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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Missing Boy Scout Found Alive; Security Concerns on the Mighty Mississippi

Aired June 21, 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: Jody Hawkins said it best today, "Children do come home," and though her son Brennan isn't home quite yet -- he'll spend some time in the hospital first -- he is out of the woods, and he is extraordinarily lucky.
In four days since he vanished from a Boy Scout camp high up in the mountains of Utah, the weather stayed mild and thousands of people kept looking for him, which is where we begin tonight. With an extraordinarily happy ending and how it came to be, here's CNN's Ted Rowlands.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Brennan Hawkins disappeared Friday evening from a mountainside campsite; his parents rushed to join the search, every minute of every day.

JODY HAWKINS, MOTHER: (INAUDIBLE)...the days just turn into eternity, and all of the sudden, night falls. You learn to hate the moon. When the moon comes up, you just don't (INAUDIBLE).

TOBY HAWKINS, FATHER: A greatest plea at this time, and the way we can find my boy is for anybody and everybody to come up and help.

ROWLANDS: Thousands answered the call and made the difference.

DONIS MINOR, GRANDFATHER: You guys got the word out, and the volunteers came. I mean, they came. It was incredible. We appreciate the so many people who have helped, given their time, their effort, and the horses, mules and four-wheelers. You know, it's just overwhelming.

ROWLANDS: Brennan's grandparents helped in the rescue effort. Relatives, friends and strangers came from as far away as Hawaii, an army of searchers, up to 3,000 strong.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was like he was our neighbor, and it was only the neighborly thing to do, to come up and search for somebody. If our daughter was lost, we'd hope that people would come out and look for her, too.

ROWLANDS: They combed the mountain on foot, on horseback, on all-terrain vehicles and by helicopter for nearly 100 hours. Hopes ebbed as each day passed. But no one gave up. J. HAWKINS: It really is important, even though I know they were feeling the failure last night. What they did was so crucial, so important. Even though he wasn't found yesterday, we got that much closer, just because of those people that we're not -- the four of us aren't out trying to do five miles by ourselves.

ROWLANDS: Then, just before noon in Utah Tuesday...

BOB HAWKINS, UNCLE: Brennan has been found.

ROWLANDS: Forty-three-year-old Forest Nunly (ph) found Brennan in the woods five miles from the Boy Scout camp.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I turned a little corner, really going slow, looked up there, and there was a kid standing in the middle of the trail. And it was -- I didn't know it was him. I was just like, is it real? And so I drove up to him and asked him his name. He said, yeah, my name is Brennan, and he was all muddy and cold, wet clothes. I took all of his clothes off, his shirt and stuff. Put a shirt on him and a blanket. Gave him some food and water, and ran up and called 911.

ROWLANDS: For the rescuers, a moment of joy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think I could...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can't express it. There's no words...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't. I have four daughters of my own, and I wouldn't be here anywhere else. I tried to explain it to him last night, and it's just impossible to try to describe your feelings at this moment.

ROWLANDS: For Brennan's mother, prayers answered.

J. HAWKINS: People say that the heavens are closed and god no longer answers prayers. We're here to unequivocally tell you that the heavens are not closed, prayers are answered, and children come home. We love you. We thank you.

ROWLANDS: A boy returned to his parents, alive and well.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROWLANDS: And tonight, he is with his parents at Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City. He will be kept overnight because of dehydration. I'm sure he is not complaining. His parents are not complaining. A very happy family in Utah tonight -- Aaron.

BROWN: We'll have more on the medical side. Just a little bit more, Ted, on the search side. Was it clear that there was more of an ebb and emotional flow over the last couple days?

ROWLANDS: Clearly. As each day passed, the family was very optimistic, and they were supported, and volunteers came out, but as each day passed, there was an underlying feeling that they were looking for a body, and they were not looking for Brennan. They concentrated a lot of their efforts, especially today, on the river here. Clearly, if Brennan would've been caught in that river, he would not have survived. Still, the family maintained he wasn't in the river. They said, he's out there. He's out there somewhere and we're going to find them, and they did.

BROWN: Nice job for them. Nice job to you, as well. Thank you very much. Ted Rowlands, out in Utah tonight.

