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CNN Talkback Live

Plane Crashes into Pirelli Building in Milan

Aired April 18, 2002 - 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.
ARTHEL NEVILLE, CNN HOST, TALKBACK LIVE: Hello, everyone, and welcome to TALKBACK LIVE. I'm Arthel Neville.

What crossed your mind when you first heard about today's crash of a small plane into a skyscraper in Milan? Did you flashback to September 11th? Did you wonder if it was another terrorist attack? While we're getting the details, tell me what you ere thinking about that. Our number is 1-800-310-4CNN or you can e-mail talkback@cnn.com.

Here's what it looked like after the small plane flew into Milan's tallest building during rush hour. It tore a gaping hole in the side of the Pirelli building. On the phone is journalist Kevin Michael Buckley with the latest. Kevin, can you tell us about the details? Go ahead.

KEVIN MICHAEL BUCKLEY, BRITISH JOURNALIST: Hello?

NEVILLE: Kevin, you are the on the air live with CNN. What's the latest, Kevin?

BUCKLEY: The latest is that, obviously, the impact of what appears to be a tragic accident has reduced Milan to chaos this evening, right in the middle of the evening rush hour. The main station is closed down. There are huge traffic jams everywhere. But I have to say that, from the public point of view, that the Italians have handled it very well.

The police have managed to isolated the area, calling off to avoid unnecessary injuries, such as falling glass. We have a lot of tall buildings around the area. And several windows have caved in onto the street. So, on the public side, if you'd like, things are quickly returning to normal, apart, of course, the jams. Form the site itself, we now have a darkened building with a couple spotlights turned on to the gaping wound in the building, which, as you've probably seen on the TV pictures, looks right from one side of the building to the other. At the moment, things are still unclear.

An official recently said that perhaps three killed rather than four, including the pilot. But there is still confusion about the comments from one of the workers in the Pirelli building, who left in shock, as most of the people left in the building did, of course, claiming that staff members had a meeting planned on that very floor at the time. We still have not verified that. Of course, anybody on the floor would be dead presumably dead because of the impact of the explosion.

NEVILLE: Kevin, have you had a chance to talk to any of the people there, at the site? I'm wondering what their mind set was at the time of the crash, if they were wondering, like we were here in America, that oh no, is it another terrorist attack?

BUCKLEY: Absolutely, everybody I talked to had no doubt at all, and even the area businesses running out of the local hotels, people going to catch trains, everybody assumed, oh my god, it is a mini- repeat of what happened in the states in September.

I myself was working at home just a quarter of a mile from the scene, and the vibrations from the explosion, and then the shock wave, followed by the noise, suggested to me immediately that we were talking about a bomb rather than anything else.

However, so far, it appears that we have been proven wrong, and it was just a crazy, bizarre accident, with the desperate pilot trying to avoid the building. But everybody here, certainly every single person I talked to assumed that the terror had come to the heart of Milan, partly because we have had several incidents recently where the government in Rome has announced increased states of alert.

Ever since September 11th, of course, there's been a higher state of alert, generally, with a much greater presence of armed police at any sensitive buildings, such as embassies, airports, and religious sites, and place of historic interest. Recently, we have another round-up of suspects, 28 now, as I mentioned earlier. Twenty-eight terror suspects in custody in Italy, and police are still investigating various links to those arrests

NEVILLE: Kevin, what sort of steps to did the Italian government and officials take after hearing of this accident today?

BUCKLEY: Well, I think they could well cause a bit of controversy in the following days because they leapt to the conclusion, as we all did, that it was a terror attack, simply because, I suppose, because of the logistics of it, tall building, plane crashing into it. Obviously, if it happened before September, we would have all thought as we did this September the first time.

NEVILLE: Wondering, though, Kevin, if they went on an increased state of alert or something like that.

BUCKLEY: Absolutely, absolutely. We were on an increased state of alert compared to normal, which was stepped up a little bit further Easter with indication that terror groups were planning some kind of an attack in Italy. That then became a little bit of a political controversy because nothing happened, and politicians started pointing at each other saying that there had been some kind of over-reaction and a poor reading of security information.

Today's incident did spark that kind of reaction from the government immediately. The minister announced within 20 minutes in parliament that we were dealing with a terror attack on major proportions. Very quickly that was retracted, but I think that will cause controversy here with a minister that reacted in a knee-jerk way. I think really, to be fair to the government, that does probably reflects just the human reality of the situation. If you see something very similar to another recent attack, then it is obviously natural to lead to that conclusion, at least in the initial stages.

