Speaker 1: This is a production of Journalista Podcast LLC and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: See this cute little vial here.
Speaker 2: That's crack rock cocaine, the most addictive form. You think
Speaker 2: it's the glamour drug of the eighties. Well that's the
Speaker 2: point of this front and little reminder. It can kill you.
Speaker 2: And if you've got to die for something this sure
Speaker 2: as hell ain't it.
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Speaker 2: What would I do if someone offered me these drugs?
Speaker 2: I tell them to take.
Speaker 1: A hike, punk, Welcome to the Journalista Podcast. When we
Speaker 1: first met Cookie, she had just picked up a pound
Speaker 1: of wheat and stood in front of a firing squad.
Speaker 1: She survived. Her Missus Scarface Era got her job at
Speaker 1: CBS because she partied and the party never stopped. In
Speaker 1: this episode, it might just kill her. I want to
Speaker 1: warn you some of the things you'll hear in this
Speaker 1: story might be hard to listen to. I know it
Speaker 1: was for me. Well before we get to that, did
Speaker 1: you ever think to yourself? For my next vacation, I
Speaker 1: want to go see a bloody civil war in Nicaragua.
Speaker 1: They called it revolution tourism.
Speaker 3: Any dignitary, any famous person throughout the whole war years,
Speaker 3: anyone that came to town, whether it's to make a movie,
Speaker 3: to check out the revolution, just to be a tourist,
Speaker 3: because it was a tourist destination during the war, because
Speaker 3: the war never made it to the capitol, it never
Speaker 3: went into Monagua.
Speaker 1: Well, since you're talking about that, let's just go with
Speaker 1: that for a minute and talk about some of the
Speaker 1: crazy people that you got to meet up on that floor,
Speaker 1: from presidents.
Speaker 3: To prime ministers, people in Reagan's cabinet, rock stars, movie stars, actors, writers, directors.
Speaker 3: We had Jackson Brown staying there with Daryl Hannah.
Speaker 1: Cookie just got me and my wife third row seats
Speaker 1: to his concert in New Orleans. Great time until my
Speaker 1: car got booted.
Speaker 3: Richard Gear came through, Peter Gabriel came through. President Jimmy
Speaker 3: Carter and Ms. Rosalind stayed on that floor with the
Speaker 3: Secret Service. Jesse Jackson came, Chris Christoffers and different actors.
Speaker 3: We had ed Harris Marley, Mattlin. The funny thing is
Speaker 3: that everyone was there doing something, but at nighttime, everybody
Speaker 3: also heard that the place to be was at that
Speaker 3: CBS office on the seventh floor. At the end of
Speaker 3: the hall, and so people would just show up. We
Speaker 3: had US newspapers Miami Harold, Washington Post, New York Times.
Speaker 3: We had direct dial telephones to the US, all the
Speaker 3: things that the rest of the country and the rest
Speaker 3: of the people did not have access to. We had
Speaker 3: the famous new fax machine. We had balconies where people
Speaker 3: would come and lay out sunbathe in the middle of
Speaker 3: the war. So it was a very eclectic crowd during
Speaker 3: the day would mostly be journalists coming in and out.
Speaker 1: With CBS unique in that way. At NBCA, they didn't
Speaker 1: have that kindry.
Speaker 3: NBC had their offices in the same hotel, a floor
Speaker 3: above us, but they weren't the cool people. At six
Speaker 3: the office is closed. Even the NBC people came down
Speaker 3: to hang out at the CBS office. I think it's
Speaker 3: because I was running it.
Speaker 1: I bet you had a nice bar and.
Speaker 3: I had a setup bar. I had something new that
Speaker 3: had just come out. Well, we started the war with
Speaker 3: Walkman's and then CD players came out with little bitty
Speaker 3: speakers and that little setup could cost five six hundred dollars.
Speaker 3: I was the first one to bring it to the
Speaker 3: country with all the latest music. Oh, we even had
Speaker 3: cable TV. I don't know how they rigged that up,
Speaker 3: but we had that. It was just the place to
Speaker 3: be come six o'clock, you know, everybody would come down
Speaker 3: for cocktails or come up for cocktails.
Speaker 1: Did you go out at night with some of these
Speaker 1: people or go to bars and clubs?
Speaker 3: There were bars, there were clubs, there were discos at
Speaker 3: the time. Sure we went out.
Speaker 1: Well, what was the craziest experience you had with somebody
Speaker 1: who'd come to visit?
Speaker 3: It's so many of them. One night were out there
Speaker 3: by the pool and U two was there. They were
Speaker 3: on a fact finding mission. A lot of people would
Speaker 3: come just fact finding missions. They wanted to see what
Speaker 3: the revolution was all about. That's how I wanted them there.
Speaker 3: I was just graduated from Loyola and I wanted to
Speaker 3: see what the revolution was about. It was a common occurrence,
Speaker 3: just like congressmen and senators would come to their fact
Speaker 3: finding missions. And so you two was there, and I
Speaker 3: sent the tables some drinks, and then they asked me
Speaker 3: over and we started to talk, and even though it
Speaker 3: was nighttime, they wanted to pick a tour of the city.
Speaker 3: We went around with my driver in Nicaragui's points of direction,
Speaker 3: up meant towards the airport, down meant towards the cemetery,
Speaker 3: east west, north south, and then points of direction where
Speaker 3: the coffee house used to be, ten blocks north, three
Speaker 3: blocks south. I still don't understand it to this day.
Speaker 3: I kept telling that the streets had no names. Bono
Speaker 3: just really couldn't understand it. How do you not have
Speaker 3: names on the streets? And I said, I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's called pod points of direction. He just got the
Speaker 3: biggest kick out of it. Many months later, you know
Speaker 3: that song came out streets with no name. I don't
Speaker 3: know if there's any connection, but I just thought it
Speaker 3: was funny because he was really just thrown for a
Speaker 3: loop that how could you have a whole city with
Speaker 3: no street names?
Speaker 1: The debate still rages about that song and what city
Speaker 1: you two was referring to, not much doubt. In Monagua,
Speaker 1: Time magazine weighed in with the story titled Postcard from Monagua,
Speaker 1: How far are you from the place Bono sang about.
Speaker 4: A year after Irish rocker Bono visited Nicaragua in nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty six in an effort to raise awareness about Central
Speaker 4: American war refugees. You too, released its smash hit album
Speaker 4: The Joshua Tree, and Nicaraguans immediately recognized that one of
Speaker 4: the songs was written about their country. Twenty years later,
Speaker 4: most people here still hold his fact that Where the
Speaker 4: Streets Have No Name was written about Monagua, a squat
Speaker 4: and sprawling capital city where well the streets are unnamed.
Speaker 4: Stephen Kinzer, a former New York Times bureau chief based
Speaker 4: in Monagua in the nineteen eighties, accurately describes the fine
Speaker 4: art of giving directions in Monagua as a Socratic technique
Speaker 4: based on first determining what the direction asker knows, then
Speaker 4: working backward from there. The funniest part about giving directions
Speaker 4: in this corner of the world is that some streets
Speaker 4: actually do have names, but no one knows what they are.
