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The Amanpour Hour
Interview With Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba; Interview With Author Salman Rushdie; Interview With Renowned Photographer Platon; Interview With Nelson Mandela's Former Private Secretary Zelda La Grange; Remembering Terry Anderson. Aired 11a-12p ET
Aired April 27, 2024 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:59:32]
CHRIS WALLACE, CNN HOST: This week, I have my own best shot and it's a two-parter.
First, congrats to Kara who was honored with the 2024 webby lifetime achievement award, honoring excellence on the Internet. Congratulations.
KARA SWISHER, PODCAST HOST: Thank you. It's my greatest achievement.
WALLACE: And I want to congratulate our team for winning a webby for this clip, which went viral from my interview with John Batiste on our Max show, "Who's Talking" where he demonstrates how music can cross genres.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BATISTE, MUSICIAN: Well, you know, the blues.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Which just goes to show if you're with John Batiste, you're on the right track. It was a great conversation. You can catch my entire talk with John on Max.
Gang, thank you all for being here.
Thank you for spending part of your day with us. Well see you right back here next week.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello everyone, and welcome to THE AMANPOUR HOUR.
Here's where we're headed this week.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: New U.S. military aid rushing to Ukraine to halt Putin's advances. The foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba joins us.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DMYTRO KULEBA, UKRAINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Putin is a political animal who can sense fear.
AMANPOUR: Then as American colleges wrestle with political activism and campus safety, author Salman Rushdie, who narrowly survived an assassination attempt says, free speech is more important than ever.
SALMAN RUSHDIE, AUTHOR: The temperature is so high right now there's so much anger that it's is very hard for anybody to listen to anybody.
AMANPOUR: Also this hour, renowned photographer, Platon, on Facetime with the people shaping our world from Muhammad Ali to Vladimir Putin.
PLATON, PHOTOGRAPHER: And then Putin turns to me and in perfect English, he says, I love the Beatles.
AMANPOUR: And from my archive, it's 30 years to the day since Nelson Mandela cast the historic vote that made him president in South Africa's first democratic elections. His trusted former aide tells me how he transformed her life.
So you describe yourself as a racist. I mean, that is shocking for me to hear.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program, everyone I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
"Hallelujah", the word of Ukraine's foreign minister as the United States finally passed that long-delayed and much-needed aid package for Ukraine's fight against Russia.
And it seems divine intervention didn't just strike Dmytro Kuleba, colleagues of the House Speaker Mike Johnson says he prayed for guidance on the issue. That and some pretty stiff intelligence briefings from the experts.
And President Zelenskyy says speed now is of the essence. His army chief says their situation on the eastern front has quote, "worsened significantly". While the United States army commander in Europe says Putin's force is now 15 percent larger than when it invaded two years ago.
And here's President Biden.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This package is literally investment, not only in Ukraine's security but in Europe's security and our own security.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And of course, the sixth months delay has caused countless Ukrainian lives and territory. My first guest, foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba, joins me from Kyiv,
warning that the era of peace in Europe is over.
Foreign minister, welcome to the program from Kyiv. And I just wanted to ask you on this morning, you must feel very relieved, right? It's been six to seven months of waiting anxiously.
KULEBA: It's good to have American back and it's better when good things happen later than do not happen at all.
But I do agree that this package should have been passed much earlier and things could have -- would turn differently on many accounts. But now we are working on preparing ourselves to receive the first aid of package -- the first package of aid announced by President Biden.
Our soldiers on the front line are waiting for it. Our society received a morale boost and it's also an important message to all our partners, a message from Washington that the struggle continues, the fight for freedom and democracy goes on.
AMANPOUR: Can I ask you specifically if you can tell me what are the most important things you're waiting for?
KULEBA: Well, when you fight a war, you'll need everything. There is no, no detail that you do not need in fighting the war. We need air defense to protect our cities, and we need every artillery, ammunition and artillery systems to protect our soldiers and to liberate our territories. These are the two key elements.
