Speaker 1: This is a production of Journalista Podcast LLC and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: So I come in the next day all dressed up
Speaker 2: at pearls and heels, and she says, why are you
Speaker 2: dressed that way? I said, well, you said I'm going
Speaker 2: north and going to Miami, right, She goes, no, You're
Speaker 2: going to the Jungles today with a camera crew by yourself.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Journalista Podcast. Cookie is embarking on
Speaker 1: her first gig for CBS News, the beginning of an
Speaker 1: era that will put her in the middle of the
Speaker 1: biggest scandal of the nineteen eighties. But before she starts
Speaker 1: this new adventure, I want to introduce you to another
Speaker 1: character in the story, someone you've already met. Actually it's
Speaker 1: not a person, it's a place at the epicenter of history.
Speaker 3: Literally.
Speaker 1: Stephen Kenser, former bureau chief for The New York Times,
Speaker 1: wrote about the significance of the Intercontinental Hotel in Managua
Speaker 1: back in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 4: It was in a pyramid shape and stood on top
Speaker 4: of a hill.
Speaker 5: The Somosa family, which ran the country like a private enterprise,
Speaker 5: also ran the Intercontinental. Of course, the family controlled every
Speaker 5: business that was really lucrative.
Speaker 4: I remember hearing that. In nineteen seventy two, at.
Speaker 5: The end of the year, the staff was told, you
Speaker 5: can't come out today. They're locking everyone in the basement.
Speaker 5: There's a special guest coming. They sealed off two entire floors,
Speaker 5: the seventh and eighth floors. Nobody was allowed up there.
Speaker 5: It finally emerged that the guest was Howard Hughes, that famous, reclusive,
Speaker 5: eccentric billionaire.
Speaker 1: Howard Hughes was worth, by some estimates, as much as
Speaker 1: four billion dollars, making him the richest man in the
Speaker 1: world at the time. He made his fortune in engineering, aviation,
Speaker 1: and massive defense contracts. He even owned a movie studio.
Speaker 6: For years, he was fascinated with Hollywood. A rich playboy,
Speaker 6: dating a bevy of starlets Lana Turner, Catherine Hepburn and
Speaker 6: Ava Gardner, Hughes signed a personal check for almost twenty
Speaker 6: four million dollars to buy himself the Rkos Studios. He
Speaker 6: became a starmaker. Jane Russell was a hit in the
Speaker 6: Hughes picture of the Outlaw. It was frowned on because
Speaker 6: of Russell's famous cleavage. Hughes dubbed Gene Harlow the Platinum
Speaker 6: Blunde and catapulted her to fame in a film called
Speaker 6: Hell's Angels.
Speaker 1: He was also eccentric as hell, a notorious germaphobe, suffering
Speaker 1: from extreme OCD. It's said that he only cut his
Speaker 1: nails and hair once a year.
Speaker 5: He was interested in making some investments in Nicaragua, and
Speaker 5: of course the Samosas were thrilled with this. They felt
Speaker 5: they had hooked a really big fish. He might have
Speaker 5: even wanted to buy the hotel. He said he wanted
Speaker 5: to buy the National Airline. But he was in the
Speaker 5: hotel on that terrible night in December of nineteen seventy
Speaker 5: two when the earthquake happened.
Speaker 1: The Intercontinental is one of the few buildings left standing
Speaker 1: after the earthquakes.
Speaker 5: So the whole city, of course exploded in fire and
Speaker 5: rubble and dust.
Speaker 4: It turned out that Howard Hughes had.
Speaker 5: This tremendous phobia about germs, and that's why they had
Speaker 5: to steal off these floors.
Speaker 4: For him and had special ways to purify the air.
Speaker 4: Suddenly he's surrounded by germs and smoke. He immediately fled
Speaker 4: the country and never came back.
Speaker 1: After the earthquake, the hotel was suddenly everything everywhere all
Speaker 1: at once.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I said it.
Speaker 5: Many countries have find themselves in civil conflicts and draw
Speaker 5: a lot of journalists, develop a kind of a place
Speaker 5: where the journalists hang out, and that tends to be
Speaker 5: the place where other people hang out, like intelligence agents
Speaker 5: and arms dealers and politicians. In a smaller country, it's
Speaker 5: more likely that they'll be just one such place in
Speaker 5: Managua as the war they are exploded. That place was
Speaker 5: the Intercontinental Hotel. The lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel, and
Speaker 5: the breakfast room and the other salons down there on
Speaker 5: the first floor were alive all the time. There were
Speaker 5: a thousand stories unfolding right in that lobby. That's where
Speaker 5: you trade rumors with other journalists. Over lunch. You could
Speaker 5: find Basque gorillas and gorillas from El Salvadora plotting strategy.
Speaker 4: There were diplomatic receptions there at night.
Speaker 5: There were all sorts of adventurers in that place, some Nicaraguan,
Speaker 5: but many from the outside, and everybody who arrived in
Speaker 5: Nicaragua for the first time would always go there. It
Speaker 5: really didn't take long before you were immersed in the
Speaker 5: whole story.
Speaker 4: The guests there were such a variety.
Speaker 5: You had world leaders like Jimmy Carter, who I spent
Speaker 5: an hour with you had assassins.
Speaker 4: There were movie stars, there were athletes.