Say, the young Mr. Hawkins will have a story to tell, but right now, that story is being told by others, by doctors and relatives, by parents of other children, who know what it is to go in these camping trips in these mountains with their kids.

Here's CNN's Keith Oppenheim.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is Lily Lake, a picturesque spot deep in the Uinta Mountains, the very area where Brennan Hawkins was lost and found. As we arrived, it began to rain. That didn't stop Ron and Jen Canter, two volunteers, from taking me on their all-terrain vehicles close to where Brennan was rescued. The general spot, they said, was an area burned out by forest fires.

JEN CANTER, RESCUE VOLUNTEER: I've been up there on my four- wheeler and there's nothing up there. If you're up on the top, there's no coverage way up there, so...

OPPENHEIM: Now, how far do you think it was from the Boy Scout camp and the climbing wall where he was last seen, to that spot over there? Make a ballpark guess.

CANTER: I'd probably say a couple miles.

OPPENHEIM: The Canters have spent time up here and have gone camping in this wilderness with their children.

RON CANTER, RESCUE VOLUNTEER: I've gotten lost at night myself, just once, for a few hours in the dark, and that was...

OPPENHEIM: When you were camping?

R. CANTER: Yes, and that was enough for me. I can't imagine an 11-year-old boy, you know, four days out here.

OPPENHEIM: Not knowing what to do?

R. CANTER: Yes.

OPPENHEIM: Keep in mind, this terrain is well above 9,000 feet, and the temperatures can get severe, even in summer.

R. CANTER: You still there's snow there. There's usually snow there year-round, I mean... J. CANTER: Yes, they said he was really lucky to have 50-degree weather at night, because, normally, I don't think it's really that warm at night. I mean, we've been up there a lot, and it gets kind of cold at night, so I think he was really lucky to have 50-degree weather at nighttime.

OPPENHEIM: Keith Oppenheim, CNN, in the Uinta Mountains.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: As we mentioned at the top of the hour, Brennan Hawkins is in the hospital tonight in Salt Lake City, more as a precaution than anything else. So, they need to get -- carefully -- get food and water in him. He's been without both.

CNN's Rusty Dornin is at the hospital and she joins us now. Can you update the condition a bit?

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, as you saw, a lot of things could have happened to that young boy, but didn't. He's doing very well; He appears happy and healthy, but the doctors here say they're still evaluating him. They want to see if any other injuries did develop from anything that could have happened in the mountains. His doctor, Edwin Clark, talked to reporters this afternoon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. EDWARD CLARK, PRIMARY CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: Our initial assessment of him, we were quite amazed what good condition he was in. We've taken him through a complete medical evaluation. We found the obvious thing, sun burn, bumps and scrapes and bruises, and quite significant dehydration. But with IV fluids, he's bounced back very, very well.

All things came together to allow him to survive. The weather was extraordinarily cooperative. We didn't have the severe spring and early summer thunderstorms, the risk of hypothermia, the wild animals in that region, and while he moved, he kept his head. He didn't have any broken bones that sometimes we see when children run away and fall and injure themselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DORNIN: Some of the things they want to watch for is, after he eats, how does he respond? Now, if all goes well -- and he is communicating with his family, the doctor says -- if all goes well, he will be released sometime tomorrow. A lot of happy folks here in Salt Lake City -- Aaron.

BROWN: That I expect is true. Thank you very much. Rusty Dornin in Salt Lake tonight.

Children do come home, as Brennan's mom said today, but unfortunately they don't always come home. That is a sad and simple fact, and for some, more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): During the four-day search for Brennan Hawkins, Kevin Bardsley seemed always on the scene. He'd been through this before, a year ago. His son, Garrett, disappeared in these same hills on a camping trip and has never been found.

KEVIN BARDSLEY, SON STILL MISSING: When I got the call at 6:30 in the morning, we were on the road within a half hour. We were gone. We were moving, and all of my friends were in place and moving the same way.

DORNIN: The two fathers worked closely together, shoring up each other, trading information. Kevin Bardsley said, at times, the search for him was like a scab that got torn off.

Twelve-year-old Garrett Bardsley was on a camping trip last August in these same mountains when he disappeared after returning to his campsite to change into dry shoes. Hundreds of searchers looked for days but failed to turn up any trace.

