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U.S.-Led Forces Making Progress in Falluja; Clinton Presidential Library Unveiled
Aired November 18, 2004 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: U.S. and Iraqi forces discover a bomb-making facility in Falluja. They came across this SUV with a Texas registration sticker in the process of being converted into a big bomb. Troops had been conducting door-to-door searches in the area following a major offensive in Falluja.
A deadly mistake. Israel is apologizing for a shooting incident along the Egyptian-Gaza border in which three Egyptian police officers were killed. The Israeli military say police were near a terror cell that was laying explosives. Israeli soldiers opened fire. An Israeli statement says Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak a full investigation. The statement also said Mr. Mubarak accepted the Israeli apology.
An ominous warning. An FDA official says the American public virtually defenseless against drugs like Vioxx. David Graham told a congressional committee the regulatory agency is not structured to protect the public against Vioxx. They drug's maker, Merck & Co., pulled the medication from the market in September, that after a study indicating the painkiller doubled the risk of heart attacks.
Presidents past and present, pop stars, other luminaries in Little Rock, Arkansas, for the dedication for the Clinton Presidential Library, President Bush, his father as well, former President Jimmy Carter there. The building is a two-story glass and steel structure that Britain's "Economist" magazine referred to as a glorified house trailer.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Now we're hearing from a top Marine in Falluja who says the recent offensive has -- quote -- "broken the back" of Iraq's insurgencies. Lieutenant General John Sattler today said that the rebels have been disrupted across Iraq by losing their base of operations.
CNN's Jane Arraf has more on what's going on in Falluja.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: U.S. Army troops going street by street, door to door in the southeast of Falluja have made some startling finds. One of them, a house where 500 pound bombs were dropped, where inside they say they have found evidence of lieutenants of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi and links to al Qaeda.
They tell us that they have a letter from Zarqawi to the people in the house, directing them as to what to do. And other letters written to Zarqawi, asking for money and asking for aid.
On the wall of the house that we were taken to is the symbol and writing of al Qaeda, allegiance they say, of the people inside there.
It's not known whether they were killed or whether they were escaped. But near the site, there are bodies of fighters who have not yet been identified.
And in the industrial section, as Task Force 22 from the 1st Infantry Division continues to break down door after door in that section, they have uncovered what appear to be a suicide car bomb factory.
Beyond these doors in an ordinary looking factory was an American Suburban-style vehicle, brand new with a Texas registration sticker. No license plates but in a back room there were a variety of Iraqi license plates.
Part of the vehicle had been dismantled, and nearby were bags of chemicals that could be used for explosives. There were other car parts, as well, doors taken off to put explosives into, according to the U.S. soldiers.
And just next to that, anti-aircraft parts in the process of being assembled. They say it appeared to be an anti-aircraft battery repair shop, which included a blackboard, chairs and instructions as to how to shoot down a plane.
They are still sifting through all of this, but they continue to make these finds as they break down the doors in southern Falluja.
Jane Arraf, CNN, reporting from Falluja.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Well, officials may consider Falluja technically a liberated city, but many of its residents see nothing more than a ghost town in ruins, they themselves refugees.
Britain's Channel 4 News correspondent Lindsey Hilsum has been doing some extraordinary reporting.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LINDSEY HILSUM, ITN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A family who somehow survived the battle of Falluja emerges from the rubble. They say the front of their apartment block was bombed so they hid in the back.
The Americans are still taking people out of town. They drop them north of Falluja where they can go to the village of Sahawia (ph) now housing 4,000 extra families.
Only a little aid has got through there. It's still hostile territory for the Americans and most Falluja families are dependent on friends and relatives. The refugees are given some water, a little food and money and sent on their way. Father and daughter are alone now. His other two children were killed.
The people aren't being allowed back into Falluja, only teams of Iraqi men, supervised by Marines, going to collect bodies. Rotting corpses spread disease so the refugees can't return until the streets have been cleared. So far, they've collected only 50 bodies but there are thought to be at least 1,000 more in the streets, the houses and hidden under rubble.
The devastation of Falluja is immense. Houses reduced to rubble by aerial bombs, streets where each building has been hit by a tank round. The Americans are going to offer compensation and help rebuild but it will take years and millions and livelihoods, family heirlooms and memories can't be so easily restored.
