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On the Story

Bush Leads U.S. Delegation to Pope's Funeral; Oil Prices Hit Record Highs

Aired April 10, 2005 - 10:00   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.


KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Welcome to CNN's ON THE STORY, where our journalists have the inside word on the stories that we covered this week, from the Vatican to London, from Washington to east Texas.
I'm Kelli Arena, on the story of new focus this week on the war on terrorism and whether federal law and federal agents go too far.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Suzanne Malveaux, on the story of President Bush breaking tradition, leading the U.S. delegation to the pope's funeral.

KATHLEEN HAYS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And I'm Kathleen Hays, on the story of yet new records for oil prices. And of course, we'll go to the Vatican in just a moment.

Also coming up, we'll go to London, for the latest on the royal wedding as the other woman becomes the bride.

We'll go to Texas, on the story of the capture of an escaped murderer who took the warden's wife. Did he really hold her hostage for 10 years?

At the end of the hour, our "What's Her Story?" segment. A Nazi death camp survivor saved by the man who would be pope. E-mail us at onthestory@cnn.com. Now, straight ahead to the Vatican.

ARENA: At the Vatican, the elaborate ritual of the funeral and the celebration of the life and death of Pope John Paul II. Joining us now on the story is CNN Vatican analyst Delia Gallagher.

Delia, you've had a moment to breathe finally. Funeral done, you're waiting for the conclave. As you look back at these past few weeks, what stands out to you most? I mean, of course, the crowds, phenomenal crowds. But as you've had a chance to reflect, what has really stood out to you?

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN VATICAN ANALYST: Well, I think the amazing thing about this week is that all the stories that I've covered from the Vatican prior to this, this week really required no commentary. I mean, the images just spoke for themselves. And in fact, when we were here, during the funeral mass, anything that could have been said was almost superfluous. I think the crowds, as you mentioned, this image of the pope's very simple coffin, the simplicity really of this ceremony, which was just a basic Catholic funeral. Apart for the man for whom it was being said, apart from all the heads of state that were there, this was a funeral that would be given to any Catholic, really.

And so I think that the story just spoke for itself. There was no need for commentary really, this week.

HAYS: And of course, people writing about it really blessed all the media involved for doing that, not getting too much commentary going. I must say on a very prosaic note, I was struck by things like big screen TVs, porta-potties being brought in, all these things to suddenly accommodate, it's hard to imagine, five million people at least descending on your city, in days, unexpected. How has the city coped?

GALLAGHER: Well, the amazing thing about the people was -- we saw people that had come off the airplane, from the airport, with suitcases in hand to stand in these lines for 14 hours, and then probably turn around and get back on a plane. The devotion was absolutely outstanding. And I mean, if you saw the crowds that were there, sort of 30 people wide, no food, no drink for hours. The city of Rome, of course, did a tremendous job to welcome them.

And you know, we're used to big crowds here in Rome, but I think we weren't used to the sort of tenor of the crowds, the silence beforehand, the great applause during the funeral. Several times they interrupted Cardinal Ratzinger's homily with applause, this saint now, make him a saint. There was a tremendous sort of mandate there for the cardinals now, given this just huge outpouring of popularity for this pope.

MALVEAUX: And tell us a little bit about what people were talking about, some of the conversations that happened there. I know being Catholic myself, there are a lot of people who are looking at this moment and saying, obviously, very special. But also, the fact that this was a controversial pope, someone who many people did not agree with some of his beliefs, particularly when it came to those social issues.

GALLAGHER: Well, I think the thing that this week proved was that despite the fact that people disagreed with him, especially on moral teachings, as you say, there was still this great love and appreciation for this man. And I think that it shows that in some way, the world wants a voice of moral authority, even wants somebody to disagree with, if you will. And so in some way, I think that the affection for the pope as a person outweighed any sort of disagreements.

Now, of course, that doesn't mean that that's not going to be an issue for the future for the church, and that's something that the cardinals will be taking into consideration in these days. But the tremendous charisma of Pope John Paul II almost allowed him to get away with, if you will, a sort of very hard line on certain issues, and, yet, an all-embracing love for everyone, despite whether they agreed with him or not.

ARENA: Delia, follow up on that whole controversy issue. This week, Cardinal Law, who really has become the face of the whole molestation scandal here in the United States, is scheduled to officiate a service there. What is the reaction to that?

GALLAGHER: Well, this is part of the nine days, the novemdialis services. There are masses held in St. Peter's Square here for nine days in suffrage for the pope.

Each of those nine days, by church law, is entrusted, if you will, to a certain group. So today we have the group for the people of Rome, headed by Cardinal Ruini. Tomorrow is the group for what they call the four basilicas of Rome. And so almost by process of elimination, the mass is said by Cardinal Law because of course, he is head of one of the major four basilicas, St. Mary Majors. The other being St. Peter's here, the pope is the head of that; St. John Lateran is Cardinal Ruini. And so Cardinal Law is going to say this mass tomorrow, because that is what is set down, that that person, in charge of St. Mary Majors, must say the mass.

Now, we could say also that over here, it is considered that Cardinal Law has been, in some sense, already punished, if you will, for what happened in the United States. He was forced to resign, in a sense. He offered his resignation, and it was accepted from his archdiocese. That in the eyes of the Catholic Church is considered a very great punishment, to take away a priest from his people.

So there was a lot of controversy when Cardinal Law was given this position, which is nonetheless a position of importance here as the head of a major basilica, but at the same time, I think that most of the cardinals over here felt that he had already paid the price of what happened in the States.

HAYS: Delia, speaking of cardinals, what, is there 117 cardinals, something like that, who will weigh in on the selection of the next pope? They start meeting on April 18th. What is the perspective on that? We don't expect you to tell us -- handicap the horse race, who's the next pope. But what's the dynamic? What is going to happen next?

GALLAGHER: Well, the dynamic is wide open, of course, because not only are there 117 voting, but there are 117 possibilities. Any one of those men could become the next pope.

You can pick out some general lines. But it is very much a wide open race. There is no real front-runner in the sense of other races.

Now, the church and the College of Cardinals you can roughly divide into a sort of conservative and liberal bent. But on the other hand, there are so many different issues that they have to deal with. Each of them falls into different categories within those issues. So we're looking at something like talking about whether the church in the first place is going to be open to culture, open to dealing with the issue of Islam, for example. Then they have to deal with the moral issues, the questions of the day with regard to engaging the culture in that sense.

And so all of these kind of factors have to be considered. But I think on the whole, they are going to be considering who is going to be the man who can carry out this legacy of Pope John Paul II. They saw it this week, and they know they need to continue that enthusiasm. So they're going to need a leader who is going to be capable of following in the footsteps of this pope.

ARENA: All right, as the story continues, Delia, we'll be catching up with you ON THE STORY in the coming days. Thanks so much for joining us.

More on the story of John Paul II later in the hour, including our "What's Her Story?" segment, on a woman rescued by the pope in 1945.

Just ahead, CNN security watch, a new push this week from the administration to save the PATRIOT Act. We're back on the story in just a moment.

ANNOUNCER: Kelli Arena is CNN's justice correspondent. Earlier, she worked for CNN's Financial News. The new York Festivals awarded her a 2002 Best Correspondent Award.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALBERTO GONZALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups still pose a great threat to the security of the American people. And now is not the time to relinquish some of our most effective tools in the fight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this week making his pitch to preserve the PATRIOT Act, parts of which will die off unless renewed by Congress.

MALVEAUX: I have a big question here, of course. You know, Ashcroft dealt with this before. A lot of people looking at Gonzales in a very different way, perhaps the Gonzales factor, the likability factor. How much do you think that is going to make a difference in actually pushing for particularly some of those really controversial issues (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?

ARENA: That does make a very big difference. I mean, he's likable. And many lawmakers made that very public during the hearings this week, and said you're way ahead of your predecessor; you seem to hear our questions; you seem inclined to answer them. Gonzales took copious notes while he was listening to the lawmakers' questioning and said, if he didn't know, I don't know, but I'll get back to you. And just a very different dynamic that was very evident early on.

HAYS: Well, of course, that's part of it. I mean, John Ashcroft, in some sense, is an easy act to follow, because he was so antagonistic, so unpopular that, you know, it really set the stage nicely for Gonzales. But I'm really interested in the PATRIOT Act itself. What do you hear from all the law enforcement terrorist fighters that you talk to? Are they saying we really could get this done with a regular search warrant? Or they say, this really makes a difference?

ARENA: No, they say they need it. They say these are vital in a war on terrorists. Take, for example, going through records, business records, being able to pull those forward. There is a big controversy because some of those could be library or medical records. And they say these are the things -- first of all, everything has to go through a judge at some point, so we're just not doing this on our own, it all gets judicial approval in some respects.