Speaker 5: Every star who came there came to the Intercontinental. It's
Speaker 5: where I met Susan Sarandon and Bianca Jagger. It was
Speaker 5: really at the center of national life. Then, of course,
Speaker 5: it played a role in the national politics of that era,
Speaker 5: the very turbulent period in the late seventies and early
Speaker 5: eighties when there was a revolution, government changed, and since
Speaker 5: the Intercontinental was the center of everything, it was right
Speaker 5: at the middle of all these changes. One guy tried
Speaker 5: to assassinate Somosa.
Speaker 1: In his New York Times article, Kinzer writes, a flamboyant
Speaker 1: rebel named Fernando Chimorro Rapaccioli quietly checked into rooms seven sixteen,
Speaker 1: closed the door behind him, and began assembling a mortar.
Speaker 1: He had selected a room that overlooked the military headquarters
Speaker 1: of President Anastasio Simosa, hoping to assassinate him by firing
Speaker 1: a rocket into his office. Soldiers immediately converged on the hotel.
Speaker 1: As employees dived for cover, the soldiers sprayed the building
Speaker 1: with gunfire for a full ten minutes. Samosa survived the attack,
Speaker 1: but the handwriting was already on the wall.
Speaker 5: As the government of Somosa collapsed, many of the cabinet,
Speaker 5: ministers and generals sent their families out of the country
Speaker 5: and rather than live at home, since there was no
Speaker 5: one there or anymore, they moved into the Intercontinental Hotel.
Speaker 5: So essentially the entire power elite of Samosa, Nicaragua was
Speaker 5: living in the Intercontinental Hotel in the first months of
Speaker 5: nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 4: Really, there were no staff there. It was open. We
Speaker 4: had the run of the place.
Speaker 5: It was mostly journalists and Samosa government officials, so there
Speaker 5: was nobody manning the front desk. There were no food,
Speaker 5: there were no employees, nobody cleaned the rooms, but somehow
Speaker 5: they kept the place open. At that time, the hotel
Speaker 5: really reflected what was happening in the country as a whole.
Speaker 4: It was no authority, nobody was in charge.
Speaker 1: July nineteenth of seventy nine, Samosa flees Nicaragua and the
Speaker 1: government falls A.
Speaker 4: Few days later.
Speaker 5: The Santanistas had won the revolution and they were in Monagua. Now,
Speaker 5: if they're in Managua, what does that mean. It means
Speaker 5: they're in the Intercontinental Hotel.
Speaker 2: They're all in the lobby and they said, now what
Speaker 2: And one of them says, well, let's form a government.
Speaker 2: Why dodn't it be nine? And Dante's each one the
Speaker 2: head of something. Okay, So you're going to be the
Speaker 2: head of interior ministry, you're going to be the head
Speaker 2: of education, you're going to be And that's how they
Speaker 2: did it, just like that, one afternoon. You're gonna be this,
Speaker 2: You're gonna be Oh, you're gonna be the head of defense,
Speaker 2: You're going to be the head of economics.
Speaker 1: It was a total clusterfuck. Steven Kinzer has one more
Speaker 1: quick story to tell about the hotel, and this one
Speaker 1: will last forever.
Speaker 4: I hadn't been in Nicaragua very long.
Speaker 5: I was in the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel and
Speaker 5: a lot of reporters are around.
Speaker 4: Somebody came along with a sign up sheet.
Speaker 5: If you wanted to get on a bus that was
Speaker 5: going somewhere the next morning to go out and visit
Speaker 5: someplace where something had happened, you had to sign up
Speaker 5: and that sheet would be posted a little bit later.
Speaker 5: So I was going to sign up and then this
Speaker 5: the young, attractive, tall, very thin woman comes up to me, says,
Speaker 5: put my name on it too. Can you just add
Speaker 5: my name on the list when it comes out? And
Speaker 5: I said sure. And then I turned to me. I said,
Speaker 5: wait a minute, what is your name? And she said Cookie?
Speaker 5: And I said Cookie. What she said, don't worry about
Speaker 5: bad just put Cookie. Everybody's gonna know. So at that
Speaker 5: moment began our long friendship.
Speaker 1: Years later, Kinser wrote this about Cookie's impact on the
Speaker 1: news during the nineteen eighties and nineties. Cookie hood was
Speaker 1: the driving force behind the most successful television coverage of
Speaker 1: Central America that appeared anywhere in the United States. Things
Speaker 1: are changing in Nicaragua, but they are also changing in
Speaker 1: the US.
Speaker 7: Mister Chairman, mister Vice President, to be this convention, my
Speaker 7: fellow citizens of this great nation, with a deep awareness
Speaker 7: of the responsibility conferred by your trust, I accept your
Speaker 7: nomination for the presidency of the United States.
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan beats Jimmy Carter in the nineteen eighty election
Speaker 1: and becomes the fortieth President of the United States. There's
Speaker 1: a new sheriff in town, and he doesn't like the Sandinistas.
Speaker 1: I asked Tulane Professor Justin Wolfe about the consequences of
Speaker 1: this election to the future of Nicaragua.