What we do not see on this package is a battery of Patriots. But we keep working with the U.S. administration on mobilizing more batteries from other countries in short, short perspective.
[11:04:48]
AMANPOUR: Let me ask you to react to what senators like J.D. Vance, certain Republicans who opposed sending aid to Ukraine. They basically say, do the math. In other words, you know, you can't -- it just doesn't add up. Ukraine needs more soldiers. It needs more material than the U.S. can provide. What's your answer to that?
KULEBA: It is true that the key to victory of Ukraine is a united front of all countries.
We saw that in the meantime, while the congress was debating the law, Germany was making powerful decisions. Other European countries were announcing important aid packages.
So the United States are not alone in supporting Ukraine. In fact, we see that European countries are increasing their support to Ukraine. Ukraine itself increased its own production of weapons, and will continue to ramp up its production.
And the question to the members of Congress that -- that you refer to is simple. You know, if all of these countries are united around the goal of Ukraine's victory maybe it's because they see that this victory is important, is also a matter of their security and prosperity.
And whatever the price of supporting Ukraine today is the price of fixing the world, if Russia wins in Ukraine will be much, much higher.
AMANPOUR: Do you expect a massive Russian attempt to take advantage of the window before this aid gets to you.
KULEBA: Well, everyone should -- everyone in the world should remember that every delay in providing -- sending assistance to Ukraine is compensated by the bravery and sacrifice of our soldiers. But this is not kind of compensation that you -- I mean not you personally, but our partners should be -- should be willing us to pay.
Because these are real people and their lives matter and everything we lost in-between last autumn and now is because we didn't have -- our soldiers did not have enough of weapons.
They have no shortage of bravery and the will to sacrifice themselves for their country.
AMANPOUR: And now the issue of conscription, of lowering the draft age you're trying to get young men back. Those who fled and, you know, the fighting.
How is that going? Do you expect to have many more people drafted to the front.
KULEBA: You know, the parliament passed the law setting -- in fact, a couple of laws setting up the new framework for conscription in Ukraine. And our army will receive new soldiers and officers to fight because what is at stake here is the survival of the nation. The survival of a sovereign country in 21st century.
And we know our history. Those who refused to fight for Ukraine with arms, with weapons in their arms in the beginning of the 20th century, when we lost our independence to Bolshevik, Russia were then -- became afterwards victims of Stalin's repressions, of Stalin genocide against the people, the Ukrainian people who fell victims of Russification of Ukraine.
We all know what follows when we lose, and therefore, we will keep fighting. What we do need is our partners to believe, firmly believe that Ukraine's victory is attainable.
And second, to have no fear towards Putin because Putin is a political animal who can sense fear. And when he does, he becomes more aggressive. If he sees the strength, if he sensed the strength, as it was recently demonstrated by -- as the one recently demonstrated by the Congress he will be forced to step back.
AMANPOUR: And finally, I want to ask you whether you notice and plan to take part in a mission to persuade Trump. Let's just say he wins again. We've seen quite a few western leaders have gone to America to meet with him privately. And we're told it was to encourage him, to encourage Congress to pass this law. And they brought intelligence and all the rest of it. We understand Baltic leaders, Polish leaders are also trying to
persuade Trump and Trumps allies, that this must continue this aid to Ukraine. And saying, you know, this is also good for America because it creates American jobs.
Are you in a way, pleasantly surprised that this Congress, this MAGA group in Congress passed this law, passed this bill.
KULEBA: I said from the very beginning in an interview to you, by the way when you asked me whether we have Plan B if the Congress does not pass the law. I said, we don't, we only have Plan A.
[11:09:54]
KULEBA: And if I'm not mistaken following that interview I was heavily criticized for making no Plan B.
But our strategy is always to get the best for Ukraine, even when very few believe that we will succeed in the end. So we have Plan A, the vote, the successful vote in the Congress in the end we got it.
And so there was an enormous amount of effort of many people in many countries behind that -- behind that result.
