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Remembering John F. Kennedy; John Kerry to Attend Iran Nuclear Talks; California Health Care Success

Aired November 22, 2013 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Brooke Baldwin here, and 50 years ago today, the nation suffered one of the most heartbreaking, yet unifying events in modern history, the assassination of president John F. Kennedy.

The 35th president was in the Oval Office for just 1,000 days, but in that short time, his Camelot captivated the country. And a wall of admirers lined the streets there in Dallas to see him and his wife in that motorcade driven through Dealey Plaza in Dallas. The date was November 22, 1963.

Then, at the age of 46, he was gunned down. The nation wept. People went home, schools closed. And for days, the country was at a standstill as JFK was laid to rest. As flags at the White House and Capitol Building fly at half-staff today, President Obama has declared this day one of remembrance.

People observed the day at Arlington National Cemetery, where President Kennedy is buried. A wreath was laid in his honor, live pictures of the Eternal Flame there. And the president's only living sibling look part in the commemoration as well.

The wreath was placed near Arlington's Eternal Flame, as you see here. It's a symbol dedicated to JFK under his wife's instructions.

The city of Dallas joining in the commemorations pausing for a moment of silence about an hour-and-a-half ago, the moment Americans lost their leader 50 years ago today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen, would you join me in a moment of silence in honor of the life of John Fitzgerald Kennedy?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: This is the first time the city of Dallas has actually officially observed the assassination itself.

Our chief national correspondent, John King, is live for us in the city.

And, John, in terms of even the city itself, it's really struggled with how to recognize this anniversary, you know, 50 years later.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It has struggled, Brooke.

I want to show you a reproduction. This is "The Dallas Morning News" of 50 years ago tomorrow, 50 years ago tomorrow...

BALDWIN: Oh, wow.

KING: ... recounting the assassination. And you see it right there, "Kennedy Slain on Dallas Street." It's the "on Dallas Street" part that made it so hard for the city for 50 years.

It was labeled the city of hate after the assassination. Several of the speakers at the ceremony today talked about how Dallas struggled with its reputation back then, struggled with guilt at what had happened to the beloved president right here in Dealey Plaza 50 years ago, so quite a solemn ceremony, prayers for the former president, some readings of some of his speeches by the historian David McCullough.

As you noted, a moment of silence, and then the bells tolling at 12:30 p.m. local time, 1:30 in the East. That's the moment the bullet struck JFK here in Dealey Plaza. And important to remember, Brooke, 50 years ago in this hour, 50 years ago in this hour, as we speak, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested at the Texas theater not far -- just on the outskirts of Dallas here, where he was watching a movie play.

It was at the bottom of the hour, 2:38 local time, 3:38 in the East, when Lyndon Johnson took the official oath of office and became the 36th president of the United States. He had been the de facto president for about an hour-and-a-half because President Kennedy had been pronounced dead at about 1:00 local here.

But it's interesting. You mentioned, never before had Dallas had a ceremony on any of the anniversaries. But the local political leadership thought it was quite important. And it was a short ceremony, relatively brief, but a quite moving and solemn ceremony as Dallas paid tribute, and of course around the country, people are paying tribute today to the horrible tragedy of 50 years ago.

BALDWIN: Let me ask you this, John, just on a personal note you grew up in Boston, of course, President Kennedy's hometown. What are your reflections today here 50 years later?

KING: I was a week shy of three months old, so I have no personal memory. My mom, who we lost a long time ago, used to tell me that I was on her lap most of the day as she sat in the living room watching the television reports, and she was horrified.

Growing up in an Irish-Catholic neighborhood in Boston, it was pretty common when you walked into a friend's house or in my house, maybe in the foyer, maybe in the dining room, maybe in the kitchen a picture of Jesus Christ and a picture of Jack Kennedy. That was pretty typical in a lot of Massachusetts and Boston households.

I covered the Kennedy family throughout my career. And it was interesting. The family made a conscious choice, Brooke, to have no representation at the ceremony today. They obviously don't like to talk about the assassination of Jack Kennedy.

They participated. You mentioned Jean Kennedy Smith at Arlington today. Ethel Kennedy was there with President Obama and President Clinton on Wednesday. But just look at this one. Caroline Kennedy, the surviving daughter of Jack Kennedy's family, she moved to Tokyo recently to become the U.S. ambassador, and make no mistake about the timing. She could have waited a few more days. She went there just in recent days.

