WEBVTT - The Ever Elusive War 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:06.840 This is a production of Journalista Podcast LLC and iHeartRadio. 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:11.440 So I come in the next day all dressed up 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:15.960 at pearls and heels, and she says, why are you 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:18.000 dressed that way? I said, well, you said I'm going 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:20.560 north and going to Miami, right, She goes, no, You're 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:25.760 going to the Jungles today with a camera crew by yourself. 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:33.440 Welcome back to the Journalista Podcast. Cookie is embarking on 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:36.720 her first gig for CBS News, the beginning of an 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:38.800 era that will put her in the middle of the 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.920 biggest scandal of the nineteen eighties. But before she starts 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:45.320 this new adventure, I want to introduce you to another 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:50.040 character in the story, someone you've already met. Actually it's 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:53.840 not a person, it's a place at the epicenter of history. 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:55.560 Literally. 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.080 Stephen Kenser, former bureau chief for The New York Times, 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:05.400 wrote about the significance of the Intercontinental Hotel in Managua 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:06.920 back in nineteen eighty seven. 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:10.720 It was in a pyramid shape and stood on top 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:11.320 of a hill. 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:15.399 The Somosa family, which ran the country like a private enterprise, 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:19.959 also ran the Intercontinental. Of course, the family controlled every 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:22.040 business that was really lucrative. 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:27.080 I remember hearing that. In nineteen seventy two, at. 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:30.120 The end of the year, the staff was told, you 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.319 can't come out today. They're locking everyone in the basement. 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:37.120 There's a special guest coming. They sealed off two entire floors, 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:39.959 the seventh and eighth floors. Nobody was allowed up there. 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:46.120 It finally emerged that the guest was Howard Hughes, that famous, reclusive, 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:47.880 eccentric billionaire. 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:51.720 Howard Hughes was worth, by some estimates, as much as 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:54.800 four billion dollars, making him the richest man in the 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:58.360 world at the time. He made his fortune in engineering, aviation, 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.800 and massive defense contracts. He even owned a movie studio. 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:07.040 For years, he was fascinated with Hollywood. A rich playboy, 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:10.080 dating a bevy of starlets Lana Turner, Catherine Hepburn and 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:13.200 Ava Gardner, Hughes signed a personal check for almost twenty 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:16.560 four million dollars to buy himself the Rkos Studios. He 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.320 became a starmaker. Jane Russell was a hit in the 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:22.080 Hughes picture of the Outlaw. It was frowned on because 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:25.880 of Russell's famous cleavage. Hughes dubbed Gene Harlow the Platinum 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:28.760 Blunde and catapulted her to fame in a film called 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:29.639 Hell's Angels. 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:33.720 He was also eccentric as hell, a notorious germaphobe, suffering 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:37.000 from extreme OCD. It's said that he only cut his 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:38.359 nails and hair once a year. 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:41.840 He was interested in making some investments in Nicaragua, and 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:44.720 of course the Samosas were thrilled with this. They felt 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:47.000 they had hooked a really big fish. He might have 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:48.880 even wanted to buy the hotel. He said he wanted 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:51.400 to buy the National Airline. But he was in the 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:54.760 hotel on that terrible night in December of nineteen seventy 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:56.080 two when the earthquake happened. 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:59.040 The Intercontinental is one of the few buildings left standing 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:00.400 after the earthquakes. 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:02.840 So the whole city, of course exploded in fire and 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:03.919 rubble and dust. 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:06.560 It turned out that Howard Hughes had. 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:10.360 This tremendous phobia about germs, and that's why they had 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:12.600 to steal off these floors. 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:14.840 For him and had special ways to purify the air. 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:18.800 Suddenly he's surrounded by germs and smoke. He immediately fled 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:20.160 the country and never came back. 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:24.160 After the earthquake, the hotel was suddenly everything everywhere all 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:24.600 at once. 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:26.480 Yeah, I said it. 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:32.480 Many countries have find themselves in civil conflicts and draw 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:35.120 a lot of journalists, develop a kind of a place 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:37.680 where the journalists hang out, and that tends to be 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:40.800 the place where other people hang out, like intelligence agents 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:46.000 and arms dealers and politicians. In a smaller country, it's 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:49.600 more likely that they'll be just one such place in 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:54.080 Managua as the war they are exploded. That place was 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:59.400 the Intercontinental Hotel. The lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel, and 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:02.560 the breakfast room and the other salons down there on 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:06.280 the first floor were alive all the time. There were 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:09.920 a thousand stories unfolding right in that lobby. That's where 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:13.080 you trade rumors with other journalists. Over lunch. You could 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:17.840 find Basque gorillas and gorillas from El Salvadora plotting strategy. 