(on camera): This is the road from Baghdad to the Jordanian border, now littered with the debris of war. The shops on either side have been trashed. The Americans say that they've liberated Falluja for its people but we've yet to see what the people of Falluja think about that.
(voice-over): No question the people suffered under the insurgent groups which ran Falluja before the Americans came in but that doesn't mean they'll thank those who destroyed much of their city in order to save it.
Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4 News, Falluja.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: And, still, there are attacks in other parts of Iraq. Iraq's third largest city, for example, is once again described, well, as quieter today after a recent spate of insurgent activity. Masked fighters still can be seen in parts of Mosul, though, but there attacks began to wane after hundreds of U.S. soldiers mounted a show of force this week.
Today, the local governor's home was hit by a series of rebel mortar rounds that left three staff members wounded.
Now, in Baghdad, another car bomb exploded today. That blast went off near an emergency police station. An Iraqi police official says two people were killed and five were wounded in that attack. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. military on possible U.S. casualties.
Now we want to go to a developing story I was telling you about, about a half-hour ago out of Seattle, Washington, word of several terror-related arrests. Police and federal agents swarmed in on that building today as part of a joint anti-terror operation. The FBI tells us there were several arrests, 10, according to the Associated Press. The AP says the suspects are being held for investigation of immigration, bank fraud and weapons charges. We're going to bring you more on this developing story, of course, as we get those details.
O'BRIEN: It rained today on Bill Clinton and all the other guests on the grounds of his newly minted library. The weather aside, the official dedication went on.
CNN's Sean Callebs is there, and he's wet just like everybody else.
Hello, Sean.
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Miles, indeed.
And I would say punctuality really wasn't a trademark of the Clinton administration, but for most part this went off on schedule today, perhaps the elements certainly playing into that. Right now, President Clinton and a number of the invited guests presumably inside the library taking it all in, a number of dignitaries on hand today, political, diplomatic, even a couple rock stars.
And behind me, you see this new modern structure extending out over the Arkansas River. And, of course, it is meant to symbolize Former President Clinton's desire to build a bridge to the 21st century.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CALLEBS (voice-over): Gray skies and a steady drizzle, not exactly the way organizers hoped to unveil the $165 million Bill Clinton Presidential Library, umbrellas and makeshift rain gear the fashion of the day. Little Rock and the former president had been planning for this day for months.
WILLIAM J. CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want young people to want to see not only what I did with my life, but to see what they could do with their lives.
CALLEBS: Music, drums, pageantry and at one time about 30,000 people on hand for the star-studded celebration, including former Presidents Jimmy Carter and George Bush, as well as the current president.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The William J. Clinton Presidential Library is a gift to the future by a man who always believed in the future.
CALLEBS: The steel and glass structure contains 80 million presidential items, many detailing the president's effort to bring peace to the Northern Ireland and the Middle East. There's also a replica of the Clinton Oval Office. The library shows his administration, warts and all. Exhibits are dedicated to the Clinton impeachment proceedings, the prolonged Whitewater investigation, as well as the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CALLEBS: And when you talk about those 80 million presidential items, most of them are documents, but there are 75,000 artifacts, including some of the former president's saxophones.
Now, Little Rock is embracing this modern design, if some are questioning it. It was also interesting to hear from former President Bush and talking about former President Clinton, saying, as ex- presidents, they share a bond that few can really understand. And he said it's also interesting to see how over the years political adversaries can become good friends -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Sean Callebs in Little Rock, thank you very much -- Carol.
LIN: Well, Miles, will history be kind to President Clinton? I'm going to talk about that with presidential historian Rick Shenkman straight ahead.
Bus passengers spring into the driver's seat after the driver has a heart attack. The rest of that story straight ahead. That's after a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: All right, we watched the ceremonies live right here on CNN, as President Bill Clinton's library officially opened in Little Rock, Arkansas.
But what exactly is inside and what is not that perhaps should be?
Well, joining to talk to me about that from New York and to talk about the Clinton legacy, presidential historian Rick Shenkman.
Rick, you watched the ceremony. I'm just wondering, what did you think of the four presidents standing on stage and, frankly, some of the jokes that a few of them cracked about one another?
RICK SHENKMAN, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, earlier, Hillary Clinton said in an interview that this is a day of unity for the country. And it really is when you see all those presidents lined up, some of whom had run against each other. This is one of those estate occasions.
