WEBVTT - This is a Firing Squad 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:06.840 This is a production of Journalista Podcast LLC and iHeartRadio. 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:12.039 Just a warning, this podcast includes adult language and situations, 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:14.920 references to drug use, violence, and some things that will 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:16.079 be very hard to listen to. 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:20.799 They bring us all together and they take us outside 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:24.200 into a courtyard and stand us up against the wall. 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:26.680 This is a firing squad. 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:32.640 Welcome to the Journalista Podcast. I'm Steve StEB your host. 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:36.760 This is a memoir about the dangerous and improbable life 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:48.600 of Cookie. Hood party girl, mus mother, journalist warrior. Cookie 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:50.760 is a classic broad right out of a Bogart movie. 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:53.440 She looks like she's been through some shit, with a deep, 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:57.120 coarse voice and a street tough demeanor. She's not famous, 0:00:57.440 --> 0:00:59.760 but she did break the biggest story of the nineteen eighties. 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:03.000 You've probably heard of, the Iran Contra scandal. It was 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:06.840 like Watergate nine to eleven, Trump Russia January sixth, all 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:10.240 rolled into one big clusterfuck now. To be clear, and 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:12.320 Cookie will tell you this. There were a lot of 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:14.919 journalists who claim a piece of the Iran Contra story. 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:18.600 There were a lot of threads to unwind. Let me 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:22.360 give you a quick overview of that story. Wait on 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:25.800 second thought, I think I'll let Fox's American dad do it. 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:31.160 In the eighties there was Cold War trauma. We bought 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:37.280 the commis inside picker our friends with a contrus. Freedom 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:40.720 was then Prussolas sent them lots of money for guns 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:47.160 and land muns. Congress to the Contra money floor just 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:51.120 because they moved a teeny bit of floor. But then 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.200 a hero claims fort His name was Oliver North. 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:55.840 Ian Reagan went. 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:58.120 Around the sissy Congress. 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:04.960 North North, you see, Nor secretly sold mistress to a 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.240 harmless country called Iran that would always be a grateful ally. 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:11.440 Then he gave the prophets to the conference genius. 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:15.399 It all blew up in their faces. You've probably seen 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:18.280 the iconic image of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North in his 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:21.440 snappy uniform with his hand in the air, standing before 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:24.760 a joint session of Congress investigating the Iran Contra scandal. 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:31.840 Do you solemn this way that in the testimony you're 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:35.160 about to give will be the tooth, the whole tooth, 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:36.800 and nothing but the truth. 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:40.600 So help you God, I do, please me shill. Some 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:42.880 of you might know him from his short tenure as 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:46.280 the head of the NRA or frequent appearances on Fox News. 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:49.519 You might remember President Reagan saying this on your television 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:50.639 back in nineteen eighty seven. 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:54.400 First, let me say I take full responsibility from my 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:58.680 own actions and for those of my administration. As angry 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:02.000 as I may be about that activities undertaken without my knowledge, 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:05.320 I am still accountable for those activities. 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:11.200 But the sales were uncovered by the press. Step Reagan, 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:15.639 the North whale began to stress because what they did 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:18.600 was technically high thereason. 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:23.680 In the end, several dozen Reagan administration officials were indicted 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:28.000 with eleven convictions, including the Secretary of Defense, two national 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:31.519 security advisors, the Assistant Secretary of State, chief of the 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:35.680 CIA's Central American Task Force, chief of Covert Ops CIA, 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:39.400 former Air Force Major General Richard Seacourt, and of course 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:46.040 Oliver North. Sounds like justice will not exactly the next 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:50.040 president and former CIA director under Nixon, George H. W. Bush, 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:54.720 pardon all of them. The president's cronies walked sound familiar. 0:03:55.080 --> 0:04:02.840 Oh North, he's a soldier and a hero and the lost, 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:07.920 and now he's on Fox news News. 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:13.760 I fucking love that. We already know the end of 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:17.520 the story. But that's not the good part. It's the journey. 