But this is how you win wars. If you have plenty, make no mistake, you will end up with Plan B. But this is not what will save Ukraine. Ukraine will win only if it focuses together with its partners on Plan A.
And this is what we will be doing irrespective of the name of the president of the United States or the names of the members of Congress of the United States, or any other country in the world.
AMANPOUR: Foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba, thank you for joining me from Kyiv.
Coming up later on the program, famed photographer Platon on meeting Putin at gunpoint and discussing their favorite Beatles song.
But before that, Salman Rushdie tells me what he wanted to do immediately after being stabbed and the premonition he had just before.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUSHDIE: In retrospect, I'd have done well to pay attention to the dream.
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[11:11:21]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. And we turn now to the struggle to balance free speech with safety, which is playing out on college campuses across the United States and in other parts of the world. There's a long history of student activism against war in the U.S., lest we forget Vietnam.
Now, thousands of students are protesting Israel's war on Gaza with many facing heavy-handed disciplines, suspensions, arrests and expulsions.
Some Jewish students meanwhile say criticism of Israel is spilling into anti-Semitism.
My next guest knows the importance of free speech better than most. He almost lost his life over it. Salman Rushdie lived with the threat of assassination for years after Iran's Supreme Leader called for his death over the book, "The Satanic Verses".
Then in 2022, nearly 35 years after it was published, Rushdie was repeatedly stabbed as he was about to give a public lecture in New York. He was lucky to escape with his life. And now in a brave defense of free speech he's written about his near death in "Knife: Meditations after an attempted murder."
He joined me this week from New York to tell me his book is also about the triumph of love over hate.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Can I just start by asking how you are? How are you feeling?
RUSHDIE: I'm ok. You know, I mean, I think I'm surprised myself by how well I feel. I think I'm pretty much repaired. Thank you.
AMANPOUR: Salman, I find it really interesting because you say you don't believe in miracles and you there --
RUSHDIE: Yes.
AMANPOUR: -- you also, you know, admit that your recovery is miraculous. But also, you say you don't believe in premonitions. And you did have something that we might call a premonition or a dream just before going to Chautauqua, just before going to make this speech.
We've asked you to read just a little bit of that graph.
RUSHDIE: Yes. I had a nightmare. Two nights before I flew to Chautauqua, I had a dream about being attacked by a man with a spear, a gladiator in a Roman amphitheater. There was an audience roaring for blood.
I was rolling about on the ground, trying to escape the gladiator's downward thrusts and screaming.
It was not the first time I'd had such a dream. On two earlier occasions, as my dream-self rolled frantically around my actual sleeping self, also screaming, threw its body, my body, out of bed. And I awoke as I crashed painfully to the bedroom floor.
AMANPOUR: So, those were those two times. This time, your wife woke you up and you didn't crash to the floor. But you said to her, I don't want to go.
Honestly, it gives me chills, that.
RUSHDIE: Yes, I really -- I was very spooked by the dream. And that's what my initial response was to say, look, I don't want to go.
And then, you know, I woke up a bit more, and I thought, really, we don't run our lives on the basis of whether we had a bad dream or not. And, it's just a dream. And of course, I should go.
But, in retrospect, I'd have done well to pay attention to the dream.
AMANPOUR: Salman, you talk about the A -- that is the assailant, the assassin, the asinine. And quite early on before you even recovered you were grappling with whether you should go to see him, confront him, talk to him, understand his motivation.
RUSHDIE: Yes. I mean, I -- that was -- my first thought was as a kind of journalistic impulse to go and sit in a room with him and say, ok, tell me why you did it.
And then, you know, I read the story of Samuel Beckett who was also stabbed in Paris in the streets by a pimp.
[11:19:52]
RUSHDIE: And he actually did go to the court and asked the man why did he do it. And all the man said was, "I don't know, sir. I'm sorry."
I thought well, that doesn't get you very far, does it? It doesn't explain anything.
And I thought maybe if I did meet this guy, I would get some banality of that kind. You know, I didn't think I would get remorse. There doesn't seem to be any sign of remorse.
