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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Iran's Nuclear Program; Arthur Miller Remembered
Aired February 11, 2005 - 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.
Serious business to start the program tonight, we talk of war. No one wants to die in a war, of course, and the closer you get to the time you head home the more aware you are of the risks at hand.
That is a simple and straightforward way to describe the soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division tonight. Since the war began more than 80, 90 of them rather have died. This battle-scarred group is nearing the end of its rotation, a time when thoughts of home collide with thoughts of mortality.
So, we begin tonight with CNN's Jane Arraf.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): They're not supposed to count the days but they do, even the hours until they go home to Germany, to California, to Tennessee. They've been in Iraq a year. Task Force 22 of the 1st Infantry Division has seen combat in Najaf and Falluja and Mosul.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, gunners make sure you're way down low, all right?
ARRAF: This is one of their last missions.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, if you can I.D. an enemy, by all means shoot.
ARRAF: Over the last year, these soldiers would have been desperate to get off the base but in this last week nobody wants to go out in these streets.
(on camera): For soldiers about to go home this is one of the most harrowing times. They've survived a whole year in Iraq. They just have to get through the next few days.
(voice-over): They talk about what it will be like going home. Most had a small taste during leave. Private First Class Troy Langley (ph), sitting in the back, is 19.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that's fine but, you know, if I freak out don't worry about it and sure enough he shot me in the back and I didn't know he was going to and I flipped out on him.
ARRAF: They've seen enough explosions to last a lifetime.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Falluja was hell on earth.
ARRAF: In the steel of his Humvee, Joshua Thomas Casias (ph) has etched the name of the three of the battalion's 36 men who died in Iraq.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is Doc (UNINTELLIGIBLE), probably he was our first medic down here, a good friend. We've all known him for about three years.
ARRAF: Staff Sergeant James Madison and Sergeant Major Steve Falkenberg (ph) were killed in Falluja.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They'd just ride around with me (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and watch over me and that's how I roll -- that's how we all roll.
ARRAF: Casias is getting out of the Army.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wish I never came down here.
ARRAF: So is Specialist Dave Pope.
SPC DAVID POPE, 1ST INFANTRY DIVISION: It's kind of good to see the elections that happened turn out the way they did because it helps to alleviate some of the sense of pointlessness.
ARRAF: But a lot of the rest have reenlisted. In this last year when many grew up this is how they passed the time and kept the ghosts at bay, grateful they're alive.
Jane Arraf, CNN, Muqtadia (ph), Iraq.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Iran next. Today at Friday prayers an old adversary of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Rafsanjani said Iran's nuclear program is here to stay. Earlier this week, Iran's president threatened to turn his country into a scorching hell, his words to American troops trying to come over the border.
There are the threats that make the headlines but they may in the end be overshadowed by another, namely the threat posed by the unknown; reporting for us tonight CNN's David Ensor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As the CIA's man in Iraq, David Kay, could not find any weapons of mass destruction, though U.S. intelligence said they were there. Now, he worries about history repeating itself.
DAVID KAY, FMR. CIA IRAQ WEAPONS OFFICIAL: Looking at Iran after Iraq is a particularly vexing problem because we now know how wrong we got it in the case of Iraq. It was not a marginal difference. ENSOR: In Iran's case the first revelation about its then secret nuclear weapons related facilities in Natanz and Iraq came from Iranian dissident (UNINTELLIGIBLE) who continue to offer additional tidbits almost weekly. That reminds Kay of some not so reliable information from Iraqi associates, then emigrate leader Ahmed Chalabi, before the Iraq War.
KAY: My suspicion is that we're going to find out in Iran, just like in Iraq we had no human operatives on the ground and that our best source of information were people who defected and had other agendas.
ENSOR: Back in the fall of 2002, Bush administration rhetoric about Iraq was ramping up.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.
ENSOR: Fast forward to 2005 and the rhetoric is about Iran, warnings to Tehran to give up its nuclear programs or face uncertain consequences. On January 20th, inauguration day, Vice President Cheney told an interview that "The Israelis might well decide to act first and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards."
(on camera): What did you think when Vice President Cheney warned that the Israelis might attack Iran?
KAY: I actually don't think it was an effective threat.
ENSOR (voice-over): Not effective, argues Kay, because times have changed since 1981 when Israeli jets knocked out the Iraqi nuclear program with just one raid.
KAY: I think the Iranians know what the Israelis did and that's why they've scattered their program and made it very difficult to locate.
ENSOR: Kay says the administration is making a mistake not to sit down with the Iranians and offer them security guarantees from a super power that they cannot get in their ongoing discussions with European diplomats about giving up their nuclear programs.
(on camera): But administration officials privately say they have doubts that a deal could be done with and then honored by Tehran. Officials tell CNN a methodical review of U.S. intelligence on Iran's nuclear facilities is underway and the administration is in no mood to soften its warnings to Tehran.
David Ensor, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: A number of other stories making news around the country tonight. Police in Florida now say a woman who turned over a newborn to police claiming she witnessed the infant being tossed out of a moving car made the whole story up. The baby boy, who is in good condition, is hers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a case of a disturbed woman who gave birth but did not want to keep her child.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Southern California next. Firefighters pulled a boy to safety out of the raging waters in the Los Angeles River. It's a repeat of last month's weather in the region being battered again by heavy rains and gusty winds.
The new attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, has removed himself from the Justice Department investigation into who leaked the name of a CIA officer to some members of the press. Valerie Plame is married to a former ambassador, Ambassador Joe Wilson, who criticized the Bush administration's policies on Iraq. Gonzales testified in the case before a grand jury when he was the president's legal counsel.
And on that note, a connection perhaps to the case of J.D. Guckert who for a time was asking softball questions at the White House press conference under the name of Jeff Gannon.
Today, two senior Democrats in the House called for an investigation into how Mr. Guckert or Gannon might have obtained a classified document containing Ms. Plame's identity. They've asked the U.S. attorney investigating the Plame matter to look into this matter as well to see if any laws were broken.
In 1972, Alexander Solzhenitsyn exposed the horrors of the Soviet Union's forced labor camps when the Gulag Archipelago was first published, the Gulag, the place where Stalin's enemies were imprisoned, where so many disappeared forever.
A new report by the Pentagon, the fifth in a decade long investigation says there is growing evidence American servicemen ended up in the Gulag as well.
The Russian government has not been terribly helpful in making that evidence more concrete but some families have been waiting half a century for this much, from the Pentagon tonight CNN's Barbara Starr.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): June 13, 1952, Major Sam Bush and his crew take off in their RB-29 aircraft from Yokota, Japan. They are on a secret mission flying over the Sea of Japan to spy on the Soviet Union. It is the height of the Cold War. Suddenly, the plane disappears. The men are missing. Sam Bush, though, is never forgotten.
CHARLOTTE MITNIK, SISTER OF MISSING PILOT: It was a loss, taught me how to dance, taught me supposedly proper table manners for a young woman.
STARR: Fifty-two years later, Charlotte Mitnik wants to know if her brother Sam was one of hundreds of American servicemen the Pentagon believes may have been captured and perished in the Soviet Gulag.
The new Pentagon report details the latest evidence about the reporting sightings of dozens of those Americans. It is a search back half a century, a detective tale tracked by family members like Charlotte Mitnik.
MITNIK: The plane was shot down by two MiGs.
STARR: She has collected hundreds of documents about the case overcoming years of U.S. and Russian secrecy.
MITNIK: The same questions were asked over and over and over again of the Russians and they don't even -- sometimes they don't even bother to answer.
STARR: A few years ago, a startling piece of evidence. The U.S. received this document known as the Memoirs, from a source who had been living in internal exile in the former Soviet Union. He tells of a U.S. air crew being captured and sent to a Soviet prison.
The writer reveals a friend told him he learned "the names of two crewmembers of that aircraft, Bush and Moore, who will forever remain in the soil of the Khabarovsk Region." Sergeant David Moore was on the plane that day. After reading the memoirs, Charlotte believes her brother died in Soviet captivity.
MITNIK: Maybe his death was a horrible death but his life was not full of torture and pain because it would have been over 50 years that he would have had to live that way.
STARR: And now she speaks on behalf of the missing who perhaps long dead can no longer speak for themselves.
MITNIK: So, the remains of these men could be found. They should come home. They should be where they belong.
STARR: Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: More to come tonight starting with the death of an American master who almost quit before he began.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARTHUR MILLER: Fifty years ago I quit forever. I had a disaster with my first play. I resolved never to write another one.