Speaker 1: In a press release, ad agency McCain Nicaragua said, this
Speaker 1: unique and unreal aspect of Monagua's life caught the attention
Speaker 1: of an inspired Bono, the lead singer of global supergroup
Speaker 1: U two, to compose the hit song Where the Streets
Speaker 1: Have No Name, after visiting Managua in nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 1: The campaign is focused on adding street signs to Monagua streets,
Speaker 1: identifying these locations on Google Maps by tagging them with
Speaker 1: historical information. You told me about a one particular friend
Speaker 1: that has become famous in the news in the last
Speaker 1: few years, Randy Cretico. For people who are listening to this,
Speaker 1: Randy Cretico is now known for being the go between
Speaker 1: between Roger Stone and Julian Massage correct and getting Hillary's
Speaker 1: emails and that.
Speaker 5: Sort of thing in the Russia investigation. At this hour,
Speaker 5: new details about the relationship between a long time Trump
Speaker 5: associate and Wiki leaks. We now know the name of
Speaker 5: the person who was the go between for Roger Stone
Speaker 5: and Julian Assange money. Roger was out front on Capitol
Speaker 5: Hill and Mono, you're breaking the story. What more are
Speaker 5: you learning at this hour?
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's right. Roger Stone revealed to the House Intelligence
Speaker 6: Committee the name of this intermediary, a person who had
Speaker 6: contacts with Julian Assane during the campaign season and who
Speaker 6: also had a conversation with Roger Stone himself, and the
Speaker 6: name of the individuals. Randy Kredeco now Randy Credeco is
Speaker 6: a New York radio personality who did have conversations with
Speaker 6: both Stone and as Songe during the campaign season. In fact,
Speaker 6: they were guests on both of his shows.
Speaker 1: He was a comedian, and we don't know him that way,
Speaker 1: although when you did a lot of his appearances, you know,
Speaker 1: on the news interviews.
Speaker 3: He tried to make jokes. Yeah, and he was almost
Speaker 3: on the cusp of becoming successful, but he chose to
Speaker 3: be a political comedian and his politics were always way left.
Speaker 3: And he was thrown off to Johnny Carson Show for
Speaker 3: telling a joke that they told them not to tell.
Speaker 3: And the way we met, he was hanging out at
Speaker 3: the Intercontinental Hotel because he always liked to be in
Speaker 3: the middle of things, and he saw me walking through
Speaker 3: it wearing a little hat and a pretty floral cotton dress,
Speaker 3: and under his breath he says, where does she think
Speaker 3: she is on the east side? And I looked at
Speaker 3: him and I said, no, I'm in Monagua. You're on
Speaker 3: my turf. Where are you from. That's how the friendship began,
Speaker 3: and for the next twelve to fifteen years, every time
Speaker 3: he'd come to Nicaragua, he would stay in my quarters
Speaker 3: or the office, he'd hang out, and he became just
Speaker 3: a fixture among all the journalists, some of them liked him,
Speaker 3: some of them hated him, depending on your politics. He
Speaker 3: loved to just hang out and be a part of everything.
Speaker 3: He was the comedic relief during those war years. He
Speaker 3: could make you laugh no matter what.
Speaker 1: He casually count.
Speaker 7: You had three hundred thousand Iraqis killed.
Speaker 1: By the Allies and you had one hundred and forty.
Speaker 8: Eight Allies killed by the Allies, and.
Speaker 6: Bush is still working on the guy's name sat Tam Hassen,
Speaker 6: Satan Hassen, Sandino Hasidic.
Speaker 1: We are not at war with that people of Iraq.
Speaker 1: We are at war with the Iraqi papal.
Speaker 3: He could do Impressions, he could do Reagan, he could
Speaker 3: do Ortega, he could do anybody.
Speaker 1: Isn't it ironic though, that he's sort of defined himself
Speaker 1: with the far left politics and comedy and ends up
Speaker 1: being a tool for the right at this time of
Speaker 1: his life.
Speaker 3: Because he had no idea that that's what was going on.
Speaker 3: I told him from the beginning, I said, you're going
Speaker 3: to get in trouble if you're dealing with Roger Stone
Speaker 3: Julian Assange. Oh no, you don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 3: And here we are. Man, He's still struggling because of
Speaker 3: all of that.
Speaker 1: It's important to note that before all this bullshit with
Speaker 1: Roger Stone at Wiki Leaks, Randy Kretico had dedicated his
Speaker 1: life to helping the poor, expanding public house fighting, mass incarceration,
Speaker 1: criminal justice reform, and so many things that matter to
Speaker 1: everyday Americans, and I want to honor that. You know,
Speaker 1: one time I was sitting in a Chili's in Abbeyville, Louisiana,
Speaker 1: with the wife and kids, getting ready to order some burgers.
Speaker 1: In walked four guys dressed like commandos, carrying AR fifteen's,
Speaker 1: you know the types. For some reason, it reminds me
Speaker 1: of this story, another kind of tourism.
Speaker 3: It's a crazy story. So all these years, everybody's covering war.
Speaker 3: Everybody wants the big story, and we all knew what
Speaker 3: the big story was. It was just proving it. And
Speaker 3: the big story was us involvement in trying to overthrow
Speaker 3: a government. We all knew it, and everyone knew what
Speaker 3: was going on. You can't prove it, you can't take
Speaker 3: film of it, you can't take video, you can't take pictures.
Speaker 3: One day we're summoned, the journalists are summoned by State security,
Speaker 3: a US mercenary working for the CIA has been caught
Speaker 3: trying to overthrow the Nicaraguan government. We knew it was
Speaker 3: going to be a dog and pony show. You know
Speaker 3: they're going to make a big deal about it.
Speaker 1: At that moment, you don't know what it's about.
Speaker 3: We don't know what it's about. It could be something big.
Speaker 3: But remember we would be called to press conferences all
Speaker 3: the time. You never knew what the story was going
Speaker 3: to be. So when we get there, you've got this
Speaker 3: obviously American guy looking very scared and very distraught, sitting
Speaker 3: next to heads of State Security the Secret Police.
Speaker 1: Sam Hall was a silver medallist in the nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: Olympics in Rome and a former member of the Ohio
Speaker 1: House of Representatives, which makes the story even crazier.
Speaker 3: The State Security guy makes a statement and his name
Speaker 3: was Lenine Serno. He proceeds to tell us how this
Speaker 3: is an American that's been caught near the border try
Speaker 3: to infiltrate and do some terrorist acts on Nicaraguan soil
Speaker 3: at the behest of the US government. So everybody's thinking,
Speaker 3: oh wow, this is this is big. So Lenin Serena
Speaker 3: tells the guy to give some background on himself. Well,
Speaker 3: right away, I'm like, who's told by their captors? Can
Speaker 3: you give background on yourself? Obviously he had been questioned
Speaker 3: and interrogated by them. So the guy starts to tell
Speaker 3: us how he has worked covertly for the CIA and
Speaker 3: for different places in the world.
Speaker 1: The Washington Post reported on Hall's arrest.
Speaker 4: Sam Hall, an American, claimed he was on a spy
Speaker 4: mission after he was arrested last month in a restricted
Speaker 4: military area near Managua. Nicaraguan officials said after Hall's arrest
Speaker 4: near the punte Je Airbase, thirteen miles northeast of Managua,
Speaker 4: that he had maps of the installation in his shoe.