But I thought I'd get some cliche. And so, pointless. And I thought actually I would do better to use the skill I've got of imagination and storytelling to try and imagine myself into his head and work out a kind of coherent portrait to somebody who could have done this.
AMANPOUR: It's really interesting, that chapter. And I want to ask you, because I think we know, because this -- the assailant gave an interview to one of the New York tabloids, that he didn't read "The Satanic Verses". He didn't sound like he had any motivation for this.
RUSHDIE: Yes. I mean, he didn't read -- he said he'd read two pages of something I'd written. He didn't say what. And that he'd seen a couple of YouTube videos, and that was enough for him to decide to commit murder. I mean, it's a -- I mean, it shows me that indoctrination can be a very powerful force. There are people, like I suspect this young man of being, who kind of need to be led, who need to be given a direction in life because they don't feel that they have it.
AMANPOUR: And what about in New York, where you live? You can see campuses roiling. You can see it spreading across the United States. The issue of free speech is being, you know, really challenged.
What do you make of students today getting themselves into this kind of situation?
RUSHDIE: Well, you know, students have -- I mean, students demonstrated against the Vietnam War. This is not the first time. And of course, students should have the right of protest and historically often have, and that it's right.
What's happening is that, very often, that right of protest is spilling over into menacing remarks and behavior. And so, a lot of Jewish students feel unsafe on campus.
And it gives the administrators an almost impossible job that whatever they do is wrong, really. And the temperature is so high right now, there's so much anger that it's very hard for anybody to listen to anybody.
And it's -- you know, it's a very dark time for the academy, I think, in America. Universities across the country are wrestling with this. And many of them, you know, not doing a perfect job.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: A fascinating conversation. And you can watch the entire talk with Salman Rushdie online at Amanpour.com.
Coming up on the program from my archive as South Africa celebrates 30 years of democracy. Nelson Mandela's private secretary told me how he changed her life, the life of a racist.
But first how the man behind the camera captures the faces shaping our world.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PLATON: This is the face of power in Russia.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[11:23:12]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.
My next guest is one of the world's best-known photographers whose portraits have defined the pages of "Time", "Rolling Stone", "The New Yorker". He goes simply by one name, Platon and for more than two decades, he's been up close personal with the most influential figures of our era from Muhammad Ali to Vladimir Putin.
His new book, the Defenders, is about giving a voice to real people fighting back and standing up for human rights. And that is the subject of my "Letter from London" this week.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Platon, welcome to the program.
PLATON: Good to be here.
AMANPOUR: Your latest book is called "Defenders". What do you mean by that title?
PLATON: Well, it's a -- it's a superhero title but the people who are defenders of human rights are ordinary people, but they do extraordinary things. And we often think of human rights defenders and activists, we always talk about them in a certain way.
Many of them have been victimized by history and by society and faced horrendous hardships but they've -- with all those challenges they do extraordinary things. So I thought we should change -- start to change the narrative and see them as a new set of cultural heroes.
AMANPOUR: You like very much your image of Muhammad Ali who's by no means an ordinary person but he captured the imagination of ordinary people all over the world.
So explain to me this picture, how did this come about?
PLATON: He was very frail when I took this. I believe it's one of his last maybe even the last big photo shoot he did. And he'd lost control of his once most powerful arms and fists.
AMANPOUR: Because of the Parkinson's.
PLATON: Yes.
But when he felt me drape the American flag over his shoulders, you can just see a bit of it here, he was compelled to hold up his hands in that defiant pose.
[11:29:52]
PLATON: And it was really moving. His wife actually started to cry a little bit and he was trembling, trying to keep his hands in that position.
So I said to him Muhammad, you are the greatest. Please teach me to be great. How can my generation be as great as your generation had to be during the civil rights era in America.
So I had to get close to him and he whispered in my ear and he said, I have a confession to make. I said, what is it?
And he said I wasn't as great as I said I was. oh, my goodness, I freaked out.
