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Speaker 1: This is a production of Journalista Podcast LLC and iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: So I come in the next day all dressed up

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Speaker 2: at pearls and heels, and she says, why are you

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Speaker 2: dressed that way? I said, well, you said I'm going

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Speaker 2: north and going to Miami, right, She goes, no, You're

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Speaker 2: going to the Jungles today with a camera crew by yourself.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Journalista Podcast. Cookie is embarking on

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Speaker 1: her first gig for CBS News, the beginning of an

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Speaker 1: era that will put her in the middle of the

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Speaker 1: biggest scandal of the nineteen eighties. But before she starts

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Speaker 1: this new adventure, I want to introduce you to another

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Speaker 1: character in the story, someone you've already met. Actually it's

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Speaker 1: not a person, it's a place at the epicenter of history.

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Speaker 3: Literally.

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Speaker 1: Stephen Kenser, former bureau chief for The New York Times,

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Speaker 1: wrote about the significance of the Intercontinental Hotel in Managua

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Speaker 1: back in nineteen eighty seven.

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Speaker 4: It was in a pyramid shape and stood on top

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Speaker 4: of a hill.

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Speaker 5: The Somosa family, which ran the country like a private enterprise,

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Speaker 5: also ran the Intercontinental. Of course, the family controlled every

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Speaker 5: business that was really lucrative.

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Speaker 4: I remember hearing that. In nineteen seventy two, at.

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Speaker 5: The end of the year, the staff was told, you

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Speaker 5: can't come out today. They're locking everyone in the basement.

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Speaker 5: There's a special guest coming. They sealed off two entire floors,

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Speaker 5: the seventh and eighth floors. Nobody was allowed up there.

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Speaker 5: It finally emerged that the guest was Howard Hughes, that famous, reclusive,

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Speaker 5: eccentric billionaire.

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Speaker 1: Howard Hughes was worth, by some estimates, as much as

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Speaker 1: four billion dollars, making him the richest man in the

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Speaker 1: world at the time. He made his fortune in engineering, aviation,

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Speaker 1: and massive defense contracts. He even owned a movie studio.

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Speaker 6: For years, he was fascinated with Hollywood. A rich playboy,

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Speaker 6: dating a bevy of starlets Lana Turner, Catherine Hepburn and

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Speaker 6: Ava Gardner, Hughes signed a personal check for almost twenty

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Speaker 6: four million dollars to buy himself the Rkos Studios. He

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Speaker 6: became a starmaker. Jane Russell was a hit in the

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Speaker 6: Hughes picture of the Outlaw. It was frowned on because

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Speaker 6: of Russell's famous cleavage. Hughes dubbed Gene Harlow the Platinum

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Speaker 6: Blunde and catapulted her to fame in a film called

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Speaker 6: Hell's Angels.

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Speaker 1: He was also eccentric as hell, a notorious germaphobe, suffering

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Speaker 1: from extreme OCD. It's said that he only cut his

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Speaker 1: nails and hair once a year.

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Speaker 5: He was interested in making some investments in Nicaragua, and

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Speaker 5: of course the Samosas were thrilled with this. They felt

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Speaker 5: they had hooked a really big fish. He might have

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Speaker 5: even wanted to buy the hotel. He said he wanted

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Speaker 5: to buy the National Airline. But he was in the

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Speaker 5: hotel on that terrible night in December of nineteen seventy

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Speaker 5: two when the earthquake happened.

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Speaker 1: The Intercontinental is one of the few buildings left standing

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Speaker 1: after the earthquakes.

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Speaker 5: So the whole city, of course exploded in fire and

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Speaker 5: rubble and dust.

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Speaker 4: It turned out that Howard Hughes had.

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Speaker 5: This tremendous phobia about germs, and that's why they had

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Speaker 5: to steal off these floors.

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Speaker 4: For him and had special ways to purify the air.

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Speaker 4: Suddenly he's surrounded by germs and smoke. He immediately fled

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Speaker 4: the country and never came back.

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Speaker 1: After the earthquake, the hotel was suddenly everything everywhere all

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Speaker 1: at once.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I said it.

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Speaker 5: Many countries have find themselves in civil conflicts and draw

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Speaker 5: a lot of journalists, develop a kind of a place

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Speaker 5: where the journalists hang out, and that tends to be

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Speaker 5: the place where other people hang out, like intelligence agents

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Speaker 5: and arms dealers and politicians. In a smaller country, it's

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Speaker 5: more likely that they'll be just one such place in

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Speaker 5: Managua as the war they are exploded. That place was

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Speaker 5: the Intercontinental Hotel. The lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel, and

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Speaker 5: the breakfast room and the other salons down there on

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Speaker 5: the first floor were alive all the time. There were

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Speaker 5: a thousand stories unfolding right in that lobby. That's where

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Speaker 5: you trade rumors with other journalists. Over lunch. You could

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Speaker 5: find Basque gorillas and gorillas from El Salvadora plotting strategy.

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Speaker 4: There were diplomatic receptions there at night.

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Speaker 5: There were all sorts of adventurers in that place, some Nicaraguan,

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Speaker 5: but many from the outside, and everybody who arrived in

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Speaker 5: Nicaragua for the first time would always go there. It

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Speaker 5: really didn't take long before you were immersed in the

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Speaker 5: whole story.

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Speaker 4: The guests there were such a variety.

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Speaker 5: You had world leaders like Jimmy Carter, who I spent

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Speaker 5: an hour with you had assassins.

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Speaker 4: There were movie stars, there were athletes.

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Speaker 5: Every star who came there came to the Intercontinental. It's

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Speaker 5: where I met Susan Sarandon and Bianca Jagger. It was

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Speaker 5: really at the center of national life. Then, of course,

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Speaker 5: it played a role in the national politics of that era,

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Speaker 5: the very turbulent period in the late seventies and early

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Speaker 5: eighties when there was a revolution, government changed, and since

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Speaker 5: the Intercontinental was the center of everything, it was right

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Speaker 5: at the middle of all these changes. One guy tried

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Speaker 5: to assassinate Somosa.

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Speaker 1: In his New York Times article, Kinzer writes, a flamboyant

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Speaker 1: rebel named Fernando Chimorro Rapaccioli quietly checked into rooms seven sixteen,

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Speaker 1: closed the door behind him, and began assembling a mortar.

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Speaker 1: He had selected a room that overlooked the military headquarters

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Speaker 1: of President Anastasio Simosa, hoping to assassinate him by firing

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Speaker 1: a rocket into his office. Soldiers immediately converged on the hotel.

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Speaker 1: As employees dived for cover, the soldiers sprayed the building

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Speaker 1: with gunfire for a full ten minutes. Samosa survived the attack,

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Speaker 1: but the handwriting was already on the wall.

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Speaker 5: As the government of Somosa collapsed, many of the cabinet,

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Speaker 5: ministers and generals sent their families out of the country

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Speaker 5: and rather than live at home, since there was no

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Speaker 5: one there or anymore, they moved into the Intercontinental Hotel.