Speaker 4: Hall said at a news conference in Mina that he
Speaker 4: was spying on military installations on behalf of three men
Speaker 4: code named Tinker, Evers and Chance. He also claimed in
Speaker 4: a CBS News interview that he was the only remaining
Speaker 4: member of the Phoenix Battalion, which he described as a
Speaker 4: counter terrorist paramilitary organization.
Speaker 3: And he says that he went to the Sixth Day
Speaker 3: War in Israel, but he got there on the seventh day. Well,
Speaker 3: everybody starts either laughing or they can't believe what they're
Speaker 3: hearing or they're not understanding what they're hearing. And he
Speaker 3: says he had been an Olympic swimmer, and I mean,
Speaker 3: the story just kept going in all kinds of different directions.
Speaker 3: But he had been caught with a map in his
Speaker 3: shoe and he said he was just using it for
Speaker 3: his arches. I mean, this guy was just coming across
Speaker 3: as a bona fide kook. This is not going the
Speaker 3: way the Sandinista government thinks it's going to go. This
Speaker 3: guy has no connection to the CIA. This guy is
Speaker 3: not working for the US government. This is some kind
Speaker 3: of lone kook out there on a great adventure.
Speaker 7: You ended up in Nicaragua, inside Sandinista army base, arrested, captured,
Speaker 7: whatever stopped held. Got to put it real bluntly, they
Speaker 7: said you were crazy. Anybody in this business has to
Speaker 7: be a little bit crazy. The reason they were saying
Speaker 7: that I was never allowed to say. I had to
Speaker 7: sign a disavowl agreement in nineteen eighty four, the CIA says,
Speaker 7: and I've talked to them, says you weren't reporting to them.
Speaker 7: But of course that's on the surface, but.
Speaker 3: That's part of the disabown.
Speaker 7: I knew I would be disabout I didn't care.
Speaker 3: I'm looking at the head of the secret Police and
Speaker 3: I'm looking at him and I'm just shaking my head
Speaker 3: and kind of making a motion across my neck saying cut.
Speaker 3: This is not going the way you guys think it's going.
Speaker 3: All of a sudden, the head of the secret Police
Speaker 3: stands up says, that's the end of this press conference,
Speaker 3: no more questions, no more anything. They quickly took this
Speaker 3: guy away.
Speaker 1: So you're basically signaling to the head of the secret
Speaker 1: police that this is fucking nuts.
Speaker 3: This is nuts. This is not a story you want
Speaker 3: out there.
Speaker 1: And he's looking at you, going oops.
Speaker 3: He's looking at me the whole time for guidance, because
Speaker 3: I don't think he spoke good English, and so when
Speaker 3: I make the motion cut, he knew cut. He didn't
Speaker 3: know why, but he knew cut. And then of course
Speaker 3: he found out that this guy was a kook.
Speaker 1: But Mario called him a wanna be spy.
Speaker 3: That's what he was, A wanna be spy, A wanna
Speaker 3: be mercenary. I wanna be That was it.
Speaker 1: That was kind of a thing too in Nicaragua, wasn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just like the people would want to fly there
Speaker 3: to check out the revolution, you know, famous people and politicians.
Speaker 3: He also had nutcases trying to be a part of
Speaker 3: the story, just like you had people that playing like
Speaker 3: they were journalists. It was sort of a free for all.
Speaker 1: It kind of reminds me of like right now or'
Speaker 1: is these guys that their flack jackets on and play
Speaker 1: like they're like military and they're walking around and.
Speaker 3: Starbucks with the AR fifteen and yeah.
Speaker 1: Except it's in Nicaragua and that really is a war
Speaker 1: going on. Yeah, how did it play out? Do you remember?
Speaker 3: I think that they just let him go.
Speaker 1: That's hilarious to me.
Speaker 3: It was just an insane story.
Speaker 1: You know. The weird thing about this particular story. It's
Speaker 1: a very small little footnote and a very bigger story.
Speaker 1: But the head of the secret police is taking a
Speaker 1: cue from you.
Speaker 3: I thought that was funny too. I sort of felt
Speaker 3: like you had to help him. I need to help
Speaker 3: this guy. He's drowning here, and he doesn't even realize
Speaker 3: that he's drowning.
Speaker 1: I don't know if Sam Hall was full of shit
Speaker 1: or what the fuck he was doing in Nicaragua, but
Speaker 1: he was a self proclaimed patriot and freedom fighter. Sound
Speaker 1: familiar coming up. Cookie gets arrested, and that's the easy part.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. Welcome back. Cookie's been living the
Speaker 1: highlight for a long time, always managing to stay a
Speaker 1: couple of steps ahead of the law. Her luck is
Speaker 1: about to run out. Obviously, you were always out in
Speaker 1: the world. You always had your party favors with you.
Speaker 3: Correct. But usually when I did stories, when I was
Speaker 3: in the field, I wasn't partying. Well. On this one trip,
Speaker 3: I forget what crew I was with. I do remember
Speaker 3: what producer had been flown in. John Seiseloff was his name.
Speaker 1: You might remember him from episode four when he had
Speaker 1: to file a bullshit story about cookies helicopter crash under
Speaker 1: pressure from the Sandinistas.
Speaker 3: We're in the middle of nowhere, in the mountains.
Speaker 1: Somewhere covering what, just.
Speaker 3: Looking for a story. It wasn't all the time a
Speaker 3: big story or a breaking news story. The day to
Speaker 3: day was usually just covering your ass, looking for something,
Speaker 3: possibly stumbling into something. I don't know where. We were,
Speaker 3: probably some shithole. And now remember I had a little
Speaker 3: weed in one of those plastic film cases. We've been smoking.
Speaker 3: You know, the crew, myself, not the producer, he was
Speaker 3: a really straight laced kind of guy. A soldier apparently
Speaker 3: smelled the weed, whether it was on myself or the
Speaker 3: crew or somebody, and they decided she's got drugs on her,
Speaker 3: which I did. It was just a little weed. So
Speaker 3: when we get back to the barracks, he rats me out.
Speaker 3: All of a sudden, I'm confronted by the head of
Speaker 3: the battalion or whatever it was, and he says, we
Speaker 3: know you have marijuana. Your crew was seen smoking it.
Speaker 3: We're gonna take you in.
Speaker 1: Probably should remind people that they are very strict drug
Speaker 1: laws in Sandinista, Nicaragua.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are no drugs. I would have to import
Speaker 3: drugs from the United States to Nicaragua. The next thing
Speaker 3: I know, the commander and I guess what they call
Speaker 3: their MPs come grab me by both arms and they're
Speaker 3: gonna lead me away to I don't know, jail whatever
Speaker 3: on the base. And I know at that moment, I've
Speaker 3: got this plastic film case on me and I got
Speaker 3: to get rid of it between right now and wherever
Speaker 3: it is they're taking me. Now, remember we're in the
Speaker 3: middle of nowhere. This is all every man for himself. Oh,
Speaker 3: I'm in charge. No, I'm in charge kind of thing.