BROWN (voice-over): Arthur Miller went on to write 16 more. Tonight, the mark he made on the conscience of the country as told by Jeff Greenfield and the actor Brian Dennehy. Also, he's seen as the man who turned hip-hop into a cultural force but how does Russell Simmons see himself?
RUSSELL SIMMONS: I think of myself as a servant.
BROWN: A NEWSNIGHT Friday conversation.
And later, the images that simply cannot be forgotten, picking the best of the best it's hard to decide but it's easy to see.
This is NEWSNIGHT.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: This is an incredible coincidence. Fifty-six years ago yesterday "Death of a Salesman" opened on Broadway. Last night the man who wrote this extraordinary play died. But before a man dies, a man lives and Arthur Miller surely lived. He lived and he wrote. He wrote novels. He wrote movies. He wrote 17 plays for the stage and at least one for the ages.
Here's CNN's Jeff Greenfield.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): Traditionally, a tragic hero must fall from a great height. Oedipus was a king, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) a priestess, Hamlet a prince, Othello a general.
But in Arthur Miller's masterpiece "Death of a Salesman," the web of fate entraps Willie Loman. His name says it all Loman, a man whose breezy pretenses cannot conceal the fact that he's at the end of his rope.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a man way out there in the blue riding on a smile and a shoeshine.
GREENFIELD: Miller, who died Thursday night at 89, spent almost 70 years writing plays, screenplays, novels, essays. There were memorable works, like "The Crucible" which debuted in 1953. Its portrayal of the Salem witch trials was a clear metaphor for the then powerful Senator Joseph McCarthy in his hunt for subversives.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It may well be that in Salem he will find signs of Lucifer.
GREENFIELD: There was controversy in his life as well. His left-wing politics brought him before a congressional committee and his refusal to name names earned him a contempt citation, one that the courts later threw out.
He won far more attention and notoriety when he married screen goddess Marilyn Monroe in 1956. His divorce five years later became grist for the 1964 play "After the Fall." But it is "Death of a Salesman" that is unquestionably Arthur Miller's master work. The play debuted on Broadway in 1949 in the midst of post-war affluence and probed the underside of the American dream.
It painted a badly flawed character. Willie Loman steals, cheats on his wife, ultimately kills himself in the hope that his family can collect the insurance money, who still compels the pity and terror that great tragedy is supposed to evoke. Willie's wife Linda explains in this classic speech.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Willie Loman never earned a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived but he's a human being and a terrible thing is happening to him, so attention must be paid. He must not be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.
GREENFIELD: Miller's later works met with less and less favor from critics and from audiences and, as for Miller, he talked of a Broadway that had changed.
MILLER: There was a kind of reverence that is gone. People felt it was an art, not a business.
GREENFIELD (on camera): Whatever the scorecard of his hits and flops, Arthur Miller was a writer who created a work that for more than half a century has moved audiences to tears and to great emotion long after the curtain falls. When a man who has achieved this dies attention must be paid.
Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Brian Dennehy won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Willie Loman in the 1998 revival of "Death of a Salesman." He's about to head to London to do it again. He's currently appearing in "Trumbo" which tells the story of the blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. And Mr. Dennehy joins us tonight from Boston. It's nice to see you.
BRIAN DENNEHY, ACTOR: Thank you, nice to be here.
BROWN: You said today, I think, about the character about Willie Loman that's the best character you ever played. Why is it the best character you ever played?
DENNEHY: Well, of course, it's incredibly rich. I did it 450 times. It was interested. I was in this town the last week that I did it in that first incarnation and Arthur came that week and he came to the dressing room and he said, "God" he said "you really have found an awful lot of new stuff, interesting stuff."
I said, "Arthur, I could play this 450 more times and still find more things." And great parts reveal themselves constantly and continue to reveal themselves and continue to unfold. I mean that's why it's so wonderful to play great parts and certainly Willie's the greatest of the great for me.
BROWN: I was thinking tonight through all the great and wonderful actors that have played that part, Lee J. Cobb played that part.
DENNEHY: Yes.
BROWN: George C. Scott, I'm certain played the part. Dustin Hoffman, who I think people maybe don't remember played the part. You played the part, lots of people. Did you ever worry when you first started doing it that Arthur Miller would see it and not like it?
DENNEHY: Well, actually we didn't worry about him seeing it. We did it first of all in Chicago at the Goodman Theater. Bob Falls (ph) and I had done, who runs the Goodman Theater, we had done a lot of big, powerful plays there over the years and we decided to try to do "Salesman" in '98 and it was a very successful production.
Ben Brantley (ph) came out from the "New York Times," gave it a rave and that brought Arthur out. Yes, I guess I was a little nervous. I had met Arthur before but we knew we had something and we didn't realize it was going to be done in February, on February 10th of 1999, which was exactly the 50th anniversary of the first production some 50 years before. That was quite a night that night.
BROWN: Does the play -- does the passage of time change the meaning of the play and the power of the part?
DENNEHY: You know all I can tell you is that night after night doing that play and wherever we did it, St. Louis, Los Angeles, New York, Boston, you would feel this stunned reaction on the part of some members in the audience.
A woman went into hysterics one night in Chicago because she saw something on the stage that obviously meant something to her, not necessarily what was going on with the Lomans but something that had happened in her life.
And night after night after night people would come backstage, men in their 50s, well-dressed, obviously successful men weeping and these were guys for whom tears did not come easily.
It was -- there's something about that play. There's something about us as Americans and Willie Loman and the American dream, even if -- especially if your nose is pressed up against the window seeing it on the other side. There's something about the family. There's something about the generations battling each other, loving each other, caring about each other but also fighting each other to be free.
It's just a profound, important American play and it means a great deal to Americans but it was enormously successful around the world, China. Arthur directed a production in Beijing and it was enormously successful and the Chinese recognized it as a Chinese play. It's just one of those cataclysmic events of an artist coming together with the material, about the family, about the outside forces acting on that family and it was -- it still is enormously powerful.
BROWN: It is that. It's nice to talk to you. I know it's been a long day and you worked and did the play just before coming over. Thank you for that.
DENNEHY: Well, no, to pay tribute to him because he was also my friend.
BROWN: Yes.
DENNEHY: You know it feels like the planets have shifted right now.
BROWN: Well, it's good to see you.
DENNEHY: Thank you.
BROWN: You're a terrific actor. Thank you, sir.
DENNEHY: Thanks very much.
BROWN: Thank you.
Before we head to break, another extraordinary life and legacy still in the making in this case, Dr. Jane Goodall is considered the world's foremost authority on chimps. Part of CNN's anniversary series "Then and Now" we look back tonight at her accomplishments and where she is today.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): She entered the jungle of Tanzania in 1960, a young, British woman with dreams of living with animals and writing books about them. Dr. Jane Goodall has done that and so much more.
She has devoted 45 years to studying chimpanzees in Africa, forever changing the science of primates and founding the Jane Goodall Institute, which funds research and conservation. She's earned hundreds of awards and honors and written more than a dozen books but somewhere along the way the primatologist became a peacemaker.
JANE GOODALL: We're not the only beings on this planet with personalities, minds and feelings and let's live in a world that has respect for other life forms but also for each other.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Goodall is now a grandmother and turned 71 this year. She still spends 300 days a year on the road lecturing and inspiring people to look beyond themselves. She says her top priority is her institute's worldwide youth program, Roots and Chutes, which promotes community service and giving children hope.
GOODALL: You make a difference. Your life matters and it's up to you to save the world and each one of us have this mission.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: When the Grammy awards are handed out this Sunday, consider this. Of the 63 songs to hit Billboard's top ten in 2004, 51 were hip-hop or R&B, so we sent CNN's Candy Crowley to check out where it's all coming from.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, this is one jazzy fizzle. Hey, with my man Dwight Stone in the mix.
ANNOUNCER: The all new 100.3 the (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
CROWLEY: The rap scene going mainstream, come on bring it to us right here in St. Louis. Not surprised they listen to rap in the Midwest? Would you be surprised to know they make it here?
LAMAR WILLIAMS, HI POINTE CLUB: It's very -- it has a very street element to it. It has a very bouncy element to it. It has what they call a country feel to it. It's something you can easily dance to and funk is another word they've put on the sound to.
CROWLEY: 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, open mike night at the Hi Pointe.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Has anyone gotten famous by doing this?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The latest one happens to be Ebony Eyez. She's been coming here since the first or second year we've ever opened and she actually got signed to Capitol Records.
