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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Pope Benedict Uses First Mass to Reveal Agenda; A Look at Book "The Da Vinci Code"

Aired April 20, 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, HOST: Well, we've got to leave some for tomorrow's program. But, yes, it's your city, your credit card -- I'll see you in about 15 minutes, after we're done here. Thank you, sir, very much.
Good evening, again, everyone. It's good to be back in Los Angeles. Good to be here tonight.

Pope Benedict celebrated his first mass today as pope at the Vatican -- it's going to get some getting used to, isn't it, that name -- the first of his papacy. He sent a message today of reconciliation to other religions and other branches of Christianity. As he did, we began learning the details of the ancient process, and some old- fashioned campaigning by which Cardinal Ratzinger became the new pope, details that come, despite their vows of secrecy, from the men who were there, the cardinals inside the conclave. And so, with that, we begin with CNN's Jim Bittermann.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As the new pope inspected his new office and tried out his new desk, a picture has been emerging of how a determined and highly organized Cardinal Ratzinger, with a boost from his predecessor, was able to win election to the papacy after less than 24 hours of voting.

His fellow cardinals began to warm to Ratzinger at John Paul II's funeral. His homily hit just the right notes, some believe. But, then, it was John Paul himself who put Ratzinger in the position to deliver that homily, when he approved him as the dean of the College of Cardinals, and that position gave him an even more important platform.

As dean, Ratzinger ran the daily meetings of the cardinals to deal with church business and discuss issues. Several cardinals commented that he was masterful at it, calling on each cardinal by name, using his fluency in seven languages to answer them in their own tongue, and repeatedly suggesting pastoral means for solving problems, rather than the legalistic approach he once enforced as head of the church's Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. Some were clearly impressed.

CARDINAL KEITH O'BRIEN, ARCHBISHOP of EDINBURGH: He just conducted those meetings in a very orderly manner, and in a manner which pleased everyone.

BITTERMANN: But what happened next could have back fired. Just before the cardinals entered the conclave, the German cardinal made his blunt and direct appeal for a return to church fundamentals. Several cardinals, who could have gone one way or another on Ratzinger, found they liked his moral certainty.

Once inside the Sistine Chapel, the veil of secrecy descended. Still, it's known from talking to some present, that there were four rounds of voting. The first produced a dozen or more favorites and no winner. Cardinal Ratzinger was out in front, but it's not clear by how much. The next morning, as the cardinals again prayed for the Holy Spirit's help filling out their ballot papers, the result produced what one cardinal described was "a handful of names." But, again, Cardinal Ratzinger had not mustered two-thirds of the vote. An American cardinal said prayer helped throughout.

CARDINAL WILLIAM KEELER, ARCHBISHOP OF BALTIMORE: One cardinal told me, while he was listening to the votes being counted, he said three Rosaries. And another said, well, I said two, and so, a third said well, I prayed mine with greater piety, and it was just one.

BITTERMAN: Even though there still was no white smoke, by the third unsuccessful vote, it's believed Ratzinger had a clear majority, and here, the man who would become pope, may have again been helped by his predecessor.

John Paul changed the voting rules, so that a cardinal can be elected pope after 33 ballots by simple majority, not a two-thirds vote. The cardinals were nowhere near 33 ballots, but Cardinal Ratzinger apparently did have a majority. So, it would have been clear to some cardinals that drawing out the process would only bring about the same result as an immediate two-thirds vote.

The fourth ballot carried the day.

CARDINAL ROGER MAHONEY, ARCHBISHOP OF LOS ANGELES: When he reached 77, everybody applauded, because we all knew then he had the two-thirds vote.

BITTERMANN: Cardinal Ratzinger had won, even though he was splitting the vote with at least two other opponents right to the end. We don't know, for the moment, who they are.

What followed impressed some cardinals: the enthusiasm of the greeting Pope Benedict received when he stepped out on the balcony of St. Peter's, the invitation they all received to dine with him later that night, and the fact he came back for breakfast with them before the next morning's mass. But what many said was most impressive was his five-page single-spaced speech in Latin, describing his vision of the church, which he delivered just 16 hours after the white smoke, including his elaborate explanation for the papal name he chose, just 30 minutes after his election.

Observed one analyst, not bad for someone who was said not to want to be pope. Jim Bittermann, CNN, Rome.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: At first reading, there's a line in the new pope's resume that raises eyebrows. As a young man he was a member of the Nazi Youth and also served in the German Army during World War II. But a resume line is just that. It has no context and without context, it has no real meaning. So, some context tonight from CNN's Walter Rodgers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALTER RODGERS, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In 1939, the Joseph Ratzinger family had reason to be proud. Both their sons were headed for seminary to become priests. In staunchly Roman- Catholic Bavaria, this was as good as it got. The youngest son, Joseph, enrolled here at St. Michael's in Traunstein for two years -- 1939 to 1941.

World War II derailed the dream. His seminary became a hospital for wounded German soldiers sent home from the Russian front. For the man who would, 64 years later, become Pope Benedict XVI, it did not seem to bode well. He and his older brother were required to join the Hitler Youth movement, a Nazi paramilitary organization, in 1941. It was compulsory, a rite of passage in Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Stefan Schnappinger (ph) from Ratzinger's hometown said it wasn't so bad. "The Nazis gave us armbands, we got to march around and beat drums. We were just kids and it was great fun." The future pope said he only joined the Hitler Youth movement reluctantly.

By 1943, with greatly-increasing German war casualties, the man who wanted to be a priest was drafted into an anti-aircraft brigade. A year- and-a-half later, the young Ratzinger was transferred to a labor detail. Ratzinger's German fatherland was collapsing about him, and like many another young German with Allied forces closing in, Joseph Ratzinger deserted. The future pope became a wanted man: if Hitler's Gestapo found him, he would have been shot or hanged from a lightpost.

Ratzinger escaped German capture only to be caught by the Americans. The future pope was now an American prisoner of war. The U.S. Army thought the 18-year-old Ratzinger was a German soldier. He lived behind barbed wire, five weeks, exposed to the elements with other P.O.W.s.

For the generation of German Catholic theologians who never knew war, the Nazi years remain unfathomable. The Reverend Thomas Fraunloud (ph) was a seminary student of Ratzinger's. I just cannot imagine. I can't imagine what it was like then, he said. But Joseph Ratzinger, not only imagined, he dreamed, of a return to the seminary. In 1951, he became a priest and soon thereafter he presided over his first mass here at St. Oswald's Church in his hometown.

Walter Rodgers, CNN, Traunstein, Bavaria.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: In the half century since the young priest, Joseph Ratzinger, said that first mass, his church was transformed by Vatican II, only to begin moving back toward bedrock traditional church doctrine. As the world waits to see what type of mark Benedict XVI will make on the papacy, we turn now to the book that has caused a stir among some Catholics, many Catholics, "The Da Vinci Code." It's been a best-seller for more than two years. It's fair to say the novel presents an unorthodox version of church history, but just how far does the author, Dan Brown, go? .

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PROF. HAROLD ATTRIDGE, YALE DIVINITY SCHOOL: "The Da Vinci Code" is an entertaining novel that tells a story about a professor of symbology, from Harvard, a guy named Robert Langdon, who stumbles across a plot as he's in Paris, and he's called to the office of the director of the Louvre Museum, and when he gets there, he finds that this curator of the Louvre has been murdered. And so, over the course of the 24-hour period, Robert Langdon and an investigator, Sophie Neveau, pursue the clues and discover the secret of the Holy Grail.

The secret of the Holy Grail has nothing to do with a cup that Jesus used at the Last Supper, which is the traditional story of the grail. It has to do, rather, with a secret about the bloodline of Jesus and they -- the basic conceit in the book is that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were an item. They had sexual relations and had children and their blood line continues down to this very day.

Basically Brown claims there was a sexual relationship between Jesus and Mary. Evidence for this doesn't exist in the New Testament. What we find in the New Testament is a portrait of Mary, first of all as a supporter of Jesus in Luke 8, and as a witness to the resurrection, in both Matthew and the Fourth Gospel in John, and we have a rather developed portrait of Mary as the apostle to the apostles, the one who was called by name, by Jesus, at the tomb, and then sent on a mission to tell the other disciples that he had been raised from the dead.

The general phenomenon about this book is that there are factoids, or bits and pieces of truth that have been embellished and spun out in a fictional way that in many cases greatly distort what the historical reality is.

There's an antagonist and the antagonist is this shadowy organization Opus Dei. It's not actually so shadowy -- it's an organization that advocates fidelity of the church teaching, a form of personal aestheticism, the extension of Christian -- and specifically Catholic -- principles to every day life. And it's an organization that has support of the Vatican. The current pope is an individual who thinks very highly of Opus Dei.