NEVILLE: Kevin Michael Buckley, thank you very much for that update from Milan, Italy. And CNN's Miles O'Brien has been in the news room all day working on this developing story. And, Miles, first of all, Welcome to TALKBACK LIVE.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good to be here, Arthel.

NEVILLE: We understand that the pilot reported having trouble with the landing gear.

O'BRIEN: Well, there clearly must have been something more wrong with the aircraft besides the landing gear, which would have distracted the pilot. There were reports of flames shooting from the aircraft, a stream of smoke behind it. So perhaps there was a series of things going on around here. But let's assume for a moment that some sort of mechanical difficulty was distracting that pilot.

Now as I understand it, there is an airport in the downtown area of Milan. It may have been the case that this pilot was trying to reach that airport, flying directly over the downtown area, which is normally restricted to general aviation I am told, and might, in the course of that, gotten distracted trying to deal with the problems that were there.

Certainly, an engine fire is something that really gets your attention. If you are trying to get your landing gear down, for example, and it will not go down because of the electrical problems, which are caused as a result of the engine fire, you have to turn around in your seat and crank like this. I have done itself several times in my own aircraft to practice doing that. And it's a very distracting maneuver. It can easily put you in a difficult position and get you off course very quickly, if you do not do it carefully and practice it.

Now, my plane, you have to crank 21 times, just like this, to get the landing gear down, if you are trying to do it, if it has failed. So assume for a moment that he had a major mechanical malfunction and perhaps a fire; the landing gear isn't going down; he is trying to handle these things. It is possible that the aircraft, which we are told right now is a Commander 112TC, for turbo charged -- let's take a look at that plane. That is actually the latest version of the particular plane, the same lines but different guts. That's a 115TC. This particular aircraft would be put in the category of a high performance, complex aircraft, meaning it's more than 200 horsepower. It can fly at about 20,000 feet, holds about 90 gallons of fuel and has significant range. It's not a beginner's aircraft, if you will.

And having said all that, 90 gallons of fuel, if it had gone smack-dab into that building, 90 gallons of fuel would not have caused what you saw there, that huge gaping hole. There is some speculation. Some of the people in the aviation community have heard what was going on on the radios here and have been following this and have speculated that it may have been a glancing blow, that the aircraft may have kind of veered toward the building along the side of it and really opened it up like a can opener.

NEVILLE: Right, cut it open. So not a direct hit. Now this, what is it called, the Commander 112TC. Does this have a history of mechanical problems?

O'BRIEN: The Commander is a great aircraft. I have no reason to believe that there's any sort of problem with it mechanically. This particular model was built by a company called Rockwell, which doesn't exist anymore. Rockwell built the space shuttles. This is a company that knows a lot about building things that fly. So I think this kind of thing is very difficulty, in an aircraft that might have been built in 1966. You'd have to look at all the paperwork and see what kind of maintenance had been done over the course of those years, if, in fact, there was a mechanical problem. Let's face it. Things break on airplanes. And normally, this kind of situation probably would not get much of out attention.

NEVILLE: I'm going to jump in here because you mentioned a company knowing something about things that fly. You know something about things that fly because how long have you been flying?

O'BRIEN: Well, I've had my license since 1988. And I am part owner of a plane, a similarly kind of plan, as far as performance goes. So I know a little bit about what kinds of scenarios this pilot might have been in.

NEVILLE: It's really about you, Miles. I was just trying to get into talking about you personally for the moment.

O'BRIEN: I appreciate that. Thank you.

NEVILLE: We're out of time. Thank you very much for coming here to explain a little bit to us.

O'BRIEN: My pleasure.

NEVILLE: Miles O'Brien, CNN. OK. When you heard about the crash, did you jump to the conclusion terrorism was involved? Psychiatrist Dr. Helen Morrison joins us next to tell us the psychological toll this is having on all of us. And later this hour, we will tell you how Andrew Cuomo is using September 11 to skewer rival politician Governor Pataki. It could be a double-edged sword. TALKBACK LIVE continues. Don't go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NEVILLE: Welcome back to TALKBACK LIVE everybody. Joining us now is psychiatrist Dr. Helen Morrison to talk about how even an apparent accident can spark our fears. Welcome Dr. Morrison.

DR. HELEN MORRISON, PSYCHIATRIST: Thank you for having me, Ms. Neville. NEVILLE: Thank you. OK. In life after September 11th, when we see something like this, is it normal for people to get a little bit nervous, fearing it could be yet another terror attack?

MORRISON: It is absolutely normal. When we've had a major trauma and reacted to the trauma, as individual people, we tend to get sensitized so that when you see something happening again you think, oh my gosh, here we are again. In Italy, of course, it was just a reminder of September 11th and the United States. So many people reacted, not just to 9/11, but they reacted to the Florida accident when that boy drove the plane into the building.