But she wanted to be out of the country and starting her new job so she didn't have to be part of this. But I will say here in Dallas, you mentioned, they had the reputation of the city of hate. It's been a hard time for the city and I think the city deserves some credit for the very respectful ceremony here despite, as you can tell, some adverse weather conditions here in the city.

BALDWIN: It was beautiful. John King, thank you so much for us there in Dallas.

From the president to the former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy. She was known really around the world for her exquisite taste in fashion. But it was that pink suit, it was one of her favorites, and she was wearing that pink suit in Dallas 50 years ago today when her husband was assassinated.

And she was also wearing it hours later. John was just talking about Lyndon Johnson, blood stains and all here, where the vice president was since sworn in as president.

CNN's Randi Kaye has more on this pink suit that remains etched in the memories of so many Americans.

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RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In the words of President John F. Kennedy she looked smashing in it, which may be why the President asked Jackie Kennedy to wear her now famous watermelon pink suit to Dallas on November 22, 1963.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The usual welcoming committee presents Mrs. Kennedy with a bouquet of red roses.

KAYE: It looked like Coco Chanel but her suit was actually a knock off made in America. The First Lady had worn it at least six times before that fateful day. Here she is in 1962 awaiting the arrival of the Prime Minister of Algeria, that's John Junior in her arms.

In Dallas on November 22 at this Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce breakfast, the President even joked about his wife's fashion sense.

JOHN F. KENNEDY, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Nobody wonders what Lyndon and I wear.

KAYE: Later that day, President Kennedy would be dead, and the First Lady's stunning pink suit, stained forever with her husband's blood, would begin a long and mysterious journey. When aids suggested she change her clothes after the shooting, she refused. Philip Shenon wrote a book about the Kennedy assassination.

PHILIP SHENON, AUTHOR, "A CRUEL AND SHOCKING ACT": Her remark and I think she made it more than once "no, I'm going to leave these clothes on I want them to see what they have done.

KAYE: Hours later, Mrs. Kennedy continued to wear the suit during the emergency swearing in of Lyndon Johnson as president.

SHENON: That whole scene is obviously just surreal. She arrives in the cabin of Air Force One in these clothes covered with the President's blood and expected to stand there and witness the -- the swearing in of her husband's successor.

KAYE: Mrs. Kennedy was still in her suit when she arrived later that evening at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland where she received her husband's body. The President's brother at her side in the middle of the night.

Once at the White House, her personal maid put the suit in a bag so Mrs. Kennedy wouldn't have to look at it. Then, sometime in 1964, the blood-stained suit arrived here, at the National Archives Building in the nation's capitol. It came in a box along with a handwritten note from Jackie Kennedy's mother on her personal stationary. It read, simply, "Jackie's suit and bag, worn November 22, 1963."

KAYE (on camera): All this time Mrs. Kennedy's pink suit has been forbidden from public view and will likely stay that way for a very long time. In 2003 after her mother's death, Caroline Kennedy gave the suit to the people of the United States with the understanding that it wouldn't be put on public display for 100 years until 2103. And even then the Kennedy family must be consulted before any attempt is made to display the suit. All in an effort to avoid sensationalizing that horrible act.

(voice over): And it's believed only a handful of people, maybe only as few as two, have seen the suit since. Along with the suit and also hidden from view in the new archives in Maryland, the blue blouse Mrs. Kennedy wore in Dallas, her stockings, blue shoes, and blue purse. What they don't have is the First Lady's pink pill box hat.

SHENON: The hat is a mystery. The hat apparently goes to the Secret Service initially and the Secret Service turns it over to Mrs. Kennedy's private secretary and then it disappears. It has not been seen since.

KAYE: The archive is making every effort to preserve the suit. It's stored in a windowless vault in an acid free container where the air is changed every 20 minutes or so to properly maintain the wool and cloth. It is kept at a temperature of 65 to 68 degrees, which is best for the fabric.

The suit story, a perfect ending for a First Lady who craved privacy after so much pain.

Randi Kaye, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Randi, thank you.

Coming up here on CNN, tens of thousands of people in California enroll in the state's health care program, and so far, no glitches. What's their secret? We will talk about that next.

Also, convicted killer Charles Manson will be hearing wedding bells? You're hear from the woman who says she gets to be his bride-to-be. Don't miss that one.

And also later, the drug lab scandal that rocked the Massachusetts justice system. A chemist mishandled sensitive evidence, affecting thousands of state criminal cases going back a decade, and now her fate has been revealed.