The most relevant text for his plot is the painting by Da Vinci of "The Last Supper." And what Brown finds in that painting is first of all, the series of symbols, the way figures are arranged suggest to him a grand M, as in Mary Magdalene. And there's a gap between Jesus and one of the key figures among his disciples. And that gap suggests a V and the V is the symbol of the cup.

Now, the key thing that Brown alleges is that figure is not the beloved disciple John, the son of Zebede, but rather it's the portrait of a woman. So this is Mary Magdalene.

Brown claims that what Da Vinci was doing was encoding into his painting of "The Last Supper" his understanding that Mary was there and was a consort of Jesus. Most students of Renaissance art suggest that what we have in the picture of that individual is really a standard portrait of a young man, with perhaps, feminine characteristics, but a handsome young man, rather than a woman.

I think people are intrigued by the notion that Jesus was indeed a very fully human person to the extent that he had a sexual relationship with Mary Magdalene. And in some ways they find that a comforting notion, in some ways they find it a challenging notion.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: In a moment, Oklahoma City and bad guys who dream of doing it again.

First, we go to Atlanta and some of the other news of the day. Erica Hill joins us. Erica, it's good to see you tonight.

ERICA HILL, CNN HEADLINE NEWS: Hi, Aaron. Good to see you as well. CNN has learned actor Macaulay Culkin will take the stand in Michael Jackson's child molestation trial. A source close to the case says Culkin will testify on Jackson's behalf and could refute claims by former Jackson employees who say they saw the singer touch Culkin inappropriately. However, Culkin's publicist said last month the actor doesn't plan to testify. And she says that has not changed.

Connecticut's governor signed legislation today that recognize same-sex civil unions in that state providing rights and privileges given to married couples. The law contains language that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Connecticut is the first state to offer civil unions to gay couples without being forced to do so by the courts. Vermont is the only other state that allows civil unions. Massachusetts has allowed gay marriage since last May.

Republicans on the House Ethics Committee say they are ready to open an investigation into allegations of ethical wrongdoing against Majority Leader Tom DeLay. The chairman says the subcommittee will review DeLay's trips and other activities that come into question. DeLay has repeatedly said he wants to clear up questions about his actions.

It will be harder for Americans to wipe out their debts in bankruptcy courts. President Bush signed the broadest re-write of U.S. bankruptcy law in a quarter century. People who can afford to will now have to repay some of what they owe. Opponents of the bill say it is too harsh on poor and middle class Americans.

NASA is pushing back the launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery. It now says May 22 is the earliest possible launch date. That's a week later than previously planned. But NASA says it needs more time to complete testing and engineering work for the first shuttle mission in more than two years.

And that is a look at the latest from HEADLINE NEWS. Aaron, back to you.

BROWN: Good. We'll see you. Thank you. We'll see you again in about half an hour.

We have much more ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, starting with a life and death question. Ten years after the Oklahoma City bombing changed the way how we think about terrorism, how greater danger do homegrown terrorists pose today?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AUGUST KREIS, ARYAN NATION: If we're fighting for our right to govern ourselves, to have no strangers over us or amongst us, that's a war. The war is on. That's what we call it. Aryan Jihad.

BROWN (voice-over): He says he's waging a holy war against the American government. And no one knows how many potential terrorists may be listening to him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the important thing to remember is it only takes one Tim McVeigh. It only takes one Eric Rudolph to carry out one of these actions.

BROWN: How much danger are we in? How worried should we be?

The image that defined all that was lost in Oklahoma City.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you look at the picture you see him, please help this baby. It's critical. I've got to have some help. And he sticks his arms out.

BROWN: The story behind the picture that transfixed the world. And how it changed four lives.

And how far would you go to help save the life a stranger?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Josephine, this is Rose.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Rose.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nice to meet you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A pleasure.

BROWN: What if it meant also saving the life of a loved one? A revolutionary idea to help find the right match without the red tape.

From Los Angeles, and around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: We come to you tonight from Los Angeles, but in many respects our heart remains in Oklahoma City. Ten years ago yesterday Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols perpetrated the worst terrorist attack on Americans by Americans in the country's history.

We intended to be in Oklahoma City last night with a program devoted entirely to that, to lives lost, lives altered, to stories not just of survival, but we think, stories of triumph. And to questions as well. Is the next Timothy McVeigh among us?

Instead, the news from Rome trumped everything out. So tonight and for the rest of the week, we'll try to bring you in pieces what we couldn't bring you in full last night, starting with the threat still out there.

Reporting for us tonight, CNN's Frank Buckley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The most notorious of the domestic terrorists are no longer threats. Timothy McVeigh was executed for the Oklahoma City bombing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE; About a third of the building has been blown away.

BUCKLEY: Eric Rudolph was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to the 1996 bombing in Olympic Park and to bombings at women's health clinics and a gay nightclub. While they will never kill they remain heroes to people like August Kreis.

KREIS: The only way to gain any attention to a cause is through violence.

BUCKLEY: Kreis, a leader in the white supremacist group Aryan Nations, says he and others like the man who accompanied him to this interview, but refused to show his face, are engaged in a holy war against the American government.

KREIS: If we're fighting for our right to govern ourselves, to have no strangers over us or amongst us, that's a war. The war is on. That's what we call it, Aryan Jihad. It's on.

BUCKLEY: Is it fair to say that you believe any means are justified to achieve this state that you want to see?

KREIS: Correct.

BUCKLEY: Violence, killings.

KREIS: You bet you.

BUCKLEY: Bombings?

KREIS: Yes. Anything. Anything necessary to gain freedom for the white race again. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Violence is a positive thing. War is a positive thing.

BUCKLEY: Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama, tracks extremists like Kreis in the center's intelligence report.

MARK POTOK, SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER: I think August Kreis in a way, is very typical of the kind of leader that is out there now. You know, a guy who puts out a propaganda that really does essentially call on people to kill, to murder their fellow Americans, but who stands back from it all of the time.

BUCKLEY: But Potok says Kreis is still a threat because people read his Web site and believe the rhetoric, people whose faces probably aren't among those in the extensive database of the Southern Poverty Law Center. So-called lone wolves, exactly the way you would have described Eric Rudolph and Timothy McVeigh.

POTOK: McVeigh? We had no idea who McVeigh was before the Oklahoma City bombing went off. The same was true of Eric Rudolph. So very typically, the people who really are the shooters are people who are at the fringes of the movement, who are absorbing the propaganda and then, you know, bit by bit will come closer and closer to action.

BUCKLEY: Potok says lone wolves may also be encouraged to act by the splintering of America's three largest neo-Nazi groups: the Aryan Nations, whose compound in Idaho was torn down after the organization lost a lawsuit, also lost its founder and longtime leader when Richard Butler died last year.

William Pierce, the founder of the largest neo-Nazi group, the National Alliance, died in 2002.

And Matt Hale, the leader of a group he called the World Church of the Creator.

MATT HALE, WORLD CHURCH OF THE CREATOR: That's pretty much what I stand for and believe.

BUCKLEY: Just started a 40-year prison sentence for plotting to kill a federal judge.

POTOK: And although that may sound reassuring on the face of it, the reality is is that as extreme as their ideology is, the leaders of these groups very often act essentially as kind of brakes on their the members. You know, essentially what they're saying to their members is saying yes, yes we'll kill the Jews, but that's next week, boys. For now keep your guns in your holsters.

So at least in my opinion, I think there's a very real danger now of people acting out because they don't have their leaders holding them back in any sense.

BUCKLEY (voice-over): The so-called Patriot Movement meanwhile, with its malicious and conspiracy theories saw its zenith in the mid- 90s with some 850 groups operating in the U.S. It shrank to about 150 groups after predictions that the world would end at the millennium didn't materialize.

But Potok says just because there are fewer organized groups doesn't mean the threat is gone.

POTOK: Exactly how active the entire radical right is doesn't really tell you much about how many people are going to die at the hands of a radical right. I mean, I think the important thing to remember is it only takes one Tim McVeigh, it only takes one Eric Rudolph to carry out one of these actions.

BUCKLEY: One person full of hate. Frank Buckley, CNN, Montgomery, Alabama.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Then later in the program, we'll return to that day in Oklahoma City. A moment in the day, a moment captured in a still photo seen around the world. That moment as remembered by the people in the picture. That's later.

It is a terrific and powerful story. And so is this. Imagine not being able to save a loved one even though you're willing to risk your own life to do so. Your son or daughter, husband or wife, sister or brother, desperately needs an organ transplant, but you can't help, because you're not the right match.

In the world of organ transplants, finding the right match is everything. Donors are scarce compared with the need, waiting lists, notoriously long and wrapped in red tape.