It's interesting. It's almost become like a State of the Union address. You have a presidential library and all of a sudden you have got these ex-presidents there, and it feels like an official moment. Of course, half-a-century ago, we never had any of this kind of thing happen. This is all part of the imperial presidency. It's the pomp and circumstance.
LIN: Pomp and circumstance and a lot of rain, frankly, today. But it didn't dampen the spirit out there.
Take a look at what's inside, actually, and the message that you think Bill Clinton wants to send about his two terms in the White House, everything from a pair of sunglasses to some, what, two million photographs, 80 million pages of documents, which President Clinton even said today he was going to release early 100,000 pages. This man has a lot to say about his administration and, in fact, the defense of history during those eight years. SHENKMAN: Well, you know, this is a boon and a bane to historians. When they talk about 80 million documents, I can tell you, presidential historians are sitting there thinking, yippee, that's great.
(LAUGHTER)
SHENKMAN: And they're also thinking, ye gads, 80 million documents. Not in my lifetime am I going to be able to get through all of that. For those who want to investigate one particular thing or the other, thank goodness there are archivists who will be able to divide it up by subject. And we'll only have to look in this box, rather than that box.
Presidential libraries are all about a president getting to tell people this is history as I see it. You know, history is not the truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth. History is the truth as the person who's writing it sees it. Normally, we have the victors writing the history books. With presidential libraries, the president gets to write their own history. It's very much fun that way.
LIN: Up to a certain point, though, in a couple of cases. For example, President Lyndon Johnson, there had to be additions to his library after more was discovered about what really happened during the Vietnam War, and the same with Ronald Reagan once the Iran-Contra scandal was flushed out in congressional hearings.
SHENKMAN: Well, they don't really have to do anything.
If you take a look at the Kennedy Library, for instance, beginning in the 1970s is when we started getting all the stories about John Kennedy being a womanizer. He was sleeping with the mistress of one of the leading mobsters in the country. He had been blackmailed over this by J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI. The Kennedy Library decided, OK, we do need to revamp the library, but we're not going to tell this story.
Instead, they got around it in a very fascinating way. What they decided to do was, we are going to tell the story of John Kennedy through his own words. Well, since he had never acknowledged or talked in public about any of these kind of matters, they didn't have to talk about it.
LIN: But do we know everything there is to know about Bill Clinton right now? Do you think there is an opportunity in the future for a revisionist?
SHENKMAN: Well, there is still plenty of opportunity for revisionism. We don't know everything there is to know about Bill Clinton, any more than we did, for instance, about Dwight Eisenhower. Twenty years after Ike left office, we got ahold of his diaries. We started going through them. And it was fascinating.
The historical record changed on Eisenhower. He had been regarded as kind of a president who spent his time in the White House. They called it eight years of golfing and goofing. We revised the record on the basis of the diaries and memos and said, wait a minute, this was a guy who was really in charge. And with Bill Clinton, who knows what we're going to find in there?
The thing that I would be most interested in finding out is, did impeachment in 1998 cause him to lose focus on the war on terrorism? We know that they were holding meetings. They were appointing Dick Clarke their counterterrorism czar. They were doing all kinds of things, but did it -- was there a price, in other words, to impeachment? We, living through it, watching it on television, we saw it almost as opera buffa. Once we saw it wasn't going to win a two- thirds vote in the Senate, we knew it just kind of opera buffa.
LIN: Right.
SHENKMAN: But there was a serious price, perhaps.
LIN: Maybe.
SHENKMAN: That's one of the things to be looking for.
LIN: We will be in the years to come.
Thanks very much, Rick Shenkman.
SHENKMAN: All right. Thank you.
O'BRIEN: A bus packed with passengers perilously close to the edge of a bridge. The only thing between the bus and the precipice and the waters below, shark-infested, no doubt, was a quick-thinking passenger.
Reporter Nancy Johnson of our affiliate WTSP has our story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NANCY JOHNSON, WTSP REPORTER (voice-over): The Amtrak bus was heading north on the Skyway Bridge.
KENNETH MCALLISTER, PASSENGER: Then, all of sudden, I heard the bus hit the wall. So I then quick looked up there and there was no bus driver.
JOHNSON: The driver had blacked out. Ken McAllister knew they were in trouble.