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:22.680 Cookie's journey always at the crossroads of history, one way 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:26.839 or another. So how does a half American, half Nicaraguin 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.719 party girl from New Orleans with absolutely no journalism experience 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:35.039 break the biggest story of the eighties. That's what journalista 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:39.880 is all about. I'm here right now to introduce my 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:43.360 very very good friend. She's like my family member, Cookie Hood. 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:46.560 Good Morning's stay, Good morning Cookie. I want to talk 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:48.560 for a minute about how this started between us. I 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:50.839 got a call from a friend who said that they 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:53.719 had a friend who had a crazy story that would 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:55.880 be a great movie. I looked you up. I put 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:58.279 Cookie Hood in Google and it went nowhere. 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:01.080 For me, which led you to believe Eve, I thought 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:01.440 you were. 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:03.640 Full of shit. I get a box in the mail. 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:06.760 It's from Cookie Hood, and I'm like, hmm, what could 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:07.719 this be. I opened this. 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:10.640 Box and it was a treasure troth it was. It 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:15.360 was filled with photographs, press passes, newspaper clipping. 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:18.400 Letters from famous people, singing your prayers words. 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:19.920 I sent you the receipts. 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:22.960 Yes, and you had a picture of like laying on 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:25.720 a couch next to Ed Bradley, and you know, all 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:29.360 kinds of Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter Carter. Yeah, it's a 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.640 fun story to tell, and I'm just really glad we're 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:34.320 doing this together. Are you excited. 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:40.719 I'm stoked, stoked, I'm stoked. Mike Wallace once said to me, Cookie, 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:43.720 I'm gonna give you the best piece of advice. Always 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:48.760 cover the story, never be the story, and as you'll 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:52.520 be able to tell in this podcast, I was the 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:55.839 story a lot of times, so I was breaking Mike's 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:58.760 number one rule. But he said to me a few times, 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:02.720 you know what, it's you. It's okay that you're the story. 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:05.520 You should be the story. All right, Well, let's get 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:10.560 into this before Cookie changes the world. She has to 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:13.280 go through some serious bullshit. Let me take you back 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:16.760 to December twenty seventh, nineteen seventy four. Cookie is just 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:17.680 sixteen years old. 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:21.920 One of my friends. We went to his mountain retreat 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:25.680 where his family lived. He decided to bring back a 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:29.840 pound of weed to take back to Monagua for New Years. 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:34.000 And I'm going to be getting dropped off in my neighborhood, 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:38.520 which is a very wealthy, cloistered neighborhood. We're driving in. 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:42.800 It's after dark as we're passing in front of the house. 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:48.719 Coming in the other direction are two taxis, poor people taxis. 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:51.760 They stop in front of the house and we're side 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:55.239 to side with them. All the doors fly open. Masked 0:06:55.640 --> 0:07:00.560 gunman jump out, They shoot the chauffeur's bodyguard. We're all 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:04.000 looking at each other like, what the fuck is going up? 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:09.360 This is how the New York Times described it. 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:12.480 The next day, leptist gorillas invaded a Christmas party for 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:16.040 the United States ambassador and seized about twenty prominent Nicaraguans 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:18.720 as hostages to be exchange for political prisoners. 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:22.120 For a little context, I turned to Justin Woolf, PhD, 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:25.560 professor of Latin American history at Tulane University right here 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:29.560 in New Orleans. His first book was The Everyday Nation, State, 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:34.280 Community and Ethnicity in nineteenth century Nicaragua. That's a mouthful. 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:37.280 He knows his shit, but he looks a lot like 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:38.760 the bass player from zz Top. 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:41.320 It was a Christmas party in honor of the US 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:44.680 Ambassador to Nicaragua, Shelton Turner, and so the lot of 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:48.440 diplomatic big wigs, a lot of members of the Somosa 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:51.400 family and government were all there. It was a big 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:55.520 celebration in the midst of kind of tragedy and misery 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:58.800 all around. I've got the earthquake in nineteen seventy two, 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:03.040 and so the party is a let them eat cake 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:06.960 kind of moment. Here's an event that will highlight for 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:12.080 the Santinistas kind of terribleness of the regime. It allows 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:15.600 them to make a splash. It allows them to convince 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:18.280 the regime that they can strike a blow. Now, as 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:20.960 it turned out, the US ambassador who had been there 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:22.360 had left the party early. 