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Speaker 5: So essentially the entire power elite of Samosa, Nicaragua was

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Speaker 5: living in the Intercontinental Hotel in the first months of

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Speaker 5: nineteen seventy nine.

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Speaker 4: Really, there were no staff there. It was open. We

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Speaker 4: had the run of the place.

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Speaker 5: It was mostly journalists and Samosa government officials, so there

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Speaker 5: was nobody manning the front desk. There were no food,

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Speaker 5: there were no employees, nobody cleaned the rooms, but somehow

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Speaker 5: they kept the place open. At that time, the hotel

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Speaker 5: really reflected what was happening in the country as a whole.

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Speaker 4: It was no authority, nobody was in charge.

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Speaker 1: July nineteenth of seventy nine, Samosa flees Nicaragua and the

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Speaker 1: government falls A.

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Speaker 4: Few days later.

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Speaker 5: The Santanistas had won the revolution and they were in Monagua. Now,

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Speaker 5: if they're in Managua, what does that mean. It means

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Speaker 5: they're in the Intercontinental Hotel.

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Speaker 2: They're all in the lobby and they said, now what

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Speaker 2: And one of them says, well, let's form a government.

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Speaker 2: Why dodn't it be nine? And Dante's each one the

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Speaker 2: head of something. Okay, So you're going to be the

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Speaker 2: head of interior ministry, you're going to be the head

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Speaker 2: of education, you're going to be And that's how they

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Speaker 2: did it, just like that, one afternoon. You're gonna be this,

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Speaker 2: You're gonna be Oh, you're gonna be the head of defense,

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Speaker 2: You're going to be the head of economics.

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Speaker 1: It was a total clusterfuck. Steven Kinzer has one more

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Speaker 1: quick story to tell about the hotel, and this one

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Speaker 1: will last forever.

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Speaker 4: I hadn't been in Nicaragua very long.

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Speaker 5: I was in the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel and

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Speaker 5: a lot of reporters are around.

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Speaker 4: Somebody came along with a sign up sheet.

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Speaker 5: If you wanted to get on a bus that was

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Speaker 5: going somewhere the next morning to go out and visit

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Speaker 5: someplace where something had happened, you had to sign up

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Speaker 5: and that sheet would be posted a little bit later.

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Speaker 5: So I was going to sign up and then this

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Speaker 5: the young, attractive, tall, very thin woman comes up to me, says,

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Speaker 5: put my name on it too. Can you just add

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Speaker 5: my name on the list when it comes out? And

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Speaker 5: I said sure. And then I turned to me. I said,

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Speaker 5: wait a minute, what is your name? And she said Cookie?

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Speaker 5: And I said Cookie. What she said, don't worry about

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Speaker 5: bad just put Cookie. Everybody's gonna know. So at that

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Speaker 5: moment began our long friendship.

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Speaker 1: Years later, Kinser wrote this about Cookie's impact on the

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Speaker 1: news during the nineteen eighties and nineties. Cookie hood was

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Speaker 1: the driving force behind the most successful television coverage of

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Speaker 1: Central America that appeared anywhere in the United States. Things

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Speaker 1: are changing in Nicaragua, but they are also changing in

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Speaker 1: the US.

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Speaker 7: Mister Chairman, mister Vice President, to be this convention, my

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Speaker 7: fellow citizens of this great nation, with a deep awareness

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Speaker 7: of the responsibility conferred by your trust, I accept your

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Speaker 7: nomination for the presidency of the United States.

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Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan beats Jimmy Carter in the nineteen eighty election

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Speaker 1: and becomes the fortieth President of the United States. There's

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Speaker 1: a new sheriff in town, and he doesn't like the Sandinistas.

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Speaker 1: I asked Tulane Professor Justin Wolfe about the consequences of

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Speaker 1: this election to the future of Nicaragua.

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Speaker 8: Ronald Reagan comes into power hardline anti communist American cowboy

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Speaker 8: vision right of a robust conservatism and a robust cold

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Speaker 8: war hawk. Very quickly, the Reagan administration is trying to

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Speaker 8: figure out how to oust the Santinista government, how to

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Speaker 8: frame this as a US Soviet proxy struggle and one

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Speaker 8: that we need to win. An opposition to the Saninistas emerges,

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Speaker 8: but the US sees them as groups to be unified,

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Speaker 8: to be trained, to be financed, and to be armed

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Speaker 8: to carry out a proxy war to overthrow the Saninistas.

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Speaker 8: This seems perfect for the Reagan minus, with people who

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Speaker 8: are willing to do the fighting. Freedom fighters as Reagan

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Speaker 8: would call them, or they're going to fight this communist

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Speaker 8: revolution in Nicaragua. But there is a deep ambivalence within

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Speaker 8: the United States. A lot of people think that this

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Speaker 8: is a quagmire that the US is going to get

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Speaker 8: caught in. They're not certain what the strategic value of

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Speaker 8: it is. They're not sure what we're going to get

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Speaker 8: out of it, or even if we could win, that

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Speaker 8: this could be another Vietnam.

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Speaker 1: On December one, nineteen eighty one, President Ronald Reagan signs

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Speaker 1: a presidential finding which authorizes covert operations in Nicaragua. The

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Speaker 1: plan is to train and fund what is essentially a

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Speaker 1: terrorist group in Nicaragua known as the Contrasts. So it

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Speaker 1: begins a decade long obsession with a tiny Central American

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Speaker 1: country with an economy one fourth the size of Vermont.

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Speaker 1: When we last saw Cookie, she was standing in front

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Speaker 1: of CBS News producer Carla Ferrell.

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Speaker 9: She says, you got the job.

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Speaker 2: I need you to come in tomorrow and you're going

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Speaker 2: up north. I thought she was sending me to Miami.

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Speaker 2: So I come in the next day all dressed up

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Speaker 2: in pearls and heels, and she says, why are you

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Speaker 2: dressed that way? I said, well, you set up going

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Speaker 2: north and going to Miami, right. She goes, no, You're

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Speaker 2: going to the Jungles today with the camera crew by yourself.

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Speaker 2: And I could see the camera crew off to the

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Speaker 2: side and they're laughing. They're just enjoyed the shit about this.

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Speaker 2: I said, Okay, give me five minutes.

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Speaker 1: I asked Carlo why she hired Cookie and what made

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Speaker 1: her special.

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Speaker 10: Cookie was so sociable, so tenacious, she was just so

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Speaker 10: full of life. She had an amazing personality, gregarious, spicty

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Speaker 10: when she needed to be, diplomatic when she needed to

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Speaker 10: be She always had the personality, the kind that could

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Speaker 10: break through the camera. She was wonderful, whether it was

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Speaker 10: in social situations or in work situations, to help bring

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Speaker 10: people together. From the beginning. Impressed me as someone who

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Speaker 10: would always work hard to get things done.

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Speaker 9: Thank goodness.