LOVEE WATTS, PASSENGER: Ken said, grab the wheel. I grabbed the wheel. He came in, put his foot on the brakes, and God was with us. It was a collaborative effort.
MARY LOU MCALLISTER, PASSENGER: He got up there and got behind the wheel, because there was no bus driver, because he has killed over.
K. MCALLISTER: If he was still in the seat, I couldn't have done it, because his head was laying on the stairs and his head must have been down there for at least 10 minutes.
JOHNSON: Traffic on the Skyway Bridge was at a standstill. Two nurses stopped to offer the driver medical attention, but it took a while for them to get on the bus.
K. MCALLISTER: The bus driver, his head was down by the door and the more we tried to get the door open, the more his head hit the floor.
WATTS: They actually revived him twice, I heard, catching some breath, because he was purple. He had lost breath. But we got him out of the bus.
JOHNSON: These passengers consider their survival nothing short of a miracle.
ROSEANNE SIERCHIO, PASSENGER: I just got a beautiful blessed angel in my luggage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And it came in handy.
JOHNSON: Nancy Johnson, Tampa Bay's 10 News.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: And we thank Nancy, WTSP, place where I used to work.
We've learned that the bus driver ultimately, unfortunately, died at the hospital a few hours after that incident. And thanks again to the affiliate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: An alarming statement today from a government drug safety watchdog. He said the Food and Drug Administration cannot protect Americans against potentially dangerous pharmaceuticals once those drugs are approved.
The accusation came at a Senate committee hearing about the painkiller Vioxx, which was pulled from the market last September amid links to heart attacks. Here's what the official said in his testimony today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID GRAHAM, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION: Today, in 2004, we are faced with what may be the single greatest drug safety catastrophe in the history of this country. I strongly believe that this should have been and largely could have been avoided, but it wasn't. And over 100,000 Americans have paid dearly for this failure. In my opinion, the FDA has let the American people down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Now, that official also said that, when he warned of the risks of Vioxx, he was pressured by higher-ups to adjust his conclusions. We should look into that a little bit more, I think. That's quite a story there.
LIN: I think that's exactly what Congress is supposed to be doing.
(FINANCIAL UPDATE)
O'BRIEN: Well, that wraps up this edition of LIVE FROM. I'm Miles O'Brien.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired November 18, 2004 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: U.S. and Iraqi forces discover a bomb-making facility in Falluja. They came across this SUV with a Texas registration sticker in the process of being converted into a big bomb. Troops had been conducting door-to-door searches in the area following a major offensive in Falluja.
A deadly mistake. Israel is apologizing for a shooting incident along the Egyptian-Gaza border in which three Egyptian police officers were killed. The Israeli military say police were near a terror cell that was laying explosives. Israeli soldiers opened fire. An Israeli statement says Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak a full investigation. The statement also said Mr. Mubarak accepted the Israeli apology.
An ominous warning. An FDA official says the American public virtually defenseless against drugs like Vioxx. David Graham told a congressional committee the regulatory agency is not structured to protect the public against Vioxx. They drug's maker, Merck & Co., pulled the medication from the market in September, that after a study indicating the painkiller doubled the risk of heart attacks.
Presidents past and present, pop stars, other luminaries in Little Rock, Arkansas, for the dedication for the Clinton Presidential Library, President Bush, his father as well, former President Jimmy Carter there. The building is a two-story glass and steel structure that Britain's "Economist" magazine referred to as a glorified house trailer.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Now we're hearing from a top Marine in Falluja who says the recent offensive has -- quote -- "broken the back" of Iraq's insurgencies. Lieutenant General John Sattler today said that the rebels have been disrupted across Iraq by losing their base of operations.
CNN's Jane Arraf has more on what's going on in Falluja.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: U.S. Army troops going street by street, door to door in the southeast of Falluja have made some startling finds. One of them, a house where 500 pound bombs were dropped, where inside they say they have found evidence of lieutenants of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi and links to al Qaeda.
They tell us that they have a letter from Zarqawi to the people in the house, directing them as to what to do. And other letters written to Zarqawi, asking for money and asking for aid.
On the wall of the house that we were taken to is the symbol and writing of al Qaeda, allegiance they say, of the people inside there.
It's not known whether they were killed or whether they were escaped. But near the site, there are bodies of fighters who have not yet been identified.
