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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

Court Appearance For Man Arrested on Airplane With Explosives; Interview With Lynne Cheney

Aired December 24, 2001 - 19:00   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.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS: A court appearance for the man subdued on an airliner with explosives in his shoes. Tighter security checks for holiday travelers. Christmas in troubled times, from Afghanistan to Bethlehem, and prayers for peace at the Vatican.

I'll visit the Vice President's residence for a special interview with Lynne Cheney, reflecting on what's been as astonishing year for all Americans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LYNNE CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY'S WIFE: He's gone a lot of course. He and the President try not to spend too much time in the same place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Good evening, I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting tonight from Washington. Thanks for joining on this Christmas Eve. We'll get to my special interview with Lynne Cheney shortly, as well as our rare inside look inside the Vice President's official residence here in Washington.

But first, let's check the latest developments. He was subdued by passengers and crewmembers aboard an American Airlines flight bound from Paris to Miami this weekend after he allegedly attempted to set off explosives hidden in his shoes. Today he appeared in court. More now from CNN national correspondent, Susan Candiotti.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Wearing leg irons and handcuffs, Richard Reid arrived in court in Boston under tight security. A U.S. magistrate explained the single charge he faces, Interfering with a Flight Crew. Reid shrugged and said he understood. More charges could follow.

MICHAEL SULLIVAN, U.S. ATTORNEY: Preliminary results from the FBI lab have concluded that there were functional, improvised explosive devices in both of Reid's sneakers.

CANDIOTTI: Tests are underway at FBI Headquarters on those sneakers, and according to sources, roughly ten ounces of explosives between them.

LARRY JOHNSON, COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Five ounces could blow his leg off, could damage and injure or possibly kill people in the immediate seats in front, behind, next to him, but it wouldn't have brought the plane down.

CANDIOTTI: So far, sources say investigators have not made a connection between Reid and any known terror group. So where did he get his hands on explosives, and who dreamed up the homemade contraption hidden inside his shoes? Experts wonder whether Reid could have pulled off the detonation.

JOHNSON: Thank God he was an idiot. That's the good news. This was not the kind of guy that was the James Bond of terrorism.

CANDIOTTI: For example, terrorist groups like al Qaeda preach blending in and avoid repeating the same pattern. Authorities say Reid bought a one-way ticket and had no check-in luggage.

After missing his first attempt at flight Friday because of questioning, he was rebooked on the same flight the next day. Investigators in several countries are looking into the suspect's background, 28 years old, a British citizen.

Authorities say he may have used other names, including Abdel Raheem when he converted to Islam. His passport issued about two weeks ago at the British Embassy in Belgium.

SULLIVAN: At this point in time, the information we have is that the defendant is Richard C. Reid, traveling on a British passport.

CANDIOTTI (on camera): Sources say investigators are seeking a court order to take a blood sample from Reid, who bit one of the flight attendants who fought him. He'll be back in court for a detention hearing Friday in Boston with no bond now and none likely.

Susan Candiotti, CNN, Miami.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: The FAA has ordered airlines to conduct random checks of passenger's shoes in addition to the other security measures which have been stepped up in recent months. That leaves travelers facing even longer lines at airports this holiday season.

Some flights were delayed for up to three hours today at Florida's Fort Lauderdale Airport after a passenger found a bullet outside a gate leading to a New York bound Spirit Airlines flight. Authorities evacuated the busy concourse and searched for weapons but turned up nothing.

It's been a somber Christmas Eve in Bethlehem. There was an empty chair at midnight mass, as Israel kept Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat away from the West Bank town, citing what it called his failure to crack down on terrorism. Arafat's a practicing Muslim, but has attended the service every year since Bethlehem was turned over to the Palestinian rule in 1995, and except for local Christians, tourists and pilgrims were also missing this year, following 15 months of violence.

In the Vatican, Pope John Paul II celebrated midnight mass at St. Peter's Basilica, praying for peace amid the latest tensions in the Middle East, the war in Afghanistan, and the continuing terror threat.

Tuesday, the Pope will deliver a traditional Christmas Day message with greetings in dozens of languages to pilgrims in St. Peter's Square.