Kevin Bardsley said he wasn't able to talk to reporters tonight. It was just too hard, but in thanking all of the volunteers, Brennan Hawkins sister has words for Mr. Bardsley.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We want to publicly thank them, because without them we couldn't be doing this, and especially the Bardsley's. They -- Kevin, Garrett's dad, has pulled out all of his resources, and...

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Gary Hansen was the leader of the camping trip a year ago, when Garrett Bardsley disappeared. He helped in that search then, and he helped in this one now, and we talked with him a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Mr. Hansen, just talk about the weather over the last couple of days, what it's been like and how that weather -- if it had gone otherwise -- would've changed the outcome of this.

GARY HANSEN, VOLUNTEER ORGANIZER: The weather for the last three or four days has been really good, right up until, here, today. It's been sunshine-y and good and -- but we just got rain and clouds just recently. So, we just found him just in the nick of time, as far as weather's concerned.

BROWN: Had it rained, he would have gotten very cold, hypothermia. Those are the issues you would have had to deal with, right?

HANSEN: Yes. That's the case. We found him -- when it rains, it gets very cold up here; when the clouds clear. So, he could have been hypothermic, you know, with the rain. The rain just makes it worse. So, yes. BROWN: Do you know if the searchers found him or if he found the searchers? Do you know what happened?

HANSEN: My understanding is that the searchers found him. A couple of guys on some ATVs found him on a trail.

BROWN: Was he walking? What was he doing?

HANSEN: I understand he was walking and they found him and other than that, I don't know. I just barely got back up here.

BROWN: You helped coordinate this. What did you learn -- and I think, as some people know, people in the area, last summer, went through this same sort of situation and it didn't have a very good outcome -- what did you learn in that search that was helpful in this one?

HANSEN: Well, what we learned in the last search was: How to really mobilize a lot of people. We got some assistance in learning how to do GPS technology, grid searching and mostly just how to manage the sheer numbers of volunteers that want to come up and help a search effort like that.

BROWN: How many people were involved in it?

HANSEN: How many searchers did we have?

BROWN: Yes.

HANSEN: Well, we had -- it's been reported we've had upwards of 3,000 people on Sunday and we had somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 on Monday. So, a large number -- a large number of volunteer searchers were up here.

BROWN: He's a very young boy to be lost out there for a long period of time. Was there a point where you started to think this was not going to have a very good outcome?

HANSEN: Yes. You always have those thoughts going through your mind, but you know, you want to hold out hope and you just keep trying. That's all there is to it. You always have those in your mind and an 11-year-old Scout, in this kind of rugged country, it always makes you wonder, but you always hold out hope. That's the most important thing and I think that's -- the parents, they never gave up hope and they all worked very hard. So, you know, it's a good ending to this story.

BROWN: Well, as you know better than most, the whole country has been following this and to some extent, the whole country is deeply appreciative of the work you all did and I think the whole country is celebrating a great outcome, the best outcome you can imagine. It sounds like the kid's doing great.

HANSEN: Yes. We just want to say thanks to everyone that came up here to help out and we just were glad that -- we're glad that he's back with his family. BROWN: As are we. Good to talk to you. Thank you, sir.

HANSEN: Thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: Gary Hansen.

We don't get, particularly at the top of the program, it seems like many good-news stories. So, it's nice to have one to lead with for a change.

Just shy of quarter-past the hour.

When we come back, we'll look at boots on the ground in Iraq -- are there enough?

But first, a look at some of the other news of the day.

Erica Hill joins us from Atlanta. Good evening, to you, Ms. Hill.

ERICA HILL, CNN HEADLINE NEWS ANCHOR: And good evening, to you, Mr. Brown.

Actually, some more boots headed to the ground in Aruba. A search and rescue team from Texas, now on its way to the island to help look for missing Alabama teen, Natalee Holloway. She disappeared three weeks ago; last seen at a nightclub during a high school graduation trip. Four young men are now being held on the Dutch- Caribbean island. They are suspects in her disappearance. The Texas team will use dogs and side-scan sonar to search for the missing girl.