HAYS: But they do have to have probable cause, right?

(CROSSTALK)

ARENA: Right. Well, there are different -- there are different levels of standards that they have to reach. It depends on which provision you're talking about.

But sneak and peek, for example. One of the provisions that doesn't expire, which allows law enforcement to go into your house and do a search without telling you until later. Well, on the one side, they say, well, we don't want to tip off the terrorists if we are in the middle of an investigation. On the other side, people say, well, wait a minute, you know, sometimes innocent people get caught up in terrorism investigations, and you could be doing searches and Americans just won't know about it.

So very, very controversial here. But I have to say, though, that the dynamic -- a lot of people say the dynamic could change dramatically if we have another attack on U.S. soil.

MALVEAUX: Tell us about this case that you dealt with as well, the Olympic Park bomber. I mean, that was really extraordinary.

ARENA: Eric Rudolph.

MALVEAUX: Yes, the fact that he actually says he's going to plead guilty now.

ARENA: That's right.

MALVEAUX: What does that mean to the victims' families?

ARENA: The victims' families -- well, it depends on which victims you speak to. But some that we spoke to were quite disappointed. They really felt that they needed that opportunity to sort of drag him through the mud. When he was on the run for five years, he almost got this whole mystique about him. And as a matter of fact, we did speak to several victims' families and victims themselves on camera. Let's hear what one of them had to say earlier this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) EMILY LYONS, INJURED IN 1998 CLINIC BOMBING: It's a disappointment for us. You know, I felt that the crimes he committed deserved the death penalty. But in order to make sure that others weren't injured or killed, you know, you have to give up some things. And so the life sentence is -- was that option.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: Now, as you heard, Eric Rudolph will get a life sentence without the possibility of parole, but he does not have to face the death penalty.

MALVEAUX: And what was the deal here? What was the exchange with the government? Why did that happen?

ARENA: He gave them the locations -- there were four different locations -- or five different locations where he had hidden 250 pounds of explosives.

HAYS: In each location?

ARENA: Right -- well, no, this was in total, but three of those locations were very close to populated communities and could have really put someone in danger. As a matter of fact, some of them, they couldn't even -- they were too fragile to even remove the dynamite. They had to detonate it on the spot. So that was sort of the trade- off. And you know, well, did we protect lives in the future by getting him to plead guilty and forego the death penalty...

HAYS: That's pretty scary. I mean, this is a domestic terrorist. Everyone is looking for al Qaeda and immigrants coming across broken borders and that kind of thing, and here you have a home-grown guy with 250 pounds of dynamite that had to be detonated rather than blow up people.

ARENA: That's right.

HAYS: How much of that -- I mean, again, what do you hear from law enforcement?

(CROSSTALK)

ARENA: ... this is definitely a concern. And always has been, sort of the lone wolf factor. There's the one thing that every law enforcement agent will tell you, that there is no way to detect a lone wolf. There's no -- they usually are not people who a larger investigation will uncover. These are people who work on their own, who are motivated by very different things. Some very imaginary, you know, whatever they come up with -- suicide bombers, a big issue for law enforcement. Very concerned about the possibility of suicide bombers strapping themselves with explosives and running in.

MALVEAUX: And there was a really interesting case this week as well, those two young teenagers out of New York who were potential suicide bombers. Very complicated. ARENA: That's right. Very complicated. Law enforcement says that they believe that there are some things about them that are troublesome. They believe that they do have the potential to be suicide bombers. They are here illegally, and so they are facing deportation, 16 years old. They have siblings that are U.S. citizens. That is a mess, Suzanne, a mess.

MALVEAUX: Well, stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security.

From security watch to royal watch, we're back on the story in London after this with Paula Hancocks and the Charles-Camilla wedding. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROWAN WILLIAMS, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: Charles, have you resolved to be faithful to your wife, forsaking all others so long as you both shall live?

CHARLES, PRINCE OF WALES: This is my resolve, so help me God.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: Prince Charles promising to be faithful to his new wife, Camilla, duchess of Windsor (sic). The latest chapter in one of the great love stories of our day -- maybe.

Welcome back. We're ON THE STORY, and CNN's Paula Hancocks joins us from London. Paula, you know, hearing that soundbite and hearing him talk about faithful -- I don't know. I don't know, I can't give him a break. Do you think that people on your side of the pond are willing to give him a break?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think, actually, most people are starting to come around to the idea of Charles and Camilla now, which is just as well, as they have just got married. People are thinking, it's been enough time since he was with Diana. It was 24 years ago that he married Diana, and people are starting to move on and thinking, well, if these two have been in love for 35 years, then maybe we should give them a break, maybe we should let them get married, maybe we should accept them as a couple.

The one thing people aren't accepting over here, they do not want him to be king, and they certainly don't want Camilla to be queen. There was a poll in one of the Sunday newspapers, which said about two-thirds of people over here wanted Charles to just give up the throne and give it to Prince William, who is far more popular. They are accepting the marriage, but they certainly don't want Camilla to be queen.

HAYS: Well, and of course, we can't talk about Charles and Camilla without talking about Diana. Diana is, whether we see her or not, we feel her presence, all the questions this raises. And Paula, we want to show a bit of a story you put together this week looking at the ghost of Diana at the wedding.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HANCOCKS (voice-over): She was known as the people's princess. Followed by the paparazzi wherever she went, she was considered a style icon, a role model, and she quickly became the world's most photographed woman. Charles' second wife to be, Camilla, has had to live with comparisons for years, happy to blend into the background. Many people don't even know what Camilla's voice sounds like.

Diana was more willing to talk.

DIANA, PRINCESS OF WALES: Well, there were three of us in this marriage. So it was a bit crowded.

HANCOCKS: The irony is, Camilla could now feel the same way.

ROBERT JOBSON, CNN ROYAL COMMENTATOR: I think Camilla Parker Bowles, duchess of Cornwall, whatever she's going to be called, will never be able to shake the shadow of Princess Diana. She's somebody that will always be there, to, if you like, haunt the royal couple. It's going to make life very difficult for them, because comparisons will be inevitable.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HANCOCKS: That was Robert Jobson, the royal commentator.

Now, of course, the ghost of Diana was very present yesterday. There were quite a few people who went to Kensington Palace, her old residence as well, to lay flowers and lay letters. They wanted to show that her memory hasn't been forgotten on the very day that Charles was marrying the other woman.

MALVEAUX: And Paula, I think it's so interesting too that he talked about, you know, really being in the shadow of Diana. And even in the ceremony, it's very interesting. Tell me what this whole thing was about repentance, the fact that he and Camilla now have to publicly ask for forgiveness for the years of adultery, and then move on.

HANCOCKS: They actually have the act of penitence. It was the strongest act of penitence that you can find in the Common Prayer Book, saying that they do acknowledge their sins and wickedness. Now, this is something they didn't have to do, but they felt that they wanted to, because there has obviously been so much criticism and quite a few of the -- in the church were saying, you have to acknowledge what you have done, you have to acknowledge that you are adulterers, and you have to apologize for that. So that's why they put that in the ceremony.

ARENA: Paula, how did her sons react, William and Harry, Diana's sons, of course?

HANCOCKS: They reacted extremely well, actually. They were in very buoyant mood yesterday. They got a huge cheer as they arrived at the town hall. In fact, they got a bigger cheer than Charles and Camilla did. They are extremely popular over here and of course, internationally. And they were in a very cheeky mood as well. They put the "just married" in shaving cream on the back of the car, and they put those little cans that they tied to the back of the car, which is tradition over here.

And they gave the thumbs up as well as they came out after Charles and Camilla were married.

HAYS: So obviously, these sons of Charles want to, you know, move forward, not look back but look ahead to the future.

You raise the question of the public being against Charles becoming king. But right now he is in line to be king, and -- but apparently Camilla will be princess consort. Is that something the public can live with?

ARENA: That's something that has been talked about a lot. It's not so much the fact that they don't want Charles to be king. It is the fact they do not want her to be queen. Legally, she will automatically become queen, because she is married to the heir to the throne if he does become king.

The one thing that people didn't like as well was the fact that she could have the princess of Wales title. She automatically has that title now, and of course that was what Diana's title was, and people are not happy about that.

So she has been very delicate. She has appreciated the public mood and said that she's not going to use that title, she's not going to use the title "queen." And princess consort is a title that she has decided is the most delicate way of putting herself in the public arena.

She's very aware of how people love Diana still, almost seven and a half years after her death. She is very aware of the public mood.

MALVEAUX: And we understand that she's aware of it, but what does she actually say? We rarely get to hear from her. Does she actually communicate to people and say, I understand your feelings, this is what I want to do? Princess Diana was very much involved in the social activities and traveling. Does she talk about what it is that she's going to do in that role?