Speaker 8: Ronald Reagan comes into power hardline anti communist American cowboy
Speaker 8: vision right of a robust conservatism and a robust cold
Speaker 8: war hawk. Very quickly, the Reagan administration is trying to
Speaker 8: figure out how to oust the Santinista government, how to
Speaker 8: frame this as a US Soviet proxy struggle and one
Speaker 8: that we need to win. An opposition to the Saninistas emerges,
Speaker 8: but the US sees them as groups to be unified,
Speaker 8: to be trained, to be financed, and to be armed
Speaker 8: to carry out a proxy war to overthrow the Saninistas.
Speaker 8: This seems perfect for the Reagan minus, with people who
Speaker 8: are willing to do the fighting. Freedom fighters as Reagan
Speaker 8: would call them, or they're going to fight this communist
Speaker 8: revolution in Nicaragua. But there is a deep ambivalence within
Speaker 8: the United States. A lot of people think that this
Speaker 8: is a quagmire that the US is going to get
Speaker 8: caught in. They're not certain what the strategic value of
Speaker 8: it is. They're not sure what we're going to get
Speaker 8: out of it, or even if we could win, that
Speaker 8: this could be another Vietnam.
Speaker 1: On December one, nineteen eighty one, President Ronald Reagan signs
Speaker 1: a presidential finding which authorizes covert operations in Nicaragua. The
Speaker 1: plan is to train and fund what is essentially a
Speaker 1: terrorist group in Nicaragua known as the Contrasts. So it
Speaker 1: begins a decade long obsession with a tiny Central American
Speaker 1: country with an economy one fourth the size of Vermont.
Speaker 1: When we last saw Cookie, she was standing in front
Speaker 1: of CBS News producer Carla Ferrell.
Speaker 9: She says, you got the job.
Speaker 2: I need you to come in tomorrow and you're going
Speaker 2: up north. I thought she was sending me to Miami.
Speaker 2: So I come in the next day all dressed up
Speaker 2: in pearls and heels, and she says, why are you
Speaker 2: dressed that way? I said, well, you set up going
Speaker 2: north and going to Miami, right. She goes, no, You're
Speaker 2: going to the Jungles today with the camera crew by yourself.
Speaker 2: And I could see the camera crew off to the
Speaker 2: side and they're laughing. They're just enjoyed the shit about this.
Speaker 2: I said, Okay, give me five minutes.
Speaker 1: I asked Carlo why she hired Cookie and what made
Speaker 1: her special.
Speaker 10: Cookie was so sociable, so tenacious, she was just so
Speaker 10: full of life. She had an amazing personality, gregarious, spicty
Speaker 10: when she needed to be, diplomatic when she needed to
Speaker 10: be She always had the personality, the kind that could
Speaker 10: break through the camera. She was wonderful, whether it was
Speaker 10: in social situations or in work situations, to help bring
Speaker 10: people together. From the beginning. Impressed me as someone who
Speaker 10: would always work hard to get things done.
Speaker 9: Thank goodness.
Speaker 2: I had a change of clothes put on the tennis
Speaker 2: shoes to jeans, and everything was introduced to the Mexican
Speaker 2: Cammebra crew, him and Roberto. Of course they're looking at
Speaker 2: me also like does she know what she's doing? But
Speaker 2: at the same time, she really is pretty. You know,
Speaker 2: this could be fun. Carla said goodbye, and we went
Speaker 2: downstairs and blowed it up into the jeep. They're assuming
Speaker 2: that I know what I'm doing. They are assuming that
Speaker 2: I'm a journalist, and I wasn't. I was being thrown
Speaker 2: into the colosseum to the lions.
Speaker 9: I had not a clue.
Speaker 1: Did you get any instruction from Carla what you were
Speaker 1: looking for or anything?
Speaker 9: None?
Speaker 2: Carla thought I was a journalist too. Job was you're
Speaker 2: a fixer. We need you to translate, We need you,
Speaker 2: you know, to help the crews whenever they need to
Speaker 2: be helped.
Speaker 9: That was it. Bye.
Speaker 1: So Cookie is hired as a fixer and interpreter for
Speaker 1: CBS News. War is Hell. Cookie is about to find
Speaker 1: out what it really looks like. We'll be right back,
Speaker 1: Welcome back. Cookie sets off on her next great adventure
Speaker 1: working for CBS freaking News. She has no idea what
Speaker 1: she's doing, but how hard can it be? At least
Speaker 1: she's not running from the dea with a couple of
Speaker 1: tons of cocaine. Reality is about to punch her in
Speaker 1: the face.
Speaker 2: As we're driving to the Jungles to look for the war.
Speaker 2: We're getting to know each other and they're liking me
Speaker 2: and I'm liking them. We could see that it was
Speaker 2: going to work between us, the three of us. So
Speaker 2: I'm asking questions. They're telling me, this is what we're
Speaker 2: gonna do.
Speaker 9: We're gonna go here.
Speaker 2: At that point, you know, we need you to help
Speaker 2: us with the equipment, and I'm like, no sweat, I
Speaker 2: can carry my own weight.
Speaker 9: I Am not going to be a burden to you guys.
Speaker 2: But obviously I'm going on this great adventure, which I
Speaker 2: think is if I'm great adventure, I have literally no
Speaker 2: idea what I'm getting into. So we proceed to drive
Speaker 2: and drive and drive.
Speaker 9: And we're getting deeper into the jungle.
Speaker 2: I'm being told, you know, Cookie, sometimes it's not so
Speaker 2: easy for us to find what we're looking for.