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Speaker 2: I had a change of clothes put on the tennis

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Speaker 2: shoes to jeans, and everything was introduced to the Mexican

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Speaker 2: Cammebra crew, him and Roberto. Of course they're looking at

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Speaker 2: me also like does she know what she's doing? But

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Speaker 2: at the same time, she really is pretty. You know,

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Speaker 2: this could be fun. Carla said goodbye, and we went

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Speaker 2: downstairs and blowed it up into the jeep. They're assuming

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Speaker 2: that I know what I'm doing. They are assuming that

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Speaker 2: I'm a journalist, and I wasn't. I was being thrown

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Speaker 2: into the colosseum to the lions.

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Speaker 9: I had not a clue.

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Speaker 1: Did you get any instruction from Carla what you were

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Speaker 1: looking for or anything?

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Speaker 9: None?

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Speaker 2: Carla thought I was a journalist too. Job was you're

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Speaker 2: a fixer. We need you to translate, We need you,

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Speaker 2: you know, to help the crews whenever they need to

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Speaker 2: be helped.

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Speaker 9: That was it. Bye.

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Speaker 1: So Cookie is hired as a fixer and interpreter for

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Speaker 1: CBS News. War is Hell. Cookie is about to find

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Speaker 1: out what it really looks like. We'll be right back,

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Speaker 1: Welcome back. Cookie sets off on her next great adventure

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Speaker 1: working for CBS freaking News. She has no idea what

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Speaker 1: she's doing, but how hard can it be? At least

246
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Speaker 1: she's not running from the dea with a couple of

247
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Speaker 1: tons of cocaine. Reality is about to punch her in

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Speaker 1: the face.

249
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Speaker 2: As we're driving to the Jungles to look for the war.

250
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Speaker 2: We're getting to know each other and they're liking me

251
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Speaker 2: and I'm liking them. We could see that it was

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Speaker 2: going to work between us, the three of us. So

253
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Speaker 2: I'm asking questions. They're telling me, this is what we're

254
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Speaker 2: gonna do.

255
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Speaker 9: We're gonna go here.

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Speaker 2: At that point, you know, we need you to help

257
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Speaker 2: us with the equipment, and I'm like, no sweat, I

258
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Speaker 2: can carry my own weight.

259
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Speaker 9: I Am not going to be a burden to you guys.

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Speaker 2: But obviously I'm going on this great adventure, which I

261
00:14:29,120 --> 00:14:32,760
Speaker 2: think is if I'm great adventure, I have literally no

262
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Speaker 2: idea what I'm getting into. So we proceed to drive

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Speaker 2: and drive and drive.

264
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Speaker 9: And we're getting deeper into the jungle.

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Speaker 2: I'm being told, you know, Cookie, sometimes it's not so

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Speaker 2: easy for us to find what we're looking for.

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Speaker 9: We've actually called this war the ever elusive war.

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Speaker 2: We can hear it, we just have a hard time

269
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Speaker 2: finding it. And I said, hey, no sweat, we'll find it.

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Speaker 2: As we we got in deeper and deeper, the camera

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Speaker 2: crew got less funny, less upbeat. They got very serious,

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Speaker 2: and you know, they said, these are certain things that

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Speaker 2: you're gonna have to know.

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Speaker 9: We tell you to be quiet. Be quiet when we

275
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Speaker 9: tell you to.

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Speaker 2: Hit the ground, hit the ground, win in doubt, just

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Speaker 2: do what we do.

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Speaker 1: So hit the ground, meaning in case you're getting shot at,

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Speaker 1: in case there's danger, in case we.

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Speaker 2: Run into the enemy. Whatever we do, you do it.

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Speaker 2: Whatever we whisper it to you to do, you do it.

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Speaker 1: Did they give you any positive Does your mind start

283
00:15:35,280 --> 00:15:36,600
Speaker 1: racing about what you're getting into?

284
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Speaker 2: Well, I'm still thinking, great adventure, How hard can this be?

285
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Speaker 2: I can follow instructions. I still really didn't have a clue.

286
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Speaker 2: Even if I would have been told you're going into

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Speaker 2: a war. You're going to see dead people. Even if

288
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Speaker 2: I had been told that, it's one thing to be

289
00:15:55,400 --> 00:15:59,280
Speaker 2: told it, it's another thing to actually see it and

290
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Speaker 2: live through it.

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Speaker 9: And that happened, And that's what happened.

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Speaker 2: We could hear some fighting, we could hear weapons, we

293
00:16:08,440 --> 00:16:10,720
Speaker 2: could hear shots, but we.

294
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Speaker 9: Knew that it was far away.

295
00:16:13,440 --> 00:16:17,960
Speaker 2: At one point we got out of the g to

296
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Speaker 2: cover some ground see what we could find. I know

297
00:16:22,080 --> 00:16:25,960
Speaker 2: what gunfire sounds like, but what struck me is I

298
00:16:26,040 --> 00:16:30,320
Speaker 2: kept hearing yelling like one side yelling to the other side.

299
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Speaker 2: Come get me, you son of a bitch. No, you

300
00:16:33,080 --> 00:16:35,680
Speaker 2: come get me, you son of a bitch. Oi in

301
00:16:35,760 --> 00:16:40,280
Speaker 2: abuta Benita Paraka to mother day Benita off Paraka.

302
00:16:40,640 --> 00:16:43,640
Speaker 9: You come here, No fuck your mother, you come here.

303
00:16:43,720 --> 00:16:45,440
Speaker 9: You know, trash talk, and.

304
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Speaker 2: It all sounded the same, same accent, same lingo, same

305
00:16:51,280 --> 00:16:54,640
Speaker 2: street talk. And that's when I first started to realize, Wait,

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Speaker 2: this is a civil war.

307
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Speaker 9: This is brother fighting brother.

308
00:17:00,160 --> 00:17:05,520
Speaker 1: Fire stops, there's an eerie quiet. Cookie and her crew

309
00:17:05,600 --> 00:17:07,720
Speaker 1: make their way toward the battle scene.

310
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Speaker 2: All of a sudden, we could see ahead of us

311
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Speaker 2: what looked like a big pile of something.

312
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Speaker 9: I didn't know what it was. Obviously.

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00:17:17,440 --> 00:17:19,800
Speaker 2: I think the crew knew what it was. They were

314
00:17:19,920 --> 00:17:24,760
Speaker 2: very seasoned war journalists. It was a pile of dead bodies.

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Speaker 2: I've seen dead people before, but not like that. I

316
00:17:30,840 --> 00:17:34,520
Speaker 2: was not prepared for that. It was at that moment

317
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Speaker 2: I started to lose a little of my faith.

318
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Speaker 3: Describe what you saw.

319
00:17:41,440 --> 00:17:46,200
Speaker 2: Men, women, children, all in a pile. Looked like civilians

320
00:17:46,240 --> 00:17:52,159
Speaker 2: to me, I didn't see soldiers. The emotions just like, fuck,

321
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Speaker 2: what have I gotten myself into here? The Mexicans at

322
00:17:57,160 --> 00:18:00,280
Speaker 2: that point said to me when they saw that, I

323
00:18:00,320 --> 00:18:04,120
Speaker 2: was kind of shocked at what I was seeing. This

324
00:18:04,200 --> 00:18:06,159
Speaker 2: is your first but it's not going to be your

325
00:18:06,280 --> 00:18:09,000
Speaker 2: last time seeing what you're seeing right now.