You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: Got some breaking news just in to us at CNN. This is what we have learned with regard to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. We now know he's heading to Geneva to join these negotiations over Iran's nuclear program.

So let me go straight to our foreign affairs reporter Elise Labott joining me from the State Department.

Elise, what do we know?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki and issued a statement moments ago. Let me read you just a clip.

"After consulting with E.U. High Representative Ashton" -- that's the E.U. foreign policy chief that is running the show, really, the lead negotiator -- "and negotiating team on the ground, Secretary Kerry will travel to Geneva later today with the goal of continuing to narrow the differences and move closer to an agreement."

Now, Brooke, that doesn't mean that a deal is ready for Secretary Kerry to announce. We understand from the ground that there are still some gaps to narrow, particularly on whether in a deal that seems to be shaping up, that Iran would have the right, the explicit right in this agreement to enrich uranium.

BALDWIN: OK, Elise Labott for us at State Department, Elise, we will be looking for your reporting as you get more information here later on throughout the day.

Now to Obamacare. The Web site could take some pointers from California's state insurance exchange, because it's enrolled nearly 80,000 people. That's more than three times the number healthcare.gov has signed up so far. So, what's the secret here? Tom Foreman joins me from Washington to explain.

And so California enrolling thousands a day, yes?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They're doing pretty well in California right now.

But, remember, it's a huge, huge state. You can say that's like three times as much as another state in terms of the pool they have to draw for. But, nonetheless, Brooke, they're doing very well right now. Let's take a look at the map.

Federal exchanges in all the yellow states here, joint exchanges in the green, and the blue are the state exchanges alone. California has the White House and some real Obamacare supporters excited because right now they have about 10,000 people a day registering in California.

They have 360,000 accounts to date. Important to remember, this is just people getting set up to buy. And they have 80,000 who have actually signed up at this point. Still, that's a very important and impressive number for this administration, Brooke, which, as you know, has been looking for a success story anywhere.

So, put aside all the rhetoric, all the for, all the against. Raw numbers. California is where the gold is for this administration right now.

BALDWIN: So this is California. But, overall, is the program on track for reaching its goals?

FOREMAN: Overall is a bit of a different matter. I want to bring the numbers up here, because I think those really matter at this point. If you look at the long-term goal, which is seven million by March of next year, March 2014, right now, this is where they are. They only have about 3 percent signed up.

This is not necessarily dreadful, and I will explain why in a moment. But this is important. There's the goal. That's where they are right now. Beyond that, if you look at the short-term goal, which is what they wanted by December 1, they wanted about 800,000. These are projections made by the Congressional Budget Office. Right now, they're only at about 23 percent of this projection.

This is not good news for supporters of Obamacare if you're just looking for the sheer math of it. However, this is a worthwhile caveat in all of this. There have been these big Web sites problems. That has slowed down the early part of the process. Presumably, that does get fixed at some point, and all along, people have said, when you have programs like this and the models that are out there show there is a slow uptick at the beginning.

People generally don't leap out there and get after this. They take their time, they look at it, they establish an account, they consider it for a while, and they talk about it over the kitchen table, and then, then maybe they buy, and these numbers all start ticking up. But, right now, by the numbers, this is where Obamacare stands -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK, Tom Foreman, thank you.

Just a reminder to all of you. If you're signing up for this and you need a little time. At least we know one key deadline has been expended one week. If you want your coverage to begin the 1st of January, that deadline has been pushed back a week to December 23, just a heads-up for some of you.

Coming up, the drug lab scandal that rocked a Massachusetts justice system, a chemist mishandled sensitive evidence, affecting thousands of state criminal cases going back a decade, and now her fate has been revealed.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: A former Massachusetts state chemist will be spending no more than five years in prison for faking test results. I'm talking about Annie Dookhan. She entered a plea of guilty today.

And many of the samples she tampered with came from drug cases brought by police. Now thousands of those cases could be in jeopardy.

Here's CNN's Susan Candiotti.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Appearing grim, crime lab chemist Annie Dookhan is going to prison after her behavior helped put hundreds of people behind bars illegally.

Beyond pleading guilty, Dookhan made no personal comments about the havoc created by the scandal. In a lab similar to this one, Dookhan admits falsifying drug tests, for example, by adding cocaine to samples, tainting trial evidence. When she was finally caught last year, Dookhan tampered logs.

The result, look at all these faces, a fraction of the tens of thousands of people "Dookhaned," street slang for anyone whose evidence she handled, 300 convictions set aside in Boston alone.