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:20.080 There were diplomatic receptions there at night. 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:23.640 There were all sorts of adventurers in that place, some Nicaraguan, 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:26.920 but many from the outside, and everybody who arrived in 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:29.880 Nicaragua for the first time would always go there. It 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:32.880 really didn't take long before you were immersed in the 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:33.720 whole story. 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:36.960 The guests there were such a variety. 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:40.480 You had world leaders like Jimmy Carter, who I spent 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.240 an hour with you had assassins. 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:46.200 There were movie stars, there were athletes. 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:50.280 Every star who came there came to the Intercontinental. It's 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:53.599 where I met Susan Sarandon and Bianca Jagger. It was 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:56.760 really at the center of national life. Then, of course, 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:59.560 it played a role in the national politics of that era, 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:02.679 the very turbulent period in the late seventies and early 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:06.039 eighties when there was a revolution, government changed, and since 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:08.840 the Intercontinental was the center of everything, it was right 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:12.239 at the middle of all these changes. One guy tried 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:14.240 to assassinate Somosa. 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:17.640 In his New York Times article, Kinzer writes, a flamboyant 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:22.279 rebel named Fernando Chimorro Rapaccioli quietly checked into rooms seven sixteen, 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:25.080 closed the door behind him, and began assembling a mortar. 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:28.120 He had selected a room that overlooked the military headquarters 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:32.200 of President Anastasio Simosa, hoping to assassinate him by firing 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:39.000 a rocket into his office. Soldiers immediately converged on the hotel. 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:43.080 As employees dived for cover, the soldiers sprayed the building 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:46.960 with gunfire for a full ten minutes. Samosa survived the attack, 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:49.320 but the handwriting was already on the wall. 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:54.000 As the government of Somosa collapsed, many of the cabinet, 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:57.360 ministers and generals sent their families out of the country 0:05:57.880 --> 0:05:59.640 and rather than live at home, since there was no 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:02.800 one there or anymore, they moved into the Intercontinental Hotel. 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:07.839 So essentially the entire power elite of Samosa, Nicaragua was 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:11.000 living in the Intercontinental Hotel in the first months of 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:11.840 nineteen seventy nine. 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.440 Really, there were no staff there. It was open. We 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:15.320 had the run of the place. 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:19.120 It was mostly journalists and Samosa government officials, so there 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:21.880 was nobody manning the front desk. There were no food, 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:25.000 there were no employees, nobody cleaned the rooms, but somehow 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:28.040 they kept the place open. At that time, the hotel 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:31.080 really reflected what was happening in the country as a whole. 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:33.960 It was no authority, nobody was in charge. 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:39.200 July nineteenth of seventy nine, Samosa flees Nicaragua and the 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:41.640 government falls A. 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:42.320 Few days later. 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:45.960 The Santanistas had won the revolution and they were in Monagua. Now, 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.159 if they're in Managua, what does that mean. It means 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:50.800 they're in the Intercontinental Hotel. 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:54.760 They're all in the lobby and they said, now what 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:58.120 And one of them says, well, let's form a government. 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:01.680 Why dodn't it be nine? And Dante's each one the 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:04.280 head of something. Okay, So you're going to be the 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:07.480 head of interior ministry, you're going to be the head 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:11.680 of education, you're going to be And that's how they 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:15.240 did it, just like that, one afternoon. You're gonna be this, 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:17.400 You're gonna be Oh, you're gonna be the head of defense, 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:20.160 You're going to be the head of economics. 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:26.120 It was a total clusterfuck. Steven Kinzer has one more 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:29.480 quick story to tell about the hotel, and this one 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:30.920 will last forever. 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:34.360 I hadn't been in Nicaragua very long. 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:38.080 I was in the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel and 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:39.520 a lot of reporters are around. 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:42.760 Somebody came along with a sign up sheet. 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:44.440 If you wanted to get on a bus that was 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:46.600 going somewhere the next morning to go out and visit 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:49.360 someplace where something had happened, you had to sign up 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:51.680 and that sheet would be posted a little bit later. 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:54.440 So I was going to sign up and then this 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:58.240 the young, attractive, tall, very thin woman comes up to me, says, 0:07:58.240 --> 0:07:59.880 put my name on it too. Can you just add 0:07:59.880 --> 0:08:01.600 my name on the list when it comes out? And 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:03.040 I said sure. And then I turned to me. I said, 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:06.360 wait a minute, what is your name? And she said Cookie? 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:08.600 And I said Cookie. What she said, don't worry about 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:11.800 bad just put Cookie. Everybody's gonna know. So at that 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:14.600 moment began our long friendship. 