier.

Bad journalists love to say, only time will tell, but, in this case, there's something to it. Presidential reputations rise and fall over the decades. Woodrow Wilson was held in a lot higher esteem decades ago than he is now. Harry Truman's reputation has sharply increased over the years. Maybe that's why there's a law, signed by Ronald Reagan, by the way, that a president has to be dead 25 years before they even can think about building a monument to him in Washington.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, Washington, D.C.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the world as Ronald Reagan knew it, a place of almost unbelievable change, some of which he caused.

And morning papers, something that never changes, at least not around here.

We're in Washington tonight and this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We've spent a great deal of time this week on President Reagan's life in politics. More remarkable than that, we think is his life, period.

Forget for a moment that he became an actor and a governor and a president. Imagine for a moment that he never left little Dixon, Illinois. He still would have seen 40 percent of the country's history pass before him. In good times and bad, for better or worse, a good 40 percent to see.

Here's NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When Ronald Wilson Reagan was born on February 6, 1911, Buffalo Bill was still alive. Henry Ford had yet to introduce assembly lines in his automobile factory. Einstein was four years from postulating his theory of relativity and American women nine years from getting the right to vote.

William Taft was president of the United States, all 46 of them. Ronald Reagan lived during the administrations of 16 U.S. presidents, 13 before he himself moved into the White House, three more after he left office. Reagan's life spanned nine extraordinary decades of world history. He was a boy during World War I, a teenager during the Great Depression.

He was in his 30s during World War II, his 40s during the Korean War, his 50s during the years of the Vietnam War and civil right struggles, when he was governor of California. His life spanned the entire Cold War. Reagan was 6 in 1917, the year of the Russian Revolution. He was 13 when Lenin died. He outlived the Soviet Union by 13 years.

The man who would champion a space-based Strategic Defense Initiative grew up decades before the space age. Reagan was only 16 when Lindbergh flew the Spirit of Saint Louis from New York to Paris, a flight that took 33 1/2 hours. He was almost 50 by the time the space race started with the Soviet launch of Sputnik, almost 60 before man first stepped onto the surface of the moon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Touchdown.

NISSEN: And 70 years old when the first U.S. space shuttle made its maiden flight.

So much changed so profoundly in the course of Reagan's life: science, technology, medicine, from the polio vaccine in 1954, to the first human heart transplant in 1967, to the first test tube baby in 1978, from mapping human DNA, to successful cloning, although no cure for the global killer that emerged late in Reagan's life, AIDS.

Reagan's life spanned profound changes in American culture, from the jazz age in the roaring '20s, into rock 'n' roll and the rap, techno and hip-hop that came after.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW")

ED SULLIVAN, TALK SHOW HOST: Ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NISSEN: Reagan was already 53 when the Beatles first appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show."

Reagan, the movie star, had a life that neatly coincided with the life of the movies. He was four when D.W. Griffith made "Birth of a Nation."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You ain't heard nothing yet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NISSEN: Sixteen when Al Jolson made the first talkie.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "CASABLANCA")

HUMPHREY BOGART, ACTOR: Here's looking at you, kid.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NISSEN: Thirty-one when "Casablanca" premiered, 66 when the "Star Wars" epic started in a special effects galaxy far, far away.

And Reagan, the TV host, was already an adult when television was in its infancy. Color TV was introduced the year Reagan turned 40.

Reagan announced he had Alzheimer's in 1994 at age 83. It is not known how aware he was of what happened in the world in his last decade, if he registered or grieved for those lost in the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the fighting in Kosovo, the continued fighting between Israelis and Palestinians, the horror of the September 11 attacks.

It is unlikely that he was at all aware that the U.S. was again at war in Afghanistan and in Iraq, that there were orange alerts, or new worries about global warming, that "Friends" ended, or the third "Harry Potter" movie was out, or that the nation he loved for so long, served for so long, still remembered him so well, so warmly, after all these years.

Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: What a wonderful way to look at the span of a lifetime.

We'll take a look at morning papers still ahead and we'll pay tribute to another voice forever stilled.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There was a song some time back about the day the music died. No such thing could actually happen, of course, except that, today, it almost did. Ray Charles, as close as you could get to all of American music wrapped up in one person, died today. He was 73.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): He lost his sight to glaucoma as a boy of 6, then lost his parents, too, as a teenager. So out he went, as if in some long-ago blues song a blind orphan traveling the country, Florida, Washington State, here and there making music, making records, making eventually a legend.

Ray Charles Robinson -- he dropped the Robinson early on -- breathed in everything there was to breathe in, jazz and Gospel, pop and blues, country and western, R&B, everything, and then breathed it back out as something new and different, transformed, something unmistakably his. Who knew before Ray Charles that the unofficial anthem of the United States was in fact a great Gospel song?

RAY CHARLES, MUSICIAN (singing): America, sweet America.

BROWN: The hits began coming more than a half century ago, in the early '50s, when he was barely 20. And then they simply kept on coming decade after decade after decade after decade.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ray Charles!