NEVILLE: Absolutely, in Tampa. Yes. I am standing here with Christina from Virginia, Dr. Morrison, and I think she has something to say or ask you.

CHRISTINA: These types of things really will effect people that suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. And the events that have happened over the past few months are really triggers for a lot of people. And I think the events today could do that, and even in dealing with the families of the victims that are left.

MORRISON: I think you are right. But you don't even need a diagnosis to know that repetitive trauma will be worse every time. And I think what a lot of people are dealing with is this is the beginning of something that is just never going to end for us.

NEVILLE: I would like to share an e-mail with you that came over on the TALKBACK LIVE set here. Let's take a look at that. It says, "I immediately assumed it was a terrorist attack. This is an example of how much the world has changed since September 11.

I think that went across everybody's mind, Dr. Morrison. And that is what I ask. The president urges Americans to try to get back to normal, but it seems that every month we are getting high alerts or medium alert, low alert - we don't know what the alert is. So how can you actually get back to normal? What can we do?

MORRISON: First of all, normal is no longer normal. Before 9/11, we could say let's get back to normal. Let's forget about this and go on. But what's happened now is that normal for us is always going to keep in the back of our mind the possibility that something terrible is going to happen. It is bad enough when someone dies; it is terrible when someone dies under an terrorist attack.

NEVILLE: Absolutely, Dr. Morrison, I have a caller coming in now. This is Ferris (ph) from British Columbia, who happens to be a pilot. Ferris (ph), welcome. You're on TALKBACK LIVE.

FERRIS (ph): Hi there. I was mentioning about the incident that happened. And something that is common that we learn in ground schooling is the fact that pilots become fixated on something, on a problem, a mechanical failure, or anything of that matter. And what happens is they become so fixated with whatever is going on that they are really unaware of what the actual event is, which causes them to lose distraction of maybe their altitude height, direction in which they are heading, which causes the plane to do other things. For instance, he could have accidentally gone into the building, which is what happened.

NEVILLE: Right. Right.

MORRISON: Right.

FERRIS: And that is the big problem. And they try to make pilots aware that fixation does not solve anything because that is how accidents are most commonly caused.

NEVILLE: Ferris, let me ask you this. What kind of pilot are you? What do you fly, commercial airplane or are you just a private?

FERRIS: I got the private, and I am doing it on a similar aircraft called the Piper Cherokee.

NEVILLE: Let me ask you another question then, Ferris (ph). In the post September 11th environment, do you go about doing your job differently?

FERRIS: Definitely, it is scary. For one, I am going to go onto my commercial, and it is the big fear factor. But you really can't - you can do your best safety precautions to keep cabin door locked or such as they are doing now, and I guess you have to let whatever happens take its place and deal with the situation at the time.

NEVILLE: Ferris, thank you very much for calling in to TALKBACK LIVE.

And joining me is Brenda from Mississippi, and your thoughts are?

BRENDA: I have a question for the psychiatrist. What advice would she give to parents who are planning on getting on airplanes with their kids to go on summer vacations or putting their kids on airlines to visit family and friends this summer?

MORRISON: I think that the first thing, as a parent, that I do is recognize that I am anxious about their going, and try not to let that interfere or inoculate everybody around them with fear. But my child did ask me, mom, if we are in a plane, and I see another plane coming toward us, what are we going to do? And all you can say to your child is - don't make false promises ...

NEVILLE: Dr. Morrison, pardon me. I've got to toss it to Fredricka Whitfield, who is standing by in the CNN news room with breaking news. Fredricka?

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there, Arthel. More now on the fire in Galveston at the University of Texas, Medical Branch. You're looking at aerial shots there of the fire, which officials say is contained. They describe it as an incinerator fire. The air ducts were shut off, and there is no imminent danger. The fire was contained and it should be out momentarily.

We do not know what caused that blaze. But apparently, the upper levels there, the fire apparently started in the smokestack there of the hospital. This university is known as a teaching hospital, driven by a number of health science professionals and researchers dedicated to caring for people and spearheading a lot of research there. We want to go now to the public relations person at the hospital there. Chris, is it Comer (ph)?

CHRIS COMER (ph), PUBLIC RELATIONS, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MEDICAL BRANCH: Yes it is.

WHITFIELD: Hi there, Chris (ph).

COMER (ph): Hi there.

WHITFIELD: Well, explain to us the situation. I said that the fire started in the smokestack, according to an official. But perhaps you have better information than what I am getting.