Illinois Democrat Senator Dick Durbin made a public apology on the Senate floor today. Apologizing for comparing American interrogations at Guantanamo Bay to those of the Nazis and the Soviet Union.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D), ILLINOIS: I'm sorry if anything that I said caused any offense or pain to those who have such bitter memories of the holocaust, the greatest moral tragedy of our time. Nothing, nothing should ever be said to demean or diminish that moral tragedy. I'm also sorry if anything I said, in any way, cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Senator Dick Durbin, again, apologizing there today on the Senate floor.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said today, "too many criminals are getting off with sentences that are too light." Gonzales said, "there has been a drift toward lesser sentences since a supreme court decision earlier this year." The court ruled in January that judges do not have to follow sentencing guidelines that have been in place for nearly 20 years. Finally, in the White House, more echoes of the 1960s. A meeting between President Bush and the prime minister of Vietnam, Phan Van Khai. He is the first visit -- it's the first visit by the leader of Vietnam to the United States, since the Vietnam War. Outside, about 100 demonstrators chanted "VC," -- Viet Cong -- "as if we could forget. Go home!," but President Bush said he plans to visit Vietnam for the Asian Economic Summit.

Aaron, back to you.

BROWN: Erica, thank you. We'll check with you in about half-an- hour.

Still ahead on the program tonight: Why U.S. commanders in Iraq have given up hope of stopping the insurgency -- stopping it.

It all comes down to math.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My mission out here is to make sure the insurgents don't get any more of a firm foothold, than what they may have, with the forces I have, or what I have

BROWN (voice-over): And they say what they have is not enough.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's about time, 41 years today. It's about time.

BROWN: A verdict, four decades in the making, falls short of what some had hoped for.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are still people, unfortunately, among you who choose to look aside, who choose to not see the truth.

BROWN: And: The mighty Mississippi and what makes those in charge of guarding it so nervous.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you have a worst-case scenario of what could happen?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I do. I'd rather not comment on it, at this time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But it would shut it down?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Yes, it would.

BROWN: From old man river to the Hudson in New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Iraq now, and a bit of perspective. When Britain was dealing with its own Iraq insurgency 85 years ago, it took about 120,000 troops to get the job done. At the time, Iraq's population stood at about 3 million. Today, about 140,000 soldiers and Marines patrol a country of 24 million people.

Outside of a few renegade lawmakers, no one with any sane policies talking about more troops in Iraq, only fewer, generals toeing the line.

Further down the chain of command, however, and far closer to the fighting, the story changes. In Iraq tonight, CNN's Jane Arraf.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANE ARRAF, CNN SR. BAGHDAD CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hundreds of miles from Baghdad, there's a battle being fought on Iraq's frontier, for the survival of the country.

Limited numbers of American forces move through towns and cities to keep insurgents and foreign fighters from digging in. There aren't enough American troops to eliminate the violence and stop all the foreign fighters still coming across from Syria. And commanders say it's unlikely there ever will be.

COL. STEPHEN DAVIS, U.S. MARINE CORPS: My mission out here is to make sure the insurgents don't get anymore of a firm foothold than what they may have. We seek to interdict and disrupt them wherever they appear. So, the forces we have are what I have.

ARRAF: The insurgency is a moving target. As the Marines destroy their safe haven, some of the insurgents and foreign fighters invariably slip away, and reappear in other places.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We take it in chunks. You know, we had Operation Matador, and we cleared an area north of the Euphrates River a couple of weeks ago. It's just with the forces we have on-hand, we concentrate on areas where we think they are concentrated.

ARRAF: The latest operation was in the city of Karabila, five miles from the Syrian border, where foreign fighters are launching attacks on other parts of Iraq.

Here, Marines moved in with tanks, air strikes, missiles -- destroying safe houses and car bomb factories. It's a very basic fight. Trying to capture insurgents is a luxury the Marines don't believe they can afford. They were here to kill them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm out.

ARRAF (on camera): This is the kind of fight U.S. forces are facing here. In this house, they found a sniper rifle with armor- piercing bullets. Just outside, they detonated a car bomb.

The Marines have killed and captured foreign fighters and insurgents here. But soon, they will pull out. And no one is sure what will happen when they do.

(voice-over): It's a reoccurring pattern. Last year, Marine units here in western Al Anbar, were pulled out to fight in Fallujah. And the security backing that was left, Iraqi police forces, just getting on their feet, disintegrated. Insurgents retook control of some of the cities.

