The Smoking Gun

A CIA plane is shot down over Nicaragua, and the rush is on to get the biggest story of the decade.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is a production of Journalista Podcast LLC and iHeartRadio.

(00:36):
Welcome back to the Journalista Podcast. Well, the smoking gun
everyone's been looking for has just been shot down by
a shoulder mounted missile, and every journalist in the Western
hemisphere is after that story. So let's talk about the

(00:58):
biggest story of the eighties, the one that sort of
defines your career.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well, I would have to say it was the Hasenfu story.
For those that don't know the background, we'd been covering
this war for a decade maybe less, the Sandinistas always
maintaining that it was the US financing the contras that
were attacking Nicaragua and the Sandinistas and the civilians and

(01:24):
everybody there, but there had never been any concrete proof.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
So for you guys, the journalists on the ground, everybody
knows this is happening, they just can't prove it.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
We all know, just like the Sandinistas know, just like
everybody knows, that the US is involved, but there was
never any concrete proof.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
So the worst kept secret in Nicaragua, worst kept secret.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
But also all the journalists and of course all the
Sandinistas wanted to get this proof to say, hey, we
told you so one day I'm in Miami vacation, took
my son Chico. I'm on vacation, but I'm still hanging
out at the CBS bureau. It's like we can't get

(02:07):
away from it, you know. So I believe it was
a Thursday. I'm not sure Wednesday or Thursday. I get
a call from someone in nicarag was saying, have you heard.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
That someone was Cookie's assistant Alejandro Belly aka Chilean.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
The day that Casimphus came down, I was in the office.

Speaker 4 (02:27):
Cookie wasn't.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
I got the phone call, and we were the first
service that got the phone call. It was the Ministry
of Defense and the Army.

Speaker 4 (02:36):
We knew very well.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Rosa Plastos, who was in chargeable doing relationes Pulicas de
l Hersito. Her office would call in asking for Cookie.
Cooky wasn't there. So they know me, and they say,
you know, we're organizing a pool of the networks. We
cannot take everyone. We're asking you to lead it. But
that is her connection. They trusted her, I feel, and

(02:57):
of course she had better connections. Of course she would
shmush mush, Daniella when she would be there.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
You know, the Sandinistas have proof now that the US
is involved because they caught an American associated with the
CIA kicking out supplies over Contra territory.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
From a plane. Correct, So basically, the back ass of
the plane is open and he's kicking out the kicking.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
This was this guy's specialty. He kicked out supplies. He
kicked out propaganda over Sandinista territory because you want to
win over the Sandinistas. But he also kicked out supplies.

Speaker 5 (03:33):
For the Contras. The plane gets shot down.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
The pilot and another person on the flight didn't have parachutes,
but this guy, Eugene hazard Fus, for some reason, made
the decision before he left to wear a parachute, which
saved his life. So when the plane gets shot down,
it crashes, the pilot and the other guy were killed instantly.

(03:57):
Hazard Fus parachuted into Sandinista territory. This poor guy, he's
the low man on the totopole, you know, a grunt,
a kicker, which wasn't a very big important.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Job, certainly not glamorous.

Speaker 5 (04:14):
Not glamorous.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
He survives because of the parachute, but he is convinced
that as soon as he's caught, he will be shot
on site, so he's hiding in some shack. Of course,
the Sandinistas come upon him. He's still convinced they're going
to kill him, and they don't because they also knew
what they had. This was the first time that these

(04:37):
guys are going to be able to prove prove positive
with the human being that the US was involved in
the war.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
You may have seen the iconic photo of Hasenfus being
let out of the jungle by Sandinistas. Lou Demataeus tells
us how it came to be.

Speaker 6 (04:55):
So we're flying in. Of course it's out in the jungle.
The hell copter's got a land at the highest point
to be like a hilltop that's been cleared by the
army guys, so the helicopter could land. As we're coming in,
I can see down by the river some activity, and
I saw a really tall guy, and there were some

(05:16):
shorter guys and farmy fatigues, and so I thought, well,
that's that.

Speaker 4 (05:21):
Must be the guy.

Speaker 6 (05:22):
So we're getting off the helicopter and the har Republic
Relation guys are going we want to have a press conference.

Speaker 4 (05:29):
Everybody over here. We're going to have a press conference.

Speaker 6 (05:31):
But I mean, as I was flying in, I saw
that destroyed plane and I saw it and I saw
the tail section of fuselage, and I saw some soldiers
over there, and I said, well, what am I going
to be going to wait in the press conference?

Speaker 4 (05:45):
Or am I going to go get photographs?

Speaker 6 (05:48):
And I remember I was running towards where I had
seen the plane, and I saw these boots, all these
army boots, and I remember thinking, what.