More than 61,000 Americans are waiting for a kidney transplant right now which brings us to a remarkable and we think, remarkably simple idea that might possibly ease the backlog. It's about fair trade, helping someone else in return for the same favor. Here's CNN's Jonathan Freed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Rose and Paul Meyer have good reason to be nervous.

PAUL MEYER: Dry your hands real quick.

ROSE MEYER: Oh I can't help it. OK.

FREED: They're on edge, because they know any second now the two people who could end Paul's suffering will be coming through the door. The four have never met, but if all goes well, they'll be linked together forever.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Josephine, this is Rose Meyer.

JOSEPHINE VOLLMAR: Hi, Rose. R. MEYER: Nice to meet you.

J. VOLLMAR: Nice to meet you.

R. MEYER: Hi.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How you doing?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not bad.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And Daniel is going to be...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, sure.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is great, isn't it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, Yes. I am so excited.

FREED: Paul Meyer and Josephine Vollmar both have kidney failure and need a transplant. Paul's wife Rose wants to donate one of her kidneys to her husband and Daniel Vollmar wants to do the same for his mother Josephine. But they can't, because they're not compatible.

J. VOLLMAR: Dan was O-positive, my other two kids are A-positive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, I'm ready.

R. MEYER: So they wanted him right off the bat, but he's, you know, real skittish about needles and doing.

DANIEL VOLLMAR: So is she.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah. I don't care to get poked all of the time.

FREED: It turns out, though, Rose is compatible with Josephine and Daniel is a match for Paul. The quartet was put together through a program called Live Donor Paired Exchange. Essentially, we'll give you ours if you give us yours.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And they have a real good crew there and that's where I go for dialysis.

FREED: Dr. Michael Rees set up the program here at the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo and teamed up with the Doctor Steve Woodle of Christ Hospital and the University of Cincinnati to take the concept statewide.

While other health centers around the country are trying paired exchanges, Rees says the Ohio program uses software they developed specifically to cross-match sets of donors and recipients. And he believes the potential is staggering.

DR. MICHAEL REES, MEDICAL COLLEGE OF OHIO (TOLEDO): Somewhere around 10,000 people in America are in this predicament where they -- there's somebody they really love who they want to help and for immune reasons they can't. And the answer used to be, I'm sorry, there's the door and now the answer is, we have an alternative for you.

FREED: The Ohio organ exchange model is already being picked up by hospitals in other states. And doctors estimate at least 3,000 more transplants could be performed every year if it goes nationwide.

(on camera): What went through your minds when you guys met today?

R. MEYER: I was just excited. I saw her and it was, like, oh, my God. It's real. It's actually going to happen.

FREED: Was there a flash of oh, wait a minute. This will be going to a perfect stranger? And did you ever have a second thought?

D. VOLLMAR: Myself, I was pretty excited because then I felt like, not just one person was going to be getting help, but two separate people were going to get help.

FREED: Have all of you felt frustration or anger? What are the sorts of emotions on that side of the scale that you guys are feeling?

P. MEYER: For me, when I realized that I was going to need a kidney transplant it was more of why me?

J. VOLLMAR: I think everybody wants a better quality of life. And this is going to give it to me. And I think that is just the most wonderful thing, because I can run around after my grandkids more, enjoy them more and...

D. VOLLMAR: Longer.

J. VOLLMAR: Yes, and longer, too. So this is just -- thank you so much.

R. MEYER: You're welcome.

DR. STEVE WOODLE, CHRIST HOSPITAL/UNIV. OF CINCINNATI: The fact that donors feel like they're helping two people rather than one means the benefit they're getting which is nothing more than psychological is double.

R. MEYER: A little needle poke. You'll be fine.

FREED: The meeting over, instant friendships created, both pairs head home, mentally preparing for the upcoming surgery which will happen with one operation in Toledo and another in Cincinnati.

When NEWSNIGHT returns, both pairs head for the point of no return.

P. VOLLMAR: I guess I'm afraid of not waking up, you know? More than anything else.

FREED: What happened in the OR, next.

(END VIDEOTAPE) (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We return now to the story of two families who have agreed to make a trade that will, if all goes well, save two lives.

Paul Meyer and Josephine Vollmar desperately need new kidneys. They each have a loved one willing to donate a kidney, but unable to do so because they aren't the right match. Between the four of them, however, two perfect matches.

Once again, Jonathan Freed picks up the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREED (voice-over): The events that will forever change the lives of four people start before dawn on a crisp, spring morning.

R. MEYER: It hit me about 11:30 last night. I woke up like, oh, my God, I'm losing one of my kidneys today.

FREED: Rose Meyer arrives at the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo to donate one of her kidneys to Josephine Vollmar.

REES: Whenever you get put to sleep, bad things can happen. You can have a heart attack, you can die from this operation.

DR. MATTHEW RUTTER, MEDICAL COLLEGE OF OHIO: At the very last moment if you say no way, we'll stop. That's OK. Nobody will fault you.

FREED: 200 miles away in Cincinnati.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Your last name please.

P. MEYER: Meyer, M-E-Y-E-R.

FREED: Rose's husband Paul checks in to the hospital.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Could you repeat your full name to me.

FREED: Josephine's son Daniel Vollmar is there, too, set to donate one of his kidneys to Paul.

WOODLE: Are you nervous?

D. VOLLMAR: Yeah. A little bit.

WOODLE: Listen, you want to know the time to get nervous? The time to get nervous is when the surgeon gets nervous. If he's not nervous, everything's OK.

D. VOLLMAR: OK.

WOODLE: Do I look nervous?

D. VOLLMAR: No. FREED: This double transplant is the result of a program called Live Donor Paired Exchange. Rose and Paul Meyer aren't compatible with each other, neither are Josephine and Daniel Vollmar. Usually only close relatives would take the risk of donating a vital organ, but in this case, a computer cross-match brought together these two families, previously strangers, who will now swap kidneys.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're asleep, we're positioned and we're prepping and draping.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. So you're already underway.

OK. All right, well, then we'll proceed.

FREED: Everything's coordinated to happen at the same time in both cities in case one of the patients has second thoughts.

D. VOLLMAR: I feel something in my (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, here's a little oxygen for you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, you're in the recovery room, big fella.

D. VOLLMAR: OK.

FREED: Doctors use a remote control technique called laparoscopic surgery to remove Daniel and Rose's kidneys. The organs are then put on ice and prepped for transplant.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Mark the time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Primed next door! Three minutes, 26 seconds, sounds good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Matt. See you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll check on (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.

FREED: The kidneys are taken to adjoining operating rooms where Paul and Josephine are already unconscious.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll take the clamps off and we'll go from being dead and white to pink and alive and rocking.

Go for it. Take the clamp off.

Mark the time, please. Clamps are off.

See the kidney pinking up, now we're going to see blood start coming down that vein. Now open up the vein. There we go.

One pink, happy kidney.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Cincinnati is done and making urine. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Congratulations.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Congratulations.

REES: I am thrilled right now. She's got a new kidney and it's a living kidney transplant. Fifty percent of those will make it to about 15 years. And so I hope have given her lots of great years of life.

FREED: Just 24 hours later, still recovering in the hospital and connected by a bond few have experienced, the two pairs make the effort to see each other.

R. MEYER: Hi, Josie.

OK. How are you?

J. VOLLMAR: OK.

R. MEYER: You feel good?

J. VOLLMAR: Yes, pretty good.

P. MEYER: We did it.

D. VOLLMAR: All right, Paul.

P. MEYER: You did.

D. VOLLMAR: Oh, yeah.

P. MEYER: How are you feeling?

D. VOLLMAR: Pretty good.

J. VOLLMAR: Bless you, honey.

R. MEYER: Oh, no, thank you. I'm glad I could help.

FREED: That's a big question. Is it worth it?

D. VOLLMAR: I think so.

P. MEYER: Yes.

D. VOLLMAR: I mean, I don't feel like I've lost anything. You know?

P. MEYER: I sure have gained. That's for sure.

FREED: If Paul Meyer and Josephine Vollmar were forced to use dialysis, statistics show it could have shortened their lives by as much as ten years. But, thanks to the paired transplant program, if all goes well, Paul and Josephine will now have those years to spend with their families.

R. MEYER: Yes.

FREED: Jonathan Freed, CNN, Toledo, Ohio.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: I want to point out how rare it is for hospitals to allow kidney transplant patients to meet before surgery, because there is always a risk that something could happen to cause one or the other to back out. And we obviously want to thank the staff of both the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo and Christ Hospital in Cincinnati for their help. They gave us extraordinary access to the patients in this story and to the surgeons and to the surgery. That was amazing.

Ahead on the program, the photograph that captured the horror of Oklahoma City. And why a mother still fights to protect her child whose image is frozen in time. From Los Angeles tonight, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We're sometimes taken a back at how gentle people become during the most horrible moments imaginable. Perhaps, we shouldn't be so surprised if there's hope for the human race, you can find it in the fields of Aceh or at a church near ground zero, or in a moment captured in the rubble of Oklahoma City a decade ago.