326
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Speaker 9: And honestly, this is nothing.

327
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Speaker 2: Compared to what you're going to see in the future

328
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Speaker 2: if you last with us, if you stay with us,

329
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Speaker 2: So get ready because this is what it's all about.

330
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Speaker 2: This really is war, This really is dead people, this

331
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Speaker 2: really is massacres.

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Speaker 9: Am I going to be able to pull this off? Fuck? Yeah,

333
00:18:37,280 --> 00:18:38,040
Speaker 9: I could pull this.

334
00:18:38,119 --> 00:18:44,320
Speaker 1: Off for Cookie. It was first blood, but it wouldn't

335
00:18:44,320 --> 00:18:49,600
Speaker 1: be the last. Back in the CBS office, there was

336
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Speaker 1: another kind of war.

337
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Speaker 2: So I was hired to sort of be a grunt

338
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Speaker 2: because the guy that was running the office, his name

339
00:18:57,800 --> 00:19:01,640
Speaker 2: was Martin Barretto, was a nice guy. I grew up

340
00:19:01,680 --> 00:19:04,919
Speaker 2: with him. He was part of the Oligark families. But

341
00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:07,719
Speaker 2: he didn't like to get his hands dirty, and so

342
00:19:07,800 --> 00:19:10,400
Speaker 2: he would have all these little minions to do all

343
00:19:10,480 --> 00:19:14,240
Speaker 2: his dirty work, you know, the drivers, the fixers, which

344
00:19:14,280 --> 00:19:15,199
Speaker 2: was what I became.

345
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Speaker 9: And then he wanted me to go with the camera.

346
00:19:18,880 --> 00:19:22,440
Speaker 2: Crews, with or without a correspondent and just go and

347
00:19:22,680 --> 00:19:27,680
Speaker 2: get material for stories. Martine was a very disagreeable person.

348
00:19:28,160 --> 00:19:31,399
Speaker 2: You could be on good terms with the correspondents and

349
00:19:31,400 --> 00:19:36,080
Speaker 2: the producers, but if the crews and the drivers dislike you,

350
00:19:36,080 --> 00:19:39,119
Speaker 2: you've got a problem because those are the people that

351
00:19:39,160 --> 00:19:40,520
Speaker 2: are going to get you the story.

352
00:19:40,760 --> 00:19:43,720
Speaker 9: And if they don't like you, then you're up shit's creek.

353
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Speaker 2: You've got nothing to offer the correspondent or the producer.

354
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Speaker 9: Or the editor.

355
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Speaker 3: Well when did it change?

356
00:19:50,200 --> 00:19:51,800
Speaker 9: Larry Doyle comes to town.

357
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Speaker 2: He was the gentleman that we spoke about at the

358
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Speaker 2: party who offered.

359
00:19:57,080 --> 00:19:57,720
Speaker 9: Me the job.

360
00:19:58,480 --> 00:20:02,159
Speaker 2: We went out into the boon docs and you know,

361
00:20:02,320 --> 00:20:06,160
Speaker 2: we just got along famously. I remember that we stopped

362
00:20:06,160 --> 00:20:09,879
Speaker 2: in some you know, shack to get something to eat.

363
00:20:10,320 --> 00:20:12,480
Speaker 2: Larry said, well, what's on the menu, and there was

364
00:20:12,600 --> 00:20:17,359
Speaker 2: no menu. The lady said, it's a roscomboyo chicken and rice.

365
00:20:18,119 --> 00:20:20,760
Speaker 2: Next thing, you know, we hear the chicken being killed,

366
00:20:21,359 --> 00:20:24,199
Speaker 2: you know, and plucked and to make the lunch. And

367
00:20:24,240 --> 00:20:27,080
Speaker 2: then the jukebox wasn't working, and so I went to

368
00:20:27,119 --> 00:20:31,480
Speaker 2: it and I kicked it. Larry Doyle screams out, you

369
00:20:31,520 --> 00:20:34,720
Speaker 2: are my kind of broad. I was right in bringing

370
00:20:34,760 --> 00:20:37,840
Speaker 2: you in. He hated the guy that was running the

371
00:20:37,920 --> 00:20:40,240
Speaker 2: CBS office because that guy did like to get his

372
00:20:40,320 --> 00:20:43,879
Speaker 2: hands dirty or go out or do anything. He just

373
00:20:44,000 --> 00:20:47,119
Speaker 2: kept saying, you should be running this office, you should

374
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Speaker 2: be doing this.

375
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Speaker 1: Larry Doyle was a force of nature and he always

376
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Speaker 1: got what he wanted.

377
00:20:52,520 --> 00:20:57,320
Speaker 2: Martine was becoming less interested in getting the job done,

378
00:20:58,440 --> 00:21:03,679
Speaker 2: more interested in entertaining and you know, partying in a

379
00:21:03,680 --> 00:21:05,120
Speaker 2: different way than I partied.

380
00:21:05,600 --> 00:21:07,359
Speaker 3: So everybody's pitching about Martine.

381
00:21:07,520 --> 00:21:12,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, bitching or complaining or just making an observation,

382
00:21:12,520 --> 00:21:15,639
Speaker 2: because not everybody had a problem with him. They wanted

383
00:21:15,720 --> 00:21:19,680
Speaker 2: more of Cookie and less of Martine. Sure we could

384
00:21:19,720 --> 00:21:23,040
Speaker 2: have Cookie out in the jungle, but we also want

385
00:21:23,080 --> 00:21:26,359
Speaker 2: to deal with Cookie directly in the offices at the

386
00:21:26,400 --> 00:21:33,000
Speaker 2: Inner Collin and Larry was also behind my back and

387
00:21:33,040 --> 00:21:36,679
Speaker 2: obviously behind Martine's back, was making sure that Martine was

388
00:21:36,720 --> 00:21:39,960
Speaker 2: on his way out. And when he started to get

389
00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:46,879
Speaker 2: paranoid and jealous, things got worse. At one point he

390
00:21:46,960 --> 00:21:50,000
Speaker 2: called somebody either in New York or Miami and said,

391
00:21:50,160 --> 00:21:53,959
Speaker 2: it's me or her. We can't both work in this office.