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:18.040 Years later, Kinser wrote this about Cookie's impact on the 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:21.840 news during the nineteen eighties and nineties. Cookie hood was 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:24.960 the driving force behind the most successful television coverage of 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:30.040 Central America that appeared anywhere in the United States. Things 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:33.080 are changing in Nicaragua, but they are also changing in 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:33.600 the US. 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:44.320 Mister Chairman, mister Vice President, to be this convention, my 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:49.319 fellow citizens of this great nation, with a deep awareness 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:54.040 of the responsibility conferred by your trust, I accept your 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:57.040 nomination for the presidency of the United States. 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:04.920 Ronald Reagan beats Jimmy Carter in the nineteen eighty election 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:08.800 and becomes the fortieth President of the United States. There's 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:11.760 a new sheriff in town, and he doesn't like the Sandinistas. 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:16.440 I asked Tulane Professor Justin Wolfe about the consequences of 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:18.439 this election to the future of Nicaragua. 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:24.520 Ronald Reagan comes into power hardline anti communist American cowboy 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:29.800 vision right of a robust conservatism and a robust cold 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:33.800 war hawk. Very quickly, the Reagan administration is trying to 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:37.520 figure out how to oust the Santinista government, how to 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:42.720 frame this as a US Soviet proxy struggle and one 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:46.920 that we need to win. An opposition to the Saninistas emerges, 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:50.079 but the US sees them as groups to be unified, 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:53.680 to be trained, to be financed, and to be armed 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:57.520 to carry out a proxy war to overthrow the Saninistas. 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:01.440 This seems perfect for the Reagan minus, with people who 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:04.480 are willing to do the fighting. Freedom fighters as Reagan 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:07.160 would call them, or they're going to fight this communist 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:11.880 revolution in Nicaragua. But there is a deep ambivalence within 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:15.120 the United States. A lot of people think that this 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:18.240 is a quagmire that the US is going to get 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:22.120 caught in. They're not certain what the strategic value of 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:24.160 it is. They're not sure what we're going to get 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:27.200 out of it, or even if we could win, that 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:31.880 this could be another Vietnam. 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:35.520 On December one, nineteen eighty one, President Ronald Reagan signs 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:40.160 a presidential finding which authorizes covert operations in Nicaragua. The 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:42.440 plan is to train and fund what is essentially a 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:46.960 terrorist group in Nicaragua known as the Contrasts. So it 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:51.800 begins a decade long obsession with a tiny Central American 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:57.280 country with an economy one fourth the size of Vermont. 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:01.440 When we last saw Cookie, she was standing in front 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:03.720 of CBS News producer Carla Ferrell. 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:06.079 She says, you got the job. 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:09.640 I need you to come in tomorrow and you're going 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:13.120 up north. I thought she was sending me to Miami. 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:16.280 So I come in the next day all dressed up 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:20.200 in pearls and heels, and she says, why are you 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:22.200 dressed that way? I said, well, you set up going 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:24.560 north and going to Miami, right. She goes, no, You're 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:29.760 going to the Jungles today with the camera crew by yourself. 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:34.440 And I could see the camera crew off to the 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:38.800 side and they're laughing. They're just enjoyed the shit about this. 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.120 I said, Okay, give me five minutes. 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:45.920 I asked Carlo why she hired Cookie and what made 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:46.520 her special. 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:51.880 Cookie was so sociable, so tenacious, she was just so 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:56.920 full of life. She had an amazing personality, gregarious, spicty 0:11:56.960 --> 0:11:59.760 when she needed to be, diplomatic when she needed to 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:03.080 be She always had the personality, the kind that could 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:06.040 break through the camera. She was wonderful, whether it was 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:10.439 in social situations or in work situations, to help bring 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:14.120 people together. From the beginning. Impressed me as someone who 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:16.640 would always work hard to get things done. 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:18.640 Thank goodness. 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:21.040 I had a change of clothes put on the tennis 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:24.520 shoes to jeans, and everything was introduced to the Mexican 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:28.160 Cammebra crew, him and Roberto. Of course they're looking at 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:30.920 me also like does she know what she's doing? But 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:34.320 at the same time, she really is pretty. You know, 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:37.800 this could be fun. Carla said goodbye, and we went 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:41.880 downstairs and blowed it up into the jeep. They're assuming 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:44.560 that I know what I'm doing. They are assuming that 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:48.280 I'm a journalist, and I wasn't. I was being thrown 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:50.880 into the colosseum to the lions. 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:52.280 I had not a clue. 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:54.760 Did you get any instruction from Carla what you were 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:56.000 looking for or anything? 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:57.120 None? 