Spending the holiday at Camp David, President Bush doesn't need to tell his guests to make themselves feel at home. The extended Bush clan is gathered at the retreat, including the President's parents, the former President and the First Lady.

President Bush today phoned nine members of the U.S. military serving at various locations overseas. He passed along his best wishes and thanked them for the sacrifices they're making for the nation.

Making the best of the situation, U.S. forces in Afghanistan have managed to find and decorate Christmas trees, sing Christmas carols and hold services. But their thoughts are on the loved ones they left back home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To my wife and two kids, Michele (ph), Andrea and Julia, I love you and miss you and sorry I missed this Christmas. And to my family in San Jose, mom, dad, Kevin, have a merry Christmas. And Kelly, good luck getting married. Sorry I can't make it, but I sent you a present.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Merry Christmas to my friends and family and especially to my wife Colleen and my son, Joe. I only got to see him two days before I came out on the MEU.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd like to say Merry Christmas to my friends and family and especially, my wife Katie and my son Zachariah (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd just like to say merry Christmas to my wife Jillian (ph) and the rest of my family that's home and tell them I'll be home as soon as possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER (on camera): And heading into the holiday, I had a special opportunity to visit the Vice President's residence and to discuss the events of this incredible year with Lynne Cheney, the wife of Vice President Dick Cheney.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Mrs. Cheney, thank you so much for inviting us into your beautiful home.

CHENEY: Well, it's a pleasure to have you here.

BLITZER: And we'll take a little tour later, but let's talk about this year. What a remarkable year it's been. It's been an amazing year, I think, for all of us, but especially for the Cheney family.

CHENEY: Astonishing.

BLITZER: How has it changed especially since September 11?

CHENEY: Well, I think that we, like everyone else, feel it's more important to spend time with family, to hug grandchildren. Dick's gone a lot, of course. He and the President try not to spend too much time in the same place, and that's a bit of a change. I go with him sometimes though.

And so, it's a change, but you know this is such a great country and we've been so strong through this crisis. And when I think over the past year, I think not only of 9/11 in which, you know, the President has shown such remarkable leadership, but if you look back over the whole year and you think what this team and what the President have accomplished, the biggest tax cut in a generation, the reduction in strategic weapons.

The education bill now, that's just quite remarkable. We're going to be testing kids in every year from grade 3 through 8 I think it is. Doing away with the ABM Treaty. The achievements have been just truly remarkable, and then you add on top of that how this group of men and women have taken us through the crisis that we've been in and, you know, I feel really proud about all of that.

BLITZER: You mentioned the fact that the Vice President occasionally has to leave here, stay someplace else, not be together with the President too much. That's been a remarkable change. How much longer do you think that's going to go on?

CHENEY: I have no idea, and I think it will go on as long as Dick and the President thinks it needs to.

BLITZER: Your life though, since September 11, you got to admit has changed. The stress level has changed.

CHENEY: Well, if you think about the whole year, think how much my life has changed, you know. A year and a half ago, I was happily ensconced in Dallas, Texas working on my book and anonymity.

And my goodness, now Dick is Vice President. We're living here. It's been such a remarkable year that I stop every once in a while and think now, a year ago did I know Dick was going to be Vice President, and a year ago, just barely I did, because we're just barely past that time when it was clear that George Bush was going to be sworn in on January 20.

BLITZER: How's he feeling? CHENEY: Dick is feeling fine, thank you.

BLITZER: I saw him the other day and he looked good. He's exercising. He's working out, but the stress factor must be serious though.

CHENEY: Well, you know, I think when you've lived with coronary artery disease as long as we have, you sort of become experts on these things, like what stress really means.

And right now, you know, Dick is doing something he spent his whole life preparing to do. He's calling on all of his talents and all of his skills and all of his accumulated knowledge. And I think there's a certain kind of, I don't know, satisfaction maybe, a serenity that comes with that.

And then of course, the enormous pride in being a part of this administration and a part of all of the efforts that they're involved in. I think stress is when you feel frustrated, you know, when you're -- you don't feel in control of your life.

I think that -- I think he's having a remarkable time right now and not feeling stressed in the least.

BLITZER: I remember covering him when he was the Defense Secretary. I was the Pentagon correspondent during the Gulf War. The stress was pretty serious then too, which he obviously, clearly could handle. What's the difference between then and now?