And in the industrial section, as Task Force 22 from the 1st Infantry Division continues to break down door after door in that section, they have uncovered what appear to be a suicide car bomb factory.
Beyond these doors in an ordinary looking factory was an American Suburban-style vehicle, brand new with a Texas registration sticker. No license plates but in a back room there were a variety of Iraqi license plates.
Part of the vehicle had been dismantled, and nearby were bags of chemicals that could be used for explosives. There were other car parts, as well, doors taken off to put explosives into, according to the U.S. soldiers.
And just next to that, anti-aircraft parts in the process of being assembled. They say it appeared to be an anti-aircraft battery repair shop, which included a blackboard, chairs and instructions as to how to shoot down a plane.
They are still sifting through all of this, but they continue to make these finds as they break down the doors in southern Falluja.
Jane Arraf, CNN, reporting from Falluja.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Well, officials may consider Falluja technically a liberated city, but many of its residents see nothing more than a ghost town in ruins, they themselves refugees.
Britain's Channel 4 News correspondent Lindsey Hilsum has been doing some extraordinary reporting.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LINDSEY HILSUM, ITN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A family who somehow survived the battle of Falluja emerges from the rubble. They say the front of their apartment block was bombed so they hid in the back.
The Americans are still taking people out of town. They drop them north of Falluja where they can go to the village of Sahawia (ph) now housing 4,000 extra families.
Only a little aid has got through there. It's still hostile territory for the Americans and most Falluja families are dependent on friends and relatives. The refugees are given some water, a little food and money and sent on their way. Father and daughter are alone now. His other two children were killed.
The people aren't being allowed back into Falluja, only teams of Iraqi men, supervised by Marines, going to collect bodies. Rotting corpses spread disease so the refugees can't return until the streets have been cleared. So far, they've collected only 50 bodies but there are thought to be at least 1,000 more in the streets, the houses and hidden under rubble.
The devastation of Falluja is immense. Houses reduced to rubble by aerial bombs, streets where each building has been hit by a tank round. The Americans are going to offer compensation and help rebuild but it will take years and millions and livelihoods, family heirlooms and memories can't be so easily restored.
(on camera): This is the road from Baghdad to the Jordanian border, now littered with the debris of war. The shops on either side have been trashed. The Americans say that they've liberated Falluja for its people but we've yet to see what the people of Falluja think about that.
(voice-over): No question the people suffered under the insurgent groups which ran Falluja before the Americans came in but that doesn't mean they'll thank those who destroyed much of their city in order to save it.
Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4 News, Falluja.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: And, still, there are attacks in other parts of Iraq. Iraq's third largest city, for example, is once again described, well, as quieter today after a recent spate of insurgent activity. Masked fighters still can be seen in parts of Mosul, though, but there attacks began to wane after hundreds of U.S. soldiers mounted a show of force this week.
Today, the local governor's home was hit by a series of rebel mortar rounds that left three staff members wounded.
Now, in Baghdad, another car bomb exploded today. That blast went off near an emergency police station. An Iraqi police official says two people were killed and five were wounded in that attack. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. military on possible U.S. casualties.
Now we want to go to a developing story I was telling you about, about a half-hour ago out of Seattle, Washington, word of several terror-related arrests. Police and federal agents swarmed in on that building today as part of a joint anti-terror operation. The FBI tells us there were several arrests, 10, according to the Associated Press. The AP says the suspects are being held for investigation of immigration, bank fraud and weapons charges. We're going to bring you more on this developing story, of course, as we get those details.
O'BRIEN: It rained today on Bill Clinton and all the other guests on the grounds of his newly minted library. The weather aside, the official dedication went on.
CNN's Sean Callebs is there, and he's wet just like everybody else.
Hello, Sean.
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Miles, indeed.
And I would say punctuality really wasn't a trademark of the Clinton administration, but for most part this went off on schedule today, perhaps the elements certainly playing into that. Right now, President Clinton and a number of the invited guests presumably inside the library taking it all in, a number of dignitaries on hand today, political, diplomatic, even a couple rock stars.
And behind me, you see this new modern structure extending out over the Arkansas River. And, of course, it is meant to symbolize Former President Clinton's desire to build a bridge to the 21st century.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CALLEBS (voice-over): Gray skies and a steady drizzle, not exactly the way organizers hoped to unveil the $165 million Bill Clinton Presidential Library, umbrellas and makeshift rain gear the fashion of the day. Little Rock and the former president had been planning for this day for months.