COMER: It is no different. The fire did, in fact, start in the incinerator stack on our campus. That stack subsequently collapsed. The Galveston fire department is on-site, and are working to contain and extinguish the fire. We have moved patients in the top three floors of our Texas Department of Criminal Justice facility down to lower floors, where they are safe. We have evacuated employees, who were working in the immediate area, and at this point, we have received no reports of injuries. And patient care has, in no way, been compromised.

WHITFIELD: So how was this fire learned?

COMER: How did with find out about it?

WHITFIELD: Yes.

COMER: I am not - to be honest with you, I am not sure. The first I knew about it was when a saw smoke coming out, the black smoke. I could check on that and call you back, but I do not know how we found out about it.

WHITFIELD: At least the good news, at this point, is you say nobody was in any imminent danger.

COMER: No not at all.

WHITFIELD: And no one has been injured.

COMER: And the Galveston fire department was here promptly, and it has been managed all along.

WHITFIELD: That is a pretty sizable building there. How many floors are we talking about?

COMER: I believe eight.

WHITFIELD: Eight floors?

COMER: Yes. WHITFIELD: That is one of how many buildings under the umbrella of the University of Texas Medical Branch?

COMER: Oh, my goodness. We have ..

WHITFIELD: It looks like a huge campus there.

COMER: It's very huge. I would say, hold on one second, if you can.

WHITFIELD: OK, while she's got us on hold, at least the good news is...

COMER: Oh, my goodness!

WHITFIELD: What's that?

COMER: Sixty-nine, 70 buildings, something like that.

WHITFIELD: But this fire is contained to one building.

COMER: It is one.

WHITFIELD: Investigators there feel like they have it under control.

COMER: Yes, they do.

WHITFIELD: They don't believe that any of the other buildings, those 60 some buildings you're talking about, are any threat.

COMER: No, they do not. They believe that everything is well under control.

WHITFIELD: OK. All right, very good. We appreciate it, Chris.

COMER: Thank you very much.

WHITFIELD: It's good to hear there that no one is in any danger there. All of your patients that were close to that smoke have been relocated, as well as all of the personnel in the building, to lower floors. All right. Chris Comer with the University of Texas Medical Branch out of Galveston, Texas, thank you for joining us. And now we'll take you back to TALKBACK LIVE now with Arthel Neville.

NEVILLE: Thanks, Fredricka. That's good to hear. I graduated from the University Texas at Austin. So I am glad to know everything is OK there in Galveston.

Stand up here for me, Jackie (ph). We have been talking about the crash that we saw in Milan, Italy, earlier and the fears that brought to surface for a lot of people. We have psychiatrist Dr. Helen Morrison in Chicago as well. And you have a comment, Jackie (ph), about your sort of post September 11th fears.

JACKIE: Right, I think that the fear will always be there, when you go up in high buildings. You're always worried about the security risk, how do you get down, how do you do if something does happen within the building. But then you have to relate back to you are not in control of the situation, that you are just a victim of that circumstance, that it does happen, and you just make the best of a bad situation.

NEVILLE: Let's hope we all remain safe here. Thank you, Jackie (ph), for sharing your thoughts here on TALKBACK LIVE.

In the meantime, I have to take a break now, Dr. Morrison, if you can stay around with us because we will talk a little bit more after this break. We will learn what happened at the final moments of Flight 93. That's coming up after this break, TALKBACK LIVE continues. Don't go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NEVILLE: Welcome back to TALKBACK LIVE everybody. I'm Arthel Neville. What was it like in those final moments before hijacked Flight 93 went down into a Pennsylvania field on September 11th? Today, the families of the passengers are beginning to get an idea. They've been listening to a tape of the last 30 minutes recorded by the flight's cockpit recorder. The crew's families had the opportunity to hear it this morning. CNN Correspondent David Mattingly is in Princeton, New Jersey, where the families are gathered at a hotel. David, welcome to TALKBACK LIVE.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Arthel.

NEVILLE: First of all, let me ask you this, David, if you will. What do the family members expect from the experience? What did they tell you?

MATTINGLY: If there is one thing they all have in common, as to what they are looking for, that would have to be information. That's coming out of the two sessions that have occurred today. The first session this morning was for the family members of the flight crew. They were in closes session privately.

They were able to listen to the tape, and they emerged hours later. Some of them were described as being emotionally subdued. But they were telling others to pay close attention to the final few minutes of that 30-minute tape because on it they could hear voices from the cockpit in Arabic and in English.

So now, families of the passengers, now, that are behind closed doors, are somehow finding hope in listening to that tape, thinking that they might be able to hear one of their loved ones and get some information as to how their loved one died.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEENA BURNETT, WIDOW OF FLIGHT 93 VICTIM: My husband called me four times that morning from the airplane on his cell phone. He told me he was putting a plan together to take back that aircraft. I'll distinctly be listening for my husband's voice. I hope that I hear it. And yet I don't know if I am prepared to hear his voice.