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:25.680 And for Cookie, it wasn't just a bunch of big 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:28.320 wigs and politicians. It was personal. 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:34.000 I had family, aunts, uncles, neighbors in that party. So 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:37.960 Moses starts sending all the guardia, all the soldiers there 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:41.600 to surround that house. And there was some shooting going 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:44.599 back and forth, and we're like, man, this is some 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:45.640 serious shit. 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:48.920 The soldiers gun's drawn, pull them out of their car 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:51.600 at gunpoint, throw them to the ground, and begin searching 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:54.240 it for weapons. The friend who brought the weed, he's 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:55.400 shitting his pants about Now. 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:58.880 My cousin says, don't say anything. I'm going to do 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:02.480 the talking. Don't speak Spanish. We want them to think 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:05.520 that you're just an American. And we see this guy 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:08.760 pull out, I mean, the biggest bag of weed. 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:11.719 The Samosa garsmen think these kids were sent there to 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:14.959 be a distraction from the Sandinista commandos attacking the party. 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:19.319 My other friend and my other cousin, who were underground Sandinistas, 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:23.240 they knew they were fucked. They took the four of us, 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:27.280 pushed us into a military vehicle, took the weed, and 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:29.360 just whisked us away. 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:32.199 The soldiers take them to the same prison where the 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:35.040 guy who brought the weeds brother was murdered by the 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:36.760 Guardia a few years earlier. 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:39.959 And he starts crying in the vehicle, saying, we're never 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:41.640 going to get out of this alive. 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:46.319 Samosa declares martial law and no one can give any 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:48.439 orders except the dictator himself. 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:54.000 Being arrested was a shock in and of itself, because 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:57.600 I was always in a family and in a bubble 0:09:57.840 --> 0:09:59.120 that nothing could ever. 0:09:59.120 --> 0:09:59.760 Happen to me. 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.520 All you have to do is make a call, you're 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:05.240 out of trouble. But here I am being thrown into 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:08.520 a prison. I had only heard at that time that 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:11.680 you know, women were raped, and you know whatever. 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:15.040 This prison is a very dangerous place. Cookie and her 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:18.199 friends are interrogated through the night. The Guardia trying to 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:21.599 get these teenagers to spill the beans on the Sandinista attackers. 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:24.680 Then some fucking crazy shit happens. 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:27.480 There's been a big kidnapping on the West Coast. The 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:31.440 victim is Patricia Hurst, the daughter of newspaper executive Randolph 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:34.480 Hurst and a granddaughter of the legendary William Randolph Hearst. 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:38.160 Patricia Hurst is nineteen at a sophomore at Berkeley. She 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:41.439 and her fiancee were in her apartment near the campus 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:44.640 last night when a woman and two armed men burst in, 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:48.559 beat and bound her fiancee and a neighbor dragged Patricia 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:51.079 down the stairs, threw her into the trunk of a car, 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:52.040 and drove off. 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:55.480 The Hurst newspaper heiress has been missing for nineteen months. 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.280 First she was kidnapped, then she announced that she had 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:02.720 joined ranks with her kidnapper, members of the Symbionese Liberation Army. 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:05.640 She was later indicted in connection with the San Francisco 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:07.720 bank hold up and labeled a fugitive. 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:11.160 The Samosa guardsmen were not the brightest people, and this 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:14.840 commandante just got in his head that I was Patricia 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:18.000 Hurst because she was a wall at the time. I'm 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:21.400 a white American. He just thinks he's hit the lottery. 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:23.760 It was a story that dominated the news for a 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:27.400 couple of years. Pretty girl, daughter of a famous newspaper tycoon, 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:30.760 kidnapped and turned into a domestic terrorist. And to be honest, 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:33.000 she did look a lot like Cookie. 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:37.280 Once that commandante started saying, it's Spanish. Yes, she's Patricia Hurst. 