Here's NEWSNIGHT'S Beth Nissen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Minutes after the blast, Oklahoma City Police Sergeant John Avery uncovered in the tumble of concrete and twisted metal, a child, very small, very still.

SERGEANT JOHN AVERY, OKLAHOMA CITY POLICE: I knew it was a critically-injured baby. I knew I couldn't do anything for it. And it was time for -- to get help as fast as we could.

NISSEN: He carefully picked up the small body, ran to the street.

AVERY: I saw lots of people laying on the curbs of the street. I actually saw blood running down the gutter. Everybody outside was busy taking care of the injured.

NISSEN: He looked desperately for someone who could take the child and then he saw the firefighter.

AVERY: If you look at the picture you see my face, please take this baby. Please help this baby. And he sticks his arms out.

NISSEN: That firefighter was Chris Fields (ph).

CHRIS FIELDS, OKLAHOMA CITY FIRE DEPARTMENT: I pretty well knew she was deceased just by the way she was lying in his arms. And that's why I got her over to the ambulance as quick as I could. I remember one of the ambulance workers telling me to hold her there for a second because there was no room in the ambulance.

NISSEN: At that moment, Charles Porter (ph) who worked in a bank nearby took the photograph that would, within hours, be distributed by the Associated Press around the world. Erin Almond (ph) didn't see it until the next day on the front page of the newspaper.

ERIN ALMOND, MOTHER: I knew immediately. I just took one look at it and I was, like, that's Bailey (ph).

NISSEN: Her daughter Bailey, age one year and one day, who'd been in the second floor daycare center of the Murrah Building, now this stunned young mother saw the image of her daughter's body at every turn.

ALMOND: The newspapers, magazines, TV it was there. It was everywhere. By the way, it became a symbol of the whole incident.

NISSEN: Capturing in one frame, the horror of the day, the loss of life, the loss of innocence. And somehow, reflected in the face of the firefighter, a nation's grief and sorrow.

AVERY: The fireman, you can tell, he loved children.

FIELDS: They say that's the way they felt, I was doing, not necessarily as a firefighter at work, that I was a dad. It makes me feel good that people look at it that way.

ALMOND: The look in his eye meant a lot to me. I mean, she was already gone, but he cared.

NISSEN: At Erin's requestion, Chris Fields and Sergeant Avery both went to Bailey's funeral, helped lay her to rest, but the photograph had taken on a life of its own.

ALMOND: Somebody put it on a T-shirt, and I've had people send me a pewter belt buckle and a key chain.

You're putting my daughter's dead body on the front of T-shirts. Ten years from now, you're going to change oil from your car in that T-shirt, and that's not OK. That's not OK.

NISSEN: The widespread duplication of the image has made it harder for the mother, the firefighter, and the police sergeant to put the memories of that awful April day behind them.

AVERY: Even if it's not your fault, it's still a failed rescue. The baby didn't make it.

FIELDS: It will always be a reminder of that day.

ALMOND: A lot of people never had to see their love ones dead, I did everyday.

NISSEN: What helped was time.

After years of keeping the photographs out of sight, John Avery now displays them in his office at the Edmund Oklahoma City Police Department where he now works.

Chris Fields is still with the Oklahoma City Fire Department. Still uncomfortable being the firefighter in the picture, he tries to keep the focus Aaron, a good friend, and on Bailey.

FIELDS: I think every anniversary of the bombing we -- me and my wife, we talk about Bailey. And we always think to ourselves, golly, she'd be 11-years-old.

NISSEN: And Erin Almond -- she is married with a young daughter and son. She keeps mementos of Bailey on display, including a painting of the famous image, which she sees differently now after 10 years.

ALMOND: I don't look at that picture as being Bailey. I look at that picture as being everyone that died in the bombing that day. Everyone was somebody's child. The innocence that was lost, I guess. Everybody was innocent. That's the way I look at that picture.

NISSEN: Beth Nissen, CNN, Oklahoma City.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Just ahead tonight, some of the days other news, morning paper's still to come. We'll take a break first. We're in Los Angeles and this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In just a moment, the story of a young man who survived the Columbine massacre -- we're on that anniversary, too, but lost his sister that day. How the experience has changed his life.

But right now, as we head to the top of the hour Erica Hill joins us again in Atlanta with some of the day's other headlines -- Erica.

HILL: Hello again to you, Aaron.

We start with two grisly mass killings in Iraq. Interim President Jalal Talabani says, more than 50 bodies have been recovered from the Tigris River. Women and children were among the dead. And insurgents killed 20 Iraqi soldiers at a soccer stadium in western Iraq.

The only person indicted in the United States in connection with the September 11th attacks will plead guilt to the charges on Friday. A judge ruled today Zacarias Moussaoui is competent to enter a plea. He's charged with conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism and aircraft piracy, conspiracy to destroy aircraft and to murder government employees and to destroy property. Now, four of those counts would make him eligible for the death penalty.

The House of Representatives voted late tonight to allow oil drilling in Alaska's Arctics National Wildlife Refuge. The bill's sponsor says -- sponsors say, rather, it will help United States' dependence on oil imports. Democrats, though, say it would only serve to funnel billions of dollars to energy companies.

A man who says he's a Vietnam veteran stood in line at a book signing for about 90 minutes to spit tobacco juice in Jane Fonda's face. Michael Smith called Fonda a traitor for her infamous trip to Hanoi in 1972. Fonda recently called the episode a quote "A betrayal of the American military and a lapse of judgment."

And that is the latest from HEADLINE NEWS at this hour. I'm Erika Hill.

NEWSNIGHT continues in a moment, but first as part of CNN's anniversary series, "Then and Now," how one Columbine survivor used his experience to help others.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CRAIG SCOTT, COLUMBINE SURVIVOR: I think that there was a lot of fingers being pointed after Columbine happened at a lot of different things. The biggest blame lied with the two shooters themselves. The library was the first room that the two shooters entered. They came over to where I was sitting, and I saw my friend Isaiah, and Isaiah was so scared. And the last thing that he heard in his was racial slurs being made against him. And the last thing that he said was, I want to see my mom.

After the two shooters killed Matt and Isaiah next to me and then left the library, I heard a voice tell me to get out of there. And I yelled at everybody and said, come on, let's get out of there. I think they're gone. And I had this feeling, like, there something wasn't right with my sister Rachel.

They came up and began to mock her for her Christian beliefs. Her final moment was when Eric picked her up by her hair and asked her do you still believe in, God, and she said yes, I do. He said, well, go be with him.

I'm going to Colorado Film Institute. I'm studying film and video. The shooters at Columbine were really influenced by violence through the media. They dwelled on it. And so, I have an interest in making things that will be just as entertaining, and yet they'll reinforce positive values. I also travel and I speak in high schools for a program called Rachel's Challenge, for my dad's program. Kids need to know that their choices, their actions on others have an effect. They need to know that they matter. They need to know they have worth.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Okie dokie.

Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. Lots of good stuff in the papers today. We'll start with the "Washington Post," an analysis piece up top. GOP frets over public's economic worries. According to a "Washington Post"/ABC News poll, almost half the country thinks the economy is getting worse, and Republicans are in charge. So, they have some responsibility or, at least, they worry that people will assume they do.

Lots of good reporting on what went on behind the scenes in the Vatican. At Conclave, a prediction and a promise. Ratzinger's age demeanor were assurances to the cardinals.

Stories like this in lots of papers, as reporters do what they do, they report.

In the "International Herald Tribune," and I suspect you'll see this in the "New York Times" tomorrow as well, "The Surge to Victory: Cardinal's Deft Steps." How Cardinal Ratzinger sort of secured the votes needed.

Some sense, I think, among the cardinals that the choice did not play well. So you'll also see stories like this tomorrow. It's in the "Washington Times," but could be in your town, too. "McCarrick, U.S. cardinals defend selection of pope. Don't make judgement on what read in the paper," which is an odd quote to put in the papers.

Of other things "The Detroit News" "Ford Braces for Deeper Cost Cuts." The American, the U.S. car manufactures, GM and Ford in particular, are just getting hammered these days. And so it's getting ugly in Detroit, which I think has the largest unemployment rate of any big city in the country or maybe Michigan -- anyway.

"The Des Moines Register" leads local and leads painful. "Too Young, Too Strong." More than 700 mourned. A west Burlington soldier, he died in Iraq.

The weather tomorrow in Chicago -- the weather here is going to be beautiful, because it always is. But in Chicago, it will be pesky, according to "The Sun-Times."