CROWLEY: Ebony Eyez raps against the grain, a Midwesterner in what has been an East Coast/West Coast scene, a woman in a business rife with lyrics that debase women.
MARK WILLIAMS, PRODUCER, TRACKBOYZ: She's not a passive, pushover type of female. She's a rough, rugged female at the same time. Ebony cries tears is the same thing that, you know, when she's hurt it's the same response as anybody else.
CROWLEY: Meet the Trackboyz, St. Louisans (ph) born and raised, producers working out of a basement studio who, among other things put rapper J-Kwan on the charts with one of the most played songs of 2004. They now look to Ebony Eyez.
JO CAPO, PRODUCER, TRACKBOYZ: She tells stories. She's -- she's talking about things that make you laugh. She's talking about things that make you cry.
CROWLEY: She is talking about some things we can't put on the Cable News Network. Now, pretend you're talking to a middle-aged white woman just for instance.
EBONY EYEZ: OK.
CROWLEY: Tell me about the song that I heard.
EBONY EYEZ: My sound is just like I think it's like raw emotional hip-hop.
CROWLEY: So, it's a female power.
EBONY EYEZ: Yes, yes, you know, and I just word it a different way but that's really what it's meant to be.
CROWLEY: Ten years ago, nobody looked for hip-hop or rap talent out of the Midwest. That was pre-Nelly, the St. Louis rapper who hit platinum and is up for another Grammy this year. Now, the gateway to the west is wide open probably the most vibrant hip-hop scene in the country.
CAPO: We have a million labels. We have a million artists just, it's crazy. We can't even handle all the CDs we get personally.
WILLIAMS: We got like 20 labels in a five-mile radius.
CAPO: Right.
WILLIAMS: Like, everybody is starting a label. Everybody is, like -- it's very active.
CAPO: Very, very active.
(MUSIC)
CROWLEY: So, as Grammy Awards give out the shine, kick back while you keep this in mind. When you look to see rap at its newest, check out the beats in Saint Louis.
WILLIAMS: Any time you're rhyming words, you're rapping.
CROWLEY: So there.
Candy Crowley, CNN, Saint Louis.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Now to the man who almost single-handedly made Candy's story a story, turning urban music into the choice of middle America and suburban America. And it is.
In the process, over the last 25 years, Russell Simmons has made himself a fortune. He's the founder of Def Jam Records. He runs Rush Communications. He's a taste-maker, a power broker and lately quite a philanthropist as well. We smoke with Mr. Simmons yesterday afternoon for tonight's NEWSNIGHT conversation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: I said I wanted to talk about big issues and small issues. Let's talk about big issues for a bit.
I think that conventional wisdom, and it has been for a long time, is that there is a crisis among African-American kids, particularly African-American males. First of all, do you believe that there is a crisis among African-American males? And, if you believe it, what is the crisis and why is the crisis?
RUSSELL SIMMONS, HIP-HOP SUMMIT ACTION NETWORK: Well, I think the crisis comes from -- there is a crisis.
BROWN: OK.
SIMMONS: Education issues that come up, and just a willingness for this young -- this generation to walk through the doors that were opened by the civil rights leaders and people who worked for their freedom and for their opportunities.
So, there is this unwillingness, for whatever reason, to walk through these doors, to take advantage of the opportunities that have been afforded them. Same time, it means that we have to now reach back and give them more incentive. A lot of immigrants come here and they see America is a great place with a lot of opportunity. That's a fact.
The crisis is in part spiritual. It's in part something that's -- it's just a lack of appreciation, maybe, for the opportunity.
BROWN: Appreciation...
SIMMONS: But, you know, it's why they need the past to be repaired, because all people, all of us are pretty much the same. And if this whole -- well, some great part of this generation won't take advantage of their opportunity or the education opportunities and other things that have been afforded to them, then we have to work harder. I believe our job is...
BROWN: And what is it, in a sense, you need to say or how is it you need to say it? Because, look, some of this stuff really isn't, as we say, brain surgery. It's pretty clear to every kid, no matter what color they are, no matter where they grow up, no matter what their circumstance is, that there are routes out of bad situations.
SIMMONS: Oh, yes. Well, the struggle is...
BROWN: And the first route is, you need an education. So, why is this complicated?
SIMMONS: Well, you know, listen, because I say people are in struggle and the poverty that's in their mind is so heavy doesn't mean that we don't owe them reparations. It doesn't mean that we don't owe them greater opportunity. The idea of equal high-quality education is what we owe them.
Our job is to keep giving, all of us. And so if we come not to judge them and say -- then they have an opportunity. Why don't they take it? Well, we must have done something or they grew up with a lack of something. And whatever that is, we have to put it back. There are a number of things, again, a greater opportunity for education.
Kids didn't have a library.
BROWN: Yes.
SIMMONS: You know, there's a guy who runs my Hip-Hop Summit named Dr. Ben Chavis. You may know him. He's been around a long time.
Ben went to jail for five years so Michael Jordan could go to the library.
BROWN: Yes.
SIMMONS: Right? And now the library is wide open and some kids don't go in it.
BROWN: What Cosby said and what others have said and -- for whatever reasons, it's made some people uncomfortable, but it's kind of a simple proposition, which is, first and foremost, we have to be, all of us, responsible for ourselves, first and foremost.
SIMMONS: Personal responsibility is exactly what we're talking about.
BROWN: Yes.
SIMMONS: In fact, my personal responsibility is to keep giving. That's my job. And many philanthropic, social and political initiatives that I've try to forward, that I've pushed for...
BROWN: But, in some way, it's not really about you, is it?
SIMMONS: No, personal responsibility is for you. You have a personal responsibility. And so does each individual. And that is to do what we would like to see the change be, to be part of a process that makes -- that uplifts. Our job is not to judge, but to be personally responsible.
BROWN: That's fair enough, but it's also the personal responsibility of the 17-year-old kid.
(CROSSTALK)
SIMMONS: Your personal responsibility is to give. Their personal responsibility is not for you to judge. You have to do your job.
BROWN: So, it is not fair to say that it is also the personal responsibility of the 17-year-old kid in the Bronx or the 32-year-old mother of that 17-year-old kid?
SIMMONS: I'm not saying that's a good excuse. I'm saying that's not a good excuse for us, because you say they haven't lived up to their personal responsibility, for then us now to walk away from ours. Our job...
BROWN: No one is talking about walking away.
SIMMONS: Our job is to give equal high-quality education to them. That's what our job is. That's my fight. That's a struggle. When I talk about education...
BROWN: And you don't really want to talk about, am I right, their responsibility in this?
SIMMONS: No. That's certainly a good out that Cosby gave you. But it's not my job to judge them. My job is to help them. And I think that that's -- I do -- I try every day. But I'm certainly not judging. I don't need you to give to my charities.
I call a lot of people, and some do. And there's many, many charities and many, many philanthropic and social and political investments that I make.
BROWN: Yes. Yes.
SIMMONS: Those investments are mine. I feel it's my responsibility. I have a lot of resources. God's given me a lot of resources. I use them to the best of my ability. You can do with yours what you choose.
BROWN: Just one more thing on this before...
SIMMONS: I've got a huge tax break.
(LAUGHTER)
SIMMONS: I felt a huge tax break. In the year that I sold my company, you know, 100-some-odd million dollars, I paid next to nothing on that company's sale. And so now I have some more resources. I can give those...
BROWN: I want to meet your accountant.
SIMMONS: No. No, I paid some, but it was very small, very insignificant amount.
And the bonuses that I gave out, I gave out bonuses, about $10 million in bonuses. And people paid 50 percent before they saw their money. I paid 18 percent probably altogether. That's not fair.
BROWN: That's...
(CROSSTALK)
SIMMONS: But I don't mind. I paid and I paid more. So that's my responsibility.
BROWN: Let me come back to this in a slightly different way.
I need to take a break first. Our conversation continues in a moment.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: We're talking with Russell Simmons.
We -- just before we started, we briefly talked about leadership, which is -- to me, is one of the great interesting areas, because people see leadership differently. What's a leader?
SIMMONS: Great servant. A leader is a great servant.
BROWN: What does that mean?
SIMMONS: Well, they help people do a good job. That's what they call a leader. You get people that -- you inspire people and you help them do a good job.
BROWN: Do you think of yourself as a leader?
SIMMONS: I think of myself as a servant.