WILLIAM J. CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want young people to want to see not only what I did with my life, but to see what they could do with their lives.
CALLEBS: Music, drums, pageantry and at one time about 30,000 people on hand for the star-studded celebration, including former Presidents Jimmy Carter and George Bush, as well as the current president.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The William J. Clinton Presidential Library is a gift to the future by a man who always believed in the future.
CALLEBS: The steel and glass structure contains 80 million presidential items, many detailing the president's effort to bring peace to the Northern Ireland and the Middle East. There's also a replica of the Clinton Oval Office. The library shows his administration, warts and all. Exhibits are dedicated to the Clinton impeachment proceedings, the prolonged Whitewater investigation, as well as the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CALLEBS: And when you talk about those 80 million presidential items, most of them are documents, but there are 75,000 artifacts, including some of the former president's saxophones.
Now, Little Rock is embracing this modern design, if some are questioning it. It was also interesting to hear from former President Bush and talking about former President Clinton, saying, as ex- presidents, they share a bond that few can really understand. And he said it's also interesting to see how over the years political adversaries can become good friends -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Sean Callebs in Little Rock, thank you very much -- Carol.
LIN: Well, Miles, will history be kind to President Clinton? I'm going to talk about that with presidential historian Rick Shenkman straight ahead.
Bus passengers spring into the driver's seat after the driver has a heart attack. The rest of that story straight ahead. That's after a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: All right, we watched the ceremonies live right here on CNN, as President Bill Clinton's library officially opened in Little Rock, Arkansas.
But what exactly is inside and what is not that perhaps should be?
Well, joining to talk to me about that from New York and to talk about the Clinton legacy, presidential historian Rick Shenkman.
Rick, you watched the ceremony. I'm just wondering, what did you think of the four presidents standing on stage and, frankly, some of the jokes that a few of them cracked about one another?
RICK SHENKMAN, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, earlier, Hillary Clinton said in an interview that this is a day of unity for the country. And it really is when you see all those presidents lined up, some of whom had run against each other. This is one of those estate occasions.
It's interesting. It's almost become like a State of the Union address. You have a presidential library and all of a sudden you have got these ex-presidents there, and it feels like an official moment. Of course, half-a-century ago, we never had any of this kind of thing happen. This is all part of the imperial presidency. It's the pomp and circumstance.
LIN: Pomp and circumstance and a lot of rain, frankly, today. But it didn't dampen the spirit out there.
Take a look at what's inside, actually, and the message that you think Bill Clinton wants to send about his two terms in the White House, everything from a pair of sunglasses to some, what, two million photographs, 80 million pages of documents, which President Clinton even said today he was going to release early 100,000 pages. This man has a lot to say about his administration and, in fact, the defense of history during those eight years. SHENKMAN: Well, you know, this is a boon and a bane to historians. When they talk about 80 million documents, I can tell you, presidential historians are sitting there thinking, yippee, that's great.
(LAUGHTER)
SHENKMAN: And they're also thinking, ye gads, 80 million documents. Not in my lifetime am I going to be able to get through all of that. For those who want to investigate one particular thing or the other, thank goodness there are archivists who will be able to divide it up by subject. And we'll only have to look in this box, rather than that box.
Presidential libraries are all about a president getting to tell people this is history as I see it. You know, history is not the truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth. History is the truth as the person who's writing it sees it. Normally, we have the victors writing the history books. With presidential libraries, the president gets to write their own history. It's very much fun that way.
LIN: Up to a certain point, though, in a couple of cases. For example, President Lyndon Johnson, there had to be additions to his library after more was discovered about what really happened during the Vietnam War, and the same with Ronald Reagan once the Iran-Contra scandal was flushed out in congressional hearings.
SHENKMAN: Well, they don't really have to do anything.
If you take a look at the Kennedy Library, for instance, beginning in the 1970s is when we started getting all the stories about John Kennedy being a womanizer. He was sleeping with the mistress of one of the leading mobsters in the country. He had been blackmailed over this by J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI. The Kennedy Library decided, OK, we do need to revamp the library, but we're not going to tell this story.
Instead, they got around it in a very fascinating way. What they decided to do was, we are going to tell the story of John Kennedy through his own words. Well, since he had never acknowledged or talked in public about any of these kind of matters, they didn't have to talk about it.