We'll wrap it up from the City of Angels in just a moment upon.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Good to have you with tonight. We'll see you tomorrow from Los Angeles. 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 April 20, 2005 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Well, we've got to leave some for tomorrow's program. But, yes, it's your city, your credit card -- I'll see you in about 15 minutes, after we're done here. Thank you, sir, very much.
Good evening, again, everyone. It's good to be back in Los Angeles. Good to be here tonight.

Pope Benedict celebrated his first mass today as pope at the Vatican -- it's going to get some getting used to, isn't it, that name -- the first of his papacy. He sent a message today of reconciliation to other religions and other branches of Christianity. As he did, we began learning the details of the ancient process, and some old- fashioned campaigning by which Cardinal Ratzinger became the new pope, details that come, despite their vows of secrecy, from the men who were there, the cardinals inside the conclave. And so, with that, we begin with CNN's Jim Bittermann.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As the new pope inspected his new office and tried out his new desk, a picture has been emerging of how a determined and highly organized Cardinal Ratzinger, with a boost from his predecessor, was able to win election to the papacy after less than 24 hours of voting.

His fellow cardinals began to warm to Ratzinger at John Paul II's funeral. His homily hit just the right notes, some believe. But, then, it was John Paul himself who put Ratzinger in the position to deliver that homily, when he approved him as the dean of the College of Cardinals, and that position gave him an even more important platform.

As dean, Ratzinger ran the daily meetings of the cardinals to deal with church business and discuss issues. Several cardinals commented that he was masterful at it, calling on each cardinal by name, using his fluency in seven languages to answer them in their own tongue, and repeatedly suggesting pastoral means for solving problems, rather than the legalistic approach he once enforced as head of the church's Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. Some were clearly impressed.

CARDINAL KEITH O'BRIEN, ARCHBISHOP of EDINBURGH: He just conducted those meetings in a very orderly manner, and in a manner which pleased everyone.

BITTERMANN: But what happened next could have back fired. Just before the cardinals entered the conclave, the German cardinal made his blunt and direct appeal for a return to church fundamentals. Several cardinals, who could have gone one way or another on Ratzinger, found they liked his moral certainty.

Once inside the Sistine Chapel, the veil of secrecy descended. Still, it's known from talking to some present, that there were four rounds of voting. The first produced a dozen or more favorites and no winner. Cardinal Ratzinger was out in front, but it's not clear by how much. The next morning, as the cardinals again prayed for the Holy Spirit's help filling out their ballot papers, the result produced what one cardinal described was "a handful of names." But, again, Cardinal Ratzinger had not mustered two-thirds of the vote. An American cardinal said prayer helped throughout.

CARDINAL WILLIAM KEELER, ARCHBISHOP OF BALTIMORE: One cardinal told me, while he was listening to the votes being counted, he said three Rosaries. And another said, well, I said two, and so, a third said well, I prayed mine with greater piety, and it was just one.

BITTERMAN: Even though there still was no white smoke, by the third unsuccessful vote, it's believed Ratzinger had a clear majority, and here, the man who would become pope, may have again been helped by his predecessor.

John Paul changed the voting rules, so that a cardinal can be elected pope after 33 ballots by simple majority, not a two-thirds vote. The cardinals were nowhere near 33 ballots, but Cardinal Ratzinger apparently did have a majority. So, it would have been clear to some cardinals that drawing out the process would only bring about the same result as an immediate two-thirds vote.

The fourth ballot carried the day.

CARDINAL ROGER MAHONEY, ARCHBISHOP OF LOS ANGELES: When he reached 77, everybody applauded, because we all knew then he had the two-thirds vote.

BITTERMANN: Cardinal Ratzinger had won, even though he was splitting the vote with at least two other opponents right to the end. We don't know, for the moment, who they are.

What followed impressed some cardinals: the enthusiasm of the greeting Pope Benedict received when he stepped out on the balcony of St. Peter's, the invitation they all received to dine with him later that night, and the fact he came back for breakfast with them before the next morning's mass. But what many said was most impressive was his five-page single-spaced speech in Latin, describing his vision of the church, which he delivered just 16 hours after the white smoke, including his elaborate explanation for the papal name he chose, just 30 minutes after his election.

Observed one analyst, not bad for someone who was said not to want to be pope. Jim Bittermann, CNN, Rome.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: At first reading, there's a line in the new pope's resume that raises eyebrows. As a young man he was a member of the Nazi Youth and also served in the German Army during World War II. But a resume line is just that. It has no context and without context, it has no real meaning. So, some context tonight from CNN's Walter Rodgers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALTER RODGERS, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In 1939, the Joseph Ratzinger family had reason to be proud. Both their sons were headed for seminary to become priests. In staunchly Roman- Catholic Bavaria, this was as good as it got. The youngest son, Joseph, enrolled here at St. Michael's in Traunstein for two years -- 1939 to 1941.

World War II derailed the dream. His seminary became a hospital for wounded German soldiers sent home from the Russian front. For the man who would, 64 years later, become Pope Benedict XVI, it did not seem to bode well. He and his older brother were required to join the Hitler Youth movement, a Nazi paramilitary organization, in 1941. It was compulsory, a rite of passage in Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Stefan Schnappinger (ph) from Ratzinger's hometown said it wasn't so bad. "The Nazis gave us armbands, we got to march around and beat drums. We were just kids and it was great fun." The future pope said he only joined the Hitler Youth movement reluctantly.

By 1943, with greatly-increasing German war casualties, the man who wanted to be a priest was drafted into an anti-aircraft brigade. A year- and-a-half later, the young Ratzinger was transferred to a labor detail. Ratzinger's German fatherland was collapsing about him, and like many another young German with Allied forces closing in, Joseph Ratzinger deserted. The future pope became a wanted man: if Hitler's Gestapo found him, he would have been shot or hanged from a lightpost.

Ratzinger escaped German capture only to be caught by the Americans. The future pope was now an American prisoner of war. The U.S. Army thought the 18-year-old Ratzinger was a German soldier. He lived behind barbed wire, five weeks, exposed to the elements with other P.O.W.s.

For the generation of German Catholic theologians who never knew war, the Nazi years remain unfathomable. The Reverend Thomas Fraunloud (ph) was a seminary student of Ratzinger's. I just cannot imagine. I can't imagine what it was like then, he said. But Joseph Ratzinger, not only imagined, he dreamed, of a return to the seminary. In 1951, he became a priest and soon thereafter he presided over his first mass here at St. Oswald's Church in his hometown.

Walter Rodgers, CNN, Traunstein, Bavaria.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: In the half century since the young priest, Joseph Ratzinger, said that first mass, his church was transformed by Vatican II, only to begin moving back toward bedrock traditional church doctrine. As the world waits to see what type of mark Benedict XVI will make on the papacy, we turn now to the book that has caused a stir among some Catholics, many Catholics, "The Da Vinci Code." It's been a best-seller for more than two years. It's fair to say the novel presents an unorthodox version of church history, but just how far does the author, Dan Brown, go? .

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PROF. HAROLD ATTRIDGE, YALE DIVINITY SCHOOL: "The Da Vinci Code" is an entertaining novel that tells a story about a professor of symbology, from Harvard, a guy named Robert Langdon, who stumbles across a plot as he's in Paris, and he's called to the office of the director of the Louvre Museum, and when he gets there, he finds that this curator of the Louvre has been murdered. And so, over the course of the 24-hour period, Robert Langdon and an investigator, Sophie Neveau, pursue the clues and discover the secret of the Holy Grail.

The secret of the Holy Grail has nothing to do with a cup that Jesus used at the Last Supper, which is the traditional story of the grail. It has to do, rather, with a secret about the bloodline of Jesus and they -- the basic conceit in the book is that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were an item. They had sexual relations and had children and their blood line continues down to this very day.

Basically Brown claims there was a sexual relationship between Jesus and Mary. Evidence for this doesn't exist in the New Testament. What we find in the New Testament is a portrait of Mary, first of all as a supporter of Jesus in Luke 8, and as a witness to the resurrection, in both Matthew and the Fourth Gospel in John, and we have a rather developed portrait of Mary as the apostle to the apostles, the one who was called by name, by Jesus, at the tomb, and then sent on a mission to tell the other disciples that he had been raised from the dead.

The general phenomenon about this book is that there are factoids, or bits and pieces of truth that have been embellished and spun out in a fictional way that in many cases greatly distort what the historical reality is.

There's an antagonist and the antagonist is this shadowy organization Opus Dei. It's not actually so shadowy -- it's an organization that advocates fidelity of the church teaching, a form of personal aestheticism, the extension of Christian -- and specifically Catholic -- principles to every day life. And it's an organization that has support of the Vatican. The current pope is an individual who thinks very highly of Opus Dei.