BROWN: That amazing voice and phrasing, that wonderful piano, were captured on whatever medium was the latest thing, from vinyl to silver compact discs to digits. The science of recording changed. He did not.

How many halls of fame is Ray Charles honored in? Rock 'n' Roll, Blues, Songwriters, Grammy, Jazz, Georgia Music, Florida Artists, Playboy Hall of Fame. He probably would be in more if there were more. CHARLES: For me, my music is my existence. It's just like your breathing. Without your breathing, you are no longer here. Without my music, I feel I'm no longer here.

BROWN: Well, he is no longer here, but his music is and always will be.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ray Charles was 73.

Let me tell you what is going on here. We're waiting for former President George Herbert Walker Bush to arrive at the Capitol. We expect him shortly.

We have got morning papers to do. We want to get in a quick program note before that. Here is Soledad with a look at tomorrow's "AMERICAN MORNING."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Aaron.

Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," Secretary of State Colin Powell, his career in the military and within the highest levels of government really took off under President Reagan, culminating with a job as national security adviser. Tomorrow, his reflections on the 40th president, his vision for national security, and how Ronald Reagan changed the world. That's on CNN tomorrow, 7:00 a.m. Eastern -- Aaron, back to you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Soledad, thank you very much.

OK, we'll see how many morning papers we get in. It will either turn out to be just a few because the former president will arrive at the Capitol, or it will go on for a really long time. Your guess is as good as mine. Here we go. Live TV folks, this is how it works.

"International Herald Tribune" starts it off, published in France by "The New York Times." And I suspect this will be in "The Times" tomorrow. So, if you get "The Times,' you'll have a chance to read this. "A Great President? It's All Up to History," Johnny Apple, R.W. Apple Jr., the fine political writer and sometimes food writer for "The Times," writing that. The lead story, technically, "Bush Says Training May Be Nato Role, Unrealistic to Expect Troops in Iraq."

Also an analysis people that will please the administration, I do believe, "A New Degree of Trust. At G-8, Doubters Find a Reasonable Bush."

"The Christian Science Monitor." Over in the corner here -- it is going to be hard to see, but I like the headline. "Panda Population Jumps, But Outlook Not Black and White." Get it? Sure you do. "The Miami Herald" leads -- I was surprised by the lead, OK, but I was pleased, too. They led with Ray Charles, "Ray Charles: 1930- 2004. A Colossus of Popular Music Dies of Liver Disease at 73."

In "The Chattanooga Times Free Press," they lead local. "Riverbend" -- a local festival -- "Ready to Go," they say. "World Leaders, Ordinary Folks Honor Reagan" as well, a part of the front page of "The Chattanooga Times Free Press."

And we'll get two more in.

"The Philadelphia Inquirer." "Brain Drain, Not So Fast." Despite fears that the region loses too many grads, a study says that's not so. That's good news for the folks in Philadelphia.

"The Chicago Sun-Times" leads, "Envelopes Full of Cash Dropped at City Hall." Uh-oh. That doesn't sound good, does it? I don't think so. The weather tomorrow, "sulky."

We'll see you tomorrow. We'll be back in New York. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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


Aired June 10, 2004 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
As you probably know or can imagine, thousands of people here in Washington have come to the rotunda of the capitol to pay their respects to President Reagan. This week, which has been so dominated by the president's passing is nearing its final acts. It has been a week full of challenge for us how to balance our desire to be respectful and an important national moment with our need to be what we are reporters.

Some on the left believe we have spent too little time examining the controversies of the Reagan years and there were plenty, some on the right, believing that any discussion of those controversies is at best in bad taste and at worst yet another example of media bias. From the start it was a no win situation on the extremes but then it always is.

So, we'll have at it again tonight, some ceremony, some issues, knowing there is no rule book for a week like this.

The whip tonight begins on Capitol Hill with CNN's Joe Johns, Joe the headline from there.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, for more than 24 hours, the crowds have filed past the casket of the former president. Most are ordinary people mixed in with some of the famous and powerful as this final tribute at the capitol continues.

BROWN: Joe, thank you. We'll get to you at the top tonight.

On to President Bush and his time at the summit which wrapped up earlier in the day, our Senior White House Correspondent John King, a headline John.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the G8 Summit ended with President Bush in an upbeat mood. He believes bitterness over the war in Iraq is in the past and that even a new dust up with France will be settled soon -- Aaron.

BROWN: Iraq next and the challenges of letting the Iraqis take care of the business of security. CNN's Guy Raz will join us from Najaf tonight.

And finally back to Washington by way of Libya, Saudi Arabia and a very tangled web of intrigue, CNN's Kelli Arena covering that for us tonight, so Kelli the headline.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the U.S. is investigating an alleged Libyan plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's crown prince, a shocking disclosure following what looked like a move toward more normal relations between Libya and the United States.

BROWN: Kelli, thank you. We'll get back to you and all the rest shortly.

Also coming up on NEWSNIGHT tonight, there is much new to report on the prisoner abuse scandal, generals recusing themselves, damaging memos and failing memories. Jamie McIntyre will sort it out.