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.040 The Spanish just came out of me. I'm like, no, 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:43.800 you idiot, I'm not Patricia Hurst. And then he says, 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:47.439 this bitch speaks better Spanish than you and I she 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:51.439 speaks like a local. After being interrogated all night, then 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:55.120 we're thrown into cells. We are now realizing that our 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:59.319 name and our status means shit. No name throwing I 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:02.520 know him, you know, we're friends of Samosa, We're related 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:06.520 to some didn't mean shit, so we knew we were 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.880 in trouble. They bring us all together and they take 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:13.560 us outside into a courtyard and stand us up against 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:16.559 the wall. And I'm just looking at this and I'm like, 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:20.880 this doesn't look good. This is a firing squad. And 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:23.160 then that one guy, the one that brought the weed, 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:26.240 just still crying. We're never going to get out of 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:29.000 this is the lie. My brother was killed here and 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:32.079 I was like, can you just shut the fuck up, dude. 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:36.680 The soldiers raise their weapons ready to fire. Commandante gives 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:39.240 the teenagers the one more chance to confess what they 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:43.040 know about the Sandinistas. And remember, these kids don't know anything. 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:47.040 My friends and family they know I'm wild and crazy, 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:51.480 but no one, absolutely no one is going to believe 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:53.439 that I was killed by a firing squad. 0:12:54.520 --> 0:13:13.280 Wow, We'll be right back. Welcome back, terrorist attacks, hostages, murder, 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:17.360 firing squads. Before we find out what happened to cookie, 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:24.000 a little background. The United States had occupied Nicaragua for 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:26.880 years and left in nineteen twenty five after putting the 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:31.520 first Samosa dictator in power, Augusto Sandino, the opposition leader, 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:35.000 says no way, and all hell breaks loose. The US 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:38.880 Marines come back. Sandino wages a gorilla war and is 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:43.000 successful and pushes the Marines out of Nicaragua. I have 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:49.040 a question for Justin Wolf, what the hell happened after. 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:51.920 The US Marines leave and there's this kind of effort 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:55.600 to negotiate a peace and for the Sandinistas. Under Sandino 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:58.640 to put down their arms and kind of come into 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:02.840 the government. There's this key meeting with the new government 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:07.360 to kind of negotiate and to the Saninistas in a sense. 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.640 But at the end of that event, as Sandino and 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:15.400 his key lieutenants are leaving this kind of negotiation party, is. 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:16.560 There an agreement made? 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:19.720 There there's an agreement, but Somosa doesn't believe that the 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:24.960 agreement will hold. Somosa orders his men to detain Sandino, 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:27.640 his brother, as well as a couple of his other 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:31.280 key lieutenants. They take them out to today where the 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:35.640 international airport in Monagua is and they execute them. 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:40.080 Sandino's murder creates the Sandinista movement as we know it today, 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:43.040 but it's his defiance and courage standing up against the 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:46.120 US occupiers and wealthy elites that makes him a hero 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:47.960 to the poor in the working class. 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:51.200 The Santainistas of the sixties and seventies. They are going 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:55.600 to kind of recuperate the legend of Sandino and the 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:59.880 vision of the Somosas as the kind of implacable enemy 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:00.600 the people. 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:18.320 Back to the firing squad. No Cookie and her friends 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:20.480 didn't die. The story doesn't end in front of a 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:24.440 firing squad. They shoot over their heads, scaring the crap 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:24.920 out of them. 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:28.400 My family in Generals were trying to get through to 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:30.760 Samosa to tell them let the kids out. We want 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:32.760 to go pick them up and bring them home. We 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:37.040 don't know that that's happening. That comen Dante, who at 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:39.200 that point knew that we were going to be released, 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:42.280 that we really were who we were friends of. Samosa 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:44.960 just said, I'm gonna fuck with these kids, you know, 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:47.680 scare the fuck out of them so that they don't 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:49.080 fuck with us anymore. 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:51.600 How did it feel when they were pointing guns at 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:52.760 you like they were going to shoot you? 