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:00.800 Carla thought I was a journalist too. Job was you're 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:03.960 a fixer. We need you to translate, We need you, 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:06.720 you know, to help the crews whenever they need to 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:07.360 be helped. 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:09.880 That was it. Bye. 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:13.960 So Cookie is hired as a fixer and interpreter for 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:19.400 CBS News. War is Hell. Cookie is about to find 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:23.480 out what it really looks like. We'll be right back, 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:37.640 Welcome back. Cookie sets off on her next great adventure 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:43.560 working for CBS freaking News. She has no idea what 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:47.600 she's doing, but how hard can it be? At least 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:49.720 she's not running from the dea with a couple of 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:53.680 tons of cocaine. Reality is about to punch her in 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:54.120 the face. 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:02.679 As we're driving to the Jungles to look for the war. 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:05.880 We're getting to know each other and they're liking me 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:08.600 and I'm liking them. We could see that it was 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:11.800 going to work between us, the three of us. So 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:14.800 I'm asking questions. They're telling me, this is what we're 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:15.280 gonna do. 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:16.400 We're gonna go here. 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:19.000 At that point, you know, we need you to help 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:22.400 us with the equipment, and I'm like, no sweat, I 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:23.760 can carry my own weight. 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:25.840 I Am not going to be a burden to you guys. 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:29.120 But obviously I'm going on this great adventure, which I 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:32.760 think is if I'm great adventure, I have literally no 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:37.840 idea what I'm getting into. So we proceed to drive 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:39.400 and drive and drive. 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:41.080 And we're getting deeper into the jungle. 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:44.800 I'm being told, you know, Cookie, sometimes it's not so 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:47.600 easy for us to find what we're looking for. 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:52.200 We've actually called this war the ever elusive war. 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.440 We can hear it, we just have a hard time 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:59.200 finding it. And I said, hey, no sweat, we'll find it. 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:02.040 As we we got in deeper and deeper, the camera 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:06.920 crew got less funny, less upbeat. They got very serious, 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:10.400 and you know, they said, these are certain things that 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:11.480 you're gonna have to know. 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:14.520 We tell you to be quiet. Be quiet when we 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:15.080 tell you to. 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:18.800 Hit the ground, hit the ground, win in doubt, just 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:19.680 do what we do. 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:23.040 So hit the ground, meaning in case you're getting shot at, 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:24.920 in case there's danger, in case we. 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:29.200 Run into the enemy. Whatever we do, you do it. 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:32.760 Whatever we whisper it to you to do, you do it. 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:35.200 Did they give you any positive Does your mind start 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:36.600 racing about what you're getting into? 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:41.240 Well, I'm still thinking, great adventure, How hard can this be? 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:45.760 I can follow instructions. I still really didn't have a clue. 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:48.680 Even if I would have been told you're going into 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:52.480 a war. You're going to see dead people. Even if 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:55.240 I had been told that, it's one thing to be 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:59.280 told it, it's another thing to actually see it and 0:15:59.360 --> 0:15:59.920 live through it. 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:03.040 And that happened, And that's what happened. 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:08.440 We could hear some fighting, we could hear weapons, we 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:10.720 could hear shots, but we. 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:12.200 Knew that it was far away. 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:17.960 At one point we got out of the g to 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:21.800 cover some ground see what we could find. I know 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:25.960 what gunfire sounds like, but what struck me is I 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:30.320 kept hearing yelling like one side yelling to the other side. 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:33.040 Come get me, you son of a bitch. No, you 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:35.680 come get me, you son of a bitch. Oi in 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:40.280 abuta Benita Paraka to mother day Benita off Paraka. 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.640 You come here, No fuck your mother, you come here. 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:45.440 You know, trash talk, and. 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:50.840 It all sounded the same, same accent, same lingo, same 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.640 street talk. And that's when I first started to realize, Wait, 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:56.480 this is a civil war. 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:58.440 This is brother fighting brother. 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:05.520 Fire stops, there's an eerie quiet. Cookie and her crew 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:07.720 make their way toward the battle scene. 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:11.240 All of a sudden, we could see ahead of us 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:14.440 what looked like a big pile of something. 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:17.400 I didn't know what it was. Obviously. 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:19.800 I think the crew knew what it was. They were 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:24.760 very seasoned war journalists. It was a pile of dead bodies. 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:30.720 I've seen dead people before, but not like that. I 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:34.520 was not prepared for that. It was at that moment 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.320 I started to lose a little of my faith. 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:40.720 Describe what you saw. 