Plus, the world loses a legend in music. Ray Charles has died. Mr. Charles was 73.

And both of those topics are likely to land on your doorstep tomorrow morning. We'll check morning papers tonight, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight at the capitol. All day people have been climbing the 108 steps to the rotunda where President Reagan's casket lies in state. Tomorrow with the funeral, then the long flight home, the last chapters will be written in a remarkable life. For thousands of people, though, famous and otherwise, from all around the country and all around the world, today was truly the last goodbye.

We begin with CNN's Joe Johns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS (voice-over): The unannounced appearance of the president and first lady in the rotunda startled visitors gathered around the Reagan casket. Later, the Bushes paid a courtesy call on Nancy Reagan joining a list of well wishers at Blair House, including former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a dear friend of Mr. Reagan. She wrote in the guestbook, "To Ronnie, Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev wrote: "I convey my deep feelings of condolences to dear Nancy and the whole family."

And former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney who will eulogize Reagan on Friday told reporters Mrs. Reagan is holding up well.

BRIAN MULRONEY, FORMER CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: Given the very painful circumstances in remarkably good shape.

JOHNS: At the capitol, the vigil continues. In the long line, one man came in full traditional dress. Some came in uniform, most in street clothes from all over the world. Frank Hola of Hungary drove down from Canada.

FRANK HOLA: Well, I came to pay homage to President Reagan who was my hero because he liberated my old country so my nephews and nieces can live in freedom.

JOHNS: Joyce Okine lives here now but moved to the U.S. from Ghana.

JOYCE OKINE: Yes, he changed my life. I'm an American citizen today because of Ronald Reagan and I'm a proud American.

JOHNS: Many waited for three hours plus just to get a five minute glimpse, more if they were lucky enough to arrive at the changing of the guard. There were some tears and a few last salutes for the former commander-in-chief, all in silence except for the footsteps or an occasional noisy baby.

For those with special privileges or higher office or ties to the former president, there was a separate line or no waiting at all. Former Republican Senator Bob Dole paid his respects, as did Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist brought the new Iraqi president. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz came with Corporal James Wright, a decorated Marine badly injured in Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: The vigil ends tomorrow with a brief departure service as the late president is taken from the capitol for the last time and on to a funeral at Washington National Cathedral -- Aaron.

BROWN: Do they keep the capitol open all night tonight?

JOHNS: Yes. They will keep it all open tonight until early tomorrow morning. They'll close it down briefly to prepare for the departure service.

BROWN: And is there still, as you and I are sitting here talking, is there still a long line of people wanting to get in?

JOHNS: Yes. People have been here throughout the day, throughout the night. It is really quite amazing if you walk through the rotunda, very silent. You go up marble stairs through a black drapery on into the rotunda, total silence. All you can hear is people walking and, as I said, occasionally the baby crying.

BROWN: Joe, thank you, Joe Johns on the Hill. I imagine many of the people who were walking into the capitol today had never been there before. This was their first moment in their house.

As Joe Johns reported a moment ago, the G8 Summit did wrap up today. The president went into it looking to mend fences with European allies to get more help in policing Iraq. He got a bit of the first, less of the second, and some pretty tough questions at the end of it all.

Covering the president our Senior White House Correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): Upbeat to say the least, quick with a quip when asked how G8 leaders resolve major policy disputes.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, we go to different corners of the room and we face the wall -- no.

KING: The good mood followed a summit where unity was common, major differences few. The one significant dust up was over the president's call for a bigger NATO role in post war Iraq. Mr. Bush says all he needs is more help training Iraqi security forces.

BUSH: I don't expect more troops from NATO to be offered up. That's an unrealistic expectation. Nobody is suggesting that.

KING: French President Jacques Chirac is skeptical about a bigger NATO role but nonetheless determined to present a friendly front.

BUSH: He particularly liked the cheeseburger he had yesterday.

JACQUES CHIRAC, FRENCH PRESIDENT: It was excellent, excellent.

KING: Germany sided with France in the war debate and Chancellor Schroeder won't send troops now but...

GERHARD SCHROEDER, GERMAN CHANCELLOR (through translator): We also made clear that we will not block any decision of NATO.

KING: The president voiced confidence Iraqis will quickly assume more responsibility for security, not that he can say when U.S. troops will start coming home.

BUSH: When the job's done.

KING: Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kuwait refused to attend a session on Middle East political reform. Mr. Bush wasn't happy but insists he doesn't take it personally.

BUSH: There was some concern when the initiative was first proposed that this was America trying to make the world look like America. It's not going to happen.

KING: The president didn't like and didn't answer a question about Vice President Cheney's recent session with federal prosecutors trying to find out who leaked the name of an undercover CIA operative.

BUSH: You talk to the U.S. attorney about that.

KING: He did answer when asked whether he would give the new Iraqi government a pistol Saddam Hussein was holding when captured. Mr. Bush has it mounted at the White House and plans to keep it.

BUSH: It's not the property of the U.S. government.