The most relevant text for his plot is the painting by Da Vinci of "The Last Supper." And what Brown finds in that painting is first of all, the series of symbols, the way figures are arranged suggest to him a grand M, as in Mary Magdalene. And there's a gap between Jesus and one of the key figures among his disciples. And that gap suggests a V and the V is the symbol of the cup.

Now, the key thing that Brown alleges is that figure is not the beloved disciple John, the son of Zebede, but rather it's the portrait of a woman. So this is Mary Magdalene.

Brown claims that what Da Vinci was doing was encoding into his painting of "The Last Supper" his understanding that Mary was there and was a consort of Jesus. Most students of Renaissance art suggest that what we have in the picture of that individual is really a standard portrait of a young man, with perhaps, feminine characteristics, but a handsome young man, rather than a woman.

I think people are intrigued by the notion that Jesus was indeed a very fully human person to the extent that he had a sexual relationship with Mary Magdalene. And in some ways they find that a comforting notion, in some ways they find it a challenging notion.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: In a moment, Oklahoma City and bad guys who dream of doing it again.

First, we go to Atlanta and some of the other news of the day. Erica Hill joins us. Erica, it's good to see you tonight.

ERICA HILL, CNN HEADLINE NEWS: Hi, Aaron. Good to see you as well. CNN has learned actor Macaulay Culkin will take the stand in Michael Jackson's child molestation trial. A source close to the case says Culkin will testify on Jackson's behalf and could refute claims by former Jackson employees who say they saw the singer touch Culkin inappropriately. However, Culkin's publicist said last month the actor doesn't plan to testify. And she says that has not changed.

Connecticut's governor signed legislation today that recognize same-sex civil unions in that state providing rights and privileges given to married couples. The law contains language that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Connecticut is the first state to offer civil unions to gay couples without being forced to do so by the courts. Vermont is the only other state that allows civil unions. Massachusetts has allowed gay marriage since last May.

Republicans on the House Ethics Committee say they are ready to open an investigation into allegations of ethical wrongdoing against Majority Leader Tom DeLay. The chairman says the subcommittee will review DeLay's trips and other activities that come into question. DeLay has repeatedly said he wants to clear up questions about his actions.

It will be harder for Americans to wipe out their debts in bankruptcy courts. President Bush signed the broadest re-write of U.S. bankruptcy law in a quarter century. People who can afford to will now have to repay some of what they owe. Opponents of the bill say it is too harsh on poor and middle class Americans.

NASA is pushing back the launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery. It now says May 22 is the earliest possible launch date. That's a week later than previously planned. But NASA says it needs more time to complete testing and engineering work for the first shuttle mission in more than two years.

And that is a look at the latest from HEADLINE NEWS. Aaron, back to you.

BROWN: Good. We'll see you. Thank you. We'll see you again in about half an hour.

We have much more ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, starting with a life and death question. Ten years after the Oklahoma City bombing changed the way how we think about terrorism, how greater danger do homegrown terrorists pose today?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AUGUST KREIS, ARYAN NATION: If we're fighting for our right to govern ourselves, to have no strangers over us or amongst us, that's a war. The war is on. That's what we call it. Aryan Jihad.

BROWN (voice-over): He says he's waging a holy war against the American government. And no one knows how many potential terrorists may be listening to him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the important thing to remember is it only takes one Tim McVeigh. It only takes one Eric Rudolph to carry out one of these actions.

BROWN: How much danger are we in? How worried should we be?

The image that defined all that was lost in Oklahoma City.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you look at the picture you see him, please help this baby. It's critical. I've got to have some help. And he sticks his arms out.

BROWN: The story behind the picture that transfixed the world. And how it changed four lives.

And how far would you go to help save the life a stranger?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Josephine, this is Rose.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Rose.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nice to meet you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A pleasure.

BROWN: What if it meant also saving the life of a loved one? A revolutionary idea to help find the right match without the red tape.

From Los Angeles, and around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: We come to you tonight from Los Angeles, but in many respects our heart remains in Oklahoma City. Ten years ago yesterday Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols perpetrated the worst terrorist attack on Americans by Americans in the country's history.

We intended to be in Oklahoma City last night with a program devoted entirely to that, to lives lost, lives altered, to stories not just of survival, but we think, stories of triumph. And to questions as well. Is the next Timothy McVeigh among us?

Instead, the news from Rome trumped everything out. So tonight and for the rest of the week, we'll try to bring you in pieces what we couldn't bring you in full last night, starting with the threat still out there.

Reporting for us tonight, CNN's Frank Buckley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The most notorious of the domestic terrorists are no longer threats. Timothy McVeigh was executed for the Oklahoma City bombing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE; About a third of the building has been blown away.

BUCKLEY: Eric Rudolph was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to the 1996 bombing in Olympic Park and to bombings at women's health clinics and a gay nightclub. While they will never kill they remain heroes to people like August Kreis.

KREIS: The only way to gain any attention to a cause is through violence.

BUCKLEY: Kreis, a leader in the white supremacist group Aryan Nations, says he and others like the man who accompanied him to this interview, but refused to show his face, are engaged in a holy war against the American government.

KREIS: If we're fighting for our right to govern ourselves, to have no strangers over us or amongst us, that's a war. The war is on. That's what we call it, Aryan Jihad. It's on.

BUCKLEY: Is it fair to say that you believe any means are justified to achieve this state that you want to see?

KREIS: Correct.

BUCKLEY: Violence, killings.

KREIS: You bet you.

BUCKLEY: Bombings?

KREIS: Yes. Anything. Anything necessary to gain freedom for the white race again. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Violence is a positive thing. War is a positive thing.

BUCKLEY: Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama, tracks extremists like Kreis in the center's intelligence report.

MARK POTOK, SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER: I think August Kreis in a way, is very typical of the kind of leader that is out there now. You know, a guy who puts out a propaganda that really does essentially call on people to kill, to murder their fellow Americans, but who stands back from it all of the time.

BUCKLEY: But Potok says Kreis is still a threat because people read his Web site and believe the rhetoric, people whose faces probably aren't among those in the extensive database of the Southern Poverty Law Center. So-called lone wolves, exactly the way you would have described Eric Rudolph and Timothy McVeigh.

POTOK: McVeigh? We had no idea who McVeigh was before the Oklahoma City bombing went off. The same was true of Eric Rudolph. So very typically, the people who really are the shooters are people who are at the fringes of the movement, who are absorbing the propaganda and then, you know, bit by bit will come closer and closer to action.

BUCKLEY: Potok says lone wolves may also be encouraged to act by the splintering of America's three largest neo-Nazi groups: the Aryan Nations, whose compound in Idaho was torn down after the organization lost a lawsuit, also lost its founder and longtime leader when Richard Butler died last year.

William Pierce, the founder of the largest neo-Nazi group, the National Alliance, died in 2002.

And Matt Hale, the leader of a group he called the World Church of the Creator.

MATT HALE, WORLD CHURCH OF THE CREATOR: That's pretty much what I stand for and believe.

BUCKLEY: Just started a 40-year prison sentence for plotting to kill a federal judge.

POTOK: And although that may sound reassuring on the face of it, the reality is is that as extreme as their ideology is, the leaders of these groups very often act essentially as kind of brakes on their the members. You know, essentially what they're saying to their members is saying yes, yes we'll kill the Jews, but that's next week, boys. For now keep your guns in your holsters.

So at least in my opinion, I think there's a very real danger now of people acting out because they don't have their leaders holding them back in any sense.

BUCKLEY (voice-over): The so-called Patriot Movement meanwhile, with its malicious and conspiracy theories saw its zenith in the mid- 90s with some 850 groups operating in the U.S. It shrank to about 150 groups after predictions that the world would end at the millennium didn't materialize.

But Potok says just because there are fewer organized groups doesn't mean the threat is gone.

POTOK: Exactly how active the entire radical right is doesn't really tell you much about how many people are going to die at the hands of a radical right. I mean, I think the important thing to remember is it only takes one Tim McVeigh, it only takes one Eric Rudolph to carry out one of these actions.

BUCKLEY: One person full of hate. Frank Buckley, CNN, Montgomery, Alabama.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Then later in the program, we'll return to that day in Oklahoma City. A moment in the day, a moment captured in a still photo seen around the world. That moment as remembered by the people in the picture. That's later.

It is a terrific and powerful story. And so is this. Imagine not being able to save a loved one even though you're willing to risk your own life to do so. Your son or daughter, husband or wife, sister or brother, desperately needs an organ transplant, but you can't help, because you're not the right match.

In the world of organ transplants, finding the right match is everything. Donors are scarce compared with the need, waiting lists, notoriously long and wrapped in red tape.

More than 61,000 Americans are waiting for a kidney transplant right now which brings us to a remarkable and we think, remarkably simple idea that might possibly ease the backlog. It's about fair trade, helping someone else in return for the same favor. Here's CNN's Jonathan Freed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Rose and Paul Meyer have good reason to be nervous.