In northwestern Iraq, stretched U.S. forces all but pulled out last year, leaving only 400 troops in this vast territory, stretching to the Syrian border.

Now, the U.S. Army has poured in 4,000 soldiers. This month, they launched a major operation to uproot insurgents controlling parts of the city of Tal Afar. But there are no illusions it's a lasting solution.

LT. COL. CHRIS HICKEY, U.S. ARMY: So far, we believe it's disrupted the terrorists. The question is for how long?

ARRAF: There are also no illusions that U.S. military force will defeat this insurgency. An Iraqi government and Iraqi troops will have to do that. U.S. troops, though, are still training Iraqis. Like these soldiers brought in from other parts of the country, who were part of the fight in Karabila.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not your fault. Let's try to fix it. This way, they don't get mowed down.

ARRAF: A self-sufficient Iraqi army is still a long way off. In the meantime, U.S. forces in this huge territory will keep moving, trying to keep the insurgents off-balance until Iraqi forces are ready to step in.

Jane Arraf, CNN, Karabila, Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up on the program tonight, a former Klan leader convicted for a crime that shocked the nation 41 years ago today. Though some call it an imperfect ending.

Also ahead -- a river of worries. Up and down the mighty Mississippi, potential targets for terrorists. We take a break first. From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: New York City on the first day of summer. And it felt like it, too as you look down Central Park south of the Columbus Circle, which is where we are.

In the unfinished story that has divided this country from the beginning, one terrible chapter came close to an ending today. Not a perfect ending, perhaps, but an ending, still. Forty-one years ago tonight, three young civil rights workers disappeared in Mississippi. It would be more than a month before their bodies were found. Their murders horrified the country, helped galvanize the fight for civil rights.

Today, 41 years to the day later, a jury in Mississippi rewrote a page of history and rendered a verdict, as well. Here's Ed Lavandera.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Angry and defiant, Edgar Ray Killen lashed out at news cameras, as he was escorted to jail by a swarm of guards.

Exactly 41 years after three civil rights workers were killed for trying to register black voters in Mississippi, the man known locally as Preacher Killen was convicted on three counts of manslaughter. He now faces up to 20 years in prison. His attorney says that would be a life sentence for a man his age, and argues that outside forces influenced the verdict.

MITCH MORAN, ATTORNEY FOR RAY KILLEN: The jury obviously just got back there and compromised. There were political pressure, media pressure. The pressures of a case like this. And this is the result of it.

LAVANDERA: The verdict also was seen as a compromise by a disappointed Rita Bender, the widow of Michael Schwerner, one of the three slain civil rights workers. She wonders how a jury could choose to convict on the less serious charge of manslaughter.

RITA BENDER, MICHAEL SCHWERNER'S WIDOW: ... acknowledge that these were murders, that they were committed with malice, indicates that there are still people, unfortunately, among you who choose to look aside, who choose to not see the truth.

LAVANDERA: It didn't take long to see the division that this civil rights era case still stirs in this town of 7,000 people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's about time, 41 years today. It's about time.

LAVANDERA: Others displayed their frustration. "Killen's not guilty, free the man," was written on a windshield of a car seen driving past the courthouse.

James Chaney's brother says the conflicting views show Mississippi is still struggling with its racially-charged past.

BEN CHANEY, JAMES CHANEY'S BROTHER: People in Mississippi can socialize at night, but when the sun comes up, we're separated. I think we need to think about how we can bring out -- how we bring some real racial conciliation here. But in order to do so, the truth, the entire truth about what happened to all those individuals who died in this state in the '60s, must be exposed.

LAVANDERA: There are many in this town who hope this trial is the final chapter of a story they'd like to finally put behind them.

Ed Lavandera, CNN, Philadelphia, Mississippi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Confronting past demons and righting old wrongs does not happen by accident. It takes conviction and humility and some considerable outrage. And it takes a willingness to look at the worst in ourselves.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): In towns like Philadelphia, Mississippi -- and it's not alone across the South -- to some, the past is best left alone. Yes, things were done. Yes, they were wrong. But it was long ago, and it's over.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The people here are tired of it. We want y'all to go home. We want Mississippi to be forgotten.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're not like that now. And let's bygones be bygones. And we hate that it happened. Everybody hates that it happened. But just leave it alone and let us move on, so we can all get along.