KING (on camera): U.S. officials believe even this new dispute with France will be settled by the NATO Summit later this month. If the new Iraqi government makes a specific request for expanded NATO training, and the White House says it will, French officials say they are all but certain to go along.

John King, CNN, Savannah, Georgia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: You can understand NATO's reluctance to get involved in Iraq, if you visit Najaf. In a growing way, American commanders want no part of it either. With a ceasefire in Najaf now pretty much a dead letter, a decision has apparently been made to let the forces, Iraqi forces, handle Muqtada al-Sadr's militia on their own.

Reporting from Najaf tonight, CNN's Guy Raz.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUY RAZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The sound of gunfire in Najaf, the shooting this time Iraqi versus Iraqi more than two hours of fighting after an Iraqi police station came under small arms fire and a rocket-propelled grenade attack.

Najaf's police chief called for U.S. forces to back up his men. The request was denied, senior officers believing a U.S. presence would have exacerbated the problem.

MAJ. GEN. MARTIN DEMPSEY, U.S. ARMY: What we did today was instead of rushing in with our tanks and Bradleys and aircraft, which we could have done, but certainly that would have set us back a bit in terms of the political outcome. We're going to help the police figure out what they might have done differently.

RAZ: Four hundred Iraqi police were deployed to these streets last week. They took the place of U.S. forces. The switch was supposed to usher in a period of stability. It's still not clear whether the gunmen who attacked Iraqi police were acting in the name of the defiantly anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Some eyewitnesses said this fighting was a personal feud. With only 20 days to go before administrative authority is handed over to Iraqis, some U.S. officers privately wonder whether Iraqi police can handle stability in Najaf.

Guy Raz, CNN, Najaf in southern Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: On to Libya and a possible bump in the road to reforming its image. Last December, Moammar Gadhafi agreed to give up Libya's weapons of mass destruction which led to negotiations to lift the longstanding U.S. sanctions against that country.

Now it turns out that Colonel Gadhafi may have been tied to an alleged plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ruler during the same period of time. U.S. officials have now launched an investigation. Reporting for us tonight, CNN's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA (voice-over): Government officials confirm the investigation into the alleged plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's crown prince has been underway for months.

BUSH: We're looking into it. That's the best way I can tell you. And when we find out the facts we will deal with them accordingly.

ARENA: The plot was allegedly hatched as Libya's leader Moammar Gadhafi was negotiating with the United States to lift terror sanctions.

ABDEL RAHMAN SHALOAM, LIBYAN FOREIGN MINISTER: I am sure it's just lies, not allegations, and let them to go for a while in these investigations. The details will come and the truth will appear.

ARENA: Sources say the FBI and other agencies are investigating claims made by Abdurrahman Alamoudi, an American Muslim activist in U.S. custody and Colonel Mohamed Ismael, a Libyan intelligence officer in Saudi custody.

Officials say both men offered separate and similar accounts of a plan to kill the crown prince. In March last year, just before the war with Iraq, Gadhafi and Abdullah publicly traded insults at the Arab Summit.

CROWN PRINCE ABDULLAH, SAUDI ARABIA (through translator): The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not an agent of imperialism. Don't try to pose your opinion in this context if you're not aware of real facts.

ARENA: Investigators are trying to determine if the claims about an assassination are real and whether Gadhafi himself was involved. Saudi Arabia is not commenting. The State Department says it was aware of the allegations when it was negotiating with Libya late last fall.

RICHARD BOUCHER, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: Libyan leaders assured us that they would not support the use of violence for settling political differences with any state.

ARENA: In December, Libya agreed to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction program. The United States in return took some steps to normalize economic relations.

JON ALTERMAN, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTL. STUDIES: It certainly seems to me that if all this is confirmed that there will have to be a change in leadership in Tripoli before the U.S. has anything beginning to resemble normal relations with Libya.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: The U.S. still lists Libya as a state sponsor of terrorism and State Department officials say given the current allegations and other issues they are not convinced that Libya has totally eliminated its terrorist support -- Aaron.

BROWN: And is the motivation, as best we know it, this personal dispute that took place at this meeting or does it go deeper than that?

ARENA: Well, some speculate that that really may have been the last straw for Gadhafi that he was publicly dissed, if you will, but they do say that the hostilities went on for years before that.

BROWN: I guess that's the diplomatic term for what they did. Thank you, Kelli Arena.

One other quick note, the State Department has now backed away from its annual report on terrorism. In it the State Department said attacks were at their lowest point in 34 years. That conclusion drew howls of protests from academics, lawmakers and others.

And today a State Department spokesman and the secretary of state himself conceded that the report contained errors and that a revised report would be forthcoming and will show that attacks increased as did the number of victims. The erroneous report was used to argue that the president's war on terror was showing strong signs of success.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, the woman who always stood by Ronald Reagan's side now stands alone. We'll talk with one of her closest friends.

Plus another legend to mourn tonight, Ray Charles has died.

We take a break. From Washington this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We noted earlier this week that most of us are fortunate enough to have privacy in our most painful moments. President Reagan outlined his funeral plans after he left office as president. All presidents are asked to do that. The state funeral unfolding in Washington is how he and his family wanted it to be, how he wanted to be remembered.