Speaker 3: So as we're walking, I don't even know how far
Speaker 3: I've got to walk, but I know I got to
Speaker 3: act quickly. I play like a trip to get the
Speaker 3: film case out of my pocket. So now it's in
Speaker 3: my hand and I'm being held by my arms, not
Speaker 3: by my hand, and I've got fist clenched so that
Speaker 3: it doesn't look suspicious. And so I know that I
Speaker 3: have to fall again and get rid of this film
Speaker 3: container and somehow get rid of it. I can't throw
Speaker 3: it because they'll see it. I make myself fall again,
Speaker 3: and as I fall, I make sure that I take
Speaker 3: that film case and just bury it in the mud,
Speaker 3: because again we're in the jungles. There's no roads, there's
Speaker 3: no highways, it's just dirt. And then I got up
Speaker 3: and I'm acting like I hurt myself, and they're all
Speaker 3: trying to help me, the soldiers, so they take me
Speaker 3: to the Comandante. I of course call the guy that
Speaker 3: turned me in a liar. You know, he must hate Americans.
Speaker 3: When I'm with the commandante and he's searching me and everything,
Speaker 3: I said, listen, all you need to do is make
Speaker 3: a call to the president. What president, President Ortega and
Speaker 3: he'll vouch for me. And they're like, listen to this
Speaker 3: one and saying, what call the president? I said he
Speaker 3: would be who of you guys to get in touch
Speaker 3: with someone that can get in touch with the president.
Speaker 3: And they're like, yeah, right, I need you to contact
Speaker 3: President Danielle or Tega. And I just kept saying it
Speaker 3: over and over, and I remember one of them said,
Speaker 3: she's still high. She's claiming she knows Danielle Ortega, the president,
Speaker 3: our president. And I just kept saying it over and over,
Speaker 3: and finally somebody must have said to themselves, there must
Speaker 3: be something to this. Maybe there is, Maybe there is it,
Speaker 3: but it would behoove us to follow up on it.
Speaker 3: And I saw a couple of guys leave where they
Speaker 3: were holding me, and I would say, about forty minutes later,
Speaker 3: comes walking in the producer and we're being escorted out
Speaker 3: and set free. Guess what they did. They contacted President
Speaker 3: Danielle or Tega's people, and he told them to immediately,
Speaker 3: if not sooner, let her out. You guys are in trouble,
Speaker 3: in trouble for doing the right thing.
Speaker 1: That was probably the only time in that guy's life
Speaker 1: that he talked to those kind of people.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, and then John seiselof and I thank him
Speaker 3: till this day also rest in peace. You know. I
Speaker 3: begged him, please don't turn me in to CBS because
Speaker 3: I'll lose my job. He also knew that he could
Speaker 3: lose his job because he allowed these shenanigans to go on.
Speaker 3: He never said anything, obviously, the crew never said anything
Speaker 3: after that. They treated me with kid gloves.
Speaker 1: The producer you're with, he obviously didn't smoke weed. He wasn't. No,
Speaker 1: he wasn't the kind that you were partying.
Speaker 3: No, he was a Quaker in fact, or a Mormon
Speaker 3: or something like that.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I just found my new sitcom idea
Speaker 1: Cookie and the Quaker.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he didn't turn me in. And the reason
Speaker 3: I think I could get away with all of these things,
Speaker 3: especially with CBS people, is because I made them all
Speaker 3: look good. The stories I got for them made them
Speaker 3: look good. So why get rid or risk getting rid
Speaker 3: of the one person that always comes through for them
Speaker 3: and make them look good?
Speaker 1: Yeah? What did Dan rather say?
Speaker 3: My secret weapon in Central America?
Speaker 1: That says it all. Really, nothing else can be said.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was it?
Speaker 1: Nice to know people.
Speaker 3: It was very nice to know people, and to this
Speaker 3: day I still know people there, and he's still the president.
Speaker 1: Cookie talks her way out of another jam, but her
Speaker 1: wild ways are getting noticed. The Sandinista government is watching her.
Speaker 3: So one day I'm in my office. There's a knock
Speaker 3: at the door and it's this guy. I've never seen
Speaker 3: him before, and he's not dressed in a military uniform.
Speaker 3: He's dressed as a civilian. And he says he needs
Speaker 3: to speak to me about what. And he says, well,
Speaker 3: can I come in? This is a very delicate situation.
Speaker 3: I need to speak to you about. Sure, come on in.
Speaker 3: And he proceeds to tell me that he works for
Speaker 3: state security, that there's problems with drugs, and I freak out.
Speaker 3: I said, I am not involved with drugs. I do
Speaker 3: not party, I do not do drugs. Here, take my
Speaker 3: blood sample now, you can have it tested. If he
Speaker 3: had done that, it would have fit off the charts.
Speaker 3: He says, no, no, no, you don't understand. I said,
Speaker 3: I understand. You're accusing me of something. He goes, I
Speaker 3: am not accusing you of anything. You need to calm
Speaker 3: down and let me explain why I'm here. I said, okay.
Speaker 3: He says. By the way, my nom de guere is
Speaker 3: jughead in Spanish doroomlo, that's what you could call me.
Speaker 3: And he says, this is the problem we are having
Speaker 3: right now with you. We have rounded up about twenty
Speaker 3: of these society kids, you know, for drugs, dealing while partying, whatever.
Speaker 3: They became too obvious. So we've got about twenty of
Speaker 3: these people in jail. Well, what does that have to
Speaker 3: do with me? He says, Well, you know them? I said, well,
Speaker 3: I know a lot of people. He says, yeah, But
Speaker 3: they're all saying your name, that they hang out with you,
Speaker 3: that they party with you. I said, I know a
Speaker 3: lot of people. I grew up with a lot of
Speaker 3: these people. They could say whatever they want to say.
Speaker 3: Maybe they think it's going to get them out of trouble.
Speaker 3: He says. I still think that you don't understand why
Speaker 3: I'm here. The reason I am here is that we
Speaker 3: as the government have no problem with you partying. And
Speaker 3: I'm just like slowly going into shock here. Is this
Speaker 3: some sort of ambush? Is this some sort of test?
Speaker 3: He says, we know what you do. We don't have
Speaker 3: a problem with it. In fact, if you need supplies.
Speaker 3: We could furnish you with party favors whenever you need.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, whoa, whoa, This does not sound right
Speaker 3: to me. He says. The other part of the problem
Speaker 3: is that besides these people saying your name, we can't
Speaker 3: have that. We cannot have people in jails saying your
Speaker 3: name and that they party with you. So what we're
Speaker 3: asking you is a couple of things. To please be
Speaker 3: more discreet. Stop partying with known people that could possibly
Speaker 3: get in trouble with us. Just party quietly. Party with
Speaker 3: your journalist friends, stop partying with the society kids. And
Speaker 3: again he says, I reiterate, if you ever need anything
Speaker 3: so you don't have to go out there publicly looking
Speaker 3: for merchandise, contact me and I will supply you with
Speaker 3: whatever you want. And I'm like, are you serious?
Speaker 2: Is that?
Speaker 3: Are you basically telling me government sanction drug use and
Speaker 3: you'll supply it. He says, that's exactly what I mean.
Speaker 3: And I am your contact, and I will be around
Speaker 3: keeping an eye on you from a distance, and you
Speaker 3: could call me anytime, night or day for anything. And
Speaker 3: we became very close friends. Within six months, he was
Speaker 3: partying two We drew him over to the dark side.
Speaker 1: So you corrupted him.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I tend to have that effect on people. I
Speaker 3: corrupted him. He was my guy for years.
Speaker 1: You said a lot of crazy things in this podcast.