HANCOCKS: She really doesn't talk publicly at all. As I say, some people don't even know what her voice sounds like. She really doesn't put herself in the public arena too much. I mean, she does do charities. She does some public speaking in that respect. But when it comes to her future role, when it comes to her husband, she doesn't talk at all, and she has told friends who have told newspapers that she's not going to give any sort of interviews at all. She's not going to talk in public.

So she's given a very different role to what Diana was. Diana was very willing to talk. She's very happy to stay out of the limelight and just support her husband. HAYS: Very interesting contrast. We'll see if it lasts. Paula Hancocks, thank you so much. We look forward to seeing you again soon on the story.

I'm back in a moment, on the story of new records for oil prices, new worries about what's down the road this summer.

We'll go to Texas for the latest on the story of a prison escapee and the warden's wife. Was she really held hostage for more than a decade?

And we'll talk about which presidents went to the papal funeral and why.

And straight ahead, what's making news right now? All coming up, all ON THE STORY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALAN GREENSPAN, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN: If history is any guide, should higher prices persist energy use will over time continue to decline relative to gross domestic product.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYS: Let's translate that a little bit. Get out your old economics textbook. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan this week predicting that as oil prices go up demand force it down. At the same time, he says higher prices will fire up inventors and investors to find new solutions. We hope so.

Welcome back. I'm Kathleen Hays and we are ON THE STORY.

MALVEAUX: And I count on you for my interpretation, the translation, everything. You are the person I go to, to try to understand and make sense of all of this.

Now please tell me why is it that we saw gas prices go way up this week. I thought it was just last week that they were saying it was going to be -- they were predicting 20 cents higher. Now that's already happened. What is going on?

HAYS: You've got to remember that if I'm somebody selling gasoline I'm trying to figure out not where prices were last week but where they're going next and the price of crude oil makes up about half of the price of a gallon of gasoline.

Yes, there's refining and marketing and all of that but if you see crude oil going above $58 a barrel, if you hear someone like the International Monetary Fund saying there's a possibility, not a prediction, but a possibility with some big supply disruption oil could spike up to $100 a barrel, this makes you think, hey, I'm going to raise the price of my gas. They are paying more. It's coming through the pipeline. Maybe they're getting ahead of the actual price to a certain extent.

ARENA: Shocking.

HAYS: But the crude oil thing is so powerful and everyone lately has been underestimating where the price was going to go.

ARENA: Where is Saudi Arabia in all of this? It's of course (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

HAYS: Saudi Arabia, of course, is the big producer. Saudi Arabia is potentially the swing producer. The problem is even though Saudi Arabia has, what, said they're going to raise their production by 500,000 barrels a day, another 500,000 barrels a day, right now the oil that can get out easily is the heavy crude, lots of sulfur.

I don't know a lot about oil but I know that what you need, what everybody wants is the light, sweet crude because it refines easily and quickly into gasoline. Apparently, the Saudis are now going to drill more. They've been bringing in people. They're looking for new wells. If they can hit some light, sweet crude this summer, maybe we'll get some relief. But the world is close to capacity is what a lot of the experts say and even though crude...

(CROSSTALK)

MALVEAUX: Why is this happening? Is it everybody just wants more gasoline? I mean usually you would think that demand would cut it down.

HAYS: Do you know what's really interesting the numbers we got this week from the Energy Information Agency in the crude oil inventories that come out every week, which are closely watched, one of the big market movers now for stock market and certainly for the oil market.

What made the price go above $58 a barrel was that the gasoline inventories fell sharply. Why is it that the price is so high and everyone is complaining about it and we're telling people, "Oh, go to the Internet and find the cheapest price." People keep buying more and more. The price apparently isn't high enough yet...

(CROSSTALK)

HAYS: They do. I spoke just recently to Professor al-Haji (ph) from Northern Ohio University. He's a big oil expert, covers this market very thoroughly and he had a whole calculation for me where he said, look, let's look at the price of a gallon of gasoline, last year about $1.40 on the average. Now it's up to $2.20.

So, let's say I drive an SUV that gets 15 miles per gallon. Should I switch to a car that's more fuel efficient, 25 miles a gallon? It sounds like a good idea. Do you know how much I would save in a year, $800. For well-to-do or even comfortable middle class families who drive their SUVs and if you have a lot of kids to cart around it's not enough to change their habits. For lower income people that could take a big, big bit and these aren't people who can afford to buy the fuel efficient car, right? But so far it is not denting our behavior, not yet.

MALVEAUX: And how do we reverse this? I mean where do we peak?

HAYS: That's -- well, I think the forecast I'm hearing is that we could easily stay in this $50 to $60 a barrel crude oil range this summer. What could happen though is if -- what we have right now is a very precarious situation.

We've got really low interest rates. That helps the economy, a government that's spending a lot of money that helps the economy offsetting the impact of high oil prices.

One of the things economists talk about if the oil prices hit the consumer and slow the economy down it's self correcting. That will pull the price down at least temporarily. But, remember, China. China, China, China.

ARENA: That can hold the price down.

HAYS: And they're...

ARENA: It's so frustrating.

HAYS: Their consumption is up a million barrels a day. Ours is up a half a million barrels a day. It doesn't show signs of slowing. I think we've got to think about alternative fuels, hybrids. Toyota is selling them like crazy. This is something I think more and more Americans will look at.

ARENA: Well, think about baseball too. That's another thing that aggravates me.

HAYS: Go ahead, tell us.

(CROSSTALK)

ARENA: You know gas prices and baseball ticket prices, what is going on?

HAYS: Well, I guess baseball is popular enough and the gas prices haven't hurt us enough because the prices are up like six percent, an average of $21 but, you know, what can I say? Maybe you've got a little inflation problem in the -- but, you know, come on Suzanne, you're a basketball fan. What do you pay for a basketball ticket?

MALVEAUX: Basketball is a lot more expensive to tell you the truth.

ARENA: There's no justification. MALVEAUX: Seventy dollars maybe for a game.

(CROSSTALK)

ARENA: You can't go to a game for 100 bucks.

HAYS: If you get a bad headache or this causes a lot of pains, a big pain reliever was just pulled off the market this week.

MALVEAUX: That's a good transition.

ARENA: What a pro.

HAYS: Pfizer pulled off Bextra and I think this is just such an interesting story where the FDA had this panel of experts a few months, you know, a couple months ago to advise them what they should do and they said to themselves, well, you know, there are risks from Vioxx and Celebrex and Bextra, these things that are Cox-2 inhibitors. They suppress certain kinds of pains.

And, the FDA now trying to err on the side of the consumer and show that they're not trying to help the drug companies too much pulled this big pain reliever off the market, so I guess you just have to go on to your Aleve and all the other ones. But they're even saying you got to be aware of those things.

MALVEAUX: So, it's all connected. You go from money to politics. That's how we're going to...

ARENA: That's how (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

MALVEAUX: That is how we're going to take the direction of the show and what President Bush had to say on his way back from Rome. I'm back on that story after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: President Bush broke tradition an led the U.S. delegation to the pope's funeral. He was accompanied by former Presidents Bush and Clinton.

Welcome back, I'm Suzanne Malveaux and we're on that story.

HAYS: Isn't it interesting when someone dies how so many things are just put aside? I mean this is the president who went to war with a pope who said "Don't do it," you know. And this is a, you know, never have we sent a president to a pope's funeral but this (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

MALVEAUX: And they had a really unique relationship too, the president as well as the pope because, as you had mentioned before, of course, they did not see eye-to-eye. The last trip when he went to the Vatican last June the pope made it very clear, as he had done so before he was vehemently against the Iraq War. He publicly spoke out about the injustice, the embarrassment of the scandal, the Abu Ghraib scandal, the prison scandal there. And it was really a unique situation because, on the one hand, and people had accused President Bush of perhaps playing it somewhat political here the last trip because it was just five months before Election Day, before the reelection and some people said, hey, he's just trying to go after the Catholic vote here. How real is this?

Well, we saw some of the reality. We did see the president this week, very emotional, very somber and also extremely respectful of this pope saying, "Yes, we had our disagreements."

He talked about it aboard Air Force One on his trip back home saying that "We may have not seen eye-to-eye but this was a moral leader. This was someone who I shared values with," particularly when you talk about that kind of culture of life, the social issues that he talked about.

ARENA: Suzanne, what was the deal with former President Jimmy Carter? I mean did they diss him or what?

MALVEAUX: That's a very good question. It kind of depends on who you talk to. The way this thing went down essentially is this is the way the White House explains it. They said initially they believed they had five seats.