ALICE HOGLAND, MOTHER OF FLIGHT 93 VICTIM: I feel a compulsion. I feel a responsibility to understand how Mark Bingham spent his last 30 minutes and how he worked with the other family members to pull it together.

It has been described to me as long moments of dead air with no conversation at all, occasional muffled conversation, a lot of conversation in a foreign language, many chants of "Allahu Akbar" -- "God is great," and a fair amount of confused conversation among the terrorists who were in the cockpit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Now, families of the passengers in their closed-door meeting are scheduled to break up in a couple of hours from now.

Earlier this afternoon in Washington, Attorney General John Ashcroft said that this meeting has two purposes: one, for prosecutors to ask the families more questions to get more information for their investigation; also, for the family members to receive grief counseling -- Arthel.

NEVILLE: David, do you have any idea how much the family members will be allowed to share with reporters after having heard the tapes?

MATTINGLY: Well, this tape is supposed to be used as evidence in the Zacarias Moussaoui case. So the families that are going in are being told they can't bring recording devices. They can't bring their cell phone -- no note-taking allowed. It's for their ears only. And they're being discouraged from discussing it publicly for just that reason.

NEVILLE: David Mattingly, thank you so much for that update.

And, of course, Dr. Helen Morrison is still standing by us.

And this is going to be definitely on a individual case. But if you could, Dr. Morrison, give us some sort of idea of what sort of emotions listening to this tape will evoke in those family members?

MORRISON: Well, as you mentioned, it is going to be individual.

But some of the emotions that will come out are a hunger for information, a holding-on to the moments in which they think they may recognize someone, information that will help them fill in the pieces of the puzzle that they have been missing as to what it was like for their loved one in those last moments.

And, for some people, it will be a closure. It will be: "Now I know -- now I know that maybe he did not suffer or she did not suffer as much as I thought."

NEVILLE: And then perhaps maybe it could be a sense of pride for some of the family members?

MORRISON: Yes, "that my person helped save something from going wrong."

NEVILLE: Absolutely.

You know, we have different reactions here from our audience members.

Regina from California, what do you have to say?

REGINA: I don't think I would want to hear. I think that they are gone. That's it. I think, possibly, the last sound you may hear from a family member could be a scream. I would not want to hear that. I would just want to know they have gone and it is over and it helps me move on.

But I have a question. Is this any harder to lose a family member to a plane crash as it would be to a car accident or any sudden death? Is it any different for people if they lose a family member any kind of way abruptly? Is there a different way that they can handle it?

MORRISON: Generally, a sudden loss is traumatic, as the loss in a crash or something.

But here we are talking about a 30-minute period of time in which people are listening, knowing that there is an inevitable death that is going to occur. And, for some people, they are not going to be able to handle that. They are not going to be able to say, "Oh, it was an accident." These were deliberate, murderous individuals. And I think that is making it harder.

NEVILLE: Absolutely.

I have Jean from Louisiana.

Would you have wanted to hear those tapes?

JEAN: I think that maybe if my loved one was on the plane, it would help just to kind of know. I know, in death sometimes you just want to hold onto whatever the last moments were. And it is comforting in some ways. So, I think they should have that decision to make and that right to make.

NEVILLE: Thank you. And thank you.

Dr. Morrison, I want to thank you so much for joining us here today and sharing so much insight on various topics with us here on TALKBACK LIVE.

MORRISON: You're welcome. Thank you.

NEVILLE: And up next: September 11, OK, would you buy trading cards featuring heroes of the World Trade Center attack? Ask the man who is making them why he thinks they'll sell.

That's back in a moment on TALKBACK LIVE.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NEVILLE: And welcome back, everybody, TALKBACK LIVE.

You know how popular baseball cards are? Well, how about trading cards giving you the vital statistics of the World Trade Center heroes? It's the brainchild of Kingsley Barham, owner of Chestnut Publications. Now, he started out wanting to produce trading cards on marijuana, but changed his focus after the 9/11 attacks.

Mr. Barham is on the phone now with us from New York.

Mr. Barham, welcome to TALKBACK LIVE.

KINGSLEY BARHAM, OWNER, CHESTNUT PUBLICATIONS: Thank you.

NEVILLE: Mr. Barham, why are you doing this?

BARHAM: Why am I doing this?

NEVILLE: Yes.

BARHAM: Well, No. 1, I was not about to do hemp trading cards. I have been doing hemp trading cards since 1995. I was about to do a third series. They have been very successful. I am from California.