BROWN: But front porches and street corners are not courtrooms. Today's convictions are part of a re-examination of 29 civil rights killings stretching back to the mid-'50s, most of them in the South, though some as far north as Pennsylvania.

Since 1989, there have been 27 arrests, 22 convictions, two acquittals in seven states, many two or three decades after the fact since prosecutors first began their work.

BRANDY AYERS, PUBLISHER, ANNISTON STAR: As time goes on, as attitudes change and memories are reawakened, that's when the -- that's when the prosecutors are burning with some sense of justice not rendered.

JERRY MITCHELL, REPORTER, THE CLARION-LEDGER: It kind of took another generation, I think, in these killings for Americans to wake up and say, hey, wait a minute, you know, these -- this is not right. People got away with murder. These cases need to be prosecuted.

BROWN: One of the first, the most visible, was the trial of Byron De La Beckwith, in the 1963 sniper killing of Medgar Evers. Medgar Evers, the head of the Mississippi NAACP, who was killed in 1962. A new investigation began in 1989, and Mr. De La Beckwith was convicted of murder in '94.

STANLEY NELSON, DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER: These weren't crimes that were terribly hidden and mysteries. You know, a lot of times the people who committed the crimes had bragged about the crimes. There just was no justice back then, and there was no hope of justice.

BROWN: Bobby Frank Cherry was convicted in the killing of four little black girls in a Birmingham church, a church that was bombed in 1963, one of the most notorious attacks of the civil rights era. And just this month, prosecutors ordered the body of Emmitt Till exhumed. He was kidnapped from his uncle's home in 1955, murdered after being accused of whistling at a white woman. Mississippi authorities have reopened the investigation.

NELSON: What we have to understand about Emmitt Till case and other cases, is that there was no investigation at all the first time around. So, really, you know, this is the first investigation of Emmitt Till.

MITCHELL: With regard to the prosecution of Till, the sheriff actually testified for the defense. That pretty much gives you an inkling of what kind of quality of investigation the state had.

BROWN: There are other cases awaiting prosecution. A quadruple killing in Georgia in 1946. There were murders in Florida and Alabama. Echoes to some of a dark and different era in a different time.

MITCHELL: That kind of reminds you, in a sense, of what happened in the wake of some of the Nazi atrocities, the tracking down these people after all these years and putting together cases.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We lived through all of this, most of us, watching and doing this program tonight.

Still to come on the program -- how a newspaper man who had a front-row seat to the struggles in Mississippi and across the South, saw the verdict in the Killen case today.

Also, more than 4,000 miles of potential trouble. The mighty Mississippi. Why it worries people who are in charge of guarding it. We'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: For those who lived through the civil rights struggles in the South, what happened today in Philadelphia, Mississippi, was, we suspect, unimaginable 40 years ago. From 1959 until 1997, Hodding Carter was the editor and publisher of a family-owned newspaper in Greenville, Mississippi, "The Delta Democrat Times." He is currently the outgoing president of the Knight Foundation in Miami, Florida, and he joins us tonight. It's nice to see you.

There was something sort of pathetic about looking at Mr. Killen today, this old man going off to prison in a wheelchair, can't breathe on his own, and all these old guys who get convicted. Does it actually prove anything? Does it help anything?

HODDING CARTER, KNIGHT FOUNDATION: Yes. Because Mr. Killen was not an old guy when he killed those kids. He was a conscious, cold- blooded killer, and representing society which could not bring itself to convict him when he was still a hot-blooded middle-aged guy.

Now, the South begins to reclaim its own history with these convictions. This is not a pathetic old man. It is an old killer.

BROWN: You said something to us today that I found really interesting, which was that there's never been for the South a kind of -- whatever the equivalent would be of a war crimes trial. There's never been that moment where you had to stand and account and, perhaps, even apologize. CARTER: You know, it's a wonderful thing, that we had been very clear about what we expect of those who have waged terrorism elsewhere. The South was, in many ways, a terrorist society, keeping down an entire group of people who they considered to be subhuman. That is simply not taught to Southern children today. We have lost that history.

These trials are, in fact, a way of saying, we are sorry. It is a way to account for the fact that, at the time that they were perpetrated, the white society, either condoned or turned away from what was being done.