It was very limited. They wanted President Bush, of course, and three other living presidents who had all met with the pope before that they reached out to all three, to Carter, to President Bush's father, as well as to Clinton.

Then there was some sort of murky area. This is when Bush 41, the father, went to go check his schedule. We understand that Clinton was checking with his doctor to see if he could travel. So there was a lot of confusion whether or not they were going to attend.

Carter, when they called him, said well there's limited space. That's OK if there's not enough space. We'll let you go ahead. Then it ends up that the two other presidents say yes, in fact, we can make it. That's when we are told that President Bush told Andy Card, his chief of staff, "Call Carter. Tell him, you know, these two are attending. Please we extend the offer again."

The Carter folks say that was never made clear to them that the two other presidents were attending, therefore he was always kind of deferring to the administration saying, look, if there are not enough seats that's OK.

It obviously became a stink. Obviously the Carter folks said, look, we don't want to blow this out of proportion. We will assume that this is not kind of nasty politics. We will just assume that this is kind a snafu and perhaps just a miscommunication.

But it was clear when you actually watched this unfold that there were other people who thought perhaps he snubbed him a bit. Carter had been very outspoken against Bush before.

HAYS: Well, it hasn't stopped him from putting his arms around Bill Clinton who beat his father in the last election but the vice president stayed home and he was funny.

MALVEAUX: That was a rare treat actually, yes. As a matter of fact, President Bush, when he was off to the pope's funeral, you know we were all there radio, TV correspondents, a big to do in Washington here and, of course, President Bush is usually the one who takes the stage.

It was Cheney instead, kind of made light of the whole situation. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I only found out a couple of days ago that I had to be here tonight and be funny. I'm not into funny. I don't want you to get worried but just the other day I had this strange feeling in my chest. I found myself short of breath shaking uncontrollably. I couldn't figure out what was going on. Then Lynne explained. She said, "Dick, that's called laughing."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Now who would have known? He was funny. Who knew he was a funny guy, you know?

ARENA: It was. It was really interesting.

MALVEAUX: It was great. It was great. And, of course, looking ahead tomorrow is going to be a very important day for the president. He's on his Crawford ranch. He's going to be meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and they're going to be talking about what's next in the peace process, particularly when it comes to the settlements.

ARENA: Pivotal time, all right.

Well from Washington we head west and to a crime story that captured our attention this week. Convicted murdered Randolph Dial broke out of prison more than a decade ago holding an assistant warden's wife at gunpoint.

Now they were discovered just this week. Was she a hostage all this time? We are back on that story with "Dallas Morning News" reporter Lee Hancock straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDOLPH DIAL, CONVICTED MURDERER: I regret to say that I was the hostage taker and I'll probably live to regret it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYS: That's convicted murderer and prison escapee Randolph Dial speaking after his capture this week. By saying he was the hostage taker he seemed to be owning up that he held a prison warden's wife hostage at knifepoint when he escaped and then kept holding her hostage for nearly eleven years. The woman, Bobbie Parker, this week was reunited with her family, so many questions.

Welcome back. We're ON THE STORY.

And joining us from Texas is "Dallas Morning News" reporter Lee Hancock. Lee, you know, we can start at the point in the story where we kind of misspoke a little bit earlier that Randolph Dial apparently spirited this woman away in a pickup truck, hiding on the floor board with an artery, a knife against the artery of her leg, right?

LEE HANCOCK, "DALLAS MORNING NEWS": Yes.

HAYS: And took her away. But then how is it that she seemed to have so many chances to escape over more than ten years from this little chicken farm in Texas and she didn't? Can we really believe her story?

HANCOCK: Well, the interesting thing is how many law enforcement officials in Texas believe her story and these are guys that are cynical for a living, FBI agents, Texas Rangers, people who came into contact with her are convinced she was terrified.

And part of the reason is Randolph Dial's story itself. He's a murderer convicted of a hit on a karate instructor in Broken Bow, Oklahoma back in the early 1980s.

No one knew that he was responsible for the crime until he decided to turn himself in. He put himself in prison and then once he came in, he had stories about having Mafia connections, being a Mafia hit man, some of which were confirmed by police.

And so when he took her, he told her evidently that if you try to escape, I can make a single phone call and have your two children and your entire family killed.

So, you know there's still lots and lots of questions but evidently she was terrified that if she left that he would go after not just her but her whole family.

MALVEAUX: And, Lee, tell us how this went down ultimately when they discovered her, where she was that she was with him. I guess part of the story too is that she at that point as well she was still afraid. She still wouldn't talk to law enforcement authorities about the fact that she was being held against her will. How did that happen?

HANCOCK: Well, first you have to understand the setting. This is deep, deep in the woods in rural East Texas back in the piney woods. They lived down miles and miles of red dirt road where, as the local law enforcement folks say, it's a great place to hide, down near the Louisiana border.

And, evidently someone who worked with them, someone in the chicken business who ran into them got wind of Dial's background. He was going by the name Deal (ph) at the time. She called herself Samantha and he had had a heart attack and they lived together on a chicken farm. She did all the work.

Evidently, someone got suspicious and there had been several segments on several crime shows, "Unsolved Mysteries," "America's Most Wanted," and someone had seen his mug shots which looked very different than the man he looked like when he was picked up last week but contacted a DA's office two and a half hours away and said, "Look, I think we know this guy."

So, cops get these calls all the time and they ran on it on Monday and, as one of the DA's investigators said to me last week, you know, it's one of those fluke things you stumble onto and the phrase he used was "Even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then."

And so when they went he is at his trailer cooking dinner. She is out mowing. She evidently worked 12 hours a day and this is back breaking work, working on these chicken farms. She was mowing around a chicken house.

A ranger comes up to her and he told me, "I said, what is your name?" And he said she looked absolutely terrified and he said, "Don't lie to me. What is your name?" And finally she looked down and paused for a moment and shaking she said, "My name is Bobbie Parker."

They took her back to the trailer about a mile -- a half a mile away from where they found her. They're leading him out to a patrol car and she is still so scared she's telling the cops the whole way "I can't cooperate. I'm so scared. I cannot help you. I will not tell you anything."

And when she sees him led out she yells at him "I'm not cooperating" because she so much wanted to make clear to him that she had not been responsible for what was happening.

ARENA: Lee, and of course on the other side of this you've got her family, her husband, her children who probably presumed that she was dead. Did you get an opportunity to talk with them at all?

HANCOCK: That's really another remarkable part of this story, talked to her mother yesterday. Her husband, Randy Parker, is a warden at another prison now in Oklahoma. They got the call Monday night. He rushed down immediately to be with her.

The mother said he called her that night. They had had a pact that whoever heard something would call and she said he called and said "I got news. They found Bobbie and she's alive" and the mother said that in the discussion it came up that she had really lost hope. She wasn't sure that her daughter would be found alive.

But she said that her son-in-law, Mr. Parker, never lost hope. He always expected to see her one day and several people who were there at the reunion early Tuesday morning in Nacogdoches, Texas at a hotel said that when Mr. Parker saw his wife both of them were as if people in a dream, not sure that this was real. They hesitated for a moment and then they fell into each other's arms crying. Now they had gone back to the prison where Mr. Parker works and they are holed up trying to get to know one another.

Her daughters were eight years old and ten years old when this happened. At one point, the 8-year-old, the youngest daughter even wrote the local paper saying all she wanted for Christmas from Santa Claus was her mother home and this little girl is going to graduate next month from high school. The mother said that they're all hoping for a family reunion where finally they can all be a family (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

ARENA: Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

MALVEAUX: Well, Lee, thank you so much. This is really an extraordinary story and we hope to see you back ON THE STORY soon.

And we're back ON THE STORY here right after this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: A holocaust survivor recalls her remarkable encounter with the pope. What's her story? More when we return.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: Edith Zierer, what's her story? She was 14 years old when she was liberated from a Nazi labor camp in the winter of 1945. When Edith tried to find her way home to Krakow more than 100 miles away she collapsed from exhaustion and malnutrition.

She awoke to find a young student priest offering help. He brought her tea and bread and unable to walk on her own he carried her to the train station. Once in Krakow, Edith asked the young man his name.

EDITH ZIERER (through translator): His name is Karol Wojtyla.

ANNOUNCER: Thirty-three years later she read that her savior had become Pope John Paul II.

ZIERER (through translator): I wrote four pages in Polish to the Holy Father. I said it is very difficult for me to keep living like this. I want to thank you.

ANNOUNCER: Edith was reunited with the pope in Rome and then again at Israel's Holocaust Memorial in 2000. Fighting back tears, she recited a phrase from the Torah. "He who saves one life has saved an entire world."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: That is amazing. Well, I'd like to thank my colleagues and thank you for watching ON THE STORY. We'll be back next week.