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:46.200 Men, women, children, all in a pile. Looked like civilians 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:52.159 to me, I didn't see soldiers. The emotions just like, fuck, 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:57.160 what have I gotten myself into here? The Mexicans at 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:00.280 that point said to me when they saw that, I 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:04.120 was kind of shocked at what I was seeing. This 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:06.159 is your first but it's not going to be your 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:09.000 last time seeing what you're seeing right now. 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:11.880 And honestly, this is nothing. 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:14.720 Compared to what you're going to see in the future 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:17.440 if you last with us, if you stay with us, 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:23.320 So get ready because this is what it's all about. 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:28.320 This really is war, This really is dead people, this 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:31.080 really is massacres. 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:37.200 Am I going to be able to pull this off? Fuck? Yeah, 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:38.040 I could pull this. 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:44.320 Off for Cookie. It was first blood, but it wouldn't 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:49.600 be the last. Back in the CBS office, there was 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:50.640 another kind of war. 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:54.480 So I was hired to sort of be a grunt 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:57.720 because the guy that was running the office, his name 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:01.640 was Martin Barretto, was a nice guy. I grew up 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:04.919 with him. He was part of the Oligark families. But 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:07.719 he didn't like to get his hands dirty, and so 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:10.400 he would have all these little minions to do all 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:14.240 his dirty work, you know, the drivers, the fixers, which 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:15.199 was what I became. 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:19.200 And then he wanted me to go with the camera. 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:22.440 Crews, with or without a correspondent and just go and 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:27.680 get material for stories. Martine was a very disagreeable person. 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:31.399 You could be on good terms with the correspondents and 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:36.080 the producers, but if the crews and the drivers dislike you, 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:39.119 you've got a problem because those are the people that 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:40.520 are going to get you the story. 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:43.720 And if they don't like you, then you're up shit's creek. 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:47.560 You've got nothing to offer the correspondent or the producer. 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:48.159 Or the editor. 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:49.919 Well when did it change? 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:51.800 Larry Doyle comes to town. 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:55.879 He was the gentleman that we spoke about at the 0:19:55.920 --> 0:19:57.360 party who offered. 0:19:57.080 --> 0:19:57.720 Me the job. 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:02.159 We went out into the boon docs and you know, 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:06.160 we just got along famously. I remember that we stopped 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.879 in some you know, shack to get something to eat. 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:12.480 Larry said, well, what's on the menu, and there was 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:17.359 no menu. The lady said, it's a roscomboyo chicken and rice. 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:20.760 Next thing, you know, we hear the chicken being killed, 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:24.199 you know, and plucked and to make the lunch. And 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:27.080 then the jukebox wasn't working, and so I went to 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:31.480 it and I kicked it. Larry Doyle screams out, you 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:34.720 are my kind of broad. I was right in bringing 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:37.840 you in. He hated the guy that was running the 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:40.240 CBS office because that guy did like to get his 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:43.879 hands dirty or go out or do anything. He just 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:47.119 kept saying, you should be running this office, you should 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:47.720 be doing this. 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:51.040 Larry Doyle was a force of nature and he always 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:51.919 got what he wanted. 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:57.320 Martine was becoming less interested in getting the job done, 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:03.679 more interested in entertaining and you know, partying in a 0:21:03.680 --> 0:21:05.120 different way than I partied. 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:07.359 So everybody's pitching about Martine. 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:12.360 Yeah, well, bitching or complaining or just making an observation, 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:15.639 because not everybody had a problem with him. They wanted 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:19.680 more of Cookie and less of Martine. Sure we could 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:23.040 have Cookie out in the jungle, but we also want 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:26.359 to deal with Cookie directly in the offices at the 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:33.000 Inner Collin and Larry was also behind my back and 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:36.679 obviously behind Martine's back, was making sure that Martine was 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:39.960 on his way out. And when he started to get 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:46.879 paranoid and jealous, things got worse. At one point he 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:50.000 called somebody either in New York or Miami and said, 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.959 it's me or her. We can't both work in this office. 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:59.280 And unfortunately they chose me and he was out. And 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:02.719 so Larry's says, you're going to be the one running 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:05.400 the show here. So he got rid of our team 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:09.520 quick and put me in charge. Now, everyone assumed that 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:12.600 I was a journalist. To this day, there are former 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:16.600 colleagues that still think I studied journalism. I didn't know 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:21.240 anything about journalism, but I was a fast learner, and 0:22:21.320 --> 0:22:27.720 having a mentor like Larry Doyle who taught me everything everything, 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:30.000 And then the mere fact that I would get my 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:32.960