Speaker 1: That's insane, right, That's that's pretty far out there.
Speaker 3: That is I mean. And I couldn't have asked for
Speaker 3: anything better. Okay, Well, yeah, anything I wanted, weed, coke, anything.
Speaker 3: I did know that they had wiped out drugs and
Speaker 3: drug use in the country.
Speaker 1: Well, it's kind of funny because you know you're in Nicaragua.
Speaker 1: You think you'd be able to get a.
Speaker 3: Great drugs nothing impossible.
Speaker 1: How did you How did you I would have to fly.
Speaker 3: To the US, buy by drugs, import them into Nicaragua.
Speaker 1: I heard you had a couple of little clever ways
Speaker 1: of getting them in.
Speaker 3: Well, sure, if it wasn't myself literally flying to the
Speaker 3: States and bringing them in myself, I would get other journalists.
Speaker 3: They would bring their own and share. You know, I
Speaker 3: would get family and friends in Miami to drop off
Speaker 3: clothes and videos and dolls to the CBS office and
Speaker 3: CBS unnoingly with ship stuff to me, not knowing that.
Speaker 1: So you were you were sneaking cocaine in through clothes, dolls, tapes.
Speaker 3: And when I say tapes, I don't mean the CBS tapes.
Speaker 3: I'm talking about MTV, you know, stuff that I would
Speaker 3: get people to tape for me.
Speaker 1: Here's the thought. Do you think to Moss poor hey
Speaker 1: he knew about that?
Speaker 3: I would probably think he did.
Speaker 1: Is it easier to smuggle coke out of the United
Speaker 1: States than it is to smuggle it in?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? Because I knew that nothing could happen to me. Nothing.
Speaker 3: And then let's say I got caught. You think I
Speaker 3: would have spent one moment in trouble. I had jugad.
Speaker 1: She has jugaad. Why doesn't that sound comforting, Well, it
Speaker 1: certainly sounds like Cookie has it all under control. Nope,
Speaker 1: her life is about to change and she might just
Speaker 1: lose everything she's fought for, including her life. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back, welcome back. Cookie is about to meet one
Speaker 1: of the great loves of her life. The question is
Speaker 1: will she survive it? Buckle up. So I know you've
Speaker 1: been married a few times. You've had many romantic adventures
Speaker 1: in your life.
Speaker 3: I've found mister Wraich thirty three times.
Speaker 1: But there was one guy in Nicaragua and Central America
Speaker 1: that you spent a lot of time with that you
Speaker 1: were very close to. Let's talk about John Basco. Tell
Speaker 1: me about who he was, what he did, and how
Speaker 1: you guys got together.
Speaker 3: John worked as a cameraman for NBC. His specialty was war.
Speaker 3: He was always being shipped to war zones and then
Speaker 3: for a time he was constantly in Nicaragua and El
Speaker 3: Salvador as well. You know, he had been told when
Speaker 3: you get to Nicaragua, you have to go to the
Speaker 3: CBS office. That's the chick that is going to be
Speaker 3: your best connection, not just for business and the news,
Speaker 3: but she's going to be your best connection for anything else.
Speaker 3: She and her office are the place to be and
Speaker 3: to be seen. He came down and introduced himself one
Speaker 3: day to the CBS office. I thought he was cute.
Speaker 3: I'm going to say right now. He kind of couldn't
Speaker 3: take his eyes off me. And I could tell she was.
Speaker 8: Running the CBS office and so she was a hot Tamali.
Speaker 8: You know what drew me to her was her great
Speaker 8: physical beauty, really, and she was tall and slender, and
Speaker 8: she was real pretty. She was crazy and wild and everything.
Speaker 8: You know, she was smart, she had all the connections,
Speaker 8: she had all the power. She was a lot of
Speaker 8: fun to hang out with, So I mean, how could
Speaker 8: you not be attracted to her?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
Speaker 8: I think everybody was attracted to her.
Speaker 3: We sort of started flirting back and forth, and no
Speaker 3: matter what job or junket or peace that we would
Speaker 3: all be working on, he'd always wind up every day
Speaker 3: in my office end of business. We had a lot
Speaker 3: of the same likes. We like to drink, we like
Speaker 3: to party, we like to do drugs. So we hit
Speaker 3: it off immediately. Even though he was a quiet, shy
Speaker 3: kind of guy, but he had a presence and I
Speaker 3: was the complete opposite. Not shy, not quiet, and I
Speaker 3: had a big presence. He told me later that he
Speaker 3: had been told stay away from her. She'll like the
Speaker 3: songs that she'll eat you, chew you up and spit
Speaker 3: you out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what was your nickname?
Speaker 3: Man eater? My crews always knew that if I set
Speaker 3: my sights on someone, that was the end of them.
Speaker 3: He had been told that he had been mourned, so
Speaker 3: he kept his kind of cautious distance from me in
Speaker 3: that aspect. But then it was inevitable. We got together.
Speaker 3: It was fabulous. It was a world win relationship. We
Speaker 3: simply adored each other in all aspects, not just because
Speaker 3: we would help each other out in the news. I
Speaker 3: always made and got stuff that we both needed to party.
Speaker 3: It was just inevitable that we would get together.
Speaker 8: And it was always a lot of fun to hear.
Speaker 8: We were going to be as signed to go to
Speaker 8: Monagua because Cookie would be there. So here you go, Great,
Speaker 8: we'll see Cookie. That's how it worked, not because she's
Speaker 8: my friend and she's you know, my girlfriend, but besides that,
Speaker 8: even other people, you're gonna go to Monogua, Great, we'll
Speaker 8: see Cookie.
Speaker 3: And I think he actually pushed for assignments in Monagua.
Speaker 1: He said he didn't really like Nicaragua. Of all the
Speaker 1: places he went to, he wanted to go there because
Speaker 1: he knew he was gonna have so much fun.
Speaker 3: I can't stress enough that it wasn't just about the partying.
Speaker 3: It was the camaraderie that we all had.
Speaker 8: In a war zone. You need to have love, you know,
Speaker 8: you need to have friendship. It's very very important because
Speaker 8: you don't have anything else. So the spiritual thing between
Speaker 8: me and Cookie was like that. It was a desperate
Speaker 8: spiritual connection to make it through what we were going through.
Speaker 8: We were together for putting sab on the wounds. I
Speaker 8: needed that and she provided it.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 8: I think maybe I provided it to her too in
Speaker 8: a way.
Speaker 3: Maybe we said the word love, maybe we didn't, But
Speaker 3: I always thought of him as that love interest in
Speaker 3: my life there and it was different. And I think
Speaker 3: he was also surprised because he was also a very
Speaker 3: kind of slam bam, thank you ma'am kind of guy,
Speaker 3: which is why surprisingly we didn't even jump into bed
Speaker 3: together for months. You know, we'd sleep in the same bed.
Speaker 3: It was almost as if we were going to do
Speaker 3: things differently, which made it that much more exciting. I
Speaker 3: looked at him as my soulmate. He also had that
Speaker 3: feeling for me.
Speaker 1: Things were heating up between them, but they're already starting
Speaker 1: the spiral. They decided they needed to get away from Anagua.
Speaker 3: We decided we were going to go on R and
Speaker 3: R to Honduras. It's funny that we would think that
Speaker 3: going to another war toward country would be R and R.