BROWN: But do you also think of yourself as a leader?
SIMMONS: Well, you could put it that way. But I'm responsible to a lot of people. I work for a lot of people.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: People look at you, look to you. Whether you planned it this way or not, people look to you for leadership. They care about what you think.
SIMMONS: I like to look -- I like to make decisions on my own.
In other words, when you sit still, no religion or no one can tell you it's OK to enslave people, or you can't put people in ovens. In fact, for me, I sit still, I realize, I don't eat any dairy or egg or fish or anything that runs from me. That's my personal decision.
BROWN: Right.
SIMMONS: But I think people need to look inside and pray and look for the guidance, and so they can make choices on their own, because people are basically sheep. And so, sometimes, they need you to inspire them or maybe to remind them of what's obvious, because...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: You really believe that people are basically sheep?
SIMMONS: People have proven it over the years. They will follow -- they follow people...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: They will follow the loudest voice?
SIMMONS: Dark ideas, sometimes, yes, are kind of -- take hold, because people, they follow each other, you know? They sit around. How does a whole country sit around and let people get put in ovens, a whole country?
How do you walk around and you have got a bunch of slaves and you don't know it's wrong? How do you live in a world where darker people of the world, all over the world, are oppressed? How do you allow 8,000 people to die every single day from AIDS? And many of them are children that should not have been born with AIDS.
We have drugs to prevent that. How do we allow that and the suffering? How do we bomb 130, 140 -- kill 140,000 Iraqis and keep talking about our 1,300 Americans? How do we do that and have a good conscience, unless -- if we look inside, we know our foreign policy causes the kind of suffering it causes. And we just turn a blind eye.
BROWN: Let me bring this back.
SIMMONS: OK.
BROWN: Let me bring this back.
If Russell Simmons puts his name on something, an article of clothing, a record, a cause.
SIMMONS: Yes.
BROWN: Does he believe it changes the outcome?
SIMMONS: He hopes so, sometimes. I mean, it's the work that you do. It's not always the result.
BROWN: That's power.
SIMMONS: Well, we've had some success. We got the governor to change the drug laws here in New York state.
BROWN: Yes.
SIMMONS: The mayor put $130 million more in the school budget. There's been a lot of things that have happened as a result of the Hip-Hop Summit's investment of time and work.
BROWN: Do you think your life would be different if white corporate America had embraced you and embraced hip-hop early?
SIMMONS: No, because then why -- why would they need me to introduce it or to promote it? We had to break down some doors.
BROWN: So your life would be different? SIMMONS: Probably so. I don't know what I'd be doing if I hadn't been able to introduce or take part in the development of hip- hop.
BROWN: What I remember about your biography is that your father was sort of tangentially in the education business.
SIMMONS: Yes. No, he was a teacher.
BROWN: He was a teacher and then he -- how significant in a sense is -- was that simple fact that he was in the education business?
(CROSSTALK)
SIMMONS: My father and my mother were both educated.
BROWN: Yes.
SIMMONS: It made all the difference in the world. Without them, I could have been like my friends, died and went to jail, most of them.
BROWN: Yes.
SIMMONS: Heroin was very big when I came up.
And through -- whether they went to jail or were selling it or they died O.D.ed using it. It was a very difficult environment in Hollis, Queens. And we were lucky enough to live. My brother and my older brother -- my brother, younger brother, is Reverend Run from Run DMC. My older brother is an artist. He's on the Brooklyn Academy of Music board. And he's on also the board of Brooklyn Museum, which is a tremendous accomplishment. He's an artist.
BROWN: Are your folks alive?
SIMMONS: My father is.
BROWN: Yes. What does he think?
SIMMONS: He's very proud.
BROWN: He must be.
SIMMONS: He's very proud.
BROWN: He must be.
You've done -- one of the, I think, cool things about you is that you've done this the right way in a lot of ways. I mean, you have clearly grown as a man.
SIMMONS: Thank you.
BROWN: As success has come and you've built on success. And your dad must look at you and go, well, I must have done something right.
SIMMONS: Yes.
BROWN: Hopefully, you'll look at your...
SIMMONS: He did a lot right.
BROWN: ... two little girls and be able to say the same thing.
SIMMONS: I hope so.
BROWN: Yes. Good luck to you.
SIMMONS: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Russell Simmons. We talked to him yesterday for tonight's conversation.
In a moment, the still photos that grabbed us and would not let go, an exclusive look as the finest photos of the year are chosen, and an early look of morning papers, rooster and all, because this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Press photographers had their moment today in Amsterdam when the World Press photo of the year was announced. Regular viewers of the program will understand why today feels a bit like the Super Bowl for us. The winning image was chosen from nearly 70,000 others, 70,000. Dare to say the judges had their work cut out for them.
NEWSNIGHT had exclusive permission to record what went on inside the jury room.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHIEL MUNNEKE, MANAGING DIRECTOR, WORLD PRESS PHOTO: World Press Photo is a platform for photojournalism. It has a couple of core activities. The main activity is the annual contest. This year, we received almost 70,000 images from over 4,000 photographers from 123 different countries.
Every year, we invite an independent jury to come to Amsterdam and go through all these applications. We will have photographers. We have directors of photography. We have picture editors. And they are coming from all corners of the globe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, this is in. And this is out.
MUNNEKE: Almost every jury in the end is looking for a kind of metaphorical photograph. So, what you see in past winners is, in many cases, see a photograph that represents not the direct horror, but most of the time kind of symbolizes the picture. If you think of the Eddie Adams picture from Vietnam or the napalm girl, it's kind of a frozen moment in everybody's memory. The jury has two sets of criteria. And I think the first one deals with the journalistic value of the image. And the second one deals with the technical quality of the photograph. Is the composition interesting? Are the colors being used adequately?
DIEGO GOLDBERG, JURY CHAIR: We've just finished choosing the winners of the 10 categories and stories. There's a lot of diversity and a lot of styles. A lot of the main subjects of importance during the last year news wise have been covered.
KATHY RYAN, JUROR: Some of the ones that we awarded that were the strongest were the ones that demanded a slow read. There were some amazing images from the aftermath of the tsunami, some gut- wrenching photos from the Beslan attack on the school, and some very strong, difficult imagery from the war in Iraq.
So, the pictures from some of the biggest news events of the year are the ones that really are the strongest here. Each year, it really comes down to the individual photographer.
(APPLAUSE)
RYAN: It's a woman basically stretched on the ground crying. And you see part of the body of the person that she's clearly lost in the wave. It's just a heartbreaking image, because it's a very kind of simple image, actually. There's nothing chaotic about it. So, it's very pure. And your heart just connects instantly with her and what that grief must be like.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Morning papers for Friday after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world.
We actually -- this is actually today's edition, as opposed to tomorrow's, or yesterday's, I guess, of "The Richmond Times-Dispatch." But we need to clean this up, because we've talked about it this week. "Droopy Drawers Law Takes a Hike After Global Mirth." How rare is it to hear the word mirth these days? "Committee Kills Bill on Breaches of Etiquette." This is the law that would have fined you $50 if your boxers showed. OK, it's over now. We can't make fun of that anymore, but I'm sure there will be other things we can make fun of, if we just keep our eye on the headlines.
"The Washington Times." "Bush Vows to Veto Drug Benefit Cuts. Critics Say Medicare Can't Afford Coverage." There's going to be a battle within the Republican Party, I guess. And Arthur Miller on the front page, as he is in most papers. "Death of a Writer," a picture of Mr. Miller with Marilyn Monroe, who he was married to.
"The Times" -- this would be the British edition of "The Times." "More Back Wedding, But Not Abdication." That would be, they don't want the queen to abdicate, so that the prince of Wales, her son, Charles, can become king. I wondered today in our afternoon meeting if they had registered for gifts.
Anyway, Arthur Miller there, too. "Death of a Playwright" is the way they headline lit.
"The Miami Herald." This is a good story. "The Gifted Gap. Since Florida Scaled Back Affirmative Action For School Gifted Programs, Black Enrollment Has Dropped." So they put that on the front page. Good story there.
Quickly, "The Chicago Sun-Times." "Death of a Playwright" on the front page. The weather tomorrow in Chicago, "vibrant," 44. Nice day in Chicago.
We'll wrap it up for the night, for the week in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Good to have you with us this week. This was an interesting week of programs. With luck and decent planning, so will next week be. So join us for that, 10:00 Eastern time on Monday.