NEVILLE: OK, so you decided no marijuana. You decided to do September 11 heroes. How did you get there? How did you make that turn?

BARHAM: Well, it just seemed so unbelievably tragic, just astoundingly tragic, that we lost so many people in such a short amount of time. And nobody could attach themselves to anything but an ugly number. And that number kept changing. And that is what people were focused on. And nobody knew their faces. Nobody knew their stories.

NEVILLE: So, let me guide you a little bit here. So, your trading cards would try to bring a face to these victims. And, also, give me some other idea of what would be on these trading cards.

BARHAM: Well, the front of the cards contain their face and their date of birth. And, unfortunately, we all know their date of death. So, that contains a lot of information.

NEVILLE: And then you will have some characteristics about them, maybe their favorite saying, their favorite food? What else, what other kinds of information?

BARHAM: It is entirely up to the families. The surviving families provide all of the research, all of the background, all of the material that goes on the cards. And they have final editorial control over what we say, down to the punctuation.

NEVILLE: But they also had to sign a waiver, right, to giving up the rights to the name -- names and likeness of their loved ones for two years for you to use? BARHAM: That's not true. It's only one year. And it's not giving up anything in the way of a name at all. And if they object to that, we just -- that is just lawyers talking. And lawyers fold as soon as I say I don't want to give it up. I don't want to require them to have any kind of restriction.

NEVILLE: Mr. Barham, you know there are some critics who say that you are simply trying to capitalize on a tragedy. What do you say to that?

BARHAM: Well, I am obviously capitalizing on a tragedy, but not in a gross or disrespectful way. I think that the victims who are approving the victims' families that approve that and they are receiving a sizable royalty. Each of the included families...

NEVILLE: They are receiving a what type of royalty?

BARHAM: A royalty, which is a charitable contribution to them through a foundation.

NEVILLE: Now, it is my understanding that the families will receive $1 for every $5,700 in gross profits.

BARHAM: That was another gross, horribly gross misrepresentation in a hit piece that was in "The Journal" this morning. They just got it completely wrong.

NEVILLE: I have got William from Oklahoma here with some comments.

WILLIAM: Well, I can't fault the man for making a profit. It has been the American way for many years to make a profit on a tragedy. This country was built on the tragedy of others, of African- Americans and those in slavery. And so he is using to what is available to him. And he has the means to make a profit.

NEVILLE: Someone was talking in my ear. What did you just say about slavery?

WILLIAM: That this country was built on the backs on slavery, the tragedy of African-Americans and other nations. And why are we going to fault him for trying to make a profit when it has always been the American way?

NEVILLE: Thank you, sir.

Let me clarify something with you, Mr. Barham.

Now, you mentioned that the piece in "The Wall Street Journal" was incorrect in terms of the amount of money the families will get.

BARHAM: Completely.

NEVILLE: Can you clarify that, then, for us?

BARHAM: Yes. If we sell a thousand cases of this product -- and a case contains 288 8-card packs -- if we sell a thousand cases, every family will receive $100 and I will go bankrupt. If we sell 10,000 cases, every family will receive $1,000 and I will be able to do this again. And I will be able to honor another 200 souls.

NEVILLE: Mr. Barham, can you hang on for me for a second? I want to bring in two other guests in this conversation as well. We are going to bring in talk show host Mike Gallagher from the Salem Radio Network and, in Washington, Victoria Jones of Talk Radio News Service.

Glad to see both of you again here on TALKBACK LIVE.

MIKE GALLAGHER, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Hi, Arthel.

NEVILLE: Hey, Mike. Mike, what did you think of all this?

And we have got Mr. Barham on the line as well.

GALLAGHER: Well, I don't want to insult the guy. But I saw that his name is Barham. I thought it should be Barham. The guy's first name should be P.T. This is as disgusting an idea as anything I have ever seen. The fact is, he has admitted to capitalizing on 9/11.

And anybody who tries to profit on the backs of 3,000 Americans who were slaughtered senselessly on 9/11 is despicable. This guy is ghoulish. He ought to be ashamed of himself. And I can't even believe there is much of a debate about trading cards in order for this ghoul to make money as a result of the catastrophe on 9/11.

BARHAM: I don't understand, if the families approved this and want this and are given final editing, that can possibly say what you saying. Have you read one of the cards?

GALLAGHER: I have read all about what you are doing, Mr. Barham.

BARHAM: Have you read one of the cards, Mike?

GALLAGHER: And the reality is, I have read the profiles in "The New York Times." And I've seen you try to foolishly compare these trading cards to "The New York Times."

The fact is -- you just said it -- you are capitalizing on catastrophe. You are trying to make a profit.