BROWN: You don't think -- but, surely kids in Mississippi, white kids and black kids in Mississippi, know -- they know what happened 40 years ago, don't they?

CARTER: Listen, kids do not routinely go home and have their parents explain to them how they stood in front of colored, as they used to say, fountains, turning away kids. I mean, this is not something we talk about down home because after all, most of us are fairly ashamed of it.

The schools themselves are very sensitive about how they teach this period. No, we have terrible history being taught about that period. It's trials are -- I want to repeat -- at least the beginning of a reclaiming of what has been an almost an obliterated history.

BROWN: I heard today from someone on our air and I know that Jesse Helms, or at least I believe Jesse Helms has written in his memoirs something equivalent, which is: Look, the south would have gotten to where it needed to get to eventually, and all these outside agitators didn't really help and in the long run, actually made things worse. Look where we are today.

You buying anything of that?

CARTER: We are where we are today because a lot of good people were freed by the death and passion of those civil rights so-called outsiders, who were almost entirely were local black folk who wished to be free. We were freed by laws that made us able to live up to what is, after all, our innate decency.

Southerners are not innately worse than anybody else. In fact, we are mostly like other people. We lived in an indecent society, which had been perpetrated and maintained by force and violence and repression. That was broken by the outside agitators and the civil rights laws that they brought. I want to repeat, however, those outside agitators were mostly inside southerners, black and a few whites, who were trying to change a slave society.

BROWN: You know, I think people -- one of the things when people look at it today is: They think that it was just a bunch of losers or something down there, but it really was the power structure. It was business owners. It was, in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the deputy sheriff. It was people who had real power, legitimate, in quotes, who perpetrated all of this or much of it. CARTER: No. I don't know about perpetrators. I'm talking about those who made it possible. Those who had the power to stop it and who, in effect, saw these killers, this scum, as, in effect, the enforcers of an impossible and immoral society. And indeed, there were those who were in the power structure, who saw nothing wrong with it. But for the most part, these were the useful idiot murderers, helping to perpetuate this society of immorality.

BROWN: It's good to see you. Hodding Carter is out of Florida, tonight. Joining us here. Thank you. On an historic day.

Ahead on the program: Risky rides at a remarkable river -- part of CNN's security watch.

And: The ride of the century for a birthday never to be forgotten -- when wishes come true.

Ours often do because this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: About 14 minutes to the top of the hour. Time for one last look at the headlines. Erica Hill is Atlanta -- Erica?

HILL: Aaron, a U.S. Army deserter from another war, a long time ago, left his boyhood home in North Carolina today, for his current home in Japan. Sixty-five-year-old Charles Jenkins left with his Japanese wife and family, a day after he apologized for defecting to North Korea 40 years ago. Jenkins saying quote, "I let my soldiers down." He also called North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, "an evil man."

A Swedish man got a lot more than he bargained for on his 100th birthday. Talk about an interesting present there, what happened. You're seeing the helicopter crash. That helicopter ride was supposed to be a birthday present for him, but just moments after the helicopter took off, it did crash. Now amazingly, all the passengers on board managed to escape with just minor injuries. The man was air- lifted to a hospital where he is in stable condition.

And 155 fire fighters battling a massive blaze in Detroit, overnight. Absolutely amazing there at a warehouse where they once built Studebakers. That building, as you just saw, collapsed in flames. The fire was visible for miles around. It attracted hundreds of on-lookers. In fact, the police had to be brought in to keep the crowds back, as the firemen brought the blaze under control.

And we also want to remind you: There is a new feature at our Web site, CNN.com. All you need to do is logon and click on the video link. You'll be able to watch the video as many times as you want, whenever you want, all at no cost. All the day's latest video, you will find there -- Aaron?

BROWN: You can watch that fire in Detroit over and over and over again for free.

HILL: That, you can. BROWN: Thank you, we'll talk to you tomorrow.

Thank you very much.

"Security Watch," now: On the Mississippi.

Here's CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE (voice-over): It is sweaty, dirty, and tough. Not unlike what it was in Mark Twain's time, but in addition to lashing barges and checking cargo, deck hands on the towboat Martha Ingram have a modern-day worry: Security.