Speaker 4 (05:58):
Are all these army boots doing.

Speaker 6 (06:00):
It's very strange, And of course I realized later as
it was the Contra supply plane, and that was part
of what they were supplying, these guys with arms and munitions,
but also you know, things like army boots. I got
to where the tail section was and a big part
of the plane they were pulling rifles out, and then
there was a guy on the tail section and he

(06:22):
was sort of guarding with this AK forty seven. So
I saw this tarp over these bodies and I could
see like boots sticking out from the tarp.

Speaker 4 (06:33):
Those are guys who didn't make it.

Speaker 6 (06:35):
I took the pictures of the tarp, you know, with
the boots sticking out, and I took some other stuff
as soon as I got back and there was a
whole line of you know, probably three TV.

Speaker 4 (06:47):
Crews, and there were a bunch of photographers.

Speaker 6 (06:50):
But then we saw from down where the river was,
which was a low point, we saw them bringing Hassimpus
up the hill to where the hill copters were. They
had his hands tied and then they were leading him,
and so I just started photographing.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Low's photograph became a synonymous with the Iron Contra affair,
as the one with Oliver North standing in front of
Congress with his hand in the air. This moment was
the beginning of the unraveling of the Reagan administration's illegal
operation to fund and supply the contrasts.

Speaker 6 (07:22):
It turns out the guy who was in front bringing
him up the hill, which you see in that photograph,
he is actually the one who fired the shoulder mounted
a missile, the sam that hit the plane. He was
being rewarded for this incredible heat. They brought him up.
They let John ask a couple of questions.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
That's John Seisloff, the CBS producer you've met in earlier episodes,
like when Cookie was busted for having some weed, you know,
the Quaker. The first question was, can you tell us
your name?

Speaker 4 (07:57):
My name is Jeane Hausen plus Barnett, Wisconsin.

Speaker 7 (08:04):
If you tell a name.

Speaker 4 (08:09):
Shot out of the sky. He didn't know what they
were going to do to him.

Speaker 6 (08:13):
When you see the the Conic photo, if you look
at him, he looks really worried because he thought there's
a good chance they were just gonna plow him away.
But when he saw the journalists, then he like relaxed.
I'm sure he thought, well, I guess they're not gonna
kill me. Is they gonna make it out of here?
Because they're not gonna shoot me in front of these journalists. Yeah,

(08:35):
it's told demeanor changed. And then like I said, I mean,
it was his moment. I mean, it's a great line.
He said, I got shot out of the sky. I mean,
you know, it was almost like a movie moment, but
it wasn't. It was reality.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
The Washington Post wrote this about the historic moment.

Speaker 8 (08:53):
Captured American put on display by Nicaragua. Eugene Haussenfuss, an
American captured by Nicaraguan troops, appeared briefly at a press
conference here late today, and the Sandinista military displayed credentials
identifying him and the American co pilot who died in
a downed plain Sunday, as US military advisors in El Salvador.

(09:14):
A second American the pilot, also was killed, according to
Nicaragua officials. The Nicaraguan government charged that the flight was
operated by the CIA to resupply US backed rebels known
as Contras inside Nicaragua. Osinphus is the first American prisoner
of war the leftist Sandinista government is known to have
captured in five years of fighting against the Contras.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
The Sandinista army commander who captured Hazenfus was Lieutenant Colonel
Roberto Calderon. If that name sounds familiar, he was the
guy that rescued Cookie after the helicopter crash. He said
they recovered seventy new Soviet made assault rifles, one hundred
thousand rounds of ammunition, a dozen PG seven rockets, and
one hundred and fifty pairs of boots. The flo I

(10:00):
had originated from a base in El Salvador. The US
Embassy in El Salvador immediately released a statement saying Hasenfus
is not part of the US military group here. We
don't know who he is. The Embassy in Monagua said
neither the airplane, nor its crew and cargo were financed
by the US government. Hasenfus's wife, Sally, reached out for help.

Speaker 9 (10:21):
The next morning, I tried to call President Reagan. I thought, well,
it's the only place I'm going to get answers. He's
you know, I should be able to trust him. He's
the president. I knew.

Speaker 10 (10:35):
He knew.

Speaker 9 (10:36):
He put me in touch with a man named Elliot Abrams.
He said, I don't know who you are, and I
don't know what you're talking about. I got angry, and
before I hung up, he did admit that he knew
what I was talking about, and he kept warning me that,
you know, be careful of the press, and you know,
be careful what you say, be careful what you do.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
Elliott Abrams was the Assistant Secretary of State. What Sally
didn't know was that he was secretly involved in the
whole contrast scheme. In other words, part of the problem,
not the solution. You know, it's the biggest story of
the decade.