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:55.560 I just kept saying, this can't be happening. It's like 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:59.080 those movies where somebody who's innocent is being accused of 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.080 being guilty, but he's not, and he spends the whole 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:04.800 movie trying to convince the people that he's not guilty. 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:07.920 That went on for a few hours. Of course, I'm 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:10.160 thinking I'm talking the soldiers out of shooting us. 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:12.200 Was that the first time you ever had a gun 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:12.840 pointed at you? 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:20.000 Hmmm? Maybe, maybe not, who knows. It was definitely a shocker. 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:22.440 The next day The New York Times reported on the 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:23.960 results of the negotiations. 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:27.640 The Nicaraguan government agreed today to release twenty six political 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:30.600 prisoners and fly them to Cuba in exchange for the 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:33.800 lives of a group of prominent politicians and business leaders 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:37.440 seized by leftist gorillas at a Christmas party here Friday night. 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.520 A government spokesman said that the eight gorillas and the 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:43.960 freed political prisoners are all believed to be members of 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:48.160 the Sandinista National Liberation Front. The gorillas had also demanded 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:49.840 a five million dollar ransom. 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:54.760 Somosa, as ruthless as he was, he had one weakness, 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:58.440 and his weakness were his friends and his family. So 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:02.360 he was not gonna lie wow his friends or family 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:05.520 that were in that house to be harmed. A smart 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:10.639 dictator would have killed everyone in that house, Sandinista's, the 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:13.760 hostages would have been killed. Everybody would have been killed. 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:17.960 So he created the future of his own demise. 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:21.920 Something tells me Cookie would have been a good dictator. 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:26.080 So her family finally gets through to Samosa, and Cookie 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:28.960 and her friends are released. She's driven home, back to 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:31.680 the neighborhood where the whole thing started. She gets there 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:34.199 just as the bus arrives to pick up the commandos. 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:38.960 It's filled with the recently released Sandinista political prisoners and 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:41.000 the million dollars they got from Somosa. 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:46.200 So again my vehicle crosses with this vehicle and I 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:49.600 could see these political prisoners, and a couple of them, 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:53.640 actually quite a few of them later became very famous 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:56.120 and very important to our story. 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:57.600 Do you want to name one of them? 0:17:57.920 --> 0:17:58.960 Danielle Ortego. 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:02.240 Ortego goes on to become the leader of the Sandinistas 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:05.159 and head of the new government after the revolution, and 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:08.240 of course public enemy number one to the Reagan administration. 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.080 Professor Wolf tells us why this is so important. 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:16.400 The last major Saninista offensive is in nineteen sixty seven, 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:21.600 and it's a disaster. Almost every Saninista member who's engaged 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:25.320 in that event dies. It's like really bad. So you 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:30.240 have this very successfully planned action. You have the success 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:34.160 of getting leaders from within the Saninistas who'd been captured out. 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:37.600 You get money, which is key if you're buying arms 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:39.960 and all of that kind of stuff. Plus they've gotten 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:42.600 their message out in public. Censorship is one of the 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:46.560 key tools right of the dictatorship. There might be things 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:49.560 going on there may be opposition groups, there may be 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:53.680 plans to change the country, but if nobody knows about 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:56.040 it because of censorship, you're kind of stuck. 0:18:56.359 --> 0:19:00.760 Now that underground revolution that was going on has now 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:04.399 come to light. And funny story, one of the hooded 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:08.200 guys that was in that house, My aunt, who I 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:10.879 was staying with at the time, was one of the hostages. 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.680 She asked this hooded terrorist, can I go to the bathroom? 