BARHAM: Have you read any of my cards?

NEVILLE: Let me jump in here. I have got Mr.

(CROSSTALK)

NEVILLE: ... from Oklahoma.

BARHAM: I can't get an answer to that question?

GALLAGHER: I wouldn't read your cards if it was the last card on Earth.

BARHAM: That shows what a wonderfully liberal mind you have.

NEVILLE: Mr. Barham, I have got an audience member here who would like to make a comment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

I am a card collector myself. And I collect cards because it is fun. There is enjoyment. There is an excitement in it. Where is the fun, where is the enjoyment and the excitement in collecting these cards?

BARHAM: There is not much here, sir. There is not much joy. There is not much excitement.

But there is a sweet revelation that these people are people that we lost. And nobody is going to know about it if they follow that hysterical gentleman a minute ago.

(CROSSTALK)

VICTORIA JONES, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: The only sweet revelation is going to the revelation of bucks for you, as far as I can see, sir.

GALLAGHER: When you go down to the bank and cash your checks, there will be joy and revelation for you. Victoria is right.

BARHAM: I'm answering the gentleman's question.

JONES: I wonder whether you would have been willing to sell the paintings of John Wayne Gacy or, when the world ends, whether you will sell a T-shirt saying, "I survived Armageddon and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.

BARHAM: Oh, that is a very, very...

JONES: Sick? Is it any sicker than you, sir?

NEVILLE: Mr. Barham, let me ask you this. Before we make any sort of major decisions, all of us have personal friends that we rely on. We ask their opinions. What did your friends say to you when you said: "Hey, listen, I have got this great idea to make these cards?" What did they say?

BARHAM: I had a very gradual warming of this idea as people exposed themselves to the approach that I was taking, none of which none of your audience or your guests has seen. But just like the hemp cards that I did, the cops and the DAs and the attorney generals, they all lambasted me without reading them. But parents and teachers and educators of all stripes called me up and thanked me for what I said in those cards.

(CROSSTALK)

GALLAGHER: Go back to doing your hemp cards. NEVILLE: Time out for a second, because I am going to let a caller speak out now.

Robert from Nevada, go ahead and share your thoughts with us here on TALKBACK LIVE.

CALLER: Hi, Arthel. How you doing today?

My comment, I agree with the card-maker. He is very vociferously calling (UNINTELLIGIBLE) from these different shows and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) And he's simply reiterating the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) idea.

NEVILLE: OK, so you agree. Thank you, caller.

Mark from Louisiana, your thoughts are?

MARK: I don't agree with Mr. Barham the idea that he has. I think he is prostituting the likeness and the names of these individuals, especially these public workers who were doing it for the love of what they were doing, helping the others out. And here he is trying to make a profit off of it.

NEVILLE: But his argument is that families have to agree to this.

(CROSSTALK)

MARK: ... going to make the bigger profit off of anything.

JONES: And how do the families really know what it is they are agreeing to? And isn't this really like being an ambulance chaser? This is six months after the event. He is approaching families. And some of them are going to say yes because they want any way they can possibly think of for their relatives to be remembered.

(CROSSTALK)

JONES: ... and so sad. And I really wish you could find something else to do to earn a living, sir.

BARHAM: If the families want it, what is wrong with that, ma'am?

NEVILLE: Gloria from Oklahoma, you get the last word on this subject.

GLORIA: I am from Oklahoma City. And tomorrow is April the 19th, which was the Murrah Building bombing. Are you planning on making cards for the Oklahoma City bombing victims also?

BARHAM: If I could answer that question, I would love to answer it.

NEVILLE: Go ahead.

BARHAM: I have been asked to do cards on Pearl Harbor and Oklahoma City, which I will not do because too much time has gone by. But I want to include...

JONES: Oh, they are no longer fresh meat?

BARHAM: No. It doesn't...

NEVILLE: Do you not want him to do it?

Hang on here. Let me get over here back to you, Gloria.

GLORIA: I don't believe that it is right what are you doing, because you are making money of the backs of people who have died in tragic situations. And in Oklahoma City, I don't think that there is anybody in Oklahoma City, whether they are born and bred there or whether they moved there, would want you to come there and put that out in that community or anywhere in the world. Who wants to see that kind of thing?

BARHAM: Well, we will find out, won't we?

NEVILLE: Thank you very much.

Listen, Kingsley Barham, thank you so much for standing here and taking the heat on TALKBACK LIVE.

Victoria, I would like you and Mike to hang around with us for our next segment, OK?

GALLAGHER: Sure.

NEVILLE: All right, trading cards are on thing, but what about using September 11 to further a political career? New York's Andrew Cuomo thinks it is ammunition. We'll see if you do right after this.