Speaker 5 (11:09):
I know it's going to be the biggest story of
the decade.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
And you also know that every journalist in the world,
certainly in Nicaragua and all the Western journalists covering.

Speaker 5 (11:19):
It that was there and that I knew we're going
to be flying in.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
Everybody wanted that. Everybody knew what it was, everyone knew
what the consequences were.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
Of course, the first time it proof positive us has evolved.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
George Bosa, soundman for the CBS Dream Team, was a
witness to the mayhem.

Speaker 11 (11:38):
There were people in the CBS chasing that. Even News
was chasing them. Last fifty seventh was chasing them. We
were in the office every day, and our office people
are Bureau was working night and day to get that interview.
So was every other journalist in the country. And there
were a lot of big names there from all the
other networks. Everybody and their mother was chasing that story,
including the New York Times Washington Post.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
This brings us back to our favorite CBS News correspondent,
Jane Wallace, who had been circling the story for years.

Speaker 7 (12:07):
I am in my office in New York City. I
know exactly what this guy was doing there. I know
that he's working for Ali North's network and that they're
spook related. We're not sure exactly what level of the
White House above Ali knows about this operation, but we

(12:27):
know who Haus and Frus is the minute. They're pulling
them around by the rope. I'm trying to get on
a plane to Monogua. I'm trying to go through Miami
to get to Nicaragua. CBS is not letting me fly.
I owed them expense reports. Expense reports were the bane
of everybody's existence, just hideously boring to do, down to

(12:51):
the last centavo. They are not letting me put anything
on my American Express card to get there.

Speaker 4 (13:00):
Hold on, let me, let me get this straight.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
The biggest story of the eighties is unfolding in front
of your face, and I.

Speaker 7 (13:05):
Can't get on a plane because I can't buy the
ticket yet. It was breath taking me, stupid. I'm sure
I spoke to Manny. I'm sure as spoke to Leslie.
We're all trying to get there as fast as we could.
We knew exactly what the story was. I mean, you know,
not the guy's details in his hometown, but we knew
what he was doing there and why you fell out

(13:26):
of that plane when he hit the ground. It was
so frustrating. My eyes were bulging with a desire to
get there and to get this story. We'd been waiting,
we'd been taking all the Knox as if we had
reported this all, because we'd reported it closer than anybody
else had, at least as far as I know, And

(13:48):
if somebody was further ahead on the story than us,
I'd love to know about it now, because I would
have missed it.

Speaker 11 (13:54):
Then.

Speaker 7 (13:55):
We wanted Hasenfuss, no question as CBS won't let me
buy damn plane ticket, so I charged it on my
own card and eventually head down there. I think someone
was holding us up on permission to go too, and
I just jumped it forget it. I don't remember where
Manny was. I don't know if he was in country,
out of country, the whole crew, Leslie, I'm not sure.

(14:18):
We just all headed to go. We knew because the
Intercontinental was sent a tiny town where everybody knew what
everybody else was doing. We'd be noticed if I showed
up again with Manny and Leslie and George Closa and Cookie,
if the whole band gets back together, everybody's going to

(14:38):
notice if we stayed there. We didn't have a solid
book yet on Hausinfuest. We didn't have it nailed in
terms of our access to him, but we decided to
go to the Camino instead, so that we could at
least stay low profile waiting to go interview this dude.
So we get to Monagua, go to the Camino, and

(15:00):
the next three days, I'm sitting by a pool, simmery,
just simmery, waiting, waiting, waiting for a call. I'm just
sitting there. Leslie is just sitting there. George and Manny
are just sitting there waiting for the call to go
interview Hausenfors. It was just stand by.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
So that Friday, I'm sitting in the CBS office in
Miami and I get that called. So I get the
bright idea. Wait, they're going to put this guy on trial.
It's going to be a sham trial. He's going to
be found guilty, you know, whether they're going to kill
him or put him in prison. Was it yet quite

(15:47):
clear to me what was going to happen. So I
said to myself, let me call my friends at sixty minutes,
and so I proceed to call Mike Wallace and Don Hewett.
We were all friends and obviously colleagues. I had them
on speakerphone and I said, Mike, Don, wouldn't it be
great if we get this guy to confess on sixty

(16:12):
minutes this Sunday coming and he confesses to the whole world.
Wouldn't that be great? Mike dropped the phone. He couldn't
believe it. You could hear Don Hewitt screaming.

Speaker 5 (16:23):
In the background.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
Fuck yeah, fuck yeah, get this story FORX Cookie, get
that interview for us. And I said, okay, got off
the phone with them. Called Ortega's right hand guy said
to him, look, I know who you've got.