Speaker 9: We've actually called this war the ever elusive war.
Speaker 2: We can hear it, we just have a hard time
Speaker 2: finding it. And I said, hey, no sweat, we'll find it.
Speaker 2: As we we got in deeper and deeper, the camera
Speaker 2: crew got less funny, less upbeat. They got very serious,
Speaker 2: and you know, they said, these are certain things that
Speaker 2: you're gonna have to know.
Speaker 9: We tell you to be quiet. Be quiet when we
Speaker 9: tell you to.
Speaker 2: Hit the ground, hit the ground, win in doubt, just
Speaker 2: do what we do.
Speaker 1: So hit the ground, meaning in case you're getting shot at,
Speaker 1: in case there's danger, in case we.
Speaker 2: Run into the enemy. Whatever we do, you do it.
Speaker 2: Whatever we whisper it to you to do, you do it.
Speaker 1: Did they give you any positive Does your mind start
Speaker 1: racing about what you're getting into?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm still thinking, great adventure, How hard can this be?
Speaker 2: I can follow instructions. I still really didn't have a clue.
Speaker 2: Even if I would have been told you're going into
Speaker 2: a war. You're going to see dead people. Even if
Speaker 2: I had been told that, it's one thing to be
Speaker 2: told it, it's another thing to actually see it and
Speaker 2: live through it.
Speaker 9: And that happened, And that's what happened.
Speaker 2: We could hear some fighting, we could hear weapons, we
Speaker 2: could hear shots, but we.
Speaker 9: Knew that it was far away.
Speaker 2: At one point we got out of the g to
Speaker 2: cover some ground see what we could find. I know
Speaker 2: what gunfire sounds like, but what struck me is I
Speaker 2: kept hearing yelling like one side yelling to the other side.
Speaker 2: Come get me, you son of a bitch. No, you
Speaker 2: come get me, you son of a bitch. Oi in
Speaker 2: abuta Benita Paraka to mother day Benita off Paraka.
Speaker 9: You come here, No fuck your mother, you come here.
Speaker 9: You know, trash talk, and.
Speaker 2: It all sounded the same, same accent, same lingo, same
Speaker 2: street talk. And that's when I first started to realize, Wait,
Speaker 2: this is a civil war.
Speaker 9: This is brother fighting brother.
Speaker 1: Fire stops, there's an eerie quiet. Cookie and her crew
Speaker 1: make their way toward the battle scene.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden, we could see ahead of us
Speaker 2: what looked like a big pile of something.
Speaker 9: I didn't know what it was. Obviously.
Speaker 2: I think the crew knew what it was. They were
Speaker 2: very seasoned war journalists. It was a pile of dead bodies.
Speaker 2: I've seen dead people before, but not like that. I
Speaker 2: was not prepared for that. It was at that moment
Speaker 2: I started to lose a little of my faith.
Speaker 3: Describe what you saw.
Speaker 2: Men, women, children, all in a pile. Looked like civilians
Speaker 2: to me, I didn't see soldiers. The emotions just like, fuck,
Speaker 2: what have I gotten myself into here? The Mexicans at
Speaker 2: that point said to me when they saw that, I
Speaker 2: was kind of shocked at what I was seeing. This
Speaker 2: is your first but it's not going to be your
Speaker 2: last time seeing what you're seeing right now.
Speaker 9: And honestly, this is nothing.
Speaker 2: Compared to what you're going to see in the future
Speaker 2: if you last with us, if you stay with us,
Speaker 2: So get ready because this is what it's all about.
Speaker 2: This really is war, This really is dead people, this
Speaker 2: really is massacres.
Speaker 9: Am I going to be able to pull this off? Fuck? Yeah,
Speaker 9: I could pull this.
Speaker 1: Off for Cookie. It was first blood, but it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be the last. Back in the CBS office, there was
Speaker 1: another kind of war.
Speaker 2: So I was hired to sort of be a grunt
Speaker 2: because the guy that was running the office, his name
Speaker 2: was Martin Barretto, was a nice guy. I grew up
Speaker 2: with him. He was part of the Oligark families. But
Speaker 2: he didn't like to get his hands dirty, and so
Speaker 2: he would have all these little minions to do all
Speaker 2: his dirty work, you know, the drivers, the fixers, which
Speaker 2: was what I became.
Speaker 9: And then he wanted me to go with the camera.
Speaker 2: Crews, with or without a correspondent and just go and
Speaker 2: get material for stories. Martine was a very disagreeable person.
Speaker 2: You could be on good terms with the correspondents and
Speaker 2: the producers, but if the crews and the drivers dislike you,
Speaker 2: you've got a problem because those are the people that
Speaker 2: are going to get you the story.
Speaker 9: And if they don't like you, then you're up shit's creek.
Speaker 2: You've got nothing to offer the correspondent or the producer.
Speaker 9: Or the editor.
Speaker 3: Well when did it change?
Speaker 9: Larry Doyle comes to town.
Speaker 2: He was the gentleman that we spoke about at the
Speaker 2: party who offered.
Speaker 9: Me the job.
Speaker 2: We went out into the boon docs and you know,
Speaker 2: we just got along famously. I remember that we stopped
Speaker 2: in some you know, shack to get something to eat.