Speaker 3: But yeah, we went to a beach called Roatan in Honduras.
Speaker 3: John didn't even remember the end result of that trip.
Speaker 3: He remembered something bad happened.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the incident.
Speaker 3: That's well, we were just partying, and we were loud,
Speaker 3: and we weren't your normal variety tourist partier.
Speaker 1: Okay, here we go. This is where it starts to
Speaker 1: get weird.
Speaker 8: I thought it was going to be very funny if
Speaker 8: Cookie got in the baby crip in our hotel room.
Speaker 3: This is a little embarrassing. We would role play a lot.
Speaker 3: I think the crib was supposed to be like a jail.
Speaker 8: Can you imagine her squatting down a baby crib, looking
Speaker 8: out of the bars like she's in prison or something.
Speaker 8: I said, Cookie, you should get in that crib. This
Speaker 8: is where you belong.
Speaker 3: This tells you how high we were.
Speaker 8: This is gonna be good for you. And she said, no, no, no,
Speaker 8: I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. Come on, Cookie,
Speaker 8: get in the crib.
Speaker 3: I still didn't get it. You know why that would
Speaker 3: be eternal.
Speaker 1: He said, you wouldn't do it.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, but eventually I did.
Speaker 1: He said he was kind of yelling and acting crazy
Speaker 1: to get you to do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I eventually I did.
Speaker 1: Early that's the night where a lot of complaints came in, a.
Speaker 3: Lot of complaints came in and believe me, we had
Speaker 3: the top of the line accommodations. We were throwing money
Speaker 3: around like there was no tomorrow.
Speaker 8: And then it ended up with you guys should leave
Speaker 8: here and never come back.
Speaker 1: Were you being pretty boisterous in there?
Speaker 8: I guess we were.
Speaker 3: So we got escorted out of the country. He thought
Speaker 3: that we had just been escorted out of the hotel.
Speaker 3: I said, no, John, it was the hotel, the city,
Speaker 3: and the country.
Speaker 8: You know, sometimes when you're really really been like partying
Speaker 8: or doing war, I mean that goes along with it,
Speaker 8: you just get kind of whacked out of your head.
Speaker 8: You know, you don't really relate the way you should
Speaker 8: in a normal world, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 8: even on a big you don't act the way you
Speaker 8: should act, and you don't realize that you're being so
Speaker 8: weird or so strange, you know, But that's what it was.
Speaker 8: It was like a big wake up calling, Wow, you're
Speaker 8: telling us to leave this island.
Speaker 3: It took I think about a year or two before
Speaker 3: we could go back to Honduras.
Speaker 1: Funny story, but it was getting harder and harder for
Speaker 1: Cookie to hide her demons, and it was becoming all
Speaker 1: too public.
Speaker 3: In Nicaragua, there's this huge mansion on a hill. It's
Speaker 3: called La Casona, the Big House. This was property that
Speaker 3: Roosevelt least for one hundred years, so it was US
Speaker 3: soil and it was part of the embassy in a
Speaker 3: different location. So every Fourth of July or any kind
Speaker 3: of American holiday, the US Embassy would throw big shin digs.
Speaker 3: Local people, local journalists, international journalists, government dignitaries would all
Speaker 3: be invited. There's one particular Fourth of July, big celebration,
Speaker 3: always lots of great.
Speaker 1: Food and fireworks and all.
Speaker 3: That fireworks, hot dogs, anything you can imagine for you know,
Speaker 3: a Fourth of July party. Well, myself and two NBC
Speaker 3: crew members were there with me, cameraman John Basco and
Speaker 3: sundman Juan Caldera, whose sister ran the NBC office in Nicaragua.
Speaker 3: A stroke of midnight, the party's over. Well by that time,
Speaker 3: I'm so paranoid. I can't move. I'm in full riga mortis.
Speaker 3: I'm sitting on a sofa. I cannot move. I know
Speaker 3: that if I stepped foot off the US property, I'm
Speaker 3: going to be arrested.
Speaker 1: And why are you so paranoid?
Speaker 3: Because I'm partying.
Speaker 1: I'm doing cocaine, like massive quantities.
Speaker 3: Obviously enough to make me not be able to get
Speaker 3: up off the sofa. And here's John Basco and here's
Speaker 3: Juan Caldera saying, Cookie, you know they're closing up. You
Speaker 3: got to go. We've got to get you out of here.
Speaker 3: It's starting to look weird. You know.
Speaker 8: She goes to embassy party, she does a lot of coke,
Speaker 8: gets too hot and freezes until you like calm down
Speaker 8: a little bit and then you can like kind of
Speaker 8: shuffle out of the room hopefully and nobody notices too much.
Speaker 1: How long were you sitting there?
Speaker 3: Hours? Hours? And then the party ended and I must
Speaker 3: have sat there another hour. And the Marines they need
Speaker 3: to go, they need to empty out the place.
Speaker 1: Is this one of those things where the lights are
Speaker 1: going off and.
Speaker 3: The lights are going off, you know? Last call was
Speaker 3: an hour ago. Oh I'm not feeling well. I can't move,
Speaker 3: but my two friends finally got me off the sofa
Speaker 3: and out.
Speaker 1: Happy fourth of July.
Speaker 3: Happy fourth of July.
Speaker 1: I asked Alejandro Belly, Cookie's close friend and CBS assistant,
Speaker 1: if he was worried about her.
Speaker 9: I was concerned especially when she was she was with Vascal,
Speaker 9: I mean, Vasco was not very good news for her
Speaker 9: because she was totally She loved that disaster. She loved
Speaker 9: that chaos, and he was, you know.
Speaker 3: Sexy for her.
Speaker 9: She had all the danger written all around and she
Speaker 9: loved that.
Speaker 1: Did it become to define your relationship too much? Were
Speaker 1: you good for each other? Were you bad for each other?
Speaker 1: Was it both both?
Speaker 3: We were great for each other because we were so made,
Speaker 3: we had so much in common. We kind of thrived
Speaker 3: off of each other. The partying did get to be excessive.
Speaker 1: Did you kind of go farther with him than you
Speaker 1: probably were used to?
Speaker 3: Yes, and farther with him than I had ever and
Speaker 3: to this day never have repeated some of the things
Speaker 3: that we did.
Speaker 1: Was it scary?
Speaker 3: Of course it was, I mean it was. It was great.
Speaker 3: It was intense because our relationship was intense on every
Speaker 3: fucking level. It wasn't the normal dating, It wasn't the
Speaker 3: normal party. Every aspect of our relationship was the most
Speaker 3: intense that you could be in any relationship.
Speaker 1: He told me he was worried about you at one point.
Speaker 3: As any good attic, we each thought we had it
Speaker 3: under control.
Speaker 1: Well, that's why I ask if maybe you weren't always
Speaker 1: good for each other.
Speaker 3: Was it to the level of toxic? But it was
Speaker 3: heading in that direction.
Speaker 8: Look, I was crazy and I was doing this shit
Speaker 8: I was doing, but I didn't have it that deep.
Speaker 8: It seemed to me like Cookie had that element of
Speaker 8: her personality was deep, so she would just die and
Speaker 8: I could see that, and it scared me.