392
00:21:54,320 --> 00:21:59,280
Speaker 2: And unfortunately they chose me and he was out. And

393
00:21:59,359 --> 00:22:02,719
Speaker 2: so Larry's says, you're going to be the one running

394
00:22:02,800 --> 00:22:05,400
Speaker 2: the show here. So he got rid of our team

395
00:22:05,600 --> 00:22:09,520
Speaker 2: quick and put me in charge. Now, everyone assumed that

396
00:22:09,640 --> 00:22:12,600
Speaker 2: I was a journalist. To this day, there are former

397
00:22:12,640 --> 00:22:16,600
Speaker 2: colleagues that still think I studied journalism. I didn't know

398
00:22:16,720 --> 00:22:21,240
Speaker 2: anything about journalism, but I was a fast learner, and

399
00:22:21,320 --> 00:22:27,720
Speaker 2: having a mentor like Larry Doyle who taught me everything everything,

400
00:22:28,040 --> 00:22:30,000
Speaker 2: And then the mere fact that I would get my

401
00:22:30,080 --> 00:22:32,960
Speaker 2: hands dirty and go with the crews and I was

402
00:22:32,960 --> 00:22:35,399
Speaker 2: a grunt like them and go into the jungles and

403
00:22:35,600 --> 00:22:35,960
Speaker 2: rough it.

404
00:22:36,760 --> 00:22:37,920
Speaker 9: I learned from them too.

405
00:22:38,240 --> 00:22:40,520
Speaker 3: Well, let's talk a little bit about Larry. Now.

406
00:22:40,680 --> 00:22:44,440
Speaker 1: From what I understand, Larry had quite a colorful career already.

407
00:22:44,720 --> 00:22:45,879
Speaker 3: He had been in Vietnam.

408
00:22:46,520 --> 00:22:48,439
Speaker 1: Yes, and he had made quite a name for himself

409
00:22:48,440 --> 00:22:49,560
Speaker 1: as a war correspondent.

410
00:22:49,720 --> 00:22:53,680
Speaker 2: Yes, and he was the epitome of a war correspondent.

411
00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:59,240
Speaker 2: He didn't know the word danger. He just plowed through

412
00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:01,920
Speaker 2: anything with anybody.

413
00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:03,920
Speaker 3: You didn't give a shit about the rules.

414
00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:08,680
Speaker 2: Nothing, And CBS knew that he was breaking rules, but

415
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:12,280
Speaker 2: they didn't care because he always brought home the story.

416
00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:16,560
Speaker 1: In researching Larry, he gets fired all the time, all

417
00:23:16,640 --> 00:23:20,240
Speaker 1: the time, but they'd always bring him back and always ask.

418
00:23:20,119 --> 00:23:23,159
Speaker 2: For him to come back because he was the epitome

419
00:23:23,320 --> 00:23:24,800
Speaker 2: of a war correspondent.

420
00:23:25,040 --> 00:23:27,880
Speaker 1: So would you say that he taught you what?

421
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:28,280
Speaker 3: You know?

422
00:23:28,560 --> 00:23:29,800
Speaker 9: He took me under his wing.

423
00:23:30,520 --> 00:23:34,119
Speaker 2: He would not do a story unless I was right

424
00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:37,399
Speaker 2: there with him, and Larry was one of many that

425
00:23:37,440 --> 00:23:40,600
Speaker 2: would not go to cover any story unless I was

426
00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:41,160
Speaker 2: with them.

427
00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:44,639
Speaker 9: He taught me everything, he knew everything.

428
00:23:45,680 --> 00:23:49,360
Speaker 2: Being a woman at that time, especially being a war correspondent,

429
00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:52,359
Speaker 2: you had to be one of the guys. You couldn't

430
00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:56,240
Speaker 2: be frail, you couldn't be a chick. You just had

431
00:23:56,240 --> 00:23:58,399
Speaker 2: to be one of the guys. And that didn't just

432
00:23:58,560 --> 00:24:01,560
Speaker 2: mean carrying your own weight, being able to carry the

433
00:24:01,600 --> 00:24:06,600
Speaker 2: equipment it meant hiking up through jungles, hiking up mountains

434
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:07,720
Speaker 2: just meant being one.

435
00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:08,240
Speaker 9: Of the guys.

436
00:24:08,680 --> 00:24:10,000
Speaker 3: Was there sexual harassment.

437
00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:12,679
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say yes to that, but at the time

438
00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:14,560
Speaker 2: I didn't know that that's what that was.

439
00:24:14,880 --> 00:24:16,320
Speaker 9: I grew up with five brothers.

440
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:18,919
Speaker 3: I was always you were harassed your whole life.

441
00:24:19,080 --> 00:24:21,320
Speaker 2: I was harassed my whole life. And I was always

442
00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:23,199
Speaker 2: more of a guy than a girl.

443
00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:23,679
Speaker 9: You know.

444
00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:26,520
Speaker 2: I was a tomboy and that comes, you know, from

445
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:29,760
Speaker 2: my father dynamic. I always had to prove that I

446
00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:33,560
Speaker 2: could do anything as well as or better than any man.

447
00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:36,080
Speaker 1: Were you intimidating to some of these guys.

448
00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:40,800
Speaker 2: Oh oh yes, oh yes, and on any level, not

449
00:24:40,920 --> 00:24:44,800
Speaker 2: just as a correspondent, but as a female. Yes, I

450
00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:48,399
Speaker 2: was quite overwhelming. But I've always been that way, so

451
00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:52,480
Speaker 2: it wasn't anything new for me. It was something brand

452
00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:58,919
Speaker 2: new for humble soldiers that have never experienced strong women.

453
00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:00,560
Speaker 9: I remember going.

454
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:03,480
Speaker 2: Through roadblocks getting out of the jeep wearing a little

455
00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:07,679
Speaker 2: wife beater T shirt, no bra walkmen, being stopped by

456
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:12,199
Speaker 2: the soldiers and they'd say, you can't go past this roadblock,

457
00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:15,280
Speaker 2: and I would bullshit my way, saying, oh, I've got

458
00:25:15,480 --> 00:25:19,880
Speaker 2: orders from the Minister of Interior, and you don't want

459
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:22,639
Speaker 2: to call him because if you call him, you're gonna

460
00:25:22,640 --> 00:25:23,360
Speaker 2: get in trouble.

461
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:25,040
Speaker 9: You might as well just let me through.

462
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:28,040
Speaker 2: And you know what, here you hold on to my walkman,

463
00:25:28,600 --> 00:25:30,360
Speaker 2: here's some American cigarettes.

464
00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:31,480
Speaker 9: Will be back.

465
00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:35,600
Speaker 2: I could get in and out of any roadblock. Larry

466
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:39,399
Speaker 2: loved that. Larry loved it. He would just sit back

467
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:42,280
Speaker 2: and laugh. He would let me do all the work.

468
00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:46,120
Speaker 2: He didn't have to do all the work anymore.

469
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:49,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, wow, man, amazing.

470
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:50,280
Speaker 9: It was fun.

471
00:25:50,440 --> 00:25:53,119
Speaker 1: Okay, so this is happening, and you see your star

472
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 1: rising in terms of getting in on the stories, people

473
00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:00,560
Speaker 1: wanting to work with you. You right, demanding de Manning to

474
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:05,280
Speaker 1: work with you. When does it change from that to hey,

475
00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:06,520
Speaker 1: I'm running this show now?

476
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:10,320
Speaker 2: Fairly quickly, within a year, I had camera crews that

477
00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:12,840
Speaker 2: the only way they would come is if I was there.