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 April 10, 2005 - 10:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Welcome to CNN's ON THE STORY, where our journalists have the inside word on the stories that we covered this week, from the Vatican to London, from Washington to east Texas.
I'm Kelli Arena, on the story of new focus this week on the war on terrorism and whether federal law and federal agents go too far.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Suzanne Malveaux, on the story of President Bush breaking tradition, leading the U.S. delegation to the pope's funeral.

KATHLEEN HAYS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And I'm Kathleen Hays, on the story of yet new records for oil prices. And of course, we'll go to the Vatican in just a moment.

Also coming up, we'll go to London, for the latest on the royal wedding as the other woman becomes the bride.

We'll go to Texas, on the story of the capture of an escaped murderer who took the warden's wife. Did he really hold her hostage for 10 years?

At the end of the hour, our "What's Her Story?" segment. A Nazi death camp survivor saved by the man who would be pope. E-mail us at onthestory@cnn.com. Now, straight ahead to the Vatican.

ARENA: At the Vatican, the elaborate ritual of the funeral and the celebration of the life and death of Pope John Paul II. Joining us now on the story is CNN Vatican analyst Delia Gallagher.

Delia, you've had a moment to breathe finally. Funeral done, you're waiting for the conclave. As you look back at these past few weeks, what stands out to you most? I mean, of course, the crowds, phenomenal crowds. But as you've had a chance to reflect, what has really stood out to you?

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN VATICAN ANALYST: Well, I think the amazing thing about this week is that all the stories that I've covered from the Vatican prior to this, this week really required no commentary. I mean, the images just spoke for themselves. And in fact, when we were here, during the funeral mass, anything that could have been said was almost superfluous. I think the crowds, as you mentioned, this image of the pope's very simple coffin, the simplicity really of this ceremony, which was just a basic Catholic funeral. Apart for the man for whom it was being said, apart from all the heads of state that were there, this was a funeral that would be given to any Catholic, really.

And so I think that the story just spoke for itself. There was no need for commentary really, this week.

HAYS: And of course, people writing about it really blessed all the media involved for doing that, not getting too much commentary going. I must say on a very prosaic note, I was struck by things like big screen TVs, porta-potties being brought in, all these things to suddenly accommodate, it's hard to imagine, five million people at least descending on your city, in days, unexpected. How has the city coped?

GALLAGHER: Well, the amazing thing about the people was -- we saw people that had come off the airplane, from the airport, with suitcases in hand to stand in these lines for 14 hours, and then probably turn around and get back on a plane. The devotion was absolutely outstanding. And I mean, if you saw the crowds that were there, sort of 30 people wide, no food, no drink for hours. The city of Rome, of course, did a tremendous job to welcome them.

And you know, we're used to big crowds here in Rome, but I think we weren't used to the sort of tenor of the crowds, the silence beforehand, the great applause during the funeral. Several times they interrupted Cardinal Ratzinger's homily with applause, this saint now, make him a saint. There was a tremendous sort of mandate there for the cardinals now, given this just huge outpouring of popularity for this pope.

MALVEAUX: And tell us a little bit about what people were talking about, some of the conversations that happened there. I know being Catholic myself, there are a lot of people who are looking at this moment and saying, obviously, very special. But also, the fact that this was a controversial pope, someone who many people did not agree with some of his beliefs, particularly when it came to those social issues.

GALLAGHER: Well, I think the thing that this week proved was that despite the fact that people disagreed with him, especially on moral teachings, as you say, there was still this great love and appreciation for this man. And I think that it shows that in some way, the world wants a voice of moral authority, even wants somebody to disagree with, if you will. And so in some way, I think that the affection for the pope as a person outweighed any sort of disagreements.

Now, of course, that doesn't mean that that's not going to be an issue for the future for the church, and that's something that the cardinals will be taking into consideration in these days. But the tremendous charisma of Pope John Paul II almost allowed him to get away with, if you will, a sort of very hard line on certain issues, and, yet, an all-embracing love for everyone, despite whether they agreed with him or not.

ARENA: Delia, follow up on that whole controversy issue. This week, Cardinal Law, who really has become the face of the whole molestation scandal here in the United States, is scheduled to officiate a service there. What is the reaction to that?

GALLAGHER: Well, this is part of the nine days, the novemdialis services. There are masses held in St. Peter's Square here for nine days in suffrage for the pope.

Each of those nine days, by church law, is entrusted, if you will, to a certain group. So today we have the group for the people of Rome, headed by Cardinal Ruini. Tomorrow is the group for what they call the four basilicas of Rome. And so almost by process of elimination, the mass is said by Cardinal Law because of course, he is head of one of the major four basilicas, St. Mary Majors. The other being St. Peter's here, the pope is the head of that; St. John Lateran is Cardinal Ruini. And so Cardinal Law is going to say this mass tomorrow, because that is what is set down, that that person, in charge of St. Mary Majors, must say the mass.

Now, we could say also that over here, it is considered that Cardinal Law has been, in some sense, already punished, if you will, for what happened in the United States. He was forced to resign, in a sense. He offered his resignation, and it was accepted from his archdiocese. That in the eyes of the Catholic Church is considered a very great punishment, to take away a priest from his people.

So there was a lot of controversy when Cardinal Law was given this position, which is nonetheless a position of importance here as the head of a major basilica, but at the same time, I think that most of the cardinals over here felt that he had already paid the price of what happened in the States.

HAYS: Delia, speaking of cardinals, what, is there 117 cardinals, something like that, who will weigh in on the selection of the next pope? They start meeting on April 18th. What is the perspective on that? We don't expect you to tell us -- handicap the horse race, who's the next pope. But what's the dynamic? What is going to happen next?

GALLAGHER: Well, the dynamic is wide open, of course, because not only are there 117 voting, but there are 117 possibilities. Any one of those men could become the next pope.

You can pick out some general lines. But it is very much a wide open race. There is no real front-runner in the sense of other races.

Now, the church and the College of Cardinals you can roughly divide into a sort of conservative and liberal bent. But on the other hand, there are so many different issues that they have to deal with. Each of them falls into different categories within those issues. So we're looking at something like talking about whether the church in the first place is going to be open to culture, open to dealing with the issue of Islam, for example. Then they have to deal with the moral issues, the questions of the day with regard to engaging the culture in that sense.

And so all of these kind of factors have to be considered. But I think on the whole, they are going to be considering who is going to be the man who can carry out this legacy of Pope John Paul II. They saw it this week, and they know they need to continue that enthusiasm. So they're going to need a leader who is going to be capable of following in the footsteps of this pope.

ARENA: All right, as the story continues, Delia, we'll be catching up with you ON THE STORY in the coming days. Thanks so much for joining us.

More on the story of John Paul II later in the hour, including our "What's Her Story?" segment, on a woman rescued by the pope in 1945.

Just ahead, CNN security watch, a new push this week from the administration to save the PATRIOT Act. We're back on the story in just a moment.

ANNOUNCER: Kelli Arena is CNN's justice correspondent. Earlier, she worked for CNN's Financial News. The new York Festivals awarded her a 2002 Best Correspondent Award.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALBERTO GONZALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups still pose a great threat to the security of the American people. And now is not the time to relinquish some of our most effective tools in the fight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this week making his pitch to preserve the PATRIOT Act, parts of which will die off unless renewed by Congress.

MALVEAUX: I have a big question here, of course. You know, Ashcroft dealt with this before. A lot of people looking at Gonzales in a very different way, perhaps the Gonzales factor, the likability factor. How much do you think that is going to make a difference in actually pushing for particularly some of those really controversial issues (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?

ARENA: That does make a very big difference. I mean, he's likable. And many lawmakers made that very public during the hearings this week, and said you're way ahead of your predecessor; you seem to hear our questions; you seem inclined to answer them. Gonzales took copious notes while he was listening to the lawmakers' questioning and said, if he didn't know, I don't know, but I'll get back to you. And just a very different dynamic that was very evident early on.

HAYS: Well, of course, that's part of it. I mean, John Ashcroft, in some sense, is an easy act to follow, because he was so antagonistic, so unpopular that, you know, it really set the stage nicely for Gonzales. But I'm really interested in the PATRIOT Act itself. What do you hear from all the law enforcement terrorist fighters that you talk to? Are they saying we really could get this done with a regular search warrant? Or they say, this really makes a difference?

ARENA: No, they say they need it. They say these are vital in a war on terrorists. Take, for example, going through records, business records, being able to pull those forward. There is a big controversy because some of those could be library or medical records. And they say these are the things -- first of all, everything has to go through a judge at some point, so we're just not doing this on our own, it all gets judicial approval in some respects.