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:18.960 And he answers her, of course, Donia Telma, of course, 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:22.680 missus Thelma. He knew her, he knew who she was, 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:26.600 and she recognized the voice. Didn't know who the voice was, 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:30.680 but knew that voice. That's when it started to become 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:34.800 obvious that there were some rich kids involved in this revolution, 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:38.040 all of them friends of mine. A lot were killed, 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:41.320 and so it's becoming obvious not just to me, but 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:46.840 to everyone that there's something brewing here. It isn't just poor, 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:51.520 humble people that are in the mountains fighting the revolutions 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:52.440 now in the city. 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:02.160 Tell me a little bit about the crazy childhood you had. 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:06.800 Well, my father was an American, my mother was from Nicaragua. 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:09.880 My dad was an executive with the airlines. 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:10.880 Tucker airlines. 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:16.360 It was an El Salvador airlines that flew throughout Central America. 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:19.199 The journalists used to call it take a chance airlines 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:22.960 because you never knew. And my mother stay at home, 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:26.880 but she came from a very, very wealthy family in Nicaragua. 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:30.560 So I was raised in both countries, and the summer 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:34.680 vacation times were different in each country. Here in Nicaragua, 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:38.200 so I was literally in school all year long here 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:41.920 and there. I guess the biggest difference was when I 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:45.440 would be living here. Even though we lived well, you know, 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:46.560 do your chores. 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:47.520 You have to do this. 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:50.399 You have to be able to know how to work. 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:53.400 Whereas on my mother's side of the family and living 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:57.480 in Central America, it was all maids and chauffeurs and 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:03.919 nannies and cooks. But I managed somehow to always find 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:04.879 the party. 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:08.720 And your family was close to the dictator Simosa. 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:12.119 Absolutely I played with his kids. I played with the 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:16.720 children of generals. And obviously my family and friends were 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:21.960 all from that one percent that owned and had everything. 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:26.680 Ninety nine percent had nothing, but I didn't see it. 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:30.280 We lived in a bubble, and the bubble was parties 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:33.840 on the weekends. If you were dating someone. You couldn't 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:37.560 go out unless you had a chaperone, sort of antebellum 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:42.119 thing before the Civil War. It was wonderful because I 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:46.160 was living and catching the tail end of that era, 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:48.399 because things were going to change. 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:52.639 When the earthquake hit, Nicaraguan officials in Miami today issued 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:55.199 an urgent appeal for blood donors. They said there's an 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:58.480 immediate need for twenty to twenty five thousand pints of 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:01.600 whole blood for the victims of Saturday's earthquake in Monogua. 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:05.240 The United States sending three million dollars in food, medicine, tents, 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:09.400 purification equipment another aid. Looting continue today and what's left 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:12.400 for the Nicaraguan capital with troops doing little or nothing 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:12.920 to stop it. 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:16.880 Ninety percent of the city has been utterly destroyed. Even 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:19.840 the few tall buildings which do remain will soon be 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:23.280 brought down by dynamiting. There is not a single building 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:27.400 in the downtown section safe for occupancy. The city will 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:31.600 be leveled, as explained by Nicaragua's former president and now 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:35.360 Commander in chief of the Armed Forces, Anastasio Somosa. 0:22:35.840 --> 0:22:38.040 So the capital as you now know it will cease 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:38.480 to exist. 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:39.680 That is right. 0:22:40.160 --> 0:22:42.960 We are going to live in tents until we make 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:46.879 an appreciation of the situation and decide. 0:22:47.080 --> 0:22:48.840 The government will have to decide. 0:22:48.520 --> 0:22:49.320 What they're going to do. 0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:54.560 Even though it's a disaster, it's really important for the Sanonistas. Now, 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:58.879 what we have is the Sananistas who have really shown themselves, 0:22:59.080 --> 0:23:03.399 I think and beyond anyone else, is actually caring about 0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:08.199 the kind of post earthquake disaster, helping people setting up 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:12.359 soup kitchens, but also organizing people right, trying to say like, look, 0:23:12.560 --> 0:23:14.960 we are never going to get to a better place 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:16.480 until Somosa is gone. 0:23:16.920 --> 0:23:21.960 The US started sending supplies, you know, for instance, peanut butter. 0:23:22.119 --> 0:23:25.760 I mean, nobody knew what peanut butter was. The poor people. 0:23:26.040 --> 0:23:29.320 They started sending morphine. A lot of people in the 0:23:29.400 --> 0:23:35.239 wealthy families got hooked on morphine. Drugs just blew up 0:23:35.640 --> 0:23:39.040 with the rich kids. But I was already doing drugs 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:42.600