Sheila Tate was Nancy Reagan's press secretary for five years, has remained a close friend. She was watching as the president's casket was brought up the steps of the capitol and earlier today when we talked we began by asking her how the former first lady was holding up.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHEILA TATE, FORMER NANCY REAGAN PRESS SECRETARY: Well, she's in really the toughest week of her life I think. I mean she's saying goodbye. This is the final goodbye, you know. It's sort of like, well, step back. When Ronald Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's she was so -- the only word I can use to describe is sad. She was just overwhelmed with sadness and remorse and regret and concern and upset and over the years...

BROWN: Why remorse?

TATE: Well, for what she was going to lose.

BROWN: Oh, OK.

TATE: Over the years she came to accept the disease, the illness, and think more about what she could do to help other people in terms of Alzheimer's and she's done a lot in that regard.

BROWN: Does she worry about how the public sees her now?

TATE: I don't think so. I mean look at her. She's wearing these big glasses. Have you noticed the glasses?

BROWN: Of course. Of course.

TATE: She would never have worn those glasses in public before.

BROWN: I said that to someone yesterday. I said I can't imagine she would have worn those glasses publicly before.

TATE: She wants to see what's happening now very carefully I think and she wants to remember all of this.

BROWN: What does she want in a sense out of this? She has to share this most intimate difficult moment with the country.

TATE: She wants people to have a chance to say goodbye to him. She wants -- this is a huge opportunity for generations who didn't know him, who weren't even alive when he was president to learn about him and his legacy. I think, you know, she feels he was a great president and a great human being and she wants to use it to -- use the opportunity as best she can to make sure people remember.

BROWN: In the last ten years do you think it's changed her?

TATE: This lady, this is the lady who took so much grief for protecting her husband when he was president and she then spent his last ten years of life protecting him and his dignity and I think we're all grateful for that and that's her last big job this week is to protect him. That's why she keeps trying to reach him.

BROWN: Those are -- when you see those moments, I know how I react to them, when you saw her put her...

TATE: Oh, that was it for me, the one yesterday where she -- I have so many times seen her do that where she touches something and she keeps smoothing it out. I mean I've seen her do that. It was really, really quite amazing.

BROWN: This is an American moment.

TATE: Yes, it is.

BROWN: I mean in the best sense of the term. A head of state who clearly mattered, whether you agreed with him or not, I mean that's not the point.

TATE: You know who said that to me, standing in the window of Bill Frist's office as they were -- as we watched the caisson being brought up those steps was Margaret Thatcher and when the jets came over in the missing man formation she said, oh the ceremony, the ceremony it's so American.

BROWN: The country gets in a way that it didn't or it hasn't in a long time that an American president whatever his party is an important person, something that we care about.

TATE: And I think they're very -- they want to embrace the knowledge that he was a good and kind and decent man, as well as a powerful man.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Sheila Tate and we talked to her late this afternoon.

Coming up on the program tonight back to the serious business of today. We'll be getting to the bottom of the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal or will get to the bottom of it requiring going to the top of the chain of command.

Plus later the life of Ronald Reagan through the lens of time. He lived 93 years. How we have changed in all that time, a break first.

From Washington, D.C., this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In the U.S. military's chain of command a two-star general cannot question higher ranking officers, even if the two-star general is investigating a high profile prisoner abuse scandal, even if part of the general's job is figuring out how high up the chain of command the blame, the responsibility goes.

The two-star general investigating the abuse at Abu Ghraib has almost completed his work but now may be replaced by a higher ranking officer delaying the release of the report, this as documents appearing to make the case for torture have put some considerable heat on the administration.

Covering the story from the Pentagon, CNN's Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At the G8 Summit in Georgia, President Bush insisted he never authorized torture despite some recently disclosed administration memos arguing the U.S. is not bound by international laws in its war on terror.

BUSH: Look, I'm going to say it one more time if I -- maybe I can be more clear. The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law.

MCINTYRE: Meanwhile, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, who originally ordered the investigation into Iraq prisoner abuse, has asked for an officer senior to him to be put in charge of the probe so his actions can also be scrutinized.

LT. GEN. RICARDO SANCHEZ, U.S. IRAQ COMMANDER: I am fully committed to thorough and impartial investigations that examine the role, commissions and omissions of the entire chain of command and that includes me.

MCINTYRE: It was Sanchez who put military intelligence in charge of parts of the Abu Ghraib Prison and whose orders outlined how the prisoners could be interrogated. Questions about whether Sanchez' orders were clear and correctly applied and even an accusation, which Sanchez firmly denies, that he was aware of the abuse are the subject of a nearly completed investigation by two-star General George Fay.

But Pentagon officials say by putting a four-star officer in charge, who unlike Fay would have the authority to question Sanchez himself, will make it easier for Sanchez to defend his actions and dispel any suggestion of conflict of interest. A Pentagon spokesman says granting Sanchez' request will "ensure a complete, thorough, and transparent investigation that leaves no doubts as to the veracity of its findings."