HAYS: But they do have to have probable cause, right?

(CROSSTALK)

ARENA: Right. Well, there are different -- there are different levels of standards that they have to reach. It depends on which provision you're talking about.

But sneak and peek, for example. One of the provisions that doesn't expire, which allows law enforcement to go into your house and do a search without telling you until later. Well, on the one side, they say, well, we don't want to tip off the terrorists if we are in the middle of an investigation. On the other side, people say, well, wait a minute, you know, sometimes innocent people get caught up in terrorism investigations, and you could be doing searches and Americans just won't know about it.

So very, very controversial here. But I have to say, though, that the dynamic -- a lot of people say the dynamic could change dramatically if we have another attack on U.S. soil.

MALVEAUX: Tell us about this case that you dealt with as well, the Olympic Park bomber. I mean, that was really extraordinary.

ARENA: Eric Rudolph.

MALVEAUX: Yes, the fact that he actually says he's going to plead guilty now.

ARENA: That's right.

MALVEAUX: What does that mean to the victims' families?

ARENA: The victims' families -- well, it depends on which victims you speak to. But some that we spoke to were quite disappointed. They really felt that they needed that opportunity to sort of drag him through the mud. When he was on the run for five years, he almost got this whole mystique about him. And as a matter of fact, we did speak to several victims' families and victims themselves on camera. Let's hear what one of them had to say earlier this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) EMILY LYONS, INJURED IN 1998 CLINIC BOMBING: It's a disappointment for us. You know, I felt that the crimes he committed deserved the death penalty. But in order to make sure that others weren't injured or killed, you know, you have to give up some things. And so the life sentence is -- was that option.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: Now, as you heard, Eric Rudolph will get a life sentence without the possibility of parole, but he does not have to face the death penalty.

MALVEAUX: And what was the deal here? What was the exchange with the government? Why did that happen?

ARENA: He gave them the locations -- there were four different locations -- or five different locations where he had hidden 250 pounds of explosives.

HAYS: In each location?

ARENA: Right -- well, no, this was in total, but three of those locations were very close to populated communities and could have really put someone in danger. As a matter of fact, some of them, they couldn't even -- they were too fragile to even remove the dynamite. They had to detonate it on the spot. So that was sort of the trade- off. And you know, well, did we protect lives in the future by getting him to plead guilty and forego the death penalty...

HAYS: That's pretty scary. I mean, this is a domestic terrorist. Everyone is looking for al Qaeda and immigrants coming across broken borders and that kind of thing, and here you have a home-grown guy with 250 pounds of dynamite that had to be detonated rather than blow up people.

ARENA: That's right.

HAYS: How much of that -- I mean, again, what do you hear from law enforcement?

(CROSSTALK)

ARENA: ... this is definitely a concern. And always has been, sort of the lone wolf factor. There's the one thing that every law enforcement agent will tell you, that there is no way to detect a lone wolf. There's no -- they usually are not people who a larger investigation will uncover. These are people who work on their own, who are motivated by very different things. Some very imaginary, you know, whatever they come up with -- suicide bombers, a big issue for law enforcement. Very concerned about the possibility of suicide bombers strapping themselves with explosives and running in.

MALVEAUX: And there was a really interesting case this week as well, those two young teenagers out of New York who were potential suicide bombers. Very complicated. ARENA: That's right. Very complicated. Law enforcement says that they believe that there are some things about them that are troublesome. They believe that they do have the potential to be suicide bombers. They are here illegally, and so they are facing deportation, 16 years old. They have siblings that are U.S. citizens. That is a mess, Suzanne, a mess.

MALVEAUX: Well, stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security.

From security watch to royal watch, we're back on the story in London after this with Paula Hancocks and the Charles-Camilla wedding. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROWAN WILLIAMS, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: Charles, have you resolved to be faithful to your wife, forsaking all others so long as you both shall live?

CHARLES, PRINCE OF WALES: This is my resolve, so help me God.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: Prince Charles promising to be faithful to his new wife, Camilla, duchess of Windsor (sic). The latest chapter in one of the great love stories of our day -- maybe.

Welcome back. We're ON THE STORY, and CNN's Paula Hancocks joins us from London. Paula, you know, hearing that soundbite and hearing him talk about faithful -- I don't know. I don't know, I can't give him a break. Do you think that people on your side of the pond are willing to give him a break?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think, actually, most people are starting to come around to the idea of Charles and Camilla now, which is just as well, as they have just got married. People are thinking, it's been enough time since he was with Diana. It was 24 years ago that he married Diana, and people are starting to move on and thinking, well, if these two have been in love for 35 years, then maybe we should give them a break, maybe we should let them get married, maybe we should accept them as a couple.

The one thing people aren't accepting over here, they do not want him to be king, and they certainly don't want Camilla to be queen. There was a poll in one of the Sunday newspapers, which said about two-thirds of people over here wanted Charles to just give up the throne and give it to Prince William, who is far more popular. They are accepting the marriage, but they certainly don't want Camilla to be queen.

HAYS: Well, and of course, we can't talk about Charles and Camilla without talking about Diana. Diana is, whether we see her or not, we feel her presence, all the questions this raises. And Paula, we want to show a bit of a story you put together this week looking at the ghost of Diana at the wedding.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HANCOCKS (voice-over): She was known as the people's princess. Followed by the paparazzi wherever she went, she was considered a style icon, a role model, and she quickly became the world's most photographed woman. Charles' second wife to be, Camilla, has had to live with comparisons for years, happy to blend into the background. Many people don't even know what Camilla's voice sounds like.

Diana was more willing to talk.

DIANA, PRINCESS OF WALES: Well, there were three of us in this marriage. So it was a bit crowded.

HANCOCKS: The irony is, Camilla could now feel the same way.

ROBERT JOBSON, CNN ROYAL COMMENTATOR: I think Camilla Parker Bowles, duchess of Cornwall, whatever she's going to be called, will never be able to shake the shadow of Princess Diana. She's somebody that will always be there, to, if you like, haunt the royal couple. It's going to make life very difficult for them, because comparisons will be inevitable.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HANCOCKS: That was Robert Jobson, the royal commentator.

Now, of course, the ghost of Diana was very present yesterday. There were quite a few people who went to Kensington Palace, her old residence as well, to lay flowers and lay letters. They wanted to show that her memory hasn't been forgotten on the very day that Charles was marrying the other woman.

MALVEAUX: And Paula, I think it's so interesting too that he talked about, you know, really being in the shadow of Diana. And even in the ceremony, it's very interesting. Tell me what this whole thing was about repentance, the fact that he and Camilla now have to publicly ask for forgiveness for the years of adultery, and then move on.

HANCOCKS: They actually have the act of penitence. It was the strongest act of penitence that you can find in the Common Prayer Book, saying that they do acknowledge their sins and wickedness. Now, this is something they didn't have to do, but they felt that they wanted to, because there has obviously been so much criticism and quite a few of the -- in the church were saying, you have to acknowledge what you have done, you have to acknowledge that you are adulterers, and you have to apologize for that. So that's why they put that in the ceremony.

ARENA: Paula, how did her sons react, William and Harry, Diana's sons, of course?

HANCOCKS: They reacted extremely well, actually. They were in very buoyant mood yesterday. They got a huge cheer as they arrived at the town hall. In fact, they got a bigger cheer than Charles and Camilla did. They are extremely popular over here and of course, internationally. And they were in a very cheeky mood as well. They put the "just married" in shaving cream on the back of the car, and they put those little cans that they tied to the back of the car, which is tradition over here.

And they gave the thumbs up as well as they came out after Charles and Camilla were married.

HAYS: So obviously, these sons of Charles want to, you know, move forward, not look back but look ahead to the future.

You raise the question of the public being against Charles becoming king. But right now he is in line to be king, and -- but apparently Camilla will be princess consort. Is that something the public can live with?

ARENA: That's something that has been talked about a lot. It's not so much the fact that they don't want Charles to be king. It is the fact they do not want her to be queen. Legally, she will automatically become queen, because she is married to the heir to the throne if he does become king.

The one thing that people didn't like as well was the fact that she could have the princess of Wales title. She automatically has that title now, and of course that was what Diana's title was, and people are not happy about that.

So she has been very delicate. She has appreciated the public mood and said that she's not going to use that title, she's not going to use the title "queen." And princess consort is a title that she has decided is the most delicate way of putting herself in the public arena.

She's very aware of how people love Diana still, almost seven and a half years after her death. She is very aware of the public mood.

MALVEAUX: And we understand that she's aware of it, but what does she actually say? We rarely get to hear from her. Does she actually communicate to people and say, I understand your feelings, this is what I want to do? Princess Diana was very much involved in the social activities and traveling. Does she talk about what it is that she's going to do in that role?