And that's the biggest confession I ever heard in my life. And I said the whole world knows you as Ali, the greatest. But then he said you misunderstand me. I'll tell you what was great and it wasn't me. It was that people saw themselves in my struggle and my story.
AMANPOUR: Let's go now to the pictures of world leaders. So this was for the "Time Magazine" cover "Person of the Year" of 2008. You know, it is an extraordinary picture of him. You have two pictures. One is just a face on. I chose this one.
Everything you want to know about Putin is summed up in that picture as far as I'm concerned.
PLATON: I mean, he's performing power.
AMANPOUR: Exactly.
PLATON: It's a whole process of intimidation when you come into contact with power. You know, I was told that it should be in the halls of the Kremlin and I was picked up, driven to the gates by a former KGB BMW.
And then you get to the gates and the (INAUDIBLE) turns goes out of Moscow into a dark, bleak, gothic forest. It's really intimidating.
You have no idea what's going on. And I got to the most scary building I've ever seen. It was his private residence, his dacha in the middle of the forest. Two-story high security walls, snipers everywhere. I'm led into the building at gunpoint and --
AMANPOUR: Literally?
PLATON: Yes. And then the entourage comes in and he has two translators who whisper into his ear, a whole team of advisors and a gang of body guards.
And I nervously said, Mr. President, before we capture a moment of history I have a question to ask you. I said I was brought up by my mom and dad listening to the Beatles. And I'd like to know if you ever listened to the Beatles.
And in Russian, he orders the two translators and all his advisers out of the room immediately, the body guards stay.
And then Putin turns to me and in perfect English he says "I love the Beatles."
So I said, "I didn't know you spoke English." He said "I speak perfect English." So I said, "Who is your favorite Beatle?" He said, "Paul."
I said, "Interesting. What's your favorite song?" And I said, "is it Back in the USSR?" And then he said, "No, my favorite song is Yesterday."
AMANPOUR: That is before I think he made his big speech, you know, warning the West that it wouldn't tolerate any expansion before he invaded and annexed Crimea, before obviously the second full-scale invasion and before he became a pariah.
And in those intervening years, you also took pictures of the opposition, notably Pussy Riot.
So let's talk about this.
PLATON: Everyone probably knows them like this, you know, hardcore, feminist, punk rock group who speak truth to power against Putin's excessive nationalism. But what happens if you remove those aggressive masks?
You see something different and this is Nadia and Marsha after they were released from prison. They paid a heavy price for their support of women's rights and LGBTQ rights in their country.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Amazing experiences.
And when we come back, the story behind Platon's photo shoot at Trump Tower. In retrospect, a premonition of Trump's presidency.
Then later in the hour, 30 years of democracy in South Africa. My conversation with Nelson Mandela's closest aide.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: What do you see in this white young woman who had this apartheid history and who was a lowly typist?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[11:34:12]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.
There are leaders sometimes who will define history for better or worse -- Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin. Platon has photographed all three.
In fact, he's photographed more than 40 world leaders, including three U.S. presidents. But it was Trump who surprised him the most.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: This is a man who's been president, who wants to be president again, Donald Trump, who is under criminal trial as we speak. What was that set up? What were you saying. He's way at the back of the frame.
PLATON: This is I've been told one of his favorite rooms. It's the boardroom in Trump Tower where everyone would get fired in his TV show. This is where he exercised power as a rehearsal, I think for the presidency. I remember saying to him, Donald, let's just be human.
[11:39:47]
AMANPOUR: When was this?
PLATON: This is before he was president, before even the election campaign started properly.
AMANPOUR: Got it.
PLATON: And I said, let's be human together. I said, we've all followed your career. No one can doubt it's an extraordinary career path you've had.
But there's always something about you. There's always an air of tension and controversy about things you say and do in public. And I'm sure its intentional on your part but it feels to me as if you're in the middle of an emotional storm. And I said, I can't live with that anxiety all the time.
As a fellow human being, I'd like to know how you weather the storm.
He calmly looked at me and he said, "I am the storm."
AMANPOUR: Even then.
PLATON: I had those words ringing out in my brain through the election campaign, through his presidency, through his post-presidency.