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has just issued strict new procedures to preserve evidence in the event prisoners die in U.S. custody, including requiring autopsies and mandating that he is personally notified. In addition, Rumsfeld's memo orders the remains will not be washed and all items on or in the body will be left undisturbed.

(on camera): The investigation into questionable interrogation practices was due to be wrapped up this week but will now be delayed, in part because it will take time to find a higher ranking general to put in charge but also because sources say a key member of a military intelligence unit, who wasn't talking, is now providing new important information.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Interrogation practices at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba are also under scrutiny today. A report in "The Wall Street Journal" details the list of interrogation techniques used at GITMO but discontinued after complaints that they were too severe. The paper says the Defense Secretary Rumsfeld approved the techniques in December of 2002.

Jess Bravin is a senior special writer at "The Wall Street Journal" and shared the byline on the article today, Jess good to see you.

JESS BRAVIN, "WALL STREET JOURNAL" REPORTER: Hi, Aaron.

BROWN: Is it -- before we get into the detail here, is it surprising that the secretary himself signed off on this that it went that high?

BRAVIN: Well, it's not surprising given how sensitive the operation is at Guantanamo and the intense interest in heading off terrorist attacks, which is what the Pentagon says prompted the review of interrogation techniques.

BROWN: And the techniques that were judged too harsh, do we know most of them, all of them?

BRAVIN: Well, we know which techniques were used in a one month period from December to January, December, 2002 to January, 2003, and many of them appear in conventional Army doctrine that's been used for years, things that basically are intended to fool prisoners into thinking that they better cooperate or something really bad might happen to them.

There are a number of techniques, though, that certainly seem unusual compared to a traditional Army doctrine. They involve isolation for up to 30 days. They involve stripping what they call comfort items and personal religious items, inducing phobias, such as fear of dogs. Things like that appear on the list. We don't know exactly how interrogators interpreted this very terse list of things, but we do know that some of those techniques did require permission from superior offices.

BROWN: And we know that -- from your reporting, that, at some point, somebody found those techniques too severe and went back to the Pentagon, I guess, to argue the point. Do we know who those people were?

BRAVIN: Well, there were -- objections were raised by military lawyers who were uncomfortable with some of the things that interrogators were doing at Guantanamo Bay.

And this whole issue of what was the right way to interrogate prisoners who aren't really motivated by the things that Army doctrine had prepared for. The Army doctrine is based on preparing for interrogations of soldiers from the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet Union, countries -- soldiers in conventional wars. They weren't really designed to deal with what the Pentagon believes now are fanatical, committed terrorists, if that's indeed who they are.

So -- but, you know, the Army has a very structured system where lawyers think they know what the Geneva Convention means. They are trained to follow those doctrines. And they had problems with some of these issues. I think that the way to look at this story is to look at what happened next. Rumsfeld ordered a review in January 2003 of what techniques would be appropriate, but also -- and this is really what we've been focusing on for most of the week -- also, the broader legal and policy context of interrogations. And it's some of those conclusions that, at least to us, seem more striking than the particular nitty-gritty of whether someone could be made to stand for four hours or three hours or whether 20 hours of nonstop interrogation is OK, vis-a-vis 18 hours of nonstop interrogation.

BROWN: Just one practical question. How is it that -- when these techniques are applied, when harsh techniques are applied, how, then, does anyone evaluate the truthfulness of what the detainee is confessing to? Because, under some circumstances, this stuff can be used against him and, under some circumstances, you might say anything to get it to stop.

BRAVIN: Well, that's true.

And it even said in the document we wrote about on Monday that many Army experts don't believe that physical coercion provides reliable results. And, of course, results is what they are after. On the other hand, if you can't -- if you are talking to a lot of detainees and you're asking similar questions and their answers line up, then maybe you've got some reason to believe that what you are learning is true.

And it's also -- incidentally, it's important to note that the Pentagon says that they were really looking at a handful of high- valued prisoners, not the overwhelming majority of about 600 who are there now, and it went up to about 800 at some point. They say that these are techniques that they were looking at for use in people who they had strong suspicion knew something and wouldn't talk, as opposed to up-and-down-the-line harsh techniques on prisoners.

BROWN: Jess, you and your colleagues at "The Journal" have done some terrific work this week. Thanks for joining us tonight.

BRAVIN: Thanks.

BROWN: Thank you.

Still to come on the program, Jeff Greenfield takes a look at what makes the president great and perhaps, more correctly, admired. It's not always the same thing. And when he was born, Buffalo Bill Cody was still alive. The tragedies, the triumphs, the changes of Ronald Reagan's world.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The U.S. Capitol on this Thursday night, people coming, as they have all day, since last night, really, to make that five- minute circle. They wait hours to do it, to pay their last respects to President Ronald Reagan.

We have heard so many voices this week remembering the former president, reflecting on his life and his character. Tomorrow, there will be more in the eulogies and the final goodbyes. Earlier this week, we remarked that the memories of a public life are softened in the wake of loss. Time can change that focus and reorder a president's place in collective memory. Predicting how exactly is the tricky part.