HANCOCKS: She really doesn't talk publicly at all. As I say, some people don't even know what her voice sounds like. She really doesn't put herself in the public arena too much. I mean, she does do charities. She does some public speaking in that respect. But when it comes to her future role, when it comes to her husband, she doesn't talk at all, and she has told friends who have told newspapers that she's not going to give any sort of interviews at all. She's not going to talk in public.

So she's given a very different role to what Diana was. Diana was very willing to talk. She's very happy to stay out of the limelight and just support her husband. HAYS: Very interesting contrast. We'll see if it lasts. Paula Hancocks, thank you so much. We look forward to seeing you again soon on the story.

I'm back in a moment, on the story of new records for oil prices, new worries about what's down the road this summer.

We'll go to Texas for the latest on the story of a prison escapee and the warden's wife. Was she really held hostage for more than a decade?

And we'll talk about which presidents went to the papal funeral and why.

And straight ahead, what's making news right now? All coming up, all ON THE STORY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALAN GREENSPAN, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN: If history is any guide, should higher prices persist energy use will over time continue to decline relative to gross domestic product.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYS: Let's translate that a little bit. Get out your old economics textbook. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan this week predicting that as oil prices go up demand force it down. At the same time, he says higher prices will fire up inventors and investors to find new solutions. We hope so.

Welcome back. I'm Kathleen Hays and we are ON THE STORY.

MALVEAUX: And I count on you for my interpretation, the translation, everything. You are the person I go to, to try to understand and make sense of all of this.

Now please tell me why is it that we saw gas prices go way up this week. I thought it was just last week that they were saying it was going to be -- they were predicting 20 cents higher. Now that's already happened. What is going on?

HAYS: You've got to remember that if I'm somebody selling gasoline I'm trying to figure out not where prices were last week but where they're going next and the price of crude oil makes up about half of the price of a gallon of gasoline.

Yes, there's refining and marketing and all of that but if you see crude oil going above $58 a barrel, if you hear someone like the International Monetary Fund saying there's a possibility, not a prediction, but a possibility with some big supply disruption oil could spike up to $100 a barrel, this makes you think, hey, I'm going to raise the price of my gas. They are paying more. It's coming through the pipeline. Maybe they're getting ahead of the actual price to a certain extent.

ARENA: Shocking.

HAYS: But the crude oil thing is so powerful and everyone lately has been underestimating where the price was going to go.

ARENA: Where is Saudi Arabia in all of this? It's of course (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

HAYS: Saudi Arabia, of course, is the big producer. Saudi Arabia is potentially the swing producer. The problem is even though Saudi Arabia has, what, said they're going to raise their production by 500,000 barrels a day, another 500,000 barrels a day, right now the oil that can get out easily is the heavy crude, lots of sulfur.

I don't know a lot about oil but I know that what you need, what everybody wants is the light, sweet crude because it refines easily and quickly into gasoline. Apparently, the Saudis are now going to drill more. They've been bringing in people. They're looking for new wells. If they can hit some light, sweet crude this summer, maybe we'll get some relief. But the world is close to capacity is what a lot of the experts say and even though crude...

(CROSSTALK)

MALVEAUX: Why is this happening? Is it everybody just wants more gasoline? I mean usually you would think that demand would cut it down.

HAYS: Do you know what's really interesting the numbers we got this week from the Energy Information Agency in the crude oil inventories that come out every week, which are closely watched, one of the big market movers now for stock market and certainly for the oil market.

What made the price go above $58 a barrel was that the gasoline inventories fell sharply. Why is it that the price is so high and everyone is complaining about it and we're telling people, "Oh, go to the Internet and find the cheapest price." People keep buying more and more. The price apparently isn't high enough yet...

(CROSSTALK)

HAYS: They do. I spoke just recently to Professor al-Haji (ph) from Northern Ohio University. He's a big oil expert, covers this market very thoroughly and he had a whole calculation for me where he said, look, let's look at the price of a gallon of gasoline, last year about $1.40 on the average. Now it's up to $2.20.

So, let's say I drive an SUV that gets 15 miles per gallon. Should I switch to a car that's more fuel efficient, 25 miles a gallon? It sounds like a good idea. Do you know how much I would save in a year, $800. For well-to-do or even comfortable middle class families who drive their SUVs and if you have a lot of kids to cart around it's not enough to change their habits. For lower income people that could take a big, big bit and these aren't people who can afford to buy the fuel efficient car, right? But so far it is not denting our behavior, not yet.

MALVEAUX: And how do we reverse this? I mean where do we peak?

HAYS: That's -- well, I think the forecast I'm hearing is that we could easily stay in this $50 to $60 a barrel crude oil range this summer. What could happen though is if -- what we have right now is a very precarious situation.

We've got really low interest rates. That helps the economy, a government that's spending a lot of money that helps the economy offsetting the impact of high oil prices.

One of the things economists talk about if the oil prices hit the consumer and slow the economy down it's self correcting. That will pull the price down at least temporarily. But, remember, China. China, China, China.

ARENA: That can hold the price down.

HAYS: And they're...

ARENA: It's so frustrating.

HAYS: Their consumption is up a million barrels a day. Ours is up a half a million barrels a day. It doesn't show signs of slowing. I think we've got to think about alternative fuels, hybrids. Toyota is selling them like crazy. This is something I think more and more Americans will look at.

ARENA: Well, think about baseball too. That's another thing that aggravates me.

HAYS: Go ahead, tell us.

(CROSSTALK)

ARENA: You know gas prices and baseball ticket prices, what is going on?

HAYS: Well, I guess baseball is popular enough and the gas prices haven't hurt us enough because the prices are up like six percent, an average of $21 but, you know, what can I say? Maybe you've got a little inflation problem in the -- but, you know, come on Suzanne, you're a basketball fan. What do you pay for a basketball ticket?

MALVEAUX: Basketball is a lot more expensive to tell you the truth.

ARENA: There's no justification. MALVEAUX: Seventy dollars maybe for a game.

(CROSSTALK)

ARENA: You can't go to a game for 100 bucks.

HAYS: If you get a bad headache or this causes a lot of pains, a big pain reliever was just pulled off the market this week.

MALVEAUX: That's a good transition.

ARENA: What a pro.

HAYS: Pfizer pulled off Bextra and I think this is just such an interesting story where the FDA had this panel of experts a few months, you know, a couple months ago to advise them what they should do and they said to themselves, well, you know, there are risks from Vioxx and Celebrex and Bextra, these things that are Cox-2 inhibitors. They suppress certain kinds of pains.

And, the FDA now trying to err on the side of the consumer and show that they're not trying to help the drug companies too much pulled this big pain reliever off the market, so I guess you just have to go on to your Aleve and all the other ones. But they're even saying you got to be aware of those things.

MALVEAUX: So, it's all connected. You go from money to politics. That's how we're going to...

ARENA: That's how (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

MALVEAUX: That is how we're going to take the direction of the show and what President Bush had to say on his way back from Rome. I'm back on that story after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: President Bush broke tradition an led the U.S. delegation to the pope's funeral. He was accompanied by former Presidents Bush and Clinton.

Welcome back, I'm Suzanne Malveaux and we're on that story.

HAYS: Isn't it interesting when someone dies how so many things are just put aside? I mean this is the president who went to war with a pope who said "Don't do it," you know. And this is a, you know, never have we sent a president to a pope's funeral but this (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

MALVEAUX: And they had a really unique relationship too, the president as well as the pope because, as you had mentioned before, of course, they did not see eye-to-eye. The last trip when he went to the Vatican last June the pope made it very clear, as he had done so before he was vehemently against the Iraq War. He publicly spoke out about the injustice, the embarrassment of the scandal, the Abu Ghraib scandal, the prison scandal there. And it was really a unique situation because, on the one hand, and people had accused President Bush of perhaps playing it somewhat political here the last trip because it was just five months before Election Day, before the reelection and some people said, hey, he's just trying to go after the Catholic vote here. How real is this?

Well, we saw some of the reality. We did see the president this week, very emotional, very somber and also extremely respectful of this pope saying, "Yes, we had our disagreements."

He talked about it aboard Air Force One on his trip back home saying that "We may have not seen eye-to-eye but this was a moral leader. This was someone who I shared values with," particularly when you talk about that kind of culture of life, the social issues that he talked about.

ARENA: Suzanne, what was the deal with former President Jimmy Carter? I mean did they diss him or what?

MALVEAUX: That's a very good question. It kind of depends on who you talk to. The way this thing went down essentially is this is the way the White House explains it. They said initially they believed they had five seats.