Have a terrific weekend. And good night for all of us.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired February 11, 2005 - 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.
Serious business to start the program tonight, we talk of war. No one wants to die in a war, of course, and the closer you get to the time you head home the more aware you are of the risks at hand.
That is a simple and straightforward way to describe the soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division tonight. Since the war began more than 80, 90 of them rather have died. This battle-scarred group is nearing the end of its rotation, a time when thoughts of home collide with thoughts of mortality.
So, we begin tonight with CNN's Jane Arraf.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): They're not supposed to count the days but they do, even the hours until they go home to Germany, to California, to Tennessee. They've been in Iraq a year. Task Force 22 of the 1st Infantry Division has seen combat in Najaf and Falluja and Mosul.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, gunners make sure you're way down low, all right?
ARRAF: This is one of their last missions.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, if you can I.D. an enemy, by all means shoot.
ARRAF: Over the last year, these soldiers would have been desperate to get off the base but in this last week nobody wants to go out in these streets.
(on camera): For soldiers about to go home this is one of the most harrowing times. They've survived a whole year in Iraq. They just have to get through the next few days.
(voice-over): They talk about what it will be like going home. Most had a small taste during leave. Private First Class Troy Langley (ph), sitting in the back, is 19.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that's fine but, you know, if I freak out don't worry about it and sure enough he shot me in the back and I didn't know he was going to and I flipped out on him.
ARRAF: They've seen enough explosions to last a lifetime.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Falluja was hell on earth.
ARRAF: In the steel of his Humvee, Joshua Thomas Casias (ph) has etched the name of the three of the battalion's 36 men who died in Iraq.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is Doc (UNINTELLIGIBLE), probably he was our first medic down here, a good friend. We've all known him for about three years.
ARRAF: Staff Sergeant James Madison and Sergeant Major Steve Falkenberg (ph) were killed in Falluja.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They'd just ride around with me (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and watch over me and that's how I roll -- that's how we all roll.
ARRAF: Casias is getting out of the Army.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wish I never came down here.
ARRAF: So is Specialist Dave Pope.
SPC DAVID POPE, 1ST INFANTRY DIVISION: It's kind of good to see the elections that happened turn out the way they did because it helps to alleviate some of the sense of pointlessness.
ARRAF: But a lot of the rest have reenlisted. In this last year when many grew up this is how they passed the time and kept the ghosts at bay, grateful they're alive.
Jane Arraf, CNN, Muqtadia (ph), Iraq.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Iran next. Today at Friday prayers an old adversary of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Rafsanjani said Iran's nuclear program is here to stay. Earlier this week, Iran's president threatened to turn his country into a scorching hell, his words to American troops trying to come over the border.
There are the threats that make the headlines but they may in the end be overshadowed by another, namely the threat posed by the unknown; reporting for us tonight CNN's David Ensor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As the CIA's man in Iraq, David Kay, could not find any weapons of mass destruction, though U.S. intelligence said they were there. Now, he worries about history repeating itself.
DAVID KAY, FMR. CIA IRAQ WEAPONS OFFICIAL: Looking at Iran after Iraq is a particularly vexing problem because we now know how wrong we got it in the case of Iraq. It was not a marginal difference. ENSOR: In Iran's case the first revelation about its then secret nuclear weapons related facilities in Natanz and Iraq came from Iranian dissident (UNINTELLIGIBLE) who continue to offer additional tidbits almost weekly. That reminds Kay of some not so reliable information from Iraqi associates, then emigrate leader Ahmed Chalabi, before the Iraq War.
KAY: My suspicion is that we're going to find out in Iran, just like in Iraq we had no human operatives on the ground and that our best source of information were people who defected and had other agendas.
ENSOR: Back in the fall of 2002, Bush administration rhetoric about Iraq was ramping up.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.
ENSOR: Fast forward to 2005 and the rhetoric is about Iran, warnings to Tehran to give up its nuclear programs or face uncertain consequences. On January 20th, inauguration day, Vice President Cheney told an interview that "The Israelis might well decide to act first and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards."
(on camera): What did you think when Vice President Cheney warned that the Israelis might attack Iran?
KAY: I actually don't think it was an effective threat.
ENSOR (voice-over): Not effective, argues Kay, because times have changed since 1981 when Israeli jets knocked out the Iraqi nuclear program with just one raid.
KAY: I think the Iranians know what the Israelis did and that's why they've scattered their program and made it very difficult to locate.
ENSOR: Kay says the administration is making a mistake not to sit down with the Iranians and offer them security guarantees from a super power that they cannot get in their ongoing discussions with European diplomats about giving up their nuclear programs.
(on camera): But administration officials privately say they have doubts that a deal could be done with and then honored by Tehran. Officials tell CNN a methodical review of U.S. intelligence on Iran's nuclear facilities is underway and the administration is in no mood to soften its warnings to Tehran.
David Ensor, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: A number of other stories making news around the country tonight. Police in Florida now say a woman who turned over a newborn to police claiming she witnessed the infant being tossed out of a moving car made the whole story up. The baby boy, who is in good condition, is hers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a case of a disturbed woman who gave birth but did not want to keep her child.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Southern California next. Firefighters pulled a boy to safety out of the raging waters in the Los Angeles River. It's a repeat of last month's weather in the region being battered again by heavy rains and gusty winds.
The new attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, has removed himself from the Justice Department investigation into who leaked the name of a CIA officer to some members of the press. Valerie Plame is married to a former ambassador, Ambassador Joe Wilson, who criticized the Bush administration's policies on Iraq. Gonzales testified in the case before a grand jury when he was the president's legal counsel.
And on that note, a connection perhaps to the case of J.D. Guckert who for a time was asking softball questions at the White House press conference under the name of Jeff Gannon.
Today, two senior Democrats in the House called for an investigation into how Mr. Guckert or Gannon might have obtained a classified document containing Ms. Plame's identity. They've asked the U.S. attorney investigating the Plame matter to look into this matter as well to see if any laws were broken.
In 1972, Alexander Solzhenitsyn exposed the horrors of the Soviet Union's forced labor camps when the Gulag Archipelago was first published, the Gulag, the place where Stalin's enemies were imprisoned, where so many disappeared forever.
A new report by the Pentagon, the fifth in a decade long investigation says there is growing evidence American servicemen ended up in the Gulag as well.
The Russian government has not been terribly helpful in making that evidence more concrete but some families have been waiting half a century for this much, from the Pentagon tonight CNN's Barbara Starr.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): June 13, 1952, Major Sam Bush and his crew take off in their RB-29 aircraft from Yokota, Japan. They are on a secret mission flying over the Sea of Japan to spy on the Soviet Union. It is the height of the Cold War. Suddenly, the plane disappears. The men are missing. Sam Bush, though, is never forgotten.
CHARLOTTE MITNIK, SISTER OF MISSING PILOT: It was a loss, taught me how to dance, taught me supposedly proper table manners for a young woman.
STARR: Fifty-two years later, Charlotte Mitnik wants to know if her brother Sam was one of hundreds of American servicemen the Pentagon believes may have been captured and perished in the Soviet Gulag.
The new Pentagon report details the latest evidence about the reporting sightings of dozens of those Americans. It is a search back half a century, a detective tale tracked by family members like Charlotte Mitnik.
MITNIK: The plane was shot down by two MiGs.
STARR: She has collected hundreds of documents about the case overcoming years of U.S. and Russian secrecy.
MITNIK: The same questions were asked over and over and over again of the Russians and they don't even -- sometimes they don't even bother to answer.
STARR: A few years ago, a startling piece of evidence. The U.S. received this document known as the Memoirs, from a source who had been living in internal exile in the former Soviet Union. He tells of a U.S. air crew being captured and sent to a Soviet prison.
The writer reveals a friend told him he learned "the names of two crewmembers of that aircraft, Bush and Moore, who will forever remain in the soil of the Khabarovsk Region." Sergeant David Moore was on the plane that day. After reading the memoirs, Charlotte believes her brother died in Soviet captivity.
MITNIK: Maybe his death was a horrible death but his life was not full of torture and pain because it would have been over 50 years that he would have had to live that way.
STARR: And now she speaks on behalf of the missing who perhaps long dead can no longer speak for themselves.
MITNIK: So, the remains of these men could be found. They should come home. They should be where they belong.
STARR: Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: More to come tonight starting with the death of an American master who almost quit before he began.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARTHUR MILLER: Fifty years ago I quit forever. I had a disaster with my first play. I resolved never to write another one.