Speaker 2: Larry said, well, what's on the menu, and there was
Speaker 2: no menu. The lady said, it's a roscomboyo chicken and rice.
Speaker 2: Next thing, you know, we hear the chicken being killed,
Speaker 2: you know, and plucked and to make the lunch. And
Speaker 2: then the jukebox wasn't working, and so I went to
Speaker 2: it and I kicked it. Larry Doyle screams out, you
Speaker 2: are my kind of broad. I was right in bringing
Speaker 2: you in. He hated the guy that was running the
Speaker 2: CBS office because that guy did like to get his
Speaker 2: hands dirty or go out or do anything. He just
Speaker 2: kept saying, you should be running this office, you should
Speaker 2: be doing this.
Speaker 1: Larry Doyle was a force of nature and he always
Speaker 1: got what he wanted.
Speaker 2: Martine was becoming less interested in getting the job done,
Speaker 2: more interested in entertaining and you know, partying in a
Speaker 2: different way than I partied.
Speaker 3: So everybody's pitching about Martine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, bitching or complaining or just making an observation,
Speaker 2: because not everybody had a problem with him. They wanted
Speaker 2: more of Cookie and less of Martine. Sure we could
Speaker 2: have Cookie out in the jungle, but we also want
Speaker 2: to deal with Cookie directly in the offices at the
Speaker 2: Inner Collin and Larry was also behind my back and
Speaker 2: obviously behind Martine's back, was making sure that Martine was
Speaker 2: on his way out. And when he started to get
Speaker 2: paranoid and jealous, things got worse. At one point he
Speaker 2: called somebody either in New York or Miami and said,
Speaker 2: it's me or her. We can't both work in this office.
Speaker 2: And unfortunately they chose me and he was out. And
Speaker 2: so Larry's says, you're going to be the one running
Speaker 2: the show here. So he got rid of our team
Speaker 2: quick and put me in charge. Now, everyone assumed that
Speaker 2: I was a journalist. To this day, there are former
Speaker 2: colleagues that still think I studied journalism. I didn't know
Speaker 2: anything about journalism, but I was a fast learner, and
Speaker 2: having a mentor like Larry Doyle who taught me everything everything,
Speaker 2: And then the mere fact that I would get my
Speaker 2: hands dirty and go with the crews and I was
Speaker 2: a grunt like them and go into the jungles and
Speaker 2: rough it.
Speaker 9: I learned from them too.
Speaker 3: Well, let's talk a little bit about Larry. Now.
Speaker 1: From what I understand, Larry had quite a colorful career already.
Speaker 3: He had been in Vietnam.
Speaker 1: Yes, and he had made quite a name for himself
Speaker 1: as a war correspondent.
Speaker 2: Yes, and he was the epitome of a war correspondent.
Speaker 2: He didn't know the word danger. He just plowed through
Speaker 2: anything with anybody.
Speaker 3: You didn't give a shit about the rules.
Speaker 2: Nothing, And CBS knew that he was breaking rules, but
Speaker 2: they didn't care because he always brought home the story.
Speaker 1: In researching Larry, he gets fired all the time, all
Speaker 1: the time, but they'd always bring him back and always ask.
Speaker 2: For him to come back because he was the epitome
Speaker 2: of a war correspondent.
Speaker 1: So would you say that he taught you what?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 9: He took me under his wing.
Speaker 2: He would not do a story unless I was right
Speaker 2: there with him, and Larry was one of many that
Speaker 2: would not go to cover any story unless I was
Speaker 2: with them.
Speaker 9: He taught me everything, he knew everything.
Speaker 2: Being a woman at that time, especially being a war correspondent,
Speaker 2: you had to be one of the guys. You couldn't
Speaker 2: be frail, you couldn't be a chick. You just had
Speaker 2: to be one of the guys. And that didn't just
Speaker 2: mean carrying your own weight, being able to carry the
Speaker 2: equipment it meant hiking up through jungles, hiking up mountains
Speaker 2: just meant being one.
Speaker 9: Of the guys.
Speaker 3: Was there sexual harassment.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say yes to that, but at the time
Speaker 2: I didn't know that that's what that was.
Speaker 9: I grew up with five brothers.
Speaker 3: I was always you were harassed your whole life.
Speaker 2: I was harassed my whole life. And I was always
Speaker 2: more of a guy than a girl.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 2: I was a tomboy and that comes, you know, from
Speaker 2: my father dynamic. I always had to prove that I
Speaker 2: could do anything as well as or better than any man.
Speaker 1: Were you intimidating to some of these guys.
Speaker 2: Oh oh yes, oh yes, and on any level, not
Speaker 2: just as a correspondent, but as a female. Yes, I
Speaker 2: was quite overwhelming. But I've always been that way, so
Speaker 2: it wasn't anything new for me. It was something brand
Speaker 2: new for humble soldiers that have never experienced strong women.
Speaker 9: I remember going.
Speaker 2: Through roadblocks getting out of the jeep wearing a little
Speaker 2: wife beater T shirt, no bra walkmen, being stopped by
Speaker 2: the soldiers and they'd say, you can't go past this roadblock,
Speaker 2: and I would bullshit my way, saying, oh, I've got
Speaker 2: orders from the Minister of Interior, and you don't want
Speaker 2: to call him because if you call him, you're gonna
Speaker 2: get in trouble.