Don't go anywhere. TALKBACK LIVE continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NEVILLE: TALKBACK LIVE.

OK, Andrew Cuomo wants to be New York's next governor. He's looking for the Democratic nomination. And so he is painting Government Pataki as the man who followed rather than led the response to the September 11 attacks.

Now, during an appearance in Buffalo, Cuomo called Rudy Giuliani the hero of 9/11. He says: "There was a leader ion 9/11. It was Rudy Giuliani. And Pataki stood behind the leader. He held the leader's coat. He was a great assistant to the leader, but he was not a leader."

And Rudy Giuliani responded, saying: "The reality is, the governor was a full and complete partner. And I held his coat as often as he held mine."

OK, we want talk about this now: turning tragedy into political fodder. Gubernatorial Andrew Cuomo uses it to attack his words on Governor Pataki.

JONES: He is a fool.

NEVILLE: He is a fool?

JONES: He is a fool. It's crazy politically for him to do this. He may get the Democratic nomination, but he will lose his hide to Pataki in the same that way his father went down to Pataki -- I think it was his father went to down to Pataki -- because you cannot do this in New York. You cannot try and attack Pataki or Giuliani over September the 11th.

And if his political attacks are this bad, then maybe he should not be governor.

NEVILLE: Mike, how do you see it? Go ahead.

GALLAGHER: Arthel, this is a red-letter day, because my liberal friend, Victoria, and I two are going to be two for two today. She is right.

NEVILLE: Oh, my goodness.

GALLAGHER: I know. Stop the presses.

(CROSSTALK)

NEVILLE: Mike, I like having you on TALKBACK LIVE, but I don't want to have you here and lose your edge now.

(LAUGHTER)

GALLAGHER: Tell me about it. She is taking it away. I am softening toward Victoria all the sudden.

But the reality is I don't even think Andrew's daddy would have made this big of a blunder. Rudy Giuliani himself said that -- he went on to say if Cuomo continues with this strategy, he predicts that George Pataki will be elected unanimously in the state of New York. It's a act of sheer desperation

NEVILLE: And in this day and age, campaigning with the mud- slinging, does that work anymore?

GALLAGHER: Well, this is beyond mud-slinging. It really segues to the thing we were talking about a minute ago with the trading cards guy.

You just don't try to capitalize politically or financially off of this awful massacre of 9/11. And for Andrew Cuomo to have sunk this low, it is tasteless, it's classless, and it shows that he just must be completely desperate and doesn't think he stands a snowball's chance in hell of winning the election.

NEVILLE: Phil, you are a New Yorker. What do you have to say about all of this? PHIL: Well, I am from Long Island. And I was born and raised in New York. And I believe that Giuliani was the true hero of everything that happened around September 11. And I do believe that Pataki was in the back. He stayed in the back. He was not very apparent to people. And I think that is why Cuomo is kind of attacking him right now.

NEVILLE: And does that bother you, that he, that Andrew Cuomo is speaking out on this right now?

PHIL: Yes, it does bother me, because I just don't think it is politically right to do that.

GALLAGHER: Yes, but, sir, if you are a New Yorker, you know that Rudy Giuliani does not share the podium with too many people. He was clearly in the leadership role. But, as he himself said, behind the scenes, he was holding on to Governor Pataki's coat just as much as Pataki was allegedly holding on to his. That is just the way Rudy does things.

NEVILLE: Let me share an e-mail with you that just came across here. Go ahead and pop it up on the screen for me, guys.

OK, Kwaku in Florida -- it says: "Republicans are already using 9/11 to further their political gains, so why not the Democrats? That is what democracy is all about. Let the voters decide for themselves."

And this is definitely a hot topic. I've got Don here from Connecticut up here in the audience who would like to speak out on this well.

Go ahead, Don.

DON: Yes, thank you.

I am extremely nervous any time political people talk in generalities. The remark was outlandish. I think that humility is a virtue for a politician. And I think George Bush and Governor Pataki and Mayor Giuliani have the humility and the integrity to handle a situation like that.

NEVILLE: Thank you, sir. We are out of time.

Mike, Victoria, 15 seconds, each of you, quickly.

JONES: I don't think we really know went on behind the scenes, but we do know that Cuomo has bad political instincts.

GALLAGHER: Terrible political instincts. And now it is a shoo- in probably for George Pataki in New York.

NEVILLE: Victoria Jones, Mike Gallagher, thank you so much for being here.

Thanks to all of you at home for watching. I'm Arthel Neville. I'll be back again tomorrow 3:00 Eastern, noon Pacific. You don't want to miss our "Free-For-All Friday."

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