Here's our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): Here's one way to tell how presidents rank: if we carve their faces into a mountain. There is room on Rushmore for one more. FDR, some say. "How about Reagan?" his admirers ask.

Here's another way: if they are part of legal tender. But it's dicey. Grant is on the $50 bill, but he's generally ranked among the worst. Jefferson is on the rarely used $2 bill. And Teddy Roosevelt isn't on any money at all.

You can poll the public, but public memory goes back only so far. A just-released Gallup poll puts FDR and JFK highest among the last 10 presidents, with Richard Nixon getting the worst marks by far. Resignation amid scandal will do that. And the current president registers very high disapproval ratings, but, remember, he's up for election in a polarized time.

Now, a "Wall Street Journal" editor and a conservative scholar have produced a book that tries to rate presidents. They gathered opinions from left and right and produced some intriguing findings, to which we'll add one or two of our own. Only three presidents rank great, Washington, Lincoln, FDR. Reagan ranked near great. JFK and LBJ were ranked above average, the first Bush and Clinton average, Nixon, Ford and Carter below average. George W. Bush wasn't ranked because he's still in office.

What do we see here? First, all three great presidents faced great crises, helping a new nation survive, keeping it together during the Civil War, battling a Great Depression and a World War. Second, if you haven't faced a crisis, it is hard for you to be considered great. Only Teddy Roosevelt gets high marks from historians while presiding in a tranquil time. President Clinton was said to worry about this.

Third, if you lose a reelection fight, you don't get good marks. Maybe we figure that, if you couldn't convince the public you deserved a second term, you're out. Maybe the best-selling book on John Adams will help his rankings. And if you were the president just before a great crisis, you tend to get the blame for not dealing with it.

James Buchanan, who preceded Lincoln, and Herbert Hoover, who came before FDR, suffer on this point. Some say it's possible that Clinton and the first President Bush may take heat for not dealing with the terrorism threat earlier.

Bad journalists love to say, only time will tell, but, in this case, there's something to it. Presidential reputations rise and fall over the decades. Woodrow Wilson was held in a lot higher esteem decades ago than he is now. Harry Truman's reputation has sharply increased over the years. Maybe that's why there's a law, signed by Ronald Reagan, by the way, that a president has to be dead 25 years before they even can think about building a monument to him in Washington.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, Washington, D.C.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the world as Ronald Reagan knew it, a place of almost unbelievable change, some of which he caused.

And morning papers, something that never changes, at least not around here.

We're in Washington tonight and this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We've spent a great deal of time this week on President Reagan's life in politics. More remarkable than that, we think is his life, period.

Forget for a moment that he became an actor and a governor and a president. Imagine for a moment that he never left little Dixon, Illinois. He still would have seen 40 percent of the country's history pass before him. In good times and bad, for better or worse, a good 40 percent to see.

Here's NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When Ronald Wilson Reagan was born on February 6, 1911, Buffalo Bill was still alive. Henry Ford had yet to introduce assembly lines in his automobile factory. Einstein was four years from postulating his theory of relativity and American women nine years from getting the right to vote.

William Taft was president of the United States, all 46 of them. Ronald Reagan lived during the administrations of 16 U.S. presidents, 13 before he himself moved into the White House, three more after he left office. Reagan's life spanned nine extraordinary decades of world history. He was a boy during World War I, a teenager during the Great Depression.

He was in his 30s during World War II, his 40s during the Korean War, his 50s during the years of the Vietnam War and civil right struggles, when he was governor of California. His life spanned the entire Cold War. Reagan was 6 in 1917, the year of the Russian Revolution. He was 13 when Lenin died. He outlived the Soviet Union by 13 years.

The man who would champion a space-based Strategic Defense Initiative grew up decades before the space age. Reagan was only 16 when Lindbergh flew the Spirit of Saint Louis from New York to Paris, a flight that took 33 1/2 hours. He was almost 50 by the time the space race started with the Soviet launch of Sputnik, almost 60 before man first stepped onto the surface of the moon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Touchdown.

NISSEN: And 70 years old when the first U.S. space shuttle made its maiden flight.

So much changed so profoundly in the course of Reagan's life: science, technology, medicine, from the polio vaccine in 1954, to the first human heart transplant in 1967, to the first test tube baby in 1978, from mapping human DNA, to successful cloning, although no cure for the global killer that emerged late in Reagan's life, AIDS.

Reagan's life spanned profound changes in American culture, from the jazz age in the roaring '20s, into rock 'n' roll and the rap, techno and hip-hop that came after.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW")

ED SULLIVAN, TALK SHOW HOST: Ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NISSEN: Reagan was already 53 when the Beatles first appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show."

Reagan, the movie star, had a life that neatly coincided with the life of the movies. He was four when D.W. Griffith made "Birth of a Nation."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You ain't heard nothing yet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NISSEN: Sixteen when Al Jolson made the first talkie.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "CASABLANCA")

HUMPHREY BOGART, ACTOR: Here's looking at you, kid.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NISSEN: Thirty-one when "Casablanca" premiered, 66 when the "Star Wars" epic started in a special effects galaxy far, far away.