CHENEY: Well, the role of the Defense Secretary and the role of the Vice President are different. You know, he's more of an adviser now, as opposed to running the Defense Department, which isn't Don Rumsfeld doing a terrific job, and that's one of the satisfactions of our lives right now is seeing people that we've known for such a long time and whom we've admired for such a long time, like Don Rumsfeld, serve the country in such a remarkable way.

You know, well we feel like everyone else does in this whole country the tragedy of 9/11 every single day. We as Americans, I think, have so much to feel proud and satisfied about as well, and I think we certainly feel that in our lives.

BLITZER: I think our viewers, I know I would be interested, walk us through that day, September 11. You woke up that morning and before you knew what was going on, you saw the planes crash into the World Trade Center.

CHENEY: I was downtown, and we headed out in this direction at a rather rapid pace. Then, the plane that was threatening the White House hit the Pentagon, and we did a very dramatic U-turn, because they decided then that maybe being here wasn't the best thing, that being down below ground at the White House was the best thing.

BLITZER: Which is where the Vice President was? CHENEY: That's exactly right. And, for someone who has a historical vent, and I know you have that same kind of interest I do, it was really an astonishing day. I spend the whole day in the, it's called the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, the PEOC.

BLITZER: It's really a bunker.

CHENEY: Yes, it is but it's also a conference room. I mean it doesn't feel like a bunker. It feels like you're in kind of a 1950s conference room. It has wood paneling and watching Dick and Condy Rice and Karen Hughes came in, Mary (UNINTELLIGIBLE) was there. They were conferring with the President. They had the Defense Department up on the screens on the wall.

Watching them manage their way through that day was really quite astonishing, but it was also very reassuring. And I do talk about it when I get a chance, because I think the American people would feel reassured to have watched the kind of calm professionalism with which this team moves through the crisis, heartsick as they all were. There was no sense of "oh my gosh, what do we do now?" There was a very clear sense of what the next step and the next step would be.

BLITZER: What was your worst fear at that moment?

CHENEY: Well it wasn't a fear exactly, but people said that there were 20,000 souls in each tower, and so I just started counting up how many people could have been killed. And horrible as it is, that there were 3,000 I think is the number of fatalities we're kind of closing in on. My goodness at first we thought it would be ten times.

BLITZER: But at one point, there was a real fear that U.S. intelligence, law enforcement, and secret service, that that other plane that eventually wound up at the Pentagon or in Pennsylvania was heading towards the White House?

CHENEY: Well, there were many reports of planes unaccounted for and indeed, the reports coming in said that they had on the signal that indicated they had been hijacked.

So there were probably ten reports like that. There were two specific reports about planes heading for the White House, but it's curious. It's almost as though you become a little detached from any sort of personal concern under those circumstances. You know, you just try to deal with the situation and work through it.

There was no sense in that room of, you know, "oh my gosh, they're going to hit us" though, of course, that was a possibility or at least we thought it was.

BLITZER: Have you noticed any discernible change in the Vice President since September 11?

CHENEY: You know, I heard Don Rumsfeld say the other day that he gets, the Vice President gets calmer as the situation becomes ever more perilous and that may be true. But Dick has, operates on such a level of calm anyway, it's hard to imagine that he's even more calm now.

BLITZER: But that he holds it in? Is there something underneath that's really making him angry?

CHENEY: No. You know, if Dick gets angry you do know it. I remember there was one instance when we were down in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center when we couldn't both get the TV from CNN simultaneously with the communications to the other important places of government, and you know, when he gets mad he says something sort of in a deep growling voice like "fix it" and you know he's mad. But he's just not mad most of the time.

BLITZER: Having covered him for a few years, I know that when he gets mad, it's not often, but you feel the wrath.

CHENEY: It's impressive.

BLITZER: When he was on "MEET THE PRESS" the other day, he said that if the President wants him to, he'd be more than happy to be on the ticket in 2004. Would you be more than happy to see him on the ticket in 2004?

CHENEY: You know, I can't even imagine 2004. It seems so far away. What is that, three years away?

BLITZER: In Washington, it's never too early to talk about Presidential politics.