PAUL MEYER: Dry your hands real quick.

ROSE MEYER: Oh I can't help it. OK.

FREED: They're on edge, because they know any second now the two people who could end Paul's suffering will be coming through the door. The four have never met, but if all goes well, they'll be linked together forever.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Josephine, this is Rose Meyer.

JOSEPHINE VOLLMAR: Hi, Rose. R. MEYER: Nice to meet you.

J. VOLLMAR: Nice to meet you.

R. MEYER: Hi.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How you doing?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not bad.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And Daniel is going to be...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, sure.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is great, isn't it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, Yes. I am so excited.

FREED: Paul Meyer and Josephine Vollmar both have kidney failure and need a transplant. Paul's wife Rose wants to donate one of her kidneys to her husband and Daniel Vollmar wants to do the same for his mother Josephine. But they can't, because they're not compatible.

J. VOLLMAR: Dan was O-positive, my other two kids are A-positive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, I'm ready.

R. MEYER: So they wanted him right off the bat, but he's, you know, real skittish about needles and doing.

DANIEL VOLLMAR: So is she.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah. I don't care to get poked all of the time.

FREED: It turns out, though, Rose is compatible with Josephine and Daniel is a match for Paul. The quartet was put together through a program called Live Donor Paired Exchange. Essentially, we'll give you ours if you give us yours.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And they have a real good crew there and that's where I go for dialysis.

FREED: Dr. Michael Rees set up the program here at the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo and teamed up with the Doctor Steve Woodle of Christ Hospital and the University of Cincinnati to take the concept statewide.

While other health centers around the country are trying paired exchanges, Rees says the Ohio program uses software they developed specifically to cross-match sets of donors and recipients. And he believes the potential is staggering.

DR. MICHAEL REES, MEDICAL COLLEGE OF OHIO (TOLEDO): Somewhere around 10,000 people in America are in this predicament where they -- there's somebody they really love who they want to help and for immune reasons they can't. And the answer used to be, I'm sorry, there's the door and now the answer is, we have an alternative for you.

FREED: The Ohio organ exchange model is already being picked up by hospitals in other states. And doctors estimate at least 3,000 more transplants could be performed every year if it goes nationwide.

(on camera): What went through your minds when you guys met today?

R. MEYER: I was just excited. I saw her and it was, like, oh, my God. It's real. It's actually going to happen.

FREED: Was there a flash of oh, wait a minute. This will be going to a perfect stranger? And did you ever have a second thought?

D. VOLLMAR: Myself, I was pretty excited because then I felt like, not just one person was going to be getting help, but two separate people were going to get help.

FREED: Have all of you felt frustration or anger? What are the sorts of emotions on that side of the scale that you guys are feeling?

P. MEYER: For me, when I realized that I was going to need a kidney transplant it was more of why me?

J. VOLLMAR: I think everybody wants a better quality of life. And this is going to give it to me. And I think that is just the most wonderful thing, because I can run around after my grandkids more, enjoy them more and...

D. VOLLMAR: Longer.

J. VOLLMAR: Yes, and longer, too. So this is just -- thank you so much.

R. MEYER: You're welcome.

DR. STEVE WOODLE, CHRIST HOSPITAL/UNIV. OF CINCINNATI: The fact that donors feel like they're helping two people rather than one means the benefit they're getting which is nothing more than psychological is double.

R. MEYER: A little needle poke. You'll be fine.

FREED: The meeting over, instant friendships created, both pairs head home, mentally preparing for the upcoming surgery which will happen with one operation in Toledo and another in Cincinnati.

When NEWSNIGHT returns, both pairs head for the point of no return.

P. VOLLMAR: I guess I'm afraid of not waking up, you know? More than anything else.

FREED: What happened in the OR, next.

(END VIDEOTAPE) (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We return now to the story of two families who have agreed to make a trade that will, if all goes well, save two lives.

Paul Meyer and Josephine Vollmar desperately need new kidneys. They each have a loved one willing to donate a kidney, but unable to do so because they aren't the right match. Between the four of them, however, two perfect matches.

Once again, Jonathan Freed picks up the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREED (voice-over): The events that will forever change the lives of four people start before dawn on a crisp, spring morning.

R. MEYER: It hit me about 11:30 last night. I woke up like, oh, my God, I'm losing one of my kidneys today.

FREED: Rose Meyer arrives at the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo to donate one of her kidneys to Josephine Vollmar.

REES: Whenever you get put to sleep, bad things can happen. You can have a heart attack, you can die from this operation.

DR. MATTHEW RUTTER, MEDICAL COLLEGE OF OHIO: At the very last moment if you say no way, we'll stop. That's OK. Nobody will fault you.

FREED: 200 miles away in Cincinnati.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Your last name please.

P. MEYER: Meyer, M-E-Y-E-R.

FREED: Rose's husband Paul checks in to the hospital.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Could you repeat your full name to me.

FREED: Josephine's son Daniel Vollmar is there, too, set to donate one of his kidneys to Paul.

WOODLE: Are you nervous?

D. VOLLMAR: Yeah. A little bit.

WOODLE: Listen, you want to know the time to get nervous? The time to get nervous is when the surgeon gets nervous. If he's not nervous, everything's OK.

D. VOLLMAR: OK.

WOODLE: Do I look nervous?

D. VOLLMAR: No. FREED: This double transplant is the result of a program called Live Donor Paired Exchange. Rose and Paul Meyer aren't compatible with each other, neither are Josephine and Daniel Vollmar. Usually only close relatives would take the risk of donating a vital organ, but in this case, a computer cross-match brought together these two families, previously strangers, who will now swap kidneys.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're asleep, we're positioned and we're prepping and draping.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. So you're already underway.

OK. All right, well, then we'll proceed.

FREED: Everything's coordinated to happen at the same time in both cities in case one of the patients has second thoughts.

D. VOLLMAR: I feel something in my (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, here's a little oxygen for you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, you're in the recovery room, big fella.

D. VOLLMAR: OK.

FREED: Doctors use a remote control technique called laparoscopic surgery to remove Daniel and Rose's kidneys. The organs are then put on ice and prepped for transplant.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Mark the time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Primed next door! Three minutes, 26 seconds, sounds good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Matt. See you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll check on (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.

FREED: The kidneys are taken to adjoining operating rooms where Paul and Josephine are already unconscious.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll take the clamps off and we'll go from being dead and white to pink and alive and rocking.

Go for it. Take the clamp off.

Mark the time, please. Clamps are off.

See the kidney pinking up, now we're going to see blood start coming down that vein. Now open up the vein. There we go.

One pink, happy kidney.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Cincinnati is done and making urine. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Congratulations.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Congratulations.

REES: I am thrilled right now. She's got a new kidney and it's a living kidney transplant. Fifty percent of those will make it to about 15 years. And so I hope have given her lots of great years of life.

FREED: Just 24 hours later, still recovering in the hospital and connected by a bond few have experienced, the two pairs make the effort to see each other.

R. MEYER: Hi, Josie.

OK. How are you?

J. VOLLMAR: OK.

R. MEYER: You feel good?

J. VOLLMAR: Yes, pretty good.

P. MEYER: We did it.

D. VOLLMAR: All right, Paul.

P. MEYER: You did.

D. VOLLMAR: Oh, yeah.

P. MEYER: How are you feeling?

D. VOLLMAR: Pretty good.

J. VOLLMAR: Bless you, honey.

R. MEYER: Oh, no, thank you. I'm glad I could help.

FREED: That's a big question. Is it worth it?

D. VOLLMAR: I think so.

P. MEYER: Yes.

D. VOLLMAR: I mean, I don't feel like I've lost anything. You know?

P. MEYER: I sure have gained. That's for sure.

FREED: If Paul Meyer and Josephine Vollmar were forced to use dialysis, statistics show it could have shortened their lives by as much as ten years. But, thanks to the paired transplant program, if all goes well, Paul and Josephine will now have those years to spend with their families.

R. MEYER: Yes.

FREED: Jonathan Freed, CNN, Toledo, Ohio.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: I want to point out how rare it is for hospitals to allow kidney transplant patients to meet before surgery, because there is always a risk that something could happen to cause one or the other to back out. And we obviously want to thank the staff of both the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo and Christ Hospital in Cincinnati for their help. They gave us extraordinary access to the patients in this story and to the surgeons and to the surgery. That was amazing.

Ahead on the program, the photograph that captured the horror of Oklahoma City. And why a mother still fights to protect her child whose image is frozen in time. From Los Angeles tonight, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We're sometimes taken a back at how gentle people become during the most horrible moments imaginable. Perhaps, we shouldn't be so surprised if there's hope for the human race, you can find it in the fields of Aceh or at a church near ground zero, or in a moment captured in the rubble of Oklahoma City a decade ago.