BROWN (voice-over): Arthur Miller went on to write 16 more. Tonight, the mark he made on the conscience of the country as told by Jeff Greenfield and the actor Brian Dennehy. Also, he's seen as the man who turned hip-hop into a cultural force but how does Russell Simmons see himself?
RUSSELL SIMMONS: I think of myself as a servant.
BROWN: A NEWSNIGHT Friday conversation.
And later, the images that simply cannot be forgotten, picking the best of the best it's hard to decide but it's easy to see.
This is NEWSNIGHT.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: This is an incredible coincidence. Fifty-six years ago yesterday "Death of a Salesman" opened on Broadway. Last night the man who wrote this extraordinary play died. But before a man dies, a man lives and Arthur Miller surely lived. He lived and he wrote. He wrote novels. He wrote movies. He wrote 17 plays for the stage and at least one for the ages.
Here's CNN's Jeff Greenfield.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): Traditionally, a tragic hero must fall from a great height. Oedipus was a king, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) a priestess, Hamlet a prince, Othello a general.
But in Arthur Miller's masterpiece "Death of a Salesman," the web of fate entraps Willie Loman. His name says it all Loman, a man whose breezy pretenses cannot conceal the fact that he's at the end of his rope.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a man way out there in the blue riding on a smile and a shoeshine.
GREENFIELD: Miller, who died Thursday night at 89, spent almost 70 years writing plays, screenplays, novels, essays. There were memorable works, like "The Crucible" which debuted in 1953. Its portrayal of the Salem witch trials was a clear metaphor for the then powerful Senator Joseph McCarthy in his hunt for subversives.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It may well be that in Salem he will find signs of Lucifer.
GREENFIELD: There was controversy in his life as well. His left-wing politics brought him before a congressional committee and his refusal to name names earned him a contempt citation, one that the courts later threw out.
He won far more attention and notoriety when he married screen goddess Marilyn Monroe in 1956. His divorce five years later became grist for the 1964 play "After the Fall." But it is "Death of a Salesman" that is unquestionably Arthur Miller's master work. The play debuted on Broadway in 1949 in the midst of post-war affluence and probed the underside of the American dream.
It painted a badly flawed character. Willie Loman steals, cheats on his wife, ultimately kills himself in the hope that his family can collect the insurance money, who still compels the pity and terror that great tragedy is supposed to evoke. Willie's wife Linda explains in this classic speech.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Willie Loman never earned a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived but he's a human being and a terrible thing is happening to him, so attention must be paid. He must not be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.
GREENFIELD: Miller's later works met with less and less favor from critics and from audiences and, as for Miller, he talked of a Broadway that had changed.
MILLER: There was a kind of reverence that is gone. People felt it was an art, not a business.
GREENFIELD (on camera): Whatever the scorecard of his hits and flops, Arthur Miller was a writer who created a work that for more than half a century has moved audiences to tears and to great emotion long after the curtain falls. When a man who has achieved this dies attention must be paid.
Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Brian Dennehy won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Willie Loman in the 1998 revival of "Death of a Salesman." He's about to head to London to do it again. He's currently appearing in "Trumbo" which tells the story of the blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. And Mr. Dennehy joins us tonight from Boston. It's nice to see you.
BRIAN DENNEHY, ACTOR: Thank you, nice to be here.
BROWN: You said today, I think, about the character about Willie Loman that's the best character you ever played. Why is it the best character you ever played?
DENNEHY: Well, of course, it's incredibly rich. I did it 450 times. It was interested. I was in this town the last week that I did it in that first incarnation and Arthur came that week and he came to the dressing room and he said, "God" he said "you really have found an awful lot of new stuff, interesting stuff."
I said, "Arthur, I could play this 450 more times and still find more things." And great parts reveal themselves constantly and continue to reveal themselves and continue to unfold. I mean that's why it's so wonderful to play great parts and certainly Willie's the greatest of the great for me.
BROWN: I was thinking tonight through all the great and wonderful actors that have played that part, Lee J. Cobb played that part.
DENNEHY: Yes.
BROWN: George C. Scott, I'm certain played the part. Dustin Hoffman, who I think people maybe don't remember played the part. You played the part, lots of people. Did you ever worry when you first started doing it that Arthur Miller would see it and not like it?
DENNEHY: Well, actually we didn't worry about him seeing it. We did it first of all in Chicago at the Goodman Theater. Bob Falls (ph) and I had done, who runs the Goodman Theater, we had done a lot of big, powerful plays there over the years and we decided to try to do "Salesman" in '98 and it was a very successful production.
Ben Brantley (ph) came out from the "New York Times," gave it a rave and that brought Arthur out. Yes, I guess I was a little nervous. I had met Arthur before but we knew we had something and we didn't realize it was going to be done in February, on February 10th of 1999, which was exactly the 50th anniversary of the first production some 50 years before. That was quite a night that night.
BROWN: Does the play -- does the passage of time change the meaning of the play and the power of the part?
DENNEHY: You know all I can tell you is that night after night doing that play and wherever we did it, St. Louis, Los Angeles, New York, Boston, you would feel this stunned reaction on the part of some members in the audience.
A woman went into hysterics one night in Chicago because she saw something on the stage that obviously meant something to her, not necessarily what was going on with the Lomans but something that had happened in her life.
And night after night after night people would come backstage, men in their 50s, well-dressed, obviously successful men weeping and these were guys for whom tears did not come easily.
It was -- there's something about that play. There's something about us as Americans and Willie Loman and the American dream, even if -- especially if your nose is pressed up against the window seeing it on the other side. There's something about the family. There's something about the generations battling each other, loving each other, caring about each other but also fighting each other to be free.
It's just a profound, important American play and it means a great deal to Americans but it was enormously successful around the world, China. Arthur directed a production in Beijing and it was enormously successful and the Chinese recognized it as a Chinese play. It's just one of those cataclysmic events of an artist coming together with the material, about the family, about the outside forces acting on that family and it was -- it still is enormously powerful.
BROWN: It is that. It's nice to talk to you. I know it's been a long day and you worked and did the play just before coming over. Thank you for that.
DENNEHY: Well, no, to pay tribute to him because he was also my friend.
BROWN: Yes.
DENNEHY: You know it feels like the planets have shifted right now.
BROWN: Well, it's good to see you.
DENNEHY: Thank you.
BROWN: You're a terrific actor. Thank you, sir.
DENNEHY: Thanks very much.
BROWN: Thank you.
Before we head to break, another extraordinary life and legacy still in the making in this case, Dr. Jane Goodall is considered the world's foremost authority on chimps. Part of CNN's anniversary series "Then and Now" we look back tonight at her accomplishments and where she is today.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): She entered the jungle of Tanzania in 1960, a young, British woman with dreams of living with animals and writing books about them. Dr. Jane Goodall has done that and so much more.
She has devoted 45 years to studying chimpanzees in Africa, forever changing the science of primates and founding the Jane Goodall Institute, which funds research and conservation. She's earned hundreds of awards and honors and written more than a dozen books but somewhere along the way the primatologist became a peacemaker.
JANE GOODALL: We're not the only beings on this planet with personalities, minds and feelings and let's live in a world that has respect for other life forms but also for each other.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Goodall is now a grandmother and turned 71 this year. She still spends 300 days a year on the road lecturing and inspiring people to look beyond themselves. She says her top priority is her institute's worldwide youth program, Roots and Chutes, which promotes community service and giving children hope.
GOODALL: You make a difference. Your life matters and it's up to you to save the world and each one of us have this mission.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: When the Grammy awards are handed out this Sunday, consider this. Of the 63 songs to hit Billboard's top ten in 2004, 51 were hip-hop or R&B, so we sent CNN's Candy Crowley to check out where it's all coming from.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, this is one jazzy fizzle. Hey, with my man Dwight Stone in the mix.
ANNOUNCER: The all new 100.3 the (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
CROWLEY: The rap scene going mainstream, come on bring it to us right here in St. Louis. Not surprised they listen to rap in the Midwest? Would you be surprised to know they make it here?
LAMAR WILLIAMS, HI POINTE CLUB: It's very -- it has a very street element to it. It has a very bouncy element to it. It has what they call a country feel to it. It's something you can easily dance to and funk is another word they've put on the sound to.
CROWLEY: 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, open mike night at the Hi Pointe.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Has anyone gotten famous by doing this?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The latest one happens to be Ebony Eyez. She's been coming here since the first or second year we've ever opened and she actually got signed to Capitol Records.