It was very limited. They wanted President Bush, of course, and three other living presidents who had all met with the pope before that they reached out to all three, to Carter, to President Bush's father, as well as to Clinton.

Then there was some sort of murky area. This is when Bush 41, the father, went to go check his schedule. We understand that Clinton was checking with his doctor to see if he could travel. So there was a lot of confusion whether or not they were going to attend.

Carter, when they called him, said well there's limited space. That's OK if there's not enough space. We'll let you go ahead. Then it ends up that the two other presidents say yes, in fact, we can make it. That's when we are told that President Bush told Andy Card, his chief of staff, "Call Carter. Tell him, you know, these two are attending. Please we extend the offer again."

The Carter folks say that was never made clear to them that the two other presidents were attending, therefore he was always kind of deferring to the administration saying, look, if there are not enough seats that's OK.

It obviously became a stink. Obviously the Carter folks said, look, we don't want to blow this out of proportion. We will assume that this is not kind of nasty politics. We will just assume that this is kind a snafu and perhaps just a miscommunication.

But it was clear when you actually watched this unfold that there were other people who thought perhaps he snubbed him a bit. Carter had been very outspoken against Bush before.

HAYS: Well, it hasn't stopped him from putting his arms around Bill Clinton who beat his father in the last election but the vice president stayed home and he was funny.

MALVEAUX: That was a rare treat actually, yes. As a matter of fact, President Bush, when he was off to the pope's funeral, you know we were all there radio, TV correspondents, a big to do in Washington here and, of course, President Bush is usually the one who takes the stage.

It was Cheney instead, kind of made light of the whole situation. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I only found out a couple of days ago that I had to be here tonight and be funny. I'm not into funny. I don't want you to get worried but just the other day I had this strange feeling in my chest. I found myself short of breath shaking uncontrollably. I couldn't figure out what was going on. Then Lynne explained. She said, "Dick, that's called laughing."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Now who would have known? He was funny. Who knew he was a funny guy, you know?

ARENA: It was. It was really interesting.

MALVEAUX: It was great. It was great. And, of course, looking ahead tomorrow is going to be a very important day for the president. He's on his Crawford ranch. He's going to be meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and they're going to be talking about what's next in the peace process, particularly when it comes to the settlements.

ARENA: Pivotal time, all right.

Well from Washington we head west and to a crime story that captured our attention this week. Convicted murdered Randolph Dial broke out of prison more than a decade ago holding an assistant warden's wife at gunpoint.

Now they were discovered just this week. Was she a hostage all this time? We are back on that story with "Dallas Morning News" reporter Lee Hancock straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDOLPH DIAL, CONVICTED MURDERER: I regret to say that I was the hostage taker and I'll probably live to regret it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYS: That's convicted murderer and prison escapee Randolph Dial speaking after his capture this week. By saying he was the hostage taker he seemed to be owning up that he held a prison warden's wife hostage at knifepoint when he escaped and then kept holding her hostage for nearly eleven years. The woman, Bobbie Parker, this week was reunited with her family, so many questions.

Welcome back. We're ON THE STORY.

And joining us from Texas is "Dallas Morning News" reporter Lee Hancock. Lee, you know, we can start at the point in the story where we kind of misspoke a little bit earlier that Randolph Dial apparently spirited this woman away in a pickup truck, hiding on the floor board with an artery, a knife against the artery of her leg, right?

LEE HANCOCK, "DALLAS MORNING NEWS": Yes.

HAYS: And took her away. But then how is it that she seemed to have so many chances to escape over more than ten years from this little chicken farm in Texas and she didn't? Can we really believe her story?

HANCOCK: Well, the interesting thing is how many law enforcement officials in Texas believe her story and these are guys that are cynical for a living, FBI agents, Texas Rangers, people who came into contact with her are convinced she was terrified.

And part of the reason is Randolph Dial's story itself. He's a murderer convicted of a hit on a karate instructor in Broken Bow, Oklahoma back in the early 1980s.

No one knew that he was responsible for the crime until he decided to turn himself in. He put himself in prison and then once he came in, he had stories about having Mafia connections, being a Mafia hit man, some of which were confirmed by police.

And so when he took her, he told her evidently that if you try to escape, I can make a single phone call and have your two children and your entire family killed.

So, you know there's still lots and lots of questions but evidently she was terrified that if she left that he would go after not just her but her whole family.

MALVEAUX: And, Lee, tell us how this went down ultimately when they discovered her, where she was that she was with him. I guess part of the story too is that she at that point as well she was still afraid. She still wouldn't talk to law enforcement authorities about the fact that she was being held against her will. How did that happen?

HANCOCK: Well, first you have to understand the setting. This is deep, deep in the woods in rural East Texas back in the piney woods. They lived down miles and miles of red dirt road where, as the local law enforcement folks say, it's a great place to hide, down near the Louisiana border.

And, evidently someone who worked with them, someone in the chicken business who ran into them got wind of Dial's background. He was going by the name Deal (ph) at the time. She called herself Samantha and he had had a heart attack and they lived together on a chicken farm. She did all the work.

Evidently, someone got suspicious and there had been several segments on several crime shows, "Unsolved Mysteries," "America's Most Wanted," and someone had seen his mug shots which looked very different than the man he looked like when he was picked up last week but contacted a DA's office two and a half hours away and said, "Look, I think we know this guy."

So, cops get these calls all the time and they ran on it on Monday and, as one of the DA's investigators said to me last week, you know, it's one of those fluke things you stumble onto and the phrase he used was "Even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then."

And so when they went he is at his trailer cooking dinner. She is out mowing. She evidently worked 12 hours a day and this is back breaking work, working on these chicken farms. She was mowing around a chicken house.

A ranger comes up to her and he told me, "I said, what is your name?" And he said she looked absolutely terrified and he said, "Don't lie to me. What is your name?" And finally she looked down and paused for a moment and shaking she said, "My name is Bobbie Parker."

They took her back to the trailer about a mile -- a half a mile away from where they found her. They're leading him out to a patrol car and she is still so scared she's telling the cops the whole way "I can't cooperate. I'm so scared. I cannot help you. I will not tell you anything."

And when she sees him led out she yells at him "I'm not cooperating" because she so much wanted to make clear to him that she had not been responsible for what was happening.

ARENA: Lee, and of course on the other side of this you've got her family, her husband, her children who probably presumed that she was dead. Did you get an opportunity to talk with them at all?

HANCOCK: That's really another remarkable part of this story, talked to her mother yesterday. Her husband, Randy Parker, is a warden at another prison now in Oklahoma. They got the call Monday night. He rushed down immediately to be with her.

The mother said he called her that night. They had had a pact that whoever heard something would call and she said he called and said "I got news. They found Bobbie and she's alive" and the mother said that in the discussion it came up that she had really lost hope. She wasn't sure that her daughter would be found alive.

But she said that her son-in-law, Mr. Parker, never lost hope. He always expected to see her one day and several people who were there at the reunion early Tuesday morning in Nacogdoches, Texas at a hotel said that when Mr. Parker saw his wife both of them were as if people in a dream, not sure that this was real. They hesitated for a moment and then they fell into each other's arms crying. Now they had gone back to the prison where Mr. Parker works and they are holed up trying to get to know one another.

Her daughters were eight years old and ten years old when this happened. At one point, the 8-year-old, the youngest daughter even wrote the local paper saying all she wanted for Christmas from Santa Claus was her mother home and this little girl is going to graduate next month from high school. The mother said that they're all hoping for a family reunion where finally they can all be a family (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

ARENA: Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

MALVEAUX: Well, Lee, thank you so much. This is really an extraordinary story and we hope to see you back ON THE STORY soon.

And we're back ON THE STORY here right after this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: A holocaust survivor recalls her remarkable encounter with the pope. What's her story? More when we return.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: Edith Zierer, what's her story? She was 14 years old when she was liberated from a Nazi labor camp in the winter of 1945. When Edith tried to find her way home to Krakow more than 100 miles away she collapsed from exhaustion and malnutrition.

She awoke to find a young student priest offering help. He brought her tea and bread and unable to walk on her own he carried her to the train station. Once in Krakow, Edith asked the young man his name.

EDITH ZIERER (through translator): His name is Karol Wojtyla.

ANNOUNCER: Thirty-three years later she read that her savior had become Pope John Paul II.

ZIERER (through translator): I wrote four pages in Polish to the Holy Father. I said it is very difficult for me to keep living like this. I want to thank you.

ANNOUNCER: Edith was reunited with the pope in Rome and then again at Israel's Holocaust Memorial in 2000. Fighting back tears, she recited a phrase from the Torah. "He who saves one life has saved an entire world."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: That is amazing. Well, I'd like to thank my colleagues and thank you for watching ON THE STORY. We'll be back next week.

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