MARTHA COAKLEY, MASSACHUSETTS, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Her actions turned the system on its head.

CANDIOTTI: A review of every case the chemist laid her hands on from 2003 to 2007 is still under way.

(on camera): In the court system, the fallout is staggering. Consider the numbers. According to a special counsel's report, more than 40,000 cases have been reviewed involving more than 86,000 drug samples and the analysis of more than five million documents.

(voice-over): At a cost to taxpayers of at least $7 million and climbing.

TIMOTHY CRUZ, PLYMOUTH COUNTY PROSECUTOR: When you throw a stone into a pond, there is a ripple effect.

CANDIOTTI: Arguably, the worst ripple effect felt by Plymouth County district attorney Timothy Cruz, because of Donta Hood. In 2009, a cocaine conviction put him behind bars for five years. But when the lab scandal exploded, Hood was set free, because Dookhan had lied on the stand about her credentials, claiming she had a master's degree in chemistry.

Eight months after he was sprung, Hood allegedly shot and killed Charles Evans in this parking lot in a fight over drugs. The victim's family declined to comment.

CRUZ: There's no bigger pain than somebody being released that goes out and kills someone.

CANDIOTTI: For cops on the beat like Stanley David, frustration.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's like a second -- like a pass. They think they -- they beat the system once. They think they can beat the system again.

CANDIOTTI: Which brings us to why. Why did Annie Dookhan it? She declined our request to explain, but her lawyer says the mother of a disabled son only wanted to help her career, taking shortcuts to get more cases done, never considering the consequences.

NICK GORDON, ATTORNEY FOR ANNIE DOOKHAN: The furthest thing from her mind is that this is going to ultimately cost millions of dollars, it's going to throw the entire Massachusetts criminal system into a tailspin and thousands of...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Which it has.

GORDON: Absolutely, it has.

CANDIOTTI: As Dookhan was led away to begin serving a minimum three- year sentence, authorities expect it could take at least that long to reconcile thousands of Dookhan cases and restore faith in the state's criminal justice system.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Susan Candiotti joins me now.

And, Susan, has Massachusetts done anything to prevent this from happening again?

CANDIOTTI: Well, Brooke, they have done a lot of things, including this. They have tried to tighten things up by making sure that all forensic testing from now on is being handled by the Massachusetts state police crime labs.

And they're also ordering all evidence to be stored indefinitely, which is creating a big space problem, because they could never go back and retry anyone because the evidence had been destroyed, Brooke. So they're trying to do the best they can. BALDWIN: Susan Candiotti, thank you very much for us in New York.

Coming up, charges have been dropped against those two teenage girls once accused of bullying a Florida girl who ultimately took her own life. And one of those teenagers spoke to CNN's "NEW DAY." We will have that for you. Also, what's next? We will talk to the sheriff in the case live next.

But, first, Thanksgiving is less than a week away. And here at CNN, we're preparing for our own holiday tradition. CNN Heroes, it's an all-star tribute. It's a celebration of the top 10 heroes of the year and their absolutely just extraordinary work at helping others. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, there, everybody. I'm Nischelle Turner, and I'm going to give you a backstage look at what it takes to put this whole CNN Heroes awards show together.

You ready for this? This is going to be cool. All right, come with me.

This year, we're back in New York, baby, at the American Museum of Natural History, where the very first "CNN HEROES" took place seven years ago.

KELLY FLYNN, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: I can't believe it's been that long. We're thrilled to be back here. It's iconic and beautiful.

TURNER: And the first stop of the night for these everyday heroes and celebrities -- the red carpet.

Wow. Look at it in here. Look at all these lights. You know, work like this takes hundreds of people to set up, working around the clock, and then the centerpiece of the evening. This year's "CNN HEROES" will be honored right here in the whale room, where one of the museum's biggest treasures will be watching over us all night. I'm talking about this lady right here.

That's not all that has to be done to get ready for this special event: 51 tables to set up, nine cameras to put in place and one giant video monitor.

JEFF KEPNES, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: You wouldn't believe just what it takes to put something like this on and you know we had about two days to bring it in and set it all up.

TURNER: Transforming this beautiful room from this to this all to honor ten everyday people who are changing the world.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: It's just a nice thing to honor these people. These people, they don't get the limelight. They don't get honored. They don't have celebrities saying their names and praising their work. It's a nice thing for them. It's a nice pat on the back.

TURNER: A pat on the back from CNN that becomes a very special night of inspiration.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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