BUCK NEWBAUER, 2ND MATE: We watch boats coming up alongside of us. Anything suspicious looking we'll report.

MESERVE: Why would a towboat and it's string of barges be a target for terrorists? Simple economics. The Mississippi River is the nation's central artery. These towboats push vital commodities to a range of industries. Stop the barges and you could slow business, a lot of businesses, to a crawl.

(on camera): The Martha Ingram is pushing about 70,000 tons of coal and crushed limestone. If you wanted to move it another way, it would take 600 rail cars or about 1,500 semis. In Paducah, Kentucky, the Seamans Church Institute uses interactive simulations to teach towboat captains to spot and react to terrorist activity.

(voice-over): Because the Coast Guard cannot be everywhere, the people who work the river and know it best are encouraged to report anything unusual. Many boats, like the Martha Ingram, have security plans in place.

CAPT. SHAWN WILMOTH, TOWBOAT CAPTAIN: This podhouse is a restricted area, and if you're not authorized to be up here, you're gone.

MESERVE: Captain Shawn Wilmoth has an emergency panic button to alert his company headquarters to serious trouble. It's here. He just won't show us or anyone else exactly where.

We can see several motion sensors. If the captain is disabled and the wheelhouse empty, an alarm would go off.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you making it, Cap?

WILMOTH: Yes, sir. I'm in good shape, fine, doing my thing.

MESERVE: Crew hands are scheduled to check the wheelhouse at regular intervals, and access to the entire boat is monitored.

WILMOTH: Air condition men, electricians, so forth. We are notified well in advance of who is coming, what their name is and what their purpose on this vessel is. MESERVE: Wilmoth worries about security beyond his boat as well, for instance the possibility of an attack on the locks that towboats must use to get around dams.

One of them is the Kentucky lock. Since 9/11, it has been closed to visitors. There are alarms, surveillance cameras, fences. But there is one glaring vulnerability: A highway and railroad bridge goes right over the lock.

(on camera): Do you have a worst-case scenario of what can happen?

GERALD CUNNINGHAM, ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS: The worst-case scenario at this lock? Yes, I do, and I'd rather not comment on it at this time.

MESERVE: But it would shut it down.

CUNNINGHAM: Yes. Yes, it would.

MESERVE: Would it be hard to do?

CUNNINGHAM: Moderate. Moderate.

MESERVE (voice-over): If successful, an attack here would stop towboats like the Martha Ingram and their essential cargoes. Cargoes that must move day and night, to keep the heartland's economy pumping.

For CNN's America Bureau, Jeanne Meserve, on the towboat Martha Ingram.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up, by far, I mean, not even close, the best single tabloid headline we've seen in months. But you'll have to wait through the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We got an absolutely great tabloid headline, but you got to wait a minute or so, OK, because this is television.

"The Washington Post" starts morning papers off. "The road to riches is called K Street. Lobbying firms hire more, pay more, and charge more to influence the government." But I'm sure they're doing it in your best interest. Right?

"Washington Times," one of the other papers, leads with Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois. This is a big story for them, and they put it on the front page. "Durbin sorry for Gitmo remarks, makes his apology on the Senate floor." You would think now this story would go away, and it probably will in your lifetime.

"The Dallas Morning News." This may be the best underreported story of the day. "Invented a chip to change the world." Jack Kilby has died. He invented the microchip. You think of cell phones and computers and all the rest, and he's the guy who did it. I think he worked for Texas Instruments at the time, and they lead with it in Dallas.

"The Cincinnati Enquirer." Give me a -- how are we doing on time there, Will? Thank you. "Taft," that's the governor, "hires criminal lawyer." Apparently, filed false financial disclosure reports.

Here we go. "The Daily News." "Bobby's dinero stolen." That would be Robert DeNiro's dinero. Get it? Is that -- take that again, Chris. That's a great tabloid headline. You'd buy that paper, right? $95 million earrings, made off with wife's earrings.

The weather in Chicago tomorrow -- "bliss."

The picture of the day, and a memorable one, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Young Brennan Hawkins, found today alive in Utah in a hospital tonight. Morning show bookers probably banging on his hospital room door right now, trying to get the interview for tomorrow.

Good to have you with us. We'll see you tomorrow at 10:00 Eastern. Until then, good night for all of us.

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