CROWLEY: Ebony Eyez raps against the grain, a Midwesterner in what has been an East Coast/West Coast scene, a woman in a business rife with lyrics that debase women.
MARK WILLIAMS, PRODUCER, TRACKBOYZ: She's not a passive, pushover type of female. She's a rough, rugged female at the same time. Ebony cries tears is the same thing that, you know, when she's hurt it's the same response as anybody else.
CROWLEY: Meet the Trackboyz, St. Louisans (ph) born and raised, producers working out of a basement studio who, among other things put rapper J-Kwan on the charts with one of the most played songs of 2004. They now look to Ebony Eyez.
JO CAPO, PRODUCER, TRACKBOYZ: She tells stories. She's -- she's talking about things that make you laugh. She's talking about things that make you cry.
CROWLEY: She is talking about some things we can't put on the Cable News Network. Now, pretend you're talking to a middle-aged white woman just for instance.
EBONY EYEZ: OK.
CROWLEY: Tell me about the song that I heard.
EBONY EYEZ: My sound is just like I think it's like raw emotional hip-hop.
CROWLEY: So, it's a female power.
EBONY EYEZ: Yes, yes, you know, and I just word it a different way but that's really what it's meant to be.
CROWLEY: Ten years ago, nobody looked for hip-hop or rap talent out of the Midwest. That was pre-Nelly, the St. Louis rapper who hit platinum and is up for another Grammy this year. Now, the gateway to the west is wide open probably the most vibrant hip-hop scene in the country.
CAPO: We have a million labels. We have a million artists just, it's crazy. We can't even handle all the CDs we get personally.
WILLIAMS: We got like 20 labels in a five-mile radius.
CAPO: Right.
WILLIAMS: Like, everybody is starting a label. Everybody is, like -- it's very active.
CAPO: Very, very active.
(MUSIC)
CROWLEY: So, as Grammy Awards give out the shine, kick back while you keep this in mind. When you look to see rap at its newest, check out the beats in Saint Louis.
WILLIAMS: Any time you're rhyming words, you're rapping.
CROWLEY: So there.
Candy Crowley, CNN, Saint Louis.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Now to the man who almost single-handedly made Candy's story a story, turning urban music into the choice of middle America and suburban America. And it is.
In the process, over the last 25 years, Russell Simmons has made himself a fortune. He's the founder of Def Jam Records. He runs Rush Communications. He's a taste-maker, a power broker and lately quite a philanthropist as well. We smoke with Mr. Simmons yesterday afternoon for tonight's NEWSNIGHT conversation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: I said I wanted to talk about big issues and small issues. Let's talk about big issues for a bit.
I think that conventional wisdom, and it has been for a long time, is that there is a crisis among African-American kids, particularly African-American males. First of all, do you believe that there is a crisis among African-American males? And, if you believe it, what is the crisis and why is the crisis?
RUSSELL SIMMONS, HIP-HOP SUMMIT ACTION NETWORK: Well, I think the crisis comes from -- there is a crisis.
BROWN: OK.
SIMMONS: Education issues that come up, and just a willingness for this young -- this generation to walk through the doors that were opened by the civil rights leaders and people who worked for their freedom and for their opportunities.
So, there is this unwillingness, for whatever reason, to walk through these doors, to take advantage of the opportunities that have been afforded them. Same time, it means that we have to now reach back and give them more incentive. A lot of immigrants come here and they see America is a great place with a lot of opportunity. That's a fact.
The crisis is in part spiritual. It's in part something that's -- it's just a lack of appreciation, maybe, for the opportunity.
BROWN: Appreciation...
SIMMONS: But, you know, it's why they need the past to be repaired, because all people, all of us are pretty much the same. And if this whole -- well, some great part of this generation won't take advantage of their opportunity or the education opportunities and other things that have been afforded to them, then we have to work harder. I believe our job is...
BROWN: And what is it, in a sense, you need to say or how is it you need to say it? Because, look, some of this stuff really isn't, as we say, brain surgery. It's pretty clear to every kid, no matter what color they are, no matter where they grow up, no matter what their circumstance is, that there are routes out of bad situations.
SIMMONS: Oh, yes. Well, the struggle is...
BROWN: And the first route is, you need an education. So, why is this complicated?
SIMMONS: Well, you know, listen, because I say people are in struggle and the poverty that's in their mind is so heavy doesn't mean that we don't owe them reparations. It doesn't mean that we don't owe them greater opportunity. The idea of equal high-quality education is what we owe them.
Our job is to keep giving, all of us. And so if we come not to judge them and say -- then they have an opportunity. Why don't they take it? Well, we must have done something or they grew up with a lack of something. And whatever that is, we have to put it back. There are a number of things, again, a greater opportunity for education.
Kids didn't have a library.
BROWN: Yes.
SIMMONS: You know, there's a guy who runs my Hip-Hop Summit named Dr. Ben Chavis. You may know him. He's been around a long time.
Ben went to jail for five years so Michael Jordan could go to the library.
BROWN: Yes.
SIMMONS: Right? And now the library is wide open and some kids don't go in it.
BROWN: What Cosby said and what others have said and -- for whatever reasons, it's made some people uncomfortable, but it's kind of a simple proposition, which is, first and foremost, we have to be, all of us, responsible for ourselves, first and foremost.
SIMMONS: Personal responsibility is exactly what we're talking about.
BROWN: Yes.
SIMMONS: In fact, my personal responsibility is to keep giving. That's my job. And many philanthropic, social and political initiatives that I've try to forward, that I've pushed for...
BROWN: But, in some way, it's not really about you, is it?
SIMMONS: No, personal responsibility is for you. You have a personal responsibility. And so does each individual. And that is to do what we would like to see the change be, to be part of a process that makes -- that uplifts. Our job is not to judge, but to be personally responsible.
BROWN: That's fair enough, but it's also the personal responsibility of the 17-year-old kid.
(CROSSTALK)
SIMMONS: Your personal responsibility is to give. Their personal responsibility is not for you to judge. You have to do your job.
BROWN: So, it is not fair to say that it is also the personal responsibility of the 17-year-old kid in the Bronx or the 32-year-old mother of that 17-year-old kid?
SIMMONS: I'm not saying that's a good excuse. I'm saying that's not a good excuse for us, because you say they haven't lived up to their personal responsibility, for then us now to walk away from ours. Our job...
BROWN: No one is talking about walking away.
SIMMONS: Our job is to give equal high-quality education to them. That's what our job is. That's my fight. That's a struggle. When I talk about education...
BROWN: And you don't really want to talk about, am I right, their responsibility in this?
SIMMONS: No. That's certainly a good out that Cosby gave you. But it's not my job to judge them. My job is to help them. And I think that that's -- I do -- I try every day. But I'm certainly not judging. I don't need you to give to my charities.
I call a lot of people, and some do. And there's many, many charities and many, many philanthropic and social and political investments that I make.
BROWN: Yes. Yes.
SIMMONS: Those investments are mine. I feel it's my responsibility. I have a lot of resources. God's given me a lot of resources. I use them to the best of my ability. You can do with yours what you choose.
BROWN: Just one more thing on this before...
SIMMONS: I've got a huge tax break.
(LAUGHTER)
SIMMONS: I felt a huge tax break. In the year that I sold my company, you know, 100-some-odd million dollars, I paid next to nothing on that company's sale. And so now I have some more resources. I can give those...
BROWN: I want to meet your accountant.
SIMMONS: No. No, I paid some, but it was very small, very insignificant amount.
And the bonuses that I gave out, I gave out bonuses, about $10 million in bonuses. And people paid 50 percent before they saw their money. I paid 18 percent probably altogether. That's not fair.
BROWN: That's...
(CROSSTALK)
SIMMONS: But I don't mind. I paid and I paid more. So that's my responsibility.
BROWN: Let me come back to this in a slightly different way.
I need to take a break first. Our conversation continues in a moment.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: We're talking with Russell Simmons.
We -- just before we started, we briefly talked about leadership, which is -- to me, is one of the great interesting areas, because people see leadership differently. What's a leader?
SIMMONS: Great servant. A leader is a great servant.
BROWN: What does that mean?
SIMMONS: Well, they help people do a good job. That's what they call a leader. You get people that -- you inspire people and you help them do a good job.
BROWN: Do you think of yourself as a leader?
SIMMONS: I think of myself as a servant.