478
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 2: There would always be a camera crew in residence, different ones,

479
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:19,880
Speaker 2: but they would come and stay for six weeks, two months.

480
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:22,720
Speaker 9: Then they'd rotate them. But none of these crews wanted

481
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:23,880
Speaker 9: to come in unless.

482
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:25,880
Speaker 1: I was there because if you weren't there, who would

483
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:32,960
Speaker 1: they go with? Exactly Cookie was in charge. Now if

484
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:37,240
Speaker 1: they only knew who was running the news in Nicaragua.

485
00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:41,440
Speaker 1: But her future would be shaped by two very important stories,

486
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:47,680
Speaker 1: one a tragedy and one a triumph.

487
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 3: We'll be right.

488
00:26:48,800 --> 00:27:06,199
Speaker 1: Back, Welcome back. Cookie may be in charge, but this

489
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 1: job is about to get a lot harder. Just another

490
00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:16,840
Speaker 1: day looking for the ever elusive war. This time she's

491
00:27:16,840 --> 00:27:21,680
Speaker 1: going to find it, and something terrible has happened.

492
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:25,880
Speaker 3: Where are you?

493
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:29,880
Speaker 9: Deep in the jungles of Nicaragua, in the middle.

494
00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:31,879
Speaker 1: Of nowhere, a little farming town.

495
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:34,360
Speaker 9: Or no, not even a town. You wouldn't even call

496
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:36,640
Speaker 9: it a village. It was that remote.

497
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 2: No paved streets, all dirt roads, shacks, shanties.

498
00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 1: You just rolled into the aftermath of a horrible crime.

499
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 3: What did you see?

500
00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:54,320
Speaker 2: Well, I saw dead civilians, some dead soldiers, but a

501
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:59,640
Speaker 2: lot of civilians, children massacred, women massacred like that famous

502
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:01,359
Speaker 2: bat Vietnam.

503
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:05,040
Speaker 11: Melai Asafia Themese official. The military chief of Kueng Nai

504
00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:09,520
Speaker 11: Province today denied charges that American soldiers on the ground

505
00:28:09,720 --> 00:28:13,320
Speaker 11: executed several hundred villagers in March of nineteen sixty eight.

506
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:16,720
Speaker 11: The province chief said the civilians died in air and

507
00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:20,119
Speaker 11: artillery strikes. That leveled the village after a number of

508
00:28:20,119 --> 00:28:24,280
Speaker 11: Americans had been killed there by Vietcong snipers. The villager's

509
00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:28,200
Speaker 11: version of the incident was given by survivors yesterday. They said,

510
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:31,160
Speaker 11: a patrol of one hundred Americans stormed into the hamlet,

511
00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:34,399
Speaker 11: drove all the residents out of their huts, then opened

512
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:38,560
Speaker 11: fire with automatic weapons. Two American soldiers, one an officer,

513
00:28:38,640 --> 00:28:41,240
Speaker 11: the other an enlisted man, are being held in this

514
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:44,040
Speaker 11: country in connection with the case, but neither has been

515
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 11: brought to trial.

516
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 1: It was one of the darkest days of the Vietnam War.

517
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 1: More than five hundred unarmed civilians were killed, some were

518
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 1: raped and mutilated. Twenty six soldiers were charged, but only

519
00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:04,240
Speaker 1: thee tenant, William Cally Junior, was convicted. He was sentenced

520
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:06,400
Speaker 1: to life in prison, but spent only three and a

521
00:29:06,440 --> 00:29:10,120
Speaker 1: half years under house arrest. His sentence was commuted by

522
00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:16,160
Speaker 1: President Nixon. The story prompted worldwide outrage, especially in America,

523
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:19,320
Speaker 1: and caused the tide of popular opinion to turn against

524
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 1: an already unpopular war. Back in Nicaragua, Cookie faces the

525
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:27,640
Speaker 1: consequences of another unnecessary American intervention.

526
00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:31,800
Speaker 2: People that didn't deserve to die or had nothing to

527
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:32,560
Speaker 2: do with it.

528
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:34,520
Speaker 9: They were just all killed.

529
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:38,480
Speaker 2: The concures were ruthless though, even though some were Nicaragua

530
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:42,440
Speaker 2: and some were from Honduras, they were trained by the CIA.

531
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:45,960
Speaker 9: CIA. Don't play.

532
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 2: The women are wailing, their children have been killed, their

533
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:57,240
Speaker 2: husbands have been killed. I'm told, go record them wailing

534
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:01,680
Speaker 2: and crying. Wait, how can I just start filming and

535
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 2: recording these women wailing without first comforting them?

536
00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:08,240
Speaker 9: So I put down the microphone.

537
00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:11,080
Speaker 2: I'd comfort them a little bit, you know, hog them

538
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:15,080
Speaker 2: it's going to be okay, and then ask them permission,

539
00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:16,880
Speaker 2: can I record you?

540
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 3: So you basically just cried with them.

541
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 2: I didn't cry, but I comforted them. Obviously, I was

542
00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 2: crying and dying on the inside.

543
00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:29,280
Speaker 1: The story played on the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather.

544
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 12: David Dick in Nicaragua reports tonight on a tragedy of war,

545
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 12: a massacre yesterday that has changed one village forever.

546
00:30:37,320 --> 00:30:40,080
Speaker 13: Some of the bodies from the massacre began arriving here

547
00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:43,200
Speaker 13: early this morning. In Hinotega, about one hundred miles south

548
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:46,480
Speaker 13: of the Honduran border, a mother grieved for her seventeen

549
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:48,640
Speaker 13: year old son. She said he was the only one

550
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:50,640
Speaker 13: of her children who had not left her, but now

551
00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 13: he was gone. A young woman nineteen years old lost

552
00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:57,440
Speaker 13: her husband. He was also nineteen. She is pregnant. Her

553
00:30:57,520 --> 00:30:59,800
Speaker 13: child will be born in December. She said, this is

554
00:30:59,840 --> 00:31:01,000
Speaker 13: all I have left of him.

555
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 2: As a journalist, you're supposed to remain neutral. You're supposed

556
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:08,520
Speaker 2: to be objective. You're not supposed to integrate yourself into

557
00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:13,640
Speaker 2: the story. And I remember being pulled aside several times,

558
00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:16,640
Speaker 2: not just on that trip, but throughout my first years

559
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:17,400
Speaker 2: of my career.

560
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:20,840
Speaker 9: You cannot do that. You have to be objective. And

561
00:31:20,880 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 9: I said, look, the moment I can't.

562
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:28,280
Speaker 2: Feel the story, feel emotional about the story, or help

563
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 2: these people.

564
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:30,200
Speaker 9: I'm out.

565
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:34,480
Speaker 2: So CBS didn't want to lose me, so they'd give

566
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:37,120
Speaker 2: me a little rope, and then that little bit of

567
00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:43,000
Speaker 2: rope became more rope and more rope, and finally they

568
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:49,480
Speaker 2: knew my methods. My stories were always exclusives. They always

569
00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:52,479
Speaker 2: got on the air, whereas the other networks they wouldn't

570
00:31:52,520 --> 00:31:56,960
Speaker 2: get exclusives. Their stories may not lead on the evening news,

571
00:31:57,560 --> 00:31:59,120
Speaker 2: but mine always did.