And Reagan, the TV host, was already an adult when television was in its infancy. Color TV was introduced the year Reagan turned 40.

Reagan announced he had Alzheimer's in 1994 at age 83. It is not known how aware he was of what happened in the world in his last decade, if he registered or grieved for those lost in the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the fighting in Kosovo, the continued fighting between Israelis and Palestinians, the horror of the September 11 attacks.

It is unlikely that he was at all aware that the U.S. was again at war in Afghanistan and in Iraq, that there were orange alerts, or new worries about global warming, that "Friends" ended, or the third "Harry Potter" movie was out, or that the nation he loved for so long, served for so long, still remembered him so well, so warmly, after all these years.

Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: What a wonderful way to look at the span of a lifetime.

We'll take a look at morning papers still ahead and we'll pay tribute to another voice forever stilled.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There was a song some time back about the day the music died. No such thing could actually happen, of course, except that, today, it almost did. Ray Charles, as close as you could get to all of American music wrapped up in one person, died today. He was 73.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): He lost his sight to glaucoma as a boy of 6, then lost his parents, too, as a teenager. So out he went, as if in some long-ago blues song a blind orphan traveling the country, Florida, Washington State, here and there making music, making records, making eventually a legend.

Ray Charles Robinson -- he dropped the Robinson early on -- breathed in everything there was to breathe in, jazz and Gospel, pop and blues, country and western, R&B, everything, and then breathed it back out as something new and different, transformed, something unmistakably his. Who knew before Ray Charles that the unofficial anthem of the United States was in fact a great Gospel song?

RAY CHARLES, MUSICIAN (singing): America, sweet America.

BROWN: The hits began coming more than a half century ago, in the early '50s, when he was barely 20. And then they simply kept on coming decade after decade after decade after decade.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ray Charles!

BROWN: That amazing voice and phrasing, that wonderful piano, were captured on whatever medium was the latest thing, from vinyl to silver compact discs to digits. The science of recording changed. He did not.

How many halls of fame is Ray Charles honored in? Rock 'n' Roll, Blues, Songwriters, Grammy, Jazz, Georgia Music, Florida Artists, Playboy Hall of Fame. He probably would be in more if there were more. CHARLES: For me, my music is my existence. It's just like your breathing. Without your breathing, you are no longer here. Without my music, I feel I'm no longer here.

BROWN: Well, he is no longer here, but his music is and always will be.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ray Charles was 73.

Let me tell you what is going on here. We're waiting for former President George Herbert Walker Bush to arrive at the Capitol. We expect him shortly.

We have got morning papers to do. We want to get in a quick program note before that. Here is Soledad with a look at tomorrow's "AMERICAN MORNING."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Aaron.

Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," Secretary of State Colin Powell, his career in the military and within the highest levels of government really took off under President Reagan, culminating with a job as national security adviser. Tomorrow, his reflections on the 40th president, his vision for national security, and how Ronald Reagan changed the world. That's on CNN tomorrow, 7:00 a.m. Eastern -- Aaron, back to you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Soledad, thank you very much.

OK, we'll see how many morning papers we get in. It will either turn out to be just a few because the former president will arrive at the Capitol, or it will go on for a really long time. Your guess is as good as mine. Here we go. Live TV folks, this is how it works.

"International Herald Tribune" starts it off, published in France by "The New York Times." And I suspect this will be in "The Times" tomorrow. So, if you get "The Times,' you'll have a chance to read this. "A Great President? It's All Up to History," Johnny Apple, R.W. Apple Jr., the fine political writer and sometimes food writer for "The Times," writing that. The lead story, technically, "Bush Says Training May Be Nato Role, Unrealistic to Expect Troops in Iraq."

Also an analysis people that will please the administration, I do believe, "A New Degree of Trust. At G-8, Doubters Find a Reasonable Bush."

"The Christian Science Monitor." Over in the corner here -- it is going to be hard to see, but I like the headline. "Panda Population Jumps, But Outlook Not Black and White." Get it? Sure you do. "The Miami Herald" leads -- I was surprised by the lead, OK, but I was pleased, too. They led with Ray Charles, "Ray Charles: 1930- 2004. A Colossus of Popular Music Dies of Liver Disease at 73."

In "The Chattanooga Times Free Press," they lead local. "Riverbend" -- a local festival -- "Ready to Go," they say. "World Leaders, Ordinary Folks Honor Reagan" as well, a part of the front page of "The Chattanooga Times Free Press."

And we'll get two more in.

"The Philadelphia Inquirer." "Brain Drain, Not So Fast." Despite fears that the region loses too many grads, a study says that's not so. That's good news for the folks in Philadelphia.

"The Chicago Sun-Times" leads, "Envelopes Full of Cash Dropped at City Hall." Uh-oh. That doesn't sound good, does it? I don't think so. The weather tomorrow, "sulky."

We'll see you tomorrow. We'll be back in New York. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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