And now were in another cycle again and I keep thinking to myself, there's only one person who can navigate perfectly through the storm. And that's the creator of the storm.
So these people are very powerful, formidable and are much smarter than we make them out to be. And they are not to be underestimated. And I think we always seem to do that. He's smart.
AMANPOUR: One of the big issues that he brought to the fore, others have but he's really made it a campaign issue, is immigration.
Here's a picture of a mother carrying a picture of her boy. And this is about immigration across the southern border. Tell me what this is.
PLATON: This is a difficult story. Her name is Fermina and she's from Guatemala, a country ravaged by conflict, abject poverty, corruption and gang violence. Her parents were killed, grandparents were killed.
She had trouble feeding her son even who was I think, eight years old at the time. His name was Omar. So she made the most difficult decision a mother could make which is to leave your son behind with family members, cross over borders into the dangerous, deadly Sonoran (ph) Desert.
AMANPOUR: Because we also have a big picture of the morgue (INAUDIBLE) in Tucson. PLATON: This is actually -- sorry, this is the morgue? Yes. And it was
actually her son. She found this out the day I was to photograph. So I did what my heart told me to do, put down my camera and I gave her a hug.
Christiane, I still remember the feeling of her pain going through my body like vibrations and eventually after a few seconds, she pushes me away. She was making the sound of a wounded animal and she grabs the picture of her son that's framed and she says, take my picture now. I want the world to see my pain.
So I took this picture.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And of course, a picture -- these pictures do tell a thousand words.
And you can watch are longer conversation on my weekday show next week. And as always, you can find all of my interviews online at Amanpour.com.
Up next from my archive, 30 years since Nelson Mandela's historic election win, his private secretary tells me how he changed everything including our own life.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So you describe yourself as a racist. I mean, that is shocking for me to hear.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[11:43:25]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NELSON MANDELA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF SOUTH AFRICA: As I speak to you now a man of 75, I feel like a boy of 60.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: The indomitable Nelson Mandela on election day, April 1994, one month before he became South Africa's first democratically elected president and finally ended the white supremacist apartheid system.
In his inauguration speech Mandela, who died in 2013, had a message of reconciliation that inspired the whole world.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MANDELA: Never, never, and never again, shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.
The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.
Let freedom reign. God bless Africa.
I thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And from my archive this week, 30 years to this very day Mandela cast his first ever vote, I revisit an inspirational conversation with his private secretary and close aide, Zelda La Grange, who went from self-described racist to seeing the light.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Zelda La Grange, welcome to the program.
ZELDA LA GRANGE, FORMER PRIVATE SECRETARY OF NELSON MANDELA: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: How did a young girl like yourself, a whiter-than-white Afrikaner who believed in apartheid end up working for the world's foremost black leader?
LA GRANGE: Well, you can add racist to that. You know, I was a full-on racist by the time I started working for him. And which makes this so unlikely to happen.
[11:49:50]
LA GRANGE: I applied for a job in his office as president but working for his secretary, who was Mary Mxadana at the time. And she just basically needed a typist. And I happened to be busy with the interviews on that particular day for another position in the president's office. When she came in, she said, "I need someone right now."
AMANPOUR: So you describe yourself as a racist. I mean, that is shocking for me to hear. I mean, I suppose I should expect it. That was the system that you grew up under. It was a racist system.
When Nelson Mandela was coming out of prison, what was the reaction in your household?
LA GRANGE: My father came outside. I was swimming in the pool on that day in February.
And he came outside and he said to me, "We are in trouble."
And I said, "What are you talking about?"
And he said, "The terrorist is being released."
And I said, "Who's that?"
And he said, "Nelson Mandela."
And I continued swimming. It didn't affect my life. I didn't know who he was. My father apparently knew who he was.
But to me, that was -- that was the totality of my understanding of what was happening in South Africa. I just heard this man's name and really the system -- the system influenced us. We lived apartheid happily.
