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Captivity Ended

Aired January 20, 2006 - 13:30   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Money, what money? Iran is said to be transferring oil proceeds from Western banks to Southeast Asian banks ahead of possible economic sanctions over its nuclear program. Last week Iran broke the seals at a uranium-enrichment plant, sparking fears it's trying to develop a nuke. Well, the International Atomic Energy Agency plans an emergency meeting February 2nd, in which the standoff could be referred to the U.N. Security Council.
Twenty-five years ago today, January 20, 1981, Iran released 52 U.S. citizens who had been hostages for more than a year.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS (voice-over): The Iran hostage crisis began on November 4, 1979 after the fall of the Shah Muhammad Resa Kalavev (ph). Angered by America's longtime support for the Shah, followers of the Ayatollah Khomeni's Islamic Revolution stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Fifty-two Americans would be held captive for 444 days. Americans prayed, put up yellow ribbons. Walter Kronkite even ended his newscast every night by reminding his audience how many days the hostages had been held.

Americans were angry and frustrated. President Jimmy Carter imposed trade sanctions and froze Iranian assets in the United States, but nothing happened.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President carter decided to act.

PHILLIPS: Then, in April 1980, Carter ordered a top-secret mission to free the hostages, but it ended in failure. Eight servicemen died when their helicopter collided with a plane in the Iranian desert. A few months later, Carter lost his re-election bid. People have said it was because he failed to bring the hostages home.

Then, right before the end of his term, Carter's administration negotiated with the Iranian government. If he hoped to end the hostage crisis on his watch, it didn't work, but just barely.

Minutes after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated on January 20, 1981, Iran freed the hostages, but it came with a promise, the U.S. had to lift sanctions and release $8 billion in embargoed Iranian funds. America cheered as the returning hostages landed in West Germany.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Barry Rosen was one of those hostages. He joins me now live from New York to talk about the captivity and his release. Wow, Barry. Take us back in time. What do you remember the most?

BARRY ROSEN, FMR. HOSTAGE: Well, it's hard to really remember everything all at once, but I can remember the pain of it all. The 444 days were unendurable in the sense that every day was another horrendous day of being held in darkness, moved around perhaps from place to place, many times not being able to speak to anybody. Iranians treated us in the most horrendous way possible.

We were considered -- quote, unquote -- "the nest of spies." They treated us as if we were inhuman.

PHILLIPS: What did they do to you, Barry?

ROSEN: One insignificant moment, they threatened to kill me by using automatic weapons against my head, and they wanted to force me to sign an admission that I was heading a ring of spies in Iran. I was the press attache at the embassy, and I had very good contacts with Iranian press people, and they accused me of turning the Iranian press against the upcoming regime. That is Khomeni's regime.

And they certainly did put fear into my heart. And many other times, there were moments in the cell at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, where they would come in, throw you up against the wall and put a cold gun against your head. That was their way to terrorize me. And they certainly did do it.

PHILLIPS: Four-hundred and forty-four days -- was there ever a time that you thought maybe you were getting through to one of them? Did anyone ever, at any moment, show you any sympathy?

ROSEN: There was some very weird moments when Iranians would come over to me and say, you know, when this is all over, could you get a visa for me so I could study in the United States?

PHILLIPS: Oh, gosh. You're like, bad timing?

ROSEN: Yes.

PHILLIPS: Really bad timing.

ROSEN: Yes, a little inappropriate.

Now, I can't say that in any way, shape or form that I thought there was any humane treatment, and there was nothing like any identification on our side with the plight of Iranians, vis-a-vis the international arena. They really abrogated international law, and they treated us inhumanely. There was no reason for me to even act kindly to them.

PHILLIPS: I understand there's a new documentary, "The First War on Terror," that's coming out. It will be out this spring. You had a chance to see it last night. We have a clip from that. Let's go ahead and play that. I want to get your reaction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MASSOUMEH EBTEKAR, AKA "TEHRAN MARY": The hostages would probably understand that there's no personal revenge against them and that the students were not looking for any personal harm. On the contrary, they were trying to, as I mentioned, make it as tolerable as possible.

COL. CHARLES SCOTT (RET.), FMR. HOSTAGE: That very first night, they came for me and pulled me to my feet, ripped the blindfold from my face, spat in my face twice, and sneered at me, you're Colonel Scott, CIA. I said, naw, that's a bunch of crap. I'm Colonel Scott, U.S. Army. I was here to help your people and your military. And the blindfold was replaced and I was taken out for what round up being about three-and-a-half weeks of very severe interrogation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Tehran Mary saying they tried to make it as tolerable as possible, and then you heard colonel Scott saying they treated him like dirt. Do you remember Tehran Mary?