Speaker 9: You might as well just let me through.
Speaker 2: And you know what, here you hold on to my walkman,
Speaker 2: here's some American cigarettes.
Speaker 9: Will be back.
Speaker 2: I could get in and out of any roadblock. Larry
Speaker 2: loved that. Larry loved it. He would just sit back
Speaker 2: and laugh. He would let me do all the work.
Speaker 2: He didn't have to do all the work anymore.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, wow, man, amazing.
Speaker 9: It was fun.
Speaker 1: Okay, so this is happening, and you see your star
Speaker 1: rising in terms of getting in on the stories, people
Speaker 1: wanting to work with you. You right, demanding de Manning to
Speaker 1: work with you. When does it change from that to hey,
Speaker 1: I'm running this show now?
Speaker 2: Fairly quickly, within a year, I had camera crews that
Speaker 2: the only way they would come is if I was there.
Speaker 2: There would always be a camera crew in residence, different ones,
Speaker 2: but they would come and stay for six weeks, two months.
Speaker 9: Then they'd rotate them. But none of these crews wanted
Speaker 9: to come in unless.
Speaker 1: I was there because if you weren't there, who would
Speaker 1: they go with? Exactly Cookie was in charge. Now if
Speaker 1: they only knew who was running the news in Nicaragua.
Speaker 1: But her future would be shaped by two very important stories,
Speaker 1: one a tragedy and one a triumph.
Speaker 3: We'll be right.
Speaker 1: Back, Welcome back. Cookie may be in charge, but this
Speaker 1: job is about to get a lot harder. Just another
Speaker 1: day looking for the ever elusive war. This time she's
Speaker 1: going to find it, and something terrible has happened.
Speaker 3: Where are you?
Speaker 9: Deep in the jungles of Nicaragua, in the middle.
Speaker 1: Of nowhere, a little farming town.
Speaker 9: Or no, not even a town. You wouldn't even call
Speaker 9: it a village. It was that remote.
Speaker 2: No paved streets, all dirt roads, shacks, shanties.
Speaker 1: You just rolled into the aftermath of a horrible crime.
Speaker 3: What did you see?
Speaker 2: Well, I saw dead civilians, some dead soldiers, but a
Speaker 2: lot of civilians, children massacred, women massacred like that famous
Speaker 2: bat Vietnam.
Speaker 11: Melai Asafia Themese official. The military chief of Kueng Nai
Speaker 11: Province today denied charges that American soldiers on the ground
Speaker 11: executed several hundred villagers in March of nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 11: The province chief said the civilians died in air and
Speaker 11: artillery strikes. That leveled the village after a number of
Speaker 11: Americans had been killed there by Vietcong snipers. The villager's
Speaker 11: version of the incident was given by survivors yesterday. They said,
Speaker 11: a patrol of one hundred Americans stormed into the hamlet,
Speaker 11: drove all the residents out of their huts, then opened
Speaker 11: fire with automatic weapons. Two American soldiers, one an officer,
Speaker 11: the other an enlisted man, are being held in this
Speaker 11: country in connection with the case, but neither has been
Speaker 11: brought to trial.
Speaker 1: It was one of the darkest days of the Vietnam War.
Speaker 1: More than five hundred unarmed civilians were killed, some were
Speaker 1: raped and mutilated. Twenty six soldiers were charged, but only
Speaker 1: thee tenant, William Cally Junior, was convicted. He was sentenced
Speaker 1: to life in prison, but spent only three and a
Speaker 1: half years under house arrest. His sentence was commuted by
Speaker 1: President Nixon. The story prompted worldwide outrage, especially in America,
Speaker 1: and caused the tide of popular opinion to turn against
Speaker 1: an already unpopular war. Back in Nicaragua, Cookie faces the
Speaker 1: consequences of another unnecessary American intervention.
Speaker 2: People that didn't deserve to die or had nothing to
Speaker 2: do with it.
Speaker 9: They were just all killed.
Speaker 2: The concures were ruthless though, even though some were Nicaragua
Speaker 2: and some were from Honduras, they were trained by the CIA.
Speaker 9: CIA. Don't play.
Speaker 2: The women are wailing, their children have been killed, their
Speaker 2: husbands have been killed. I'm told, go record them wailing
Speaker 2: and crying. Wait, how can I just start filming and
Speaker 2: recording these women wailing without first comforting them?
Speaker 9: So I put down the microphone.
Speaker 2: I'd comfort them a little bit, you know, hog them
Speaker 2: it's going to be okay, and then ask them permission,
Speaker 2: can I record you?
Speaker 3: So you basically just cried with them.
Speaker 2: I didn't cry, but I comforted them. Obviously, I was
Speaker 2: crying and dying on the inside.
Speaker 1: The story played on the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather.
Speaker 12: David Dick in Nicaragua reports tonight on a tragedy of war,
Speaker 12: a massacre yesterday that has changed one village forever.
Speaker 13: Some of the bodies from the massacre began arriving here
Speaker 13: early this morning. In Hinotega, about one hundred miles south
Speaker 13: of the Honduran border, a mother grieved for her seventeen
Speaker 13: year old son. She said he was the only one
Speaker 13: of her children who had not left her, but now
Speaker 13: he was gone. A young woman nineteen years old lost
Speaker 13: her husband. He was also nineteen. She is pregnant. Her
Speaker 13: child will be born in December. She said, this is
Speaker 13: all I have left of him.