CHENEY: I'm sure that's true, but you and I were just talking about the remarkable changes that the past year has seen. So I honestly, Wolf, I'm not thinking about 2004.

BLITZER: I know you're doing a book for children on American History.

CHENEY: I am so excited about this book.

BLITZER: I love American History too, but American kids really don't know much about any history, let alone American History and I think it's one of the glaring failures of our education really, that these young kids, they're not learning enough. What do you think you can do that can change that?

CHENEY: A little bit. I've been privileged to be in a position I'm in now, where people pay a little bit of attention to what I say, and so I think that I can talk about the very phenomenon that you noted, that we get our kids through high school and even through the most exclusive colleges in this country, and they are woefully ignorant of American History.

So I can do what you just did and talk about the problem. I like to talk about how fascinating American History is, and perhaps draw people into reading it and thinking about it more, and then writing this book for little kids. It's for little kids, but it's for kids and parents together, really.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (on camera): When we come back, a rare behind-the-scenes visit to the Vice President's residence. And more of my holiday conversation with Lynne Cheney. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back. Let's continue now with my holiday interview with Lynne Cheney, the wife of the Vice President, Dick Cheney, as she leads us on a special tour of their residence, the place most Americans won't otherwise get a chance to see.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHENEY: Well, it's a wonderful old house. It's technically called a Queen Anne house, but it was built in 1893, so I think of it as Victorian.

BLITZER: Mrs. Cheney, tell us about this beautiful Christmas tree you have here.

CHENEY: Well, it was kind of hard to know what to do with the tree. We've got wonderful paintings in this room, which I'm sure your viewers will see here in a minute. But they're very strong and so you couldn't have a tree with a whole lot of ornaments on it. So this one's very simple. It's just lots of lights and great fat cones, a little dusting of snow, but it's perfect.

BLITZER: And where did you get the tree?

CHENEY: I think it came from North Carolina. You know, I'd like to say it came from Wyoming, but it's a beautiful tribute to the tree growers of North Carolina.

BLITZER: This fireplace, it looks beautiful. Do you actually use it?

CHENEY: It works. We haven't used it yet, but it's got a new surround, a new firebox. When we moved in, we discovered that the fireboxes were cracked, which is a little bit of a hazard, you know, if the fire gets behind the firebox. So the Navy very kindly replaced all the fireboxes for us.

BLITZER: And remind our viewers, this whole area, the Naval Observatory, the U.S. Navy actually runs, operates the whole Vice Presidential residence.

CHENEY: That's right. In 1974, I think it was, the law making this the Vice President's residence was passed. But the Navy does have a certain feeling of possessiveness about this place, and they call it the temporary residence of the Vice President.

BLITZER: Show us some of this artwork.

CHENEY: Well, this is a wonderful painting by -

BLITZER: All of it's on loan, right?

CHENEY: That's right and this one came from the Phoenix Museum of Art in Phoenix and it's by Helen Frankenthaler. It's called "Lush Spring" and it just makes this whole room come to life. It's kind of the signature piece for the whole house, I think. It's very beautiful.

This is the sunroom, which is a room that the Vice President really enjoys. He will often have meetings out here. It's just so full of light and has a kind of wonderful patina on all the brass fittings on the window. Of course, it's got a map of Wyoming, a moose.

BLITZER: Is that moose from Wyoming, too?

CHENEY: Yes, from the Jackson Hole Museum of Wildlife Art, the National Museum of Wildlife Art there by Henry Schrady and it was made at the beginning of the 20th Century. It's a very impressive piece.

BLITZER: All right, talk a little bit about the art in this room. This is your favorite room.

CHENEY: Oh, this is just my favorite room. It's just -- I have people over in the afternoon sometimes for tea, but the art is wonderful. The painting over the fireplace is by Andrew Wyatt, and it's called "Sieri" and she was a neighborhood girl. She's probably 16, I think. It's a wonderful painting because it's very realistic, but it's also got a contemporary feeling because she's not in the center. She's off-center.

BLITZER: It almost looks like a photograph.

CHENEY: Yes.

BLITZER: That's been touched up.

CHENEY: And if you look at the mantelpiece in the picture, you'll see that the carving on it is the same as the carving on the frame. I think Andrew Wyatt must have had a wonderful craftsperson in the neighborhood who did the frame for him and made it an echo of the fireplace.