ROSEN: Yes.

PHILLIPS: You do remember her?

ROSEN: Yes, I do.

PHILLIPS: What do you remember?

ROSEN: Well, I remember her interrogations, too. We had exit interrogations, believe it or not, before we were freed. And she was telling us how well we were treated. And we -- and I remember myself, I recall arguing with her and telling her that it was a bunch of baloney, and that we were treated in the most impossible way, and that there was no reason for me to thank the Iranian people for what went on. She is now a member of the Iranian government under Ahmadinejad. She's been a vice president under this regime.

PHILLIPS: That's interesting that you bring that up. She's a part of the new regime. And you know, it came forward a number of months ago that he was one of the hostage takers. The pictures came out. Many of you came forward and said, yes, I remember his face, but then it was later shot down by the Iranians.

Do you still believe that he was involved in the hostage crisis?

ROSEN: Yes, I do. I personally didn't see him, but I have very close colleagues who did meet with him and, in fact, they told me that they were terrorized by him.

My feeling is, even if he wasn't in the embassy, but was around the embassy and was an activist, he wanted us to feel the pain during those 444 days. I feel that he's a terrorist leader of a terrorist state.

PHILLIPS: So if, indeed, he was involved in the hostage crisis and, like you said, Tehran Mary now working by his side as well, looking at Iran now, relations with Iran, talking about building nukes, the president has even come forward and said the Holocaust was a myth, what have you -- what do you think we learned from the '70s during that hostage crisis, and could it help the United States deal with issues with Iran right now? And do you see big trouble with regard to relations with Iran?

ROSEN: Well, right now, I honestly feel that the Iranians have learned a lot about us, and we haven't learned much about them. They have a tremendous amount of leverage over the United States, Europe and the Russians and China. So right now, I think that we and our allies are in a tremendous fix, because there's no way that the United States and its allies can live without that oil Iran produces. There cannot be heavy sanctions against the Iranians in that manner.

We have to find a way to get to the leadership of Iran, to somehow maybe freeze their assets if we can find them somewhere. But we don't want to hurt the Iranian people to make them even more angry at us.

So the situation really is almost an impossible one for us. And I don't know if referring the case to the security council will make a difference at all. What I really am saying is that the Iranians have us over a barrel right now.

PHILLIPS: Well, in addition to that, it seems you still have an amount of passion or compassion, I should say, for those in Iran that want change.

ROSEN: I absolutely do. There's a great, enormous number of intellectuals and middle-class people who want to see Iran as a state in the modern world. And it's to them we really want, you know, a new relationship, any new relationship, to build on. It's not to hurt those people. So, we're in a really big fix. I mean, in many ways, I don't particularly think the West has a policy vis-a-vis Iran.

PHILLIPS: Barry Rosen, I really appreciated your interview today. Thank you.

ROSEN: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Let's go straight to Fredricka Whitfield working on a developing story in the newsroom. What do you have, Fred?

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Kyra, it was a very short taste of freedom. Just eight days of being released from prison, the man known as the man who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II, Mehmet Ali Agca, is back in custody. New pictures right now, that he did not resist arrest in any way when taken to the police headquarters in Istanbul, Turkey.

Now, Agca had served 19 years in prison in Italy for shooting the pope back in 1981 and then five and a half years of a ten-year sentence in Turkey for the murder of a journalist. Well, a decision earlier in the month outraged a number of Turks. A local court had order the release -- his release from an Istanbul prison, saying that the time he served in Italy would help to compensate for the time that he was just served for the murder of the journalist.

Well, a lot of people were very outraged and so now an appellate court now has ruled he must go back to prison and that the lower court did not have legal basis for deducting Agca's time served in Italy. And now potentially he could serve another seven years in prison in Turkey there, to continue his sentencing -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: I think a lot of people were surprised that he was released and going back to be part of the military. I think there were a lot of people were concerned with the fact that this man could operate a gun again. We had a lot of talk about that.

WHITFIELD: Yes, that's right. A lot of people thought that perhaps this was sending the wrong message, at the very least. And so the appellate court did step in and agreed with the majority of the Turkish people, who were outraged about that.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Fred.