Speaker 2: As a journalist, you're supposed to remain neutral. You're supposed
Speaker 2: to be objective. You're not supposed to integrate yourself into
Speaker 2: the story. And I remember being pulled aside several times,
Speaker 2: not just on that trip, but throughout my first years
Speaker 2: of my career.
Speaker 9: You cannot do that. You have to be objective. And
Speaker 9: I said, look, the moment I can't.
Speaker 2: Feel the story, feel emotional about the story, or help
Speaker 2: these people.
Speaker 9: I'm out.
Speaker 2: So CBS didn't want to lose me, so they'd give
Speaker 2: me a little rope, and then that little bit of
Speaker 2: rope became more rope and more rope, and finally they
Speaker 2: knew my methods. My stories were always exclusives. They always
Speaker 2: got on the air, whereas the other networks they wouldn't
Speaker 2: get exclusives. Their stories may not lead on the evening news,
Speaker 2: but mine always did.
Speaker 1: When you saw this and you had this experience, did
Speaker 1: that change you, Did that make you look at the
Speaker 1: world differently.
Speaker 2: I just rolled with the punches I've always throughout that
Speaker 2: whole career of mine. I just was rolling with it
Speaker 2: because I knew that the moment I no longer felt anything,
Speaker 2: and that I could.
Speaker 9: Just cover a story, just get the story, go in and.
Speaker 2: Go out, then I knew it would be over for
Speaker 2: me as a human being. So the fact that I
Speaker 2: was feeling for these people and that the emotions were coming,
Speaker 2: I was dying on the inside and knowing that my
Speaker 2: own country.
Speaker 1: Was doing this and this is one place, one place,
Speaker 1: God knows what's going on.
Speaker 2: And my Nicaraguan side felt for these people, and then
Speaker 2: my US side is so angry.
Speaker 9: I'm a part of that.
Speaker 2: And the one thing about the Nicaraguans, the poor, the humble,
Speaker 2: the ones that were the victims of war, never held
Speaker 2: it against us that we were American. Obviously because I'm
Speaker 2: speaking Spanish like they do, they think I'm one of them.
Speaker 2: But I'm with camera crews that are Americans, I'm speaking English.
Speaker 2: They never once held it against us. Oh, your country's
Speaker 2: the one that's do it.
Speaker 9: Never.
Speaker 3: That says a lot about the people.
Speaker 9: Never. Never.
Speaker 2: They would feed us if we were hungry, they would
Speaker 2: give us something to drink from their meager shacks. If
Speaker 2: we were thirsty, they would give us their.
Speaker 9: Bed that was on a floor.
Speaker 2: The spirit was just overpowering, overwhelming to me. What I
Speaker 2: did come to realize, no matter where war is in
Speaker 2: the world, no matter where war is in history, the
Speaker 2: people that get fucked, or the poor people, whether it
Speaker 2: be because they're victims or they're massacred, or because they're
Speaker 2: sent to the front line, they're always the ones that
Speaker 2: get fucked.
Speaker 1: As the Contra war gathers momentum, the US gets deeper
Speaker 1: and deeper into the quagmire of Central America. But so
Speaker 1: are the Russians sending advisors, arms, and economic support. The
Speaker 1: Sandinistas deny it. But Cooking and the journalists covering the
Speaker 1: war or looking for the smoking gun, tell me about
Speaker 1: that first big scoop.
Speaker 2: Well, we did a lot of little stories, things that
Speaker 2: we weren't expecting to find. But then there came some
Speaker 2: rumors that the Sandinistas were getting help from the Russians,
Speaker 2: from the Cubans, from a rand from anybody that the
Speaker 2: US didn't like.
Speaker 1: From what I read, the Nicaragua was really locked down.
Speaker 1: So if they didn't want you to see something it
Speaker 1: was very hard to see.
Speaker 3: It is that true?
Speaker 9: That is correct.
Speaker 2: For instance, we'd heard that they were possibly some Russian
Speaker 2: ships at the port of Corinto. I remember myself, the
Speaker 2: crew and maybe some other journalists driving to Corinto to
Speaker 2: see what was going on, because we had also heard
Speaker 2: about possibly these ports having been mined by the US,
Speaker 2: which is pretty much against the Geneva Convention you can't
Speaker 2: put mines in foreign ports.
Speaker 1: According to The Washington Post, the CIA played a direct
Speaker 1: role in the laying of underwater mines in Nicaraguan ports,
Speaker 1: damaging at least eight ships. The CIA did this without
Speaker 1: the approval of Congressional intelligence committees, as the law required,
Speaker 1: eventually leading to Congress cutting off funding for the contrast.
Speaker 2: That sort of sets up the story. And I remember
Speaker 2: we tried to get to the port and we weren't
Speaker 2: allowed even within a mile of it.
Speaker 9: People are being turned back.
Speaker 2: One of the few times I couldn't talk myself into
Speaker 2: getting through.
Speaker 9: Nicaragua had journalists from.