Speaker 1: Cookies demons have finally caught up with her. Is the
Speaker 1: party over? We'll be right back, Welcome back. Cookie's facing
Speaker 1: the biggest challenge of her life. I know she's a badass,
Speaker 1: but so is addiction.
Speaker 3: So obviously I had problems with drugs. We all know
Speaker 3: this by now. As I've said before, war journalists they're
Speaker 3: always partying. They work hard, they party harder because you
Speaker 3: never know when you're going to die, when it's going
Speaker 3: to be your last story, your last day on earth.
Speaker 3: It's not like I was the only person. And that's
Speaker 3: not to detract from my failings. Everyone partied drinking drugs.
Speaker 3: Not everybody did everything. I of course did everything. Some
Speaker 3: of us could just stop and not continue all night.
Speaker 3: Some of us couldn't. I was one of the ones
Speaker 3: that they couldn't. I thought my problem was drugs. What
Speaker 3: I didn't realize is that I was also an alcoholic.
Speaker 3: I had all the telltale signs, drinking a lot, drinking
Speaker 3: in my room, drinking with the guys, and drinking them
Speaker 3: under the table. CBS decided that something needed to be done.
Speaker 3: It's funny because you met her in an earlier episode.
Speaker 3: Carla Farrell, producer extraordinaire who hired me, was now being
Speaker 3: sent to Nicaragua to confront me and tell me if
Speaker 3: you don't go, you will be fired. And I was like,
Speaker 3: go where. She says to rehab. You've got a problem. No,
Speaker 3: I don't have a problem. You know, maybe I do
Speaker 3: this or that every now and then. No, you've got
Speaker 3: a problem. And we've got people that are concerned about you.
Speaker 3: Because my colleagues were also my friends, and we all
Speaker 3: loved and cared for each other. So it wasn't someone
Speaker 3: pointing a finger and out of jealousy, oh we need
Speaker 3: to get written out. It wasn't like that.
Speaker 1: Were you fucking up a little bit?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I knew that at any moment, this whole house
Speaker 3: of car arts could come tumbling down. I mean, I
Speaker 3: hadn't done any major fucked up that caused a big problem.
Speaker 3: But I'm sure there were incidents that could have been disastrous,
Speaker 3: not just for myself but for others.
Speaker 1: You think this was a long time coming.
Speaker 3: In a way, it was probably coming before I was
Speaker 3: at CBS. As you remember, I was married to Chino,
Speaker 3: the cartel guy, and so that was a whole era.
Speaker 3: I was partying even before that, you know, when I
Speaker 3: was a model in New York City. My life has
Speaker 3: been partying since I was fourteen. But what people don't
Speaker 3: realize about addiction is that you first start out whatever
Speaker 3: substance you're using, it's your friend, you love the way
Speaker 3: it makes you feel, and then slowly it becomes your
Speaker 3: enemy and you're always searching for that first high, which
Speaker 3: you'll never get that one again.
Speaker 1: Do you think that part of the I'll say abuse
Speaker 1: of alcohol and or drugs is related to the PTSD
Speaker 1: consequences of being out there.
Speaker 3: Covering war is a very very hard motherfucking thing to do.
Speaker 3: It's one thing watching shit on TV. It's one thing
Speaker 3: living in its city like this where there's a lot
Speaker 3: of crime, but it's another thing living in a war,
Speaker 3: and it's day to day war, war, war, and everything
Speaker 3: that comes with it. Assassinations, torture, you name it. Everything
Speaker 3: bad that another human being could do to a human
Speaker 3: being is being done in that time. I'm sure PTSD
Speaker 3: contributed to it. But I was doomed from the moment
Speaker 3: I was born.
Speaker 1: Were your parents' alcoholics?
Speaker 3: My daddy loved to drink. My mother did socially accepted
Speaker 3: prescriptions from doctors. You know valume. She had eight kids.
Speaker 3: She took valume three times a day. So I was doomed.
Speaker 3: But we didn't know that back then.
Speaker 1: Were you angry when she confronted you?
Speaker 3: When I wasn't angry. I was defensive. Oh come on on, Carla,
Speaker 3: you know me. You know how we all operate.
Speaker 10: When I first knew Cookie, I sure knew she was
Speaker 10: a partier. I took part in some of those parties
Speaker 10: at the time. I never thought it was a problem
Speaker 10: in the beginning. As I recall later on, her level
Speaker 10: of partying was was concerning.
Speaker 3: Yes, the reason she was sent is because she wasn't
Speaker 3: like that. She wasn't a big drinker, She never did drugs.
Speaker 3: She was always level headed and she was always business.
Speaker 1: Did you feel betrayed by somebody like often is the.
Speaker 3: Case, No, because the way it was still to me,
Speaker 3: it was a lot of people had talked about it.
Speaker 1: God it you just have to picture that. There was
Speaker 1: a discussion at the New York office.
Speaker 3: No, the discussion was in Miami.
Speaker 1: In Miami, Okay.
Speaker 3: Miami cleared it with New York because they were going
Speaker 3: to do something different. They were going to pay and
Speaker 3: they were going to put me in rehab. It wasn't
Speaker 3: going to be on my dime because obviously they felt
Speaker 3: like you just said, oh, it's the war, it's the PTSD.
Speaker 3: They obviously didn't know my complete background. I mean by
Speaker 3: that time, what I'd already been twenty years into the game.
Speaker 1: It's almost like getting in trouble for your own superpower.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I got defensive with Carla. She said, cookie,
Speaker 3: don't fight it. If you don't do it, they're going.
Speaker 10: To fire you.
Speaker 1: Well, when you hear those words.
Speaker 3: That's what did it.
Speaker 1: You have your whole life wrapped up in this. You're
Speaker 1: at the peak of your powers.
Speaker 3: Too, exactly, And at this point people didn't really understand
Speaker 3: everything about addiction like they do now, especially Carla. She
Speaker 3: had no clue about addiction. So in her mind, it
Speaker 3: was due to me being alone in the war, raising kids,
Speaker 3: just a lot of pressure. She says, Cookie, take the gift.
Speaker 3: They're going to pay for it. But where am I
Speaker 3: going to go? Anywhere you want to go, she says,
Speaker 3: I recommend Betty Ford, and I'm like, okay, that sounds good.
Speaker 3: So I proceeded to drink two bottles of wine, packed
Speaker 3: my suitcase, and I was on a flight the next
Speaker 3: morning with Carla. She didn't take me all the way,
Speaker 3: but she took me to Miami and made sure that
Speaker 3: in Miami I got on the flight to California. Because
Speaker 3: addicts are always ah, let me get off here, I'll
Speaker 3: go next week. They weren't going to take that chance,
Speaker 3: so she flew with me to Miami and made sure
Speaker 3: I got on the flight to California. I owe my
Speaker 3: life to Carla because she really cared for me. She
Speaker 3: was really a good friend, and I recently thanked her
Speaker 3: for saving my life. I would not have had all
Speaker 3: the life that I had after CBS in the war
Speaker 3: had it not been for her.
Speaker 1: Before Cookie gets to the Betty Ford clinic, I want
Speaker 1: to introduce you to a true American hero. On April
Speaker 1: twenty second, nineteen seventy eight, The Washington Post wrote this
Speaker 1: about the former first Lady. President Gerald Ford's wife.