He knew what was going to happen, but he kept his mouth shut. For that, Michael Fortier went to prison. Today, he goes free. Reaction from relatives and his own reaction to Oklahoma City bombing 11 years ago. It's an interview you only saw on CNN. We're bringing it back. That's next on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, today is the day Michael Fortier becomes a free man. His attorneys says that Fortier has paid the price for what he did, or to be precise, what he didn't do. Fortier is the man who knew about the Oklahoma City bombing plot and didn't say a word.

The FBI zeroed in on Fortier days after that bombing, and so did -- or that, yes -- so did CNN, actually. We sent crews to Keman (ph), Arizona, the small desert town off Route-66 that Fortier and his old Army buddy Timothy McVeigh called home.

Rusty Dornin spent many a day there. She's here with us to relive some of those moments. Matter of fact, you told me that was a long five weeks, wasn't it?

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Five weeks we were there. I came just after (INAUDIBLE)

PHILLIPS: We're having a problem with your mike. We're going to take -- actually, can we take a quick break? Is that OK? We're going to take a quick break? OK. We'll take a quick break. We're going to get the audio fixed. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: All right, so Rusty Dornin and I are talking about Michael Fortier, your five weeks taking this guy out. He was supposed to be released 1:00 Eastern time. Take us back to what it was like to follow this man, along with authorities, right, for five weeks? DORNIN: Yes. Well, we knew -- the FBI, we had pretty good indication from our sources that the FBI also had strong indications that he was involved somehow. So we were determined to stay on him and keep following him. And we followed him for five weeks. And the FBI -- he would come out of his trailer or come out of his parents home, where he would stay sometimes with his wife....

DORNIN: followed him for five weeks. And the FBI -- he would come out of his trailer or come out of his parents' home where he would stay sometimes with his wife, Lori, who was pregnant at the time.

And the FBI had these suped up cars they were following him with. They had Corvettes, they had Camaros, things like that, and Fortier would get in his Jeep. He would put his dog in his Jeep, and he would go out to the desert to these dirt roads and then he'd throw the dog out to take a walk and then the FBI would follow him, and we would be following him.

We were the network -- the only network that stayed through that entire five weeks, because we knew somehow they were going to pressure him to talk or say something, and we wanted to be there.

But the scene of us following him through the desert with this cloud of dust and then he would take a road that they couldn't go on and they would tell us that we couldn't follow him, even though we had four-wheel drive.

Once we went to Lake Mead and he went on a waverunner with his wife, and the FBI didn't have one of their spotter planes up and they had no cell service. So they -- we sat on the beach with the FBI agents while Michael Fortier and his wife went on waverunners.

The agents talked to him and asked him, you know, make sure -- you're coming back, aren't you? And he said oh, yes. Oh, yes. So, he was fine with all of this surveillance.

PHILLIPS: He knew that everybody was trailing him, everybody was watching him.

DORNIN: Right. You couldn't miss it. You couldn't miss it. There were five or six cars every single time he went anywhere.

PHILLIPS: You had a very strong feeling that he, somehow, at some point, was going to be arrested.

DORNIN: Or he would be convinced to talk to the investigators, which is what he finally did about five weeks later. He went into the armory in Kingman and the FBI agents did prevent our crews from following them into the armory. And then he was flown immediately to Washington and that's when the whole process started.

PHILLIPS: Do we know where he's going to go now? What he's going to be doing?

DORNIN: No. And I certainly doubt that he would go back to Kingman. Initially, people there were very supportive and sort of angry at the media for hounding him. But when they did found out what part he had had in the Oklahoma City bombing, they were very angry. And some people actually killed his dog, Buddy, after he began talking to authorities and was arrested.

PHILLIPS: So sort of -- now, you and Sean Callebs sort of worked in tandem on this. And Sean got the sit-down interview with Michael Fortier.

DORNIN: It was really Drea Declemacy (ph), the producer, who got the interview, and then Sean did the interview. And he -- we are the only ones. CNN is the only news outlet that he did speak to. He didn't speak to anyone after that. We tried to talk him into doing another interview, and he would never agree to it after he did that one with Sean Callebs.

PHILLIPS: Well, we've pulled a clip. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL FORTIER: I do not believe that Tim blew up any building in Oklahoma. There is nothing for me to look back upon and say, oh, yes, that might have been -- I should have seen it back then. There was nothing like that. Right now, he may feel like there's nobody on this earth that is in any way supportive of him, but there is. There is. Everybody should be supportive of him, because he's an innocent man.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Unbelievable. He's actually saying Timothy McVeigh was an innocent man and had nothing to do with that bombing.