LIN: But do we know everything there is to know about Bill Clinton right now? Do you think there is an opportunity in the future for a revisionist?
SHENKMAN: Well, there is still plenty of opportunity for revisionism. We don't know everything there is to know about Bill Clinton, any more than we did, for instance, about Dwight Eisenhower. Twenty years after Ike left office, we got ahold of his diaries. We started going through them. And it was fascinating.
The historical record changed on Eisenhower. He had been regarded as kind of a president who spent his time in the White House. They called it eight years of golfing and goofing. We revised the record on the basis of the diaries and memos and said, wait a minute, this was a guy who was really in charge. And with Bill Clinton, who knows what we're going to find in there?
The thing that I would be most interested in finding out is, did impeachment in 1998 cause him to lose focus on the war on terrorism? We know that they were holding meetings. They were appointing Dick Clarke their counterterrorism czar. They were doing all kinds of things, but did it -- was there a price, in other words, to impeachment? We, living through it, watching it on television, we saw it almost as opera buffa. Once we saw it wasn't going to win a two- thirds vote in the Senate, we knew it just kind of opera buffa.
LIN: Right.
SHENKMAN: But there was a serious price, perhaps.
LIN: Maybe.
SHENKMAN: That's one of the things to be looking for.
LIN: We will be in the years to come.
Thanks very much, Rick Shenkman.
SHENKMAN: All right. Thank you.
O'BRIEN: A bus packed with passengers perilously close to the edge of a bridge. The only thing between the bus and the precipice and the waters below, shark-infested, no doubt, was a quick-thinking passenger.
Reporter Nancy Johnson of our affiliate WTSP has our story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NANCY JOHNSON, WTSP REPORTER (voice-over): The Amtrak bus was heading north on the Skyway Bridge.
KENNETH MCALLISTER, PASSENGER: Then, all of sudden, I heard the bus hit the wall. So I then quick looked up there and there was no bus driver.
JOHNSON: The driver had blacked out. Ken McAllister knew they were in trouble.
LOVEE WATTS, PASSENGER: Ken said, grab the wheel. I grabbed the wheel. He came in, put his foot on the brakes, and God was with us. It was a collaborative effort.
MARY LOU MCALLISTER, PASSENGER: He got up there and got behind the wheel, because there was no bus driver, because he has killed over.
K. MCALLISTER: If he was still in the seat, I couldn't have done it, because his head was laying on the stairs and his head must have been down there for at least 10 minutes.
JOHNSON: Traffic on the Skyway Bridge was at a standstill. Two nurses stopped to offer the driver medical attention, but it took a while for them to get on the bus.
K. MCALLISTER: The bus driver, his head was down by the door and the more we tried to get the door open, the more his head hit the floor.
WATTS: They actually revived him twice, I heard, catching some breath, because he was purple. He had lost breath. But we got him out of the bus.
JOHNSON: These passengers consider their survival nothing short of a miracle.
ROSEANNE SIERCHIO, PASSENGER: I just got a beautiful blessed angel in my luggage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And it came in handy.
JOHNSON: Nancy Johnson, Tampa Bay's 10 News.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: And we thank Nancy, WTSP, place where I used to work.
We've learned that the bus driver ultimately, unfortunately, died at the hospital a few hours after that incident. And thanks again to the affiliate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: An alarming statement today from a government drug safety watchdog. He said the Food and Drug Administration cannot protect Americans against potentially dangerous pharmaceuticals once those drugs are approved.
The accusation came at a Senate committee hearing about the painkiller Vioxx, which was pulled from the market last September amid links to heart attacks. Here's what the official said in his testimony today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID GRAHAM, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION: Today, in 2004, we are faced with what may be the single greatest drug safety catastrophe in the history of this country. I strongly believe that this should have been and largely could have been avoided, but it wasn't. And over 100,000 Americans have paid dearly for this failure. In my opinion, the FDA has let the American people down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Now, that official also said that, when he warned of the risks of Vioxx, he was pressured by higher-ups to adjust his conclusions. We should look into that a little bit more, I think. That's quite a story there.
LIN: I think that's exactly what Congress is supposed to be doing.
(FINANCIAL UPDATE)
O'BRIEN: Well, that wraps up this edition of LIVE FROM. I'm Miles O'Brien.
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