572
00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 1: When you saw this and you had this experience, did

573
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:05,160
Speaker 1: that change you, Did that make you look at the

574
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:05,920
Speaker 1: world differently.

575
00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:08,920
Speaker 2: I just rolled with the punches I've always throughout that

576
00:32:09,040 --> 00:32:12,480
Speaker 2: whole career of mine. I just was rolling with it

577
00:32:12,800 --> 00:32:18,240
Speaker 2: because I knew that the moment I no longer felt anything,

578
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 2: and that I could.

579
00:32:19,080 --> 00:32:22,160
Speaker 9: Just cover a story, just get the story, go in and.

580
00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:25,280
Speaker 2: Go out, then I knew it would be over for

581
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:28,560
Speaker 2: me as a human being. So the fact that I

582
00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:33,280
Speaker 2: was feeling for these people and that the emotions were coming,

583
00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:36,040
Speaker 2: I was dying on the inside and knowing that my

584
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 2: own country.

585
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:41,560
Speaker 1: Was doing this and this is one place, one place,

586
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:44,000
Speaker 1: God knows what's going on.

587
00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:48,160
Speaker 2: And my Nicaraguan side felt for these people, and then

588
00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:50,680
Speaker 2: my US side is so angry.

589
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:51,959
Speaker 9: I'm a part of that.

590
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:57,120
Speaker 2: And the one thing about the Nicaraguans, the poor, the humble,

591
00:32:57,160 --> 00:33:00,960
Speaker 2: the ones that were the victims of war, never held

592
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:04,400
Speaker 2: it against us that we were American. Obviously because I'm

593
00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 2: speaking Spanish like they do, they think I'm one of them.

594
00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 2: But I'm with camera crews that are Americans, I'm speaking English.

595
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 2: They never once held it against us. Oh, your country's

596
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 2: the one that's do it.

597
00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:21,520
Speaker 9: Never.

598
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:23,440
Speaker 3: That says a lot about the people.

599
00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:25,640
Speaker 9: Never. Never.

600
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:29,280
Speaker 2: They would feed us if we were hungry, they would

601
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 2: give us something to drink from their meager shacks. If

602
00:33:33,600 --> 00:33:36,080
Speaker 2: we were thirsty, they would give us their.

603
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:38,080
Speaker 9: Bed that was on a floor.

604
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 2: The spirit was just overpowering, overwhelming to me. What I

605
00:33:45,760 --> 00:33:49,360
Speaker 2: did come to realize, no matter where war is in

606
00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 2: the world, no matter where war is in history, the

607
00:33:53,760 --> 00:33:57,920
Speaker 2: people that get fucked, or the poor people, whether it

608
00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:01,920
Speaker 2: be because they're victims or they're massacred, or because they're

609
00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:05,320
Speaker 2: sent to the front line, they're always the ones that

610
00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 2: get fucked.

611
00:34:09,120 --> 00:34:12,840
Speaker 1: As the Contra war gathers momentum, the US gets deeper

612
00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 1: and deeper into the quagmire of Central America. But so

613
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:21,040
Speaker 1: are the Russians sending advisors, arms, and economic support. The

614
00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:24,440
Speaker 1: Sandinistas deny it. But Cooking and the journalists covering the

615
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 1: war or looking for the smoking gun, tell me about

616
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:30,440
Speaker 1: that first big scoop.

617
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:34,440
Speaker 2: Well, we did a lot of little stories, things that

618
00:34:34,480 --> 00:34:38,279
Speaker 2: we weren't expecting to find. But then there came some

619
00:34:38,480 --> 00:34:43,480
Speaker 2: rumors that the Sandinistas were getting help from the Russians,

620
00:34:43,640 --> 00:34:47,799
Speaker 2: from the Cubans, from a rand from anybody that the

621
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:49,000
Speaker 2: US didn't like.

622
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:52,160
Speaker 1: From what I read, the Nicaragua was really locked down.

623
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:54,440
Speaker 1: So if they didn't want you to see something it

624
00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:55,399
Speaker 1: was very hard to see.

625
00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:56,320
Speaker 3: It is that true?

626
00:34:56,719 --> 00:34:57,719
Speaker 9: That is correct.

627
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:01,480
Speaker 2: For instance, we'd heard that they were possibly some Russian

628
00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:06,759
Speaker 2: ships at the port of Corinto. I remember myself, the

629
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:11,760
Speaker 2: crew and maybe some other journalists driving to Corinto to

630
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:14,760
Speaker 2: see what was going on, because we had also heard

631
00:35:14,800 --> 00:35:19,840
Speaker 2: about possibly these ports having been mined by the US,

632
00:35:20,239 --> 00:35:23,600
Speaker 2: which is pretty much against the Geneva Convention you can't

633
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:25,800
Speaker 2: put mines in foreign ports.

634
00:35:27,200 --> 00:35:30,280
Speaker 1: According to The Washington Post, the CIA played a direct

635
00:35:30,400 --> 00:35:33,240
Speaker 1: role in the laying of underwater mines in Nicaraguan ports,

636
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:36,640
Speaker 1: damaging at least eight ships. The CIA did this without

637
00:35:36,640 --> 00:35:40,280
Speaker 1: the approval of Congressional intelligence committees, as the law required,

638
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:43,680
Speaker 1: eventually leading to Congress cutting off funding for the contrast.

639
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:48,600
Speaker 2: That sort of sets up the story. And I remember

640
00:35:48,640 --> 00:35:51,160
Speaker 2: we tried to get to the port and we weren't

641
00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:53,640
Speaker 2: allowed even within a mile of it.

642
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 9: People are being turned back.

643
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:58,800
Speaker 2: One of the few times I couldn't talk myself into

644
00:35:59,040 --> 00:35:59,720
Speaker 2: getting through.

645
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:03,480
Speaker 9: Nicaragua had journalists from.

646
00:36:03,400 --> 00:36:08,680
Speaker 2: All over the world, not just regular journalists like myself

647
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:13,839
Speaker 2: and networks and you know, ap UPI and photographers, but

648
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:18,160
Speaker 2: also there were journalists from countries that were mortal enemies

649
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 2: of the us. The camaraderie between all journalists, no matter

650
00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:26,239
Speaker 2: where they were from, was the same. We're all in

651
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:30,720
Speaker 2: this together. So I had become friends with some Cuban

652
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:34,719
Speaker 2: nationals from the island, which is different from Cuban Americans

653
00:36:34,840 --> 00:36:38,200
Speaker 2: from Miami. This one particular guy and I we really

654
00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:40,759
Speaker 2: kind of hit it off. We started to see each

655
00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:43,799
Speaker 2: other here and there, and I was sort of kind

656
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:46,799
Speaker 2: of done with him, and then one day he comes

657
00:36:46,880 --> 00:36:49,840
Speaker 2: up to me at a press conference in the city

658
00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:52,839
Speaker 2: and says, you know, I've got something that you know

659
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:56,239
Speaker 2: you may be interested in, and I'm like, what is it?