DORNIN: That's why I said when the people in Kingman saw that and realized that he really did have something to do with it, that's when they were so angry. As I said, you know, they went and killed his dog.

PHILLIPS: What do you think -- and I don't know, because I know you've talked to a lot of people within law enforcement about Michael Fortier. But what do you think finally led him to, OK, I'll talk?

DORNIN: The pressure was incredible. And who knows what those agents were also saying to him over the phone. And when they would talk to him -- we'd see them. They would go over and talk to him sometimes before they would jump in the car and follow him places.

It might have just been that pure pressure. And he saw the case mounting against Timothy McVeigh. And, you know, we don't know exactly the evidence that came out initially that they said, look, you better talk to us or we're going to arrest you anyway.

PHILLIPS: Have your sources or your contacts said anything about what his life could be like now? I mean, will they keep an eye on him from this point on? Probably, my guess is, he would probably go into hiding somewhere. I don't think he would want to go public. DORNIN: I mean, there has been some word about the Witness Protection Program, that sort of thing. I mean, you have to wonder because certainly, there are a lot of people that you've been hearing are still very angry.

PHILLIPS: Yes, they'd want to go after him.

DORNIN: Right. And he did cooperate with authorities and he did turn evidence against and was partly responsible for the conviction of Timothy McVeigh. So, obviously, there's two big sides to this story.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIPS: Well, Rusty Dornin, it paid off. You tracked him for five weeks, Sean got the interview and here we are, more than a decade later talking about it. It's great stuff. Thanks, Rusty.

PHILLIPS: Well, what a week for animal adventures. First, we did our darndest to get Stinky, the pelican, a flight to Miami. Well, he's taking off on Sunday, and now a new mission.

Can LIVE FROM save the whale in London's River Thames, or at least start calling him Timmy? We're live on the scene. Find out what the pros will try to do to get old Timmy out to sea today on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, in the words of a timeless "Seinfeld" episode, is anyone here a marine biologist? If so, you're needed in London post haste as a deep-sea whale takes an unexpected tour of the River Thames.

CNN's Paula Newton is on the scene with more on the misguided mammal, and intense efforts right now to rescue it. What do we know, Paula, about how this whale got there in the first place?

PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, Kyra, what a day. It was like urban legend around here. Someone told me there was a whale in the River Thames, and I thought oh no way. But then this amazing buzz started in the city. People were calling each other, saying, did you see the whale in the River Thames? People were streaming out of their offices to see it.

And there it was, dancing in the sunshine in the River Thames. And this whale kind of did a little dance with the boats. Unfortunately, though, you know, it's far away from home. It's supposed to be out in the open sea as far as 30 to 40 miles from here.

Thankfully, the tide has come in and it has a lot more water, but it's hurt. It's hurt on its nose, we're hearing, and on its tail. Right now, no one knows where it is. It's dark.

It should be right around here, under the Battersea Bridge, which if you go along London's South Bank, it's just under here. But there have been boats coming up and down here asking us if we have seen the whale. So, obviously, conservationists are quite concerned right now, and they really don't know how this whale is going to fare throughout the night -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: So what are they -- are they going to remain throughout the night trying to make contact or find the whale and sort of guide the whale back out to sea?

NEWTON: Well, they are, but the news from the marine biologists are not good. They are going to do what they can in order to coax it. But they don't want to stress it. And they also say there aren't that many solutions. This is a big whale; it's about as big as a bus, and it's hurt.

And they really don't think that anything intrusive right now is the thing to do. And it's dark. So they're going to wait until morning. They say that they have a handle on it. There are a lot of experts here. I mean, the whale, you know, swam right by the London Aquarium. It's unbelievable.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIPS: Maybe that's where it's trying to get to, yes, trying to get to the aquarium.

NEWTON: Trying to get to a home. They don't have a tank big enough, Kyra. Trust me. I've been there. So the point is, look, the marine biologists are here, the conservationists are here. They have world-renowned experts right here in London to try and help this whale. He or she has come to the right place. We're going to have to wait until daybreak really before we know anything.

PHILLIPS: We'll follow it. Paula Newton, thank you so much.

Also straight ahead, dealing with disasters. If you live along the Gulf Coast and you have suffered hurricane damage and you're having problems with your insurance company -- we know a lot of your are -- send us your questions or concerns. Our e-mail address is livefrom@CNN.com. David Smith with Protect America will take some of your e-mails in the next hour of LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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