BLITZER: So now we're going into the main foyer of this. Is that what we call it?

CHENEY: That's right. And it's a big and spacious place to receive guests when they come. And we have this painting that I love very much above a sideboard. Many of the paintings in the house are by grand names from the art world.

This is from an artist whose just in her mid-career. Her name is Nancy Lorenz and she's in New York, and this is called "Sea and Sky" and if you look at it closely, you'll see that there are little bits of mother-of-pearl and abalone shell worked into it. It's really perfect for that place.

BLITZER: And this other one over here.

CHENEY: That's another one by Twokman. This one we borrowed from the Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian Museum here. This is called "End of Winter." We saw "Winter" in the library, which I brought up from the Phillips Collection, and "End of Winter" here.

One interesting thing, if you stand in this room and you move over here so your eye can catch the Twokman and the Frankenthaler, what you see is that it's kind of the same. They're both about spring, but the Frankenthaler is just dramatically more abstract. The color palettes are the same. The moods are the same. It's kind of an art history lesson to watch the gradual movement into abstraction.

BLITZER: And the holiday decorations give a nice touch to it.

CHENEY: Well, these fireplaces invite having greens draped around them. So it's fun to have it be the holidays and we can do that.

BLITZER: Do you ever get scared?

CHENEY: Well, I feel like I'm one of the more secure people in the universe, you know. I have an enormous amount of security around me. I think that all of us, you know, worry about the kind of attack we saw on 9/11, but I don't worry about myself. I worry about my grandchildren.

If there is a time when I feel anxiety, it's thinking about all the little kids.

BLITZER: Do you worry about your husband?

CHENEY: Well, I worry about Dick but I've worried about Dick my whole life, and I've worried about -- I'm sort of the worrier of the family. But, no I don't wake up every morning and worry about Dick's safety or my safety. If I ever do worry, it's about little kids.

BLITZER: This is your dining room.

CHENEY: That's right.

BLITZER: Now do you really have people come over and have dinner here?

CHENEY: We do, and sometimes we have small dinners that fit around this table. You can actually get 14 people around the table if you put in a leaf or two. But sometimes we'll take this table out and put in several round tables, and then you can get, maybe even 50 people in this room.

BLITZER: Really?

CHENEY: Sometimes there will be a topic we want to talk about, and so we'll invite historians over to talk about how the period that we're living through looks in a longer perspective. BLITZER: And the Vice President appreciates that because he's so involved in sort of day-by-day, minute-by-minute crisis management, to step back and look -- take a little broader perspective is probably pretty useful.

CHENEY: Well, it's wonderful for him, and I think that the guests enjoy him too, because he asks the best questions.

BLITZER: And he can invite the best minds in the country who will be more than happy to come.

CHENEY: That is a great privilege.

BLITZER: To meet him and talk about everything from scientific breakthroughs to history.

CHENEY: That's a great privilege.

BLITZER: That's really a lovely thing to be able to do. I know he appreciates that.

CHENEY: Well one of the things that makes this room so inviting is the art again. This is by a New York artist, who used to be here in Washington. Her name is Elaine Kurtz, and it's very minimalist. But I adore it. I saw a picture of it and I asked her about it, and she said "well you know, it's hanging on the wall of my living room, but I'll let you borrow it." So just the remarkable generosity of people when you call up.

BLITZER: So you'll give all these pieces of art back?

CHENEY: Of course.

BLITZER: Let me extend a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family.

CHENEY: And to you and your family.

BLITZER: Thank you very much for this tour.

CHENEY: Well, thank you. I'm glad you could be here and bring your whole audience with you.

BLITZER: and millions of viewers will have this moment.

CHENEY: Well, it's a wonderful house, and it belongs to everyone watching. So I hope that they've enjoyed what they've seen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (on camera): And at the bottom of the hour, we'll switch from the Second Lady to the First, as "PEOPLE IN THE NEWS" profiles Laura Bush.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BLITZER: That's all the time we have tonight. Please join me again tomorrow at special times, both 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. Eastern. Until then, thanks very much for watching. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. Have a very Merry Christmas. "PEOPLE IN THE NEWS" with Laura Bush, and a look at the latest developments are just ahead.

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