BROWN: But do you also think of yourself as a leader?
SIMMONS: Well, you could put it that way. But I'm responsible to a lot of people. I work for a lot of people.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: People look at you, look to you. Whether you planned it this way or not, people look to you for leadership. They care about what you think.
SIMMONS: I like to look -- I like to make decisions on my own.
In other words, when you sit still, no religion or no one can tell you it's OK to enslave people, or you can't put people in ovens. In fact, for me, I sit still, I realize, I don't eat any dairy or egg or fish or anything that runs from me. That's my personal decision.
BROWN: Right.
SIMMONS: But I think people need to look inside and pray and look for the guidance, and so they can make choices on their own, because people are basically sheep. And so, sometimes, they need you to inspire them or maybe to remind them of what's obvious, because...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: You really believe that people are basically sheep?
SIMMONS: People have proven it over the years. They will follow -- they follow people...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: They will follow the loudest voice?
SIMMONS: Dark ideas, sometimes, yes, are kind of -- take hold, because people, they follow each other, you know? They sit around. How does a whole country sit around and let people get put in ovens, a whole country?
How do you walk around and you have got a bunch of slaves and you don't know it's wrong? How do you live in a world where darker people of the world, all over the world, are oppressed? How do you allow 8,000 people to die every single day from AIDS? And many of them are children that should not have been born with AIDS.
We have drugs to prevent that. How do we allow that and the suffering? How do we bomb 130, 140 -- kill 140,000 Iraqis and keep talking about our 1,300 Americans? How do we do that and have a good conscience, unless -- if we look inside, we know our foreign policy causes the kind of suffering it causes. And we just turn a blind eye.
BROWN: Let me bring this back.
SIMMONS: OK.
BROWN: Let me bring this back.
If Russell Simmons puts his name on something, an article of clothing, a record, a cause.
SIMMONS: Yes.
BROWN: Does he believe it changes the outcome?
SIMMONS: He hopes so, sometimes. I mean, it's the work that you do. It's not always the result.
BROWN: That's power.
SIMMONS: Well, we've had some success. We got the governor to change the drug laws here in New York state.
BROWN: Yes.
SIMMONS: The mayor put $130 million more in the school budget. There's been a lot of things that have happened as a result of the Hip-Hop Summit's investment of time and work.
BROWN: Do you think your life would be different if white corporate America had embraced you and embraced hip-hop early?
SIMMONS: No, because then why -- why would they need me to introduce it or to promote it? We had to break down some doors.
BROWN: So your life would be different? SIMMONS: Probably so. I don't know what I'd be doing if I hadn't been able to introduce or take part in the development of hip- hop.
BROWN: What I remember about your biography is that your father was sort of tangentially in the education business.
SIMMONS: Yes. No, he was a teacher.
BROWN: He was a teacher and then he -- how significant in a sense is -- was that simple fact that he was in the education business?
(CROSSTALK)
SIMMONS: My father and my mother were both educated.
BROWN: Yes.
SIMMONS: It made all the difference in the world. Without them, I could have been like my friends, died and went to jail, most of them.
BROWN: Yes.
SIMMONS: Heroin was very big when I came up.
And through -- whether they went to jail or were selling it or they died O.D.ed using it. It was a very difficult environment in Hollis, Queens. And we were lucky enough to live. My brother and my older brother -- my brother, younger brother, is Reverend Run from Run DMC. My older brother is an artist. He's on the Brooklyn Academy of Music board. And he's on also the board of Brooklyn Museum, which is a tremendous accomplishment. He's an artist.
BROWN: Are your folks alive?
SIMMONS: My father is.
BROWN: Yes. What does he think?
SIMMONS: He's very proud.
BROWN: He must be.
SIMMONS: He's very proud.
BROWN: He must be.
You've done -- one of the, I think, cool things about you is that you've done this the right way in a lot of ways. I mean, you have clearly grown as a man.
SIMMONS: Thank you.
BROWN: As success has come and you've built on success. And your dad must look at you and go, well, I must have done something right.
SIMMONS: Yes.
BROWN: Hopefully, you'll look at your...
SIMMONS: He did a lot right.
BROWN: ... two little girls and be able to say the same thing.
SIMMONS: I hope so.
BROWN: Yes. Good luck to you.
SIMMONS: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Russell Simmons. We talked to him yesterday for tonight's conversation.
In a moment, the still photos that grabbed us and would not let go, an exclusive look as the finest photos of the year are chosen, and an early look of morning papers, rooster and all, because this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Press photographers had their moment today in Amsterdam when the World Press photo of the year was announced. Regular viewers of the program will understand why today feels a bit like the Super Bowl for us. The winning image was chosen from nearly 70,000 others, 70,000. Dare to say the judges had their work cut out for them.
NEWSNIGHT had exclusive permission to record what went on inside the jury room.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHIEL MUNNEKE, MANAGING DIRECTOR, WORLD PRESS PHOTO: World Press Photo is a platform for photojournalism. It has a couple of core activities. The main activity is the annual contest. This year, we received almost 70,000 images from over 4,000 photographers from 123 different countries.
Every year, we invite an independent jury to come to Amsterdam and go through all these applications. We will have photographers. We have directors of photography. We have picture editors. And they are coming from all corners of the globe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, this is in. And this is out.
MUNNEKE: Almost every jury in the end is looking for a kind of metaphorical photograph. So, what you see in past winners is, in many cases, see a photograph that represents not the direct horror, but most of the time kind of symbolizes the picture. If you think of the Eddie Adams picture from Vietnam or the napalm girl, it's kind of a frozen moment in everybody's memory. The jury has two sets of criteria. And I think the first one deals with the journalistic value of the image. And the second one deals with the technical quality of the photograph. Is the composition interesting? Are the colors being used adequately?
DIEGO GOLDBERG, JURY CHAIR: We've just finished choosing the winners of the 10 categories and stories. There's a lot of diversity and a lot of styles. A lot of the main subjects of importance during the last year news wise have been covered.
KATHY RYAN, JUROR: Some of the ones that we awarded that were the strongest were the ones that demanded a slow read. There were some amazing images from the aftermath of the tsunami, some gut- wrenching photos from the Beslan attack on the school, and some very strong, difficult imagery from the war in Iraq.
So, the pictures from some of the biggest news events of the year are the ones that really are the strongest here. Each year, it really comes down to the individual photographer.
(APPLAUSE)
RYAN: It's a woman basically stretched on the ground crying. And you see part of the body of the person that she's clearly lost in the wave. It's just a heartbreaking image, because it's a very kind of simple image, actually. There's nothing chaotic about it. So, it's very pure. And your heart just connects instantly with her and what that grief must be like.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Morning papers for Friday after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world.
We actually -- this is actually today's edition, as opposed to tomorrow's, or yesterday's, I guess, of "The Richmond Times-Dispatch." But we need to clean this up, because we've talked about it this week. "Droopy Drawers Law Takes a Hike After Global Mirth." How rare is it to hear the word mirth these days? "Committee Kills Bill on Breaches of Etiquette." This is the law that would have fined you $50 if your boxers showed. OK, it's over now. We can't make fun of that anymore, but I'm sure there will be other things we can make fun of, if we just keep our eye on the headlines.
"The Washington Times." "Bush Vows to Veto Drug Benefit Cuts. Critics Say Medicare Can't Afford Coverage." There's going to be a battle within the Republican Party, I guess. And Arthur Miller on the front page, as he is in most papers. "Death of a Writer," a picture of Mr. Miller with Marilyn Monroe, who he was married to.
"The Times" -- this would be the British edition of "The Times." "More Back Wedding, But Not Abdication." That would be, they don't want the queen to abdicate, so that the prince of Wales, her son, Charles, can become king. I wondered today in our afternoon meeting if they had registered for gifts.
Anyway, Arthur Miller there, too. "Death of a Playwright" is the way they headline lit.
"The Miami Herald." This is a good story. "The Gifted Gap. Since Florida Scaled Back Affirmative Action For School Gifted Programs, Black Enrollment Has Dropped." So they put that on the front page. Good story there.
Quickly, "The Chicago Sun-Times." "Death of a Playwright" on the front page. The weather tomorrow in Chicago, "vibrant," 44. Nice day in Chicago.
We'll wrap it up for the night, for the week in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Good to have you with us this week. This was an interesting week of programs. With luck and decent planning, so will next week be. So join us for that, 10:00 Eastern time on Monday.
Have a terrific weekend. And good night for all of us.
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