660
00:36:56,280 --> 00:36:58,200
Speaker 2: He says, I'm just going to give you this tape.

661
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:01,080
Speaker 2: Don't look at it here, don't open it here. It's

662
00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:04,080
Speaker 2: something that you've been looking for. And so I put

663
00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:06,799
Speaker 2: it away, didn't give it a second thought, got back

664
00:37:06,840 --> 00:37:10,080
Speaker 2: to the hotel a few hours later and we opened

665
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:13,520
Speaker 2: it up, and it's video of a Russian ship at

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00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:17,280
Speaker 2: the Port of Corinto that myself and many other journalists

667
00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:18,319
Speaker 2: had been warning.

668
00:37:18,160 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 9: To get proof of.

669
00:37:19,840 --> 00:37:22,799
Speaker 2: Showed it to Carla, who was in town at that

670
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:26,080
Speaker 2: particular time, and I said, you're not going to believe this,

671
00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 2: but I've got Cuban TV footage of the proof that

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00:37:30,200 --> 00:37:33,719
Speaker 2: there's a Russian ship in port, and she couldn't believe it,

673
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:36,719
Speaker 2: and the crew couldn't believe it, So sure enough we

674
00:37:36,800 --> 00:37:39,200
Speaker 2: put it in and there it was.

675
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:42,520
Speaker 1: The story played on the CBS evening News that very night.

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00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:45,880
Speaker 12: A US naval battlegroup headed by the carrier Ranger has

677
00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:49,480
Speaker 12: been maneuvering off Nicaragua's west coast for fourteen days. This

678
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:54,239
Speaker 12: had been officially described repeatedly as routine exercises. Today, the

679
00:37:54,280 --> 00:37:58,160
Speaker 12: Pentagon confirmed a warship confrontation with the Soviet Crater. One

680
00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:01,640
Speaker 12: of the destroyers escorting the Ranger Ute questioned the Russian

681
00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:05,319
Speaker 12: cargo ship in international waters, then followed it to Nicaragua's

682
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:06,800
Speaker 12: twelve mile territorial limit.

683
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:10,399
Speaker 14: The Alexander Uljanov, shown passing through the Panama Canal last

684
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:12,880
Speaker 14: week on its way to Nicaragua, has been the object

685
00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:15,880
Speaker 14: of much attention since President Reagan said it was carrying

686
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:20,240
Speaker 14: helicopters and other military equipment. Coarnto is this country's major

687
00:38:20,280 --> 00:38:23,799
Speaker 14: port city. These scenes from the purchased videotape show East

688
00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:27,600
Speaker 14: German and Soviet vessels at the main pier. Again, only

689
00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:31,440
Speaker 14: non military cargo was seen, despite the denials. It's clear

690
00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:34,800
Speaker 14: the Nicaraguan army has lots of Soviet military hardware.

691
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 3: How it gets here is less clear.

692
00:38:37,640 --> 00:38:39,600
Speaker 14: Richard Wagner, CBS News, Managua.

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00:38:40,320 --> 00:38:43,279
Speaker 1: The Nicaraguan government denied it, of course, but for the

694
00:38:43,320 --> 00:38:46,080
Speaker 1: first time the US had proof that the Russians were

695
00:38:46,080 --> 00:38:51,000
Speaker 1: supporting the Sandinistas. It was huge. The Managua CBS office

696
00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:56,600
Speaker 1: received a telex the next day. It read clean Kill, Congratulations,

697
00:38:57,000 --> 00:39:02,319
Speaker 1: thanks courage, signed by SEB News icon Dan Rather.

698
00:39:03,480 --> 00:39:06,319
Speaker 9: That was very satisfying and.

699
00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:07,840
Speaker 3: What did it tell you about yourself?

700
00:39:08,160 --> 00:39:12,239
Speaker 2: What I felt initially was I hope nobody thinks I

701
00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:14,560
Speaker 2: got this story because I slept with the guy.

702
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:16,280
Speaker 9: That's not what happened.

703
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:17,399
Speaker 3: But you did sleep with him.

704
00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:18,560
Speaker 9: But I did sleep.

705
00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:21,040
Speaker 2: With him, But I never dreamed that he was going

706
00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:23,319
Speaker 2: to throw this in my laugh. And I think he

707
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:25,680
Speaker 2: kind of threw it in my lap because I had

708
00:39:25,760 --> 00:39:29,319
Speaker 2: kind of, you know, dumped it. It was one of

709
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 2: my first major scoops. And then, of course the Dan

710
00:39:32,760 --> 00:39:37,280
Speaker 2: Rather congratulatory telex was just icing.

711
00:39:37,160 --> 00:39:40,560
Speaker 9: On the cave. I knew at that moment that I

712
00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:41,719
Speaker 9: had made It's.

713
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:45,319
Speaker 1: Kind of a validation of the relationships that you.

714
00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:49,920
Speaker 2: Create and that even though I wasn't quite sure if

715
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:54,000
Speaker 2: I was a journalist, everyone else around me was damn

716
00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 2: sure that I was.

717
00:39:56,719 --> 00:40:01,160
Speaker 1: So Cookie finds a smoking gun an esta a bona fides,

718
00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:06,279
Speaker 1: But in war sometimes that gun is shooting at you.

719
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:09,880
Speaker 1: Next time on Journalista.

720
00:40:09,719 --> 00:40:12,160
Speaker 2: All I know is that we were up in the air.

721
00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:16,239
Speaker 2: I heard three somethings. I looked at one soldier and

722
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:17,239
Speaker 2: I said, that's not a.

723
00:40:17,160 --> 00:40:20,600
Speaker 9: Good sound, is it? And he went white and he said, no,

724
00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:24,240
Speaker 9: We're going down. What do you mean We're going down?

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00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:34,160
Speaker 1: The Journalista podcast features the stories and voice of Cookie Hood.

726
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:37,840
Speaker 1: Narrated by Steven Esteb, Produced by Sean J.

727
00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:38,480
Speaker 3: Donnelly.

728
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:44,200
Speaker 1: Executive producers Jason Wagensback, Roy Laughlin and Ellen k iHeart.

729
00:40:44,239 --> 00:40:48,520
Speaker 1: Executive producer Tyler Klang. Written and edited by Steven Esteb.

730
00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:53,560
Speaker 1: Music by Jay Weigel, Associate producer in sound design Steven Tanti,

731
00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:58,440
Speaker 1: Sound mixing by Jesse Solan Snyder. Special guest Stephen Kinzer

732
00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:04,319
Speaker 1: Tulain history Professor Justin Wolfe, Carla Ferrell. Special thanks to

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00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:10,160
Speaker 1: Esplanade Studios, The Ranch Studios, Jason Gerwitz, Kyle Frederick, Zach Slaff.

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00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:15,320
Speaker 1: This is a production of Journalista Podcast LLC and iHeartRadio,