Speaker 4: Betty Ford, said yesterday she is addicted to alcohol as
Speaker 4: well as the medication that to her treatment at Long
Speaker 4: Beach Naval Hospital. Missus Ford, the sixty year old wife
Speaker 4: of former President Ford, was admitted to the California Hospitals
Speaker 4: Alcohol and Drug Abuse Center twelve days ago. I have
Speaker 4: found I am not only addicted to the medication I
Speaker 4: have been taking from my arthritis, but also to alcohol,
Speaker 4: missus Ford said in a statement read at the hospital
Speaker 4: by a family spokesman. Missus Ford's candor after her operation
Speaker 4: for breast cancer in nineteen seventy four prompted thousands of
Speaker 4: women to seek frequent checkups and examinations. Experts in the
Speaker 4: field of drug abuse hailed her similar candor yesterday.
Speaker 1: What an amazing person. Can you imagine the courage it
Speaker 1: took for her to stand up in front of the
Speaker 1: American people and say those.
Speaker 3: Words, I'm Betty Ford and I'm an alcoholic.
Speaker 10: Thank you.
Speaker 1: A few years later, she founded the Betty Ford Center,
Speaker 1: a nonprofit residential treatment center for people with substance dependents. Look,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying she invented rehab, but Betty Ford coming
Speaker 1: out in such a big way paved the roads for
Speaker 1: millions of Americans to seek the help they so badly needed.
Speaker 1: That's a freaking hero when you get there to the
Speaker 1: Betty Bard.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's a wonderful story. I'm dressed in a suit.
Speaker 3: I look fabulous. I've got my briefcase with me. I
Speaker 3: walk in at the reception desk. They think I'm the
Speaker 3: new doctor or counselor, and they said a name. We've
Speaker 3: been expecting you, and I'm like, well, that's not my name.
Speaker 3: Well wait, aren't you the new counselor doctor? And I'm like, no,
Speaker 3: I'm the new patient. So they checked me in and
Speaker 3: I remember the first night, we're sort of in a
Speaker 3: group in the wreck room or whatever you call it.
Speaker 3: There's a TV on and it's the news, and it
Speaker 3: happened to be on CBS. And that day Fidel Castro
Speaker 3: had flown into Nicaragua and he was holding a rally
Speaker 3: with Ortega, which I had planned to cover for weeks.
Speaker 1: The Washington Post this about Cashro's visit to Nicaragua.
Speaker 4: Sandinista leader Daniel Ortego was inaugurated as Nicaragua's president today,
Speaker 4: in a ceremony marked by a surprise visit by Cuban
Speaker 4: President Fidel Castro Ortego, reaffirmed the Sandinista's public commitment to
Speaker 4: respect political pluralism and private property. He said the seven
Speaker 4: month old dialogue with the United States represented a magnificent
Speaker 4: opportunity to resolve the two countries' differences. In spite of
Speaker 4: the situation, Nicaragua is not an enemy of the United States.
Speaker 3: So as I'm watching it, I'm screaming kind I'm supposed
Speaker 3: to be there. That's my story. I'm supposed to be there.
Speaker 3: And a couple of patients turned to each other and said, man,
Speaker 3: is she still high? I want someone? Would she's still on?
Speaker 1: Did you enjoy it?
Speaker 3: You know what I did? And I picked up the
Speaker 3: tricks and what I'm supposed to say. And you know,
Speaker 3: there's this thing that says you got to write your
Speaker 3: first step and write everything a certain way, and I
Speaker 3: I knew exactly. So I was writing other patients first
Speaker 3: step for them for money. It was profitable for me
Speaker 3: in there.
Speaker 1: How about getting something out of it?
Speaker 3: I did obviously, I got sobriety. And it gets you
Speaker 3: to the point where you don't want to leave. When
Speaker 3: you first get there, you want to leave, you want out,
Speaker 3: but by the time it's over, you don't want to
Speaker 3: leave because at that point you've got your sobriety and
Speaker 3: you're scared to go back out in the real world.
Speaker 3: You don't know what's going to set it off, and
Speaker 3: they tell you have to go back in the real world.
Speaker 3: Anywhere you go, there's going to be temptation.
Speaker 1: Looking back, would you say that it worked?
Speaker 3: It worked for a while.
Speaker 1: Do you know what made you start partying again?
Speaker 3: I'm an attic being thrown right back into the lions
Speaker 3: dead war, death, destruction, partying afterwards, still with all the
Speaker 3: same people, all the same accoutermentt you know, to party
Speaker 3: with it less maybe about nine ten months.
Speaker 1: That's actually pretty damn good, Yeah it is.
Speaker 3: It wasn't a structure in war time for AA groups,
Speaker 3: and certainly there were no NA groups in Latin America.
Speaker 3: It was all about the booze there. So I did
Speaker 3: find an AA group, and I was the only female
Speaker 3: among all these dirt, poor humble peasants that literally would
Speaker 3: just be drinking and sleeping on the streets. I really
Speaker 3: liked it. I really did. I said to myself, If
Speaker 3: they could do it, why can't I.
Speaker 1: Do you believe in AA?
Speaker 3: I believe in that twelve step program.
Speaker 1: Well you've been sober verse seventeen.
Speaker 3: Seventeen years, now clean it sober?
Speaker 1: So how long did you go hard before you really
Speaker 1: got sober?
Speaker 3: I mean I started at fourteen and finished in my fifties. Yeah,
Speaker 3: my drug of choice was weed. I just like that.
Speaker 3: But coke, you know, that was that was my high,
Speaker 3: that was my jam. I snorted a piece of sheet
Speaker 3: rock once, thinking it was it was a rock ouch. Well,
Speaker 3: were you run out? You're kind of looking around get
Speaker 3: off on it? No, it burned like motherfucker.
Speaker 1: Cookie got help and it changed her life. If you
Speaker 1: or someone you love is struggling with drug or alcohol addiction,
Speaker 1: there's help for you too. You can talk to someone
Speaker 1: right now call one eight hundred sixty six ' to
Speaker 1: two help day or night and is totally confidential. Next
Speaker 1: time on Journalista, the smoking gun gets shot down flying
Speaker 1: over Nicaragua and the race is on to get the
Speaker 1: biggest story of the eighties.
Speaker 3: I'm in Miami on vacation. I get a call from
Speaker 3: someone in Nicaragua was saying, have you heard.
Speaker 9: No.
Speaker 3: The Sandinistas have proof now that the US is involved
Speaker 3: because they caught an American associated with the CIA kicking
Speaker 3: out supplies over Contra territory.
Speaker 1: In the skies of Nicaragua. Don't miss the thrilling conclusion
Speaker 1: of Journalista, The world will never be the same. The
Speaker 1: Journalista podcast features the stories and voice of Cookie Hood
Speaker 1: Narrated by Steven Esteb, Produced by Sean J. Donnelly. Executive
Speaker 1: producers Jason Wagensback, Roy Laughlin, and Ellen k iHeart Executive
Speaker 1: producer Tyler Klang, Written and edited by Steven Esteb. Music
Speaker 1: by Jay Weigel, Associate producer in sound design Stephen Tanti.
Speaker 1: Sound mixing by Jesse Solon Snyder. Special guests Lloyd Sherr,
Speaker 1: John Basco, Alejandro Belly, and Carla Ferrell. This is a
Speaker 1: production of Journalista Podcast LLC and iHeartRadio.