Speaker 2: All over the world, not just regular journalists like myself
Speaker 2: and networks and you know, ap UPI and photographers, but
Speaker 2: also there were journalists from countries that were mortal enemies
Speaker 2: of the us. The camaraderie between all journalists, no matter
Speaker 2: where they were from, was the same. We're all in
Speaker 2: this together. So I had become friends with some Cuban
Speaker 2: nationals from the island, which is different from Cuban Americans
Speaker 2: from Miami. This one particular guy and I we really
Speaker 2: kind of hit it off. We started to see each
Speaker 2: other here and there, and I was sort of kind
Speaker 2: of done with him, and then one day he comes
Speaker 2: up to me at a press conference in the city
Speaker 2: and says, you know, I've got something that you know
Speaker 2: you may be interested in, and I'm like, what is it?
Speaker 2: He says, I'm just going to give you this tape.
Speaker 2: Don't look at it here, don't open it here. It's
Speaker 2: something that you've been looking for. And so I put
Speaker 2: it away, didn't give it a second thought, got back
Speaker 2: to the hotel a few hours later and we opened
Speaker 2: it up, and it's video of a Russian ship at
Speaker 2: the Port of Corinto that myself and many other journalists
Speaker 2: had been warning.
Speaker 9: To get proof of.
Speaker 2: Showed it to Carla, who was in town at that
Speaker 2: particular time, and I said, you're not going to believe this,
Speaker 2: but I've got Cuban TV footage of the proof that
Speaker 2: there's a Russian ship in port, and she couldn't believe it,
Speaker 2: and the crew couldn't believe it, So sure enough we
Speaker 2: put it in and there it was.
Speaker 1: The story played on the CBS evening News that very night.
Speaker 12: A US naval battlegroup headed by the carrier Ranger has
Speaker 12: been maneuvering off Nicaragua's west coast for fourteen days. This
Speaker 12: had been officially described repeatedly as routine exercises. Today, the
Speaker 12: Pentagon confirmed a warship confrontation with the Soviet Crater. One
Speaker 12: of the destroyers escorting the Ranger Ute questioned the Russian
Speaker 12: cargo ship in international waters, then followed it to Nicaragua's
Speaker 12: twelve mile territorial limit.
Speaker 14: The Alexander Uljanov, shown passing through the Panama Canal last
Speaker 14: week on its way to Nicaragua, has been the object
Speaker 14: of much attention since President Reagan said it was carrying
Speaker 14: helicopters and other military equipment. Coarnto is this country's major
Speaker 14: port city. These scenes from the purchased videotape show East
Speaker 14: German and Soviet vessels at the main pier. Again, only
Speaker 14: non military cargo was seen, despite the denials. It's clear
Speaker 14: the Nicaraguan army has lots of Soviet military hardware.
Speaker 3: How it gets here is less clear.
Speaker 14: Richard Wagner, CBS News, Managua.
Speaker 1: The Nicaraguan government denied it, of course, but for the
Speaker 1: first time the US had proof that the Russians were
Speaker 1: supporting the Sandinistas. It was huge. The Managua CBS office
Speaker 1: received a telex the next day. It read clean Kill, Congratulations,
Speaker 1: thanks courage, signed by SEB News icon Dan Rather.
Speaker 9: That was very satisfying and.
Speaker 3: What did it tell you about yourself?
Speaker 2: What I felt initially was I hope nobody thinks I
Speaker 2: got this story because I slept with the guy.
Speaker 9: That's not what happened.
Speaker 3: But you did sleep with him.
Speaker 9: But I did sleep.
Speaker 2: With him, But I never dreamed that he was going
Speaker 2: to throw this in my laugh. And I think he
Speaker 2: kind of threw it in my lap because I had
Speaker 2: kind of, you know, dumped it. It was one of
Speaker 2: my first major scoops. And then, of course the Dan
Speaker 2: Rather congratulatory telex was just icing.
Speaker 9: On the cave. I knew at that moment that I
Speaker 9: had made It's.
Speaker 1: Kind of a validation of the relationships that you.
Speaker 2: Create and that even though I wasn't quite sure if
Speaker 2: I was a journalist, everyone else around me was damn
Speaker 2: sure that I was.
Speaker 1: So Cookie finds a smoking gun an esta a bona fides,
Speaker 1: But in war sometimes that gun is shooting at you.
Speaker 1: Next time on Journalista.
Speaker 2: All I know is that we were up in the air.
Speaker 2: I heard three somethings. I looked at one soldier and
Speaker 2: I said, that's not a.
Speaker 9: Good sound, is it? And he went white and he said, no,
Speaker 9: We're going down. What do you mean We're going down?
Speaker 1: The Journalista podcast features the stories and voice of Cookie Hood.
Speaker 1: Narrated by Steven Esteb, Produced by Sean J.
Speaker 3: Donnelly.
Speaker 1: Executive producers Jason Wagensback, Roy Laughlin and Ellen k iHeart.
Speaker 1: Executive producer Tyler Klang. Written and edited by Steven Esteb.
Speaker 1: Music by Jay Weigel, Associate producer in sound design Steven Tanti,
Speaker 1: Sound mixing by Jesse Solan Snyder. Special guest Stephen Kinzer
Speaker 1: Tulain history Professor Justin Wolfe, Carla Ferrell. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Esplanade Studios, The Ranch Studios, Jason Gerwitz, Kyle Frederick, Zach Slaff.
Speaker 1: This is a production of Journalista Podcast LLC and iHeartRadio,