Here's NEWSNIGHT'S Beth Nissen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Minutes after the blast, Oklahoma City Police Sergeant John Avery uncovered in the tumble of concrete and twisted metal, a child, very small, very still.

SERGEANT JOHN AVERY, OKLAHOMA CITY POLICE: I knew it was a critically-injured baby. I knew I couldn't do anything for it. And it was time for -- to get help as fast as we could.

NISSEN: He carefully picked up the small body, ran to the street.

AVERY: I saw lots of people laying on the curbs of the street. I actually saw blood running down the gutter. Everybody outside was busy taking care of the injured.

NISSEN: He looked desperately for someone who could take the child and then he saw the firefighter.

AVERY: If you look at the picture you see my face, please take this baby. Please help this baby. And he sticks his arms out.

NISSEN: That firefighter was Chris Fields (ph).

CHRIS FIELDS, OKLAHOMA CITY FIRE DEPARTMENT: I pretty well knew she was deceased just by the way she was lying in his arms. And that's why I got her over to the ambulance as quick as I could. I remember one of the ambulance workers telling me to hold her there for a second because there was no room in the ambulance.

NISSEN: At that moment, Charles Porter (ph) who worked in a bank nearby took the photograph that would, within hours, be distributed by the Associated Press around the world. Erin Almond (ph) didn't see it until the next day on the front page of the newspaper.

ERIN ALMOND, MOTHER: I knew immediately. I just took one look at it and I was, like, that's Bailey (ph).

NISSEN: Her daughter Bailey, age one year and one day, who'd been in the second floor daycare center of the Murrah Building, now this stunned young mother saw the image of her daughter's body at every turn.

ALMOND: The newspapers, magazines, TV it was there. It was everywhere. By the way, it became a symbol of the whole incident.

NISSEN: Capturing in one frame, the horror of the day, the loss of life, the loss of innocence. And somehow, reflected in the face of the firefighter, a nation's grief and sorrow.

AVERY: The fireman, you can tell, he loved children.

FIELDS: They say that's the way they felt, I was doing, not necessarily as a firefighter at work, that I was a dad. It makes me feel good that people look at it that way.

ALMOND: The look in his eye meant a lot to me. I mean, she was already gone, but he cared.

NISSEN: At Erin's requestion, Chris Fields and Sergeant Avery both went to Bailey's funeral, helped lay her to rest, but the photograph had taken on a life of its own.

ALMOND: Somebody put it on a T-shirt, and I've had people send me a pewter belt buckle and a key chain.

You're putting my daughter's dead body on the front of T-shirts. Ten years from now, you're going to change oil from your car in that T-shirt, and that's not OK. That's not OK.

NISSEN: The widespread duplication of the image has made it harder for the mother, the firefighter, and the police sergeant to put the memories of that awful April day behind them.

AVERY: Even if it's not your fault, it's still a failed rescue. The baby didn't make it.

FIELDS: It will always be a reminder of that day.

ALMOND: A lot of people never had to see their love ones dead, I did everyday.

NISSEN: What helped was time.

After years of keeping the photographs out of sight, John Avery now displays them in his office at the Edmund Oklahoma City Police Department where he now works.

Chris Fields is still with the Oklahoma City Fire Department. Still uncomfortable being the firefighter in the picture, he tries to keep the focus Aaron, a good friend, and on Bailey.

FIELDS: I think every anniversary of the bombing we -- me and my wife, we talk about Bailey. And we always think to ourselves, golly, she'd be 11-years-old.

NISSEN: And Erin Almond -- she is married with a young daughter and son. She keeps mementos of Bailey on display, including a painting of the famous image, which she sees differently now after 10 years.

ALMOND: I don't look at that picture as being Bailey. I look at that picture as being everyone that died in the bombing that day. Everyone was somebody's child. The innocence that was lost, I guess. Everybody was innocent. That's the way I look at that picture.

NISSEN: Beth Nissen, CNN, Oklahoma City.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Just ahead tonight, some of the days other news, morning paper's still to come. We'll take a break first. We're in Los Angeles and this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In just a moment, the story of a young man who survived the Columbine massacre -- we're on that anniversary, too, but lost his sister that day. How the experience has changed his life.

But right now, as we head to the top of the hour Erica Hill joins us again in Atlanta with some of the day's other headlines -- Erica.

HILL: Hello again to you, Aaron.

We start with two grisly mass killings in Iraq. Interim President Jalal Talabani says, more than 50 bodies have been recovered from the Tigris River. Women and children were among the dead. And insurgents killed 20 Iraqi soldiers at a soccer stadium in western Iraq.

The only person indicted in the United States in connection with the September 11th attacks will plead guilt to the charges on Friday. A judge ruled today Zacarias Moussaoui is competent to enter a plea. He's charged with conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism and aircraft piracy, conspiracy to destroy aircraft and to murder government employees and to destroy property. Now, four of those counts would make him eligible for the death penalty.

The House of Representatives voted late tonight to allow oil drilling in Alaska's Arctics National Wildlife Refuge. The bill's sponsor says -- sponsors say, rather, it will help United States' dependence on oil imports. Democrats, though, say it would only serve to funnel billions of dollars to energy companies.

A man who says he's a Vietnam veteran stood in line at a book signing for about 90 minutes to spit tobacco juice in Jane Fonda's face. Michael Smith called Fonda a traitor for her infamous trip to Hanoi in 1972. Fonda recently called the episode a quote "A betrayal of the American military and a lapse of judgment."

And that is the latest from HEADLINE NEWS at this hour. I'm Erika Hill.

NEWSNIGHT continues in a moment, but first as part of CNN's anniversary series, "Then and Now," how one Columbine survivor used his experience to help others.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CRAIG SCOTT, COLUMBINE SURVIVOR: I think that there was a lot of fingers being pointed after Columbine happened at a lot of different things. The biggest blame lied with the two shooters themselves. The library was the first room that the two shooters entered. They came over to where I was sitting, and I saw my friend Isaiah, and Isaiah was so scared. And the last thing that he heard in his was racial slurs being made against him. And the last thing that he said was, I want to see my mom.

After the two shooters killed Matt and Isaiah next to me and then left the library, I heard a voice tell me to get out of there. And I yelled at everybody and said, come on, let's get out of there. I think they're gone. And I had this feeling, like, there something wasn't right with my sister Rachel.

They came up and began to mock her for her Christian beliefs. Her final moment was when Eric picked her up by her hair and asked her do you still believe in, God, and she said yes, I do. He said, well, go be with him.

I'm going to Colorado Film Institute. I'm studying film and video. The shooters at Columbine were really influenced by violence through the media. They dwelled on it. And so, I have an interest in making things that will be just as entertaining, and yet they'll reinforce positive values. I also travel and I speak in high schools for a program called Rachel's Challenge, for my dad's program. Kids need to know that their choices, their actions on others have an effect. They need to know that they matter. They need to know they have worth.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Okie dokie.

Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. Lots of good stuff in the papers today. We'll start with the "Washington Post," an analysis piece up top. GOP frets over public's economic worries. According to a "Washington Post"/ABC News poll, almost half the country thinks the economy is getting worse, and Republicans are in charge. So, they have some responsibility or, at least, they worry that people will assume they do.

Lots of good reporting on what went on behind the scenes in the Vatican. At Conclave, a prediction and a promise. Ratzinger's age demeanor were assurances to the cardinals.

Stories like this in lots of papers, as reporters do what they do, they report.

In the "International Herald Tribune," and I suspect you'll see this in the "New York Times" tomorrow as well, "The Surge to Victory: Cardinal's Deft Steps." How Cardinal Ratzinger sort of secured the votes needed.

Some sense, I think, among the cardinals that the choice did not play well. So you'll also see stories like this tomorrow. It's in the "Washington Times," but could be in your town, too. "McCarrick, U.S. cardinals defend selection of pope. Don't make judgement on what read in the paper," which is an odd quote to put in the papers.

Of other things "The Detroit News" "Ford Braces for Deeper Cost Cuts." The American, the U.S. car manufactures, GM and Ford in particular, are just getting hammered these days. And so it's getting ugly in Detroit, which I think has the largest unemployment rate of any big city in the country or maybe Michigan -- anyway.

"The Des Moines Register" leads local and leads painful. "Too Young, Too Strong." More than 700 mourned. A west Burlington soldier, he died in Iraq.

The weather tomorrow in Chicago -- the weather here is going to be beautiful, because it always is. But in Chicago, it will be pesky, according to "The Sun-Times."

We'll wrap it up from the City of Angels in just a moment upon.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Good to have you with tonight. We'll see you tomorrow from Los Angeles. Good night for all of us.

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