And when I say to you I was a racist, you have to reconcile with your past. You have to admit these things to be able to change, to make a decision to change.
So now looking back, if you asked me at the age of 23, I would probably have denied being a racist. Now it's easier, because you can recognize the change in yourself.
AMANPOUR: You so happily believed in apartheid that you even voted no in the referendum to end apartheid.
LA GRANGE: Yes. Yes.
AMANPOUR: What was it like, then, when you first met this man, Nelson Mandela?
LA GRANGE: Well, that was really the turning point in my life. When had started asking this question, he was kind, he smiled. He extended his hand and spoke to me in my own language. He spoke to me in Afrikaans. And that is the last thing you expect of him, because I was brought up to fear this man.
And that's just destroyed my defenses immediately. And I broke down and I was crying and he said to me, "No, no, no, you're overreacting." And if (INAUDIBLE), you're overreacting, you pull yourself together very quickly.
And which made me really ask, but is this man really something to be terrified of? Is he a person -- is he the person that I was brought up to believe or that I heard about?
AMANPOUR: What did he see in you? I know what you saw in him and how you changed. But what did he see in this white young woman who had this apartheid history and who was a lowly typist?
LA GRANGE: Probably the opportunity for him to mold me, first of all. And he definitely recognized my commitment and loyalty, dedication, that's --
AMANPOUR: And those were paramount.
LA GRANGE: -- and those were paramount. And they were definitely needed for the job, the fact that I could dedicate myself 500 percent to the job is what worked for that position and what he needed.
And then I would like to think maybe my sense of humor as well. We shared a very similar sense of humor. So I think, you know, that all worked well together.
AMANPOUR: And we've all heard that he was the only person who could call Queen Elizabeth II "Elizabeth", is that right?
LA GRANGE: Yes, that's right. It's most fascinating to watch and Ms. Machel (ph) at one point said to Madiba, "You can't call her Elizabeth," and then Madiba responded and he said, "Well, she calls me Nelson."
So I think they recognized each other as human beings, each other's humanity. And I think the Queen enjoyed that really.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Zelda La Grange recalling Mandela's humanity in her book, "Good Morning, Mr. Mandela".
Today though South Africa is on the cusp of another critical election. And Mandela's beloved African National Congress could lose its majority for the very first time since his own historic win with crime and corruption front and center for voters.
Now when we come back remembering an American giant of journalism, who was held hostage for years in the Middle East.
[11:53:46]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Before we leave you, we want to remember an American journalist who was made to suffer intensely for his craft. Terry Anderson died this week at the age of 76.
Hed been taken hostage in Beirut by Hezbollah militants in 1985, while on assignment for the Associated Press. Helped by his Christian faith, he survived nearly seven years in captivity, much of it chained and in solitary confinement.
His daughters Sulome (ph), was born while he was being held hostage. So the first time they ever met, she was already six years old. They both told me about that extraordinary moment when I spoke to them back in 2016.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SULOME ANDERSON, DAUGHTER OF JOURNALIST TERRY ANDERSON: We flew, to Damascus where I immediately fell asleep on a couch in the American embassy and my father woke me up and it was quite a defining moment in my life.
TERRY ANDERSON, JOURNALIST HELD HOSTAGE BY HEZBOLLAH: It was a tremendously joyous moment, but I realized now and I think you can see it if you look at all these pictures carefully, I was in some form of shock.
It had been hours since I was in a cell chained to the wall and suddenly I'm here in Damascus and meeting my daughter and talking to the president and then press conference and the lights. It was just -- it was quite an impact. (END VIDEO CLIP)
[11:59:52]
AMANPOUR: He was the longest-held American journalist. He was also a former Marine, A veteran of the Vietnam War. And after his release, he taught journalism at a number of universities.
Sulome said that her father would want to be remembered for his humanitarian work for many causes, including the protection of journalists.
And that is all we have time for this week. Don't forget, you can find all our shows online as podcasts at CNN.com/podcast, and on all other major platform.
I'm Christiana Amanpour in London. Thank you for watching and see you again next week.