Speaker 5 (16:39):
I know what he means to you guys.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
I also figure you're gonna put him on trial. What
if you let me and sixty minutes put him on
the air this Sunday and have him confess to the
whole world before you put on your trial. The guy
loved the idea. He says, fuck yeah, we'll make that
happen for you.

Speaker 5 (17:01):
Cookie.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
I said to Mike, we got it. We're in I said,
but I'm in Miami right now. I'm not in Nicaragua.
He says, I don't give a fuck. We'll pick you
up in the jet. In fact, we'll pick you up
tomorrow morning. We'll come in, we'll do the interview, we
fly back out, edit it, put it on the air Sunday.

Speaker 5 (17:20):
Great.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
Cookie gets the biggest scoop of her career, but the
story just gets crazier. We'll be right back, see you
on the other side, Welcome back. Before we get to
the fallout from the big sixty minutes interview, let's find
out how Eugene Hasenfus ended up in the skies of Nicaragua.

(17:45):
An ex marine, he started working for an outfit called
Air America during the Vietnam War. It's best known for
supplying and supporting covert and mostly illegal special ops in
Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, including drug smuggling and laos.
They even made a movie about it, starring Mel Gibson
and Robert Downey Junior Geane.

Speaker 4 (18:06):
We're not here right now?

Speaker 1 (18:10):
Yeah, I saw Nixon on TV.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yeah, so if we're not.

Speaker 7 (18:14):
Actually here, then of course this didn't happen as well.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
Maybe it didn't happen for you, and maybe it didn't happen.

Speaker 5 (18:22):
For Nixon, but.

Speaker 1 (18:24):
I think it happened for doug Are America also played
a huge part in the evacuation of Saigon in nineteen
seventy five. You've probably seen the footage of helicopters taking
people off the rooftops as the Viet com closed in
around them.

Speaker 12 (18:37):
On April twenty ninth and thirtieth, the United States evacuated
all remaining Americans, as well as some one hundred and
twenty thousand South Vietnamese. Two ships waiting off the ghosts
of Vietnam. As the last American helicopter lifted off from
the roof of the American Embassy, North Vietnamese tanks rolled
through the city and onto the grounds of the Presidential Palace.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
There's a famous photo of that effort that, like the
Hasenfus picture, became a symbol of the failure of another
US intervention. Air America helicopters were among the last flights out.
They have quite a history. Eugene Hasenfuss was proud of
his service.

Speaker 13 (19:15):
I loved Air America, and I love for anything that
our country will do and write. And whether it was
CIA over there or whatever, this year was supposed to
be another sequel of exactly what Air America was doing
over in Southeast Asia, just be a different geographical location
and a time sequence, but otherwise it'd be exactly the
same working for the government.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
Back to our story. Last time we saw Jane Wallace,
she was on pins and needles, waiting for a phone
call that never came.

Speaker 7 (19:45):
I think three days in, three very long days in
at the last minute, Manny and Georgia getting beep to go.
What do you mean, Manny and Georgia getting beep to go?
COOKI what's the deal?

Speaker 11 (19:57):
When sixty minutes calls you, it's like you're going to
answer that call. The airport in Monagua was closed on
the weekends, no flights in her out. So Manny and
I were chilling. We're at the hotel. I think we
were either by the pool or we were gonna go
shopping and Messiah and they tell us say no, no, no,
no no, they're opening the airport tomorrow. They're gonna be
coming in and it's gonna be a Leer jet and

(20:20):
cookies on it with Mike Wallace and Don Hewett and
that they got the interview with Eugene Hoseefice and Manny
and I weare Wow, what a coup.

Speaker 7 (20:30):
They didn't know we were in town. They were just
beeping any available crew to go interview hosstive for us,
and we got stumped. We got stumped. Mike Wallace came
to town with his crew, took my crew and my
interviewee That's how I felt. But they were two days
later than us. They didn't even know what they were after.

(20:51):
The reason we didn't get that story was because Cookie
wasn't in Monogola. She knew what we were working on.
We already knew they were running guns at the least,
and it already had powder residue of cocaine around the
edges of that story of running guns. We'd already preased

(21:12):
it up to auber North. We knew what was going
on there. I mean, the only thing we didn't have
was a picture of a guy being let around by
a rope in the jungle. It turned out to be
a redhead from Wisconsin. We were onto them.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Mike and Don fly into Miami's picked me up the
next morning the lear Jet and we're flying back to
Managua to do this great interview. But remember I had
been on vacation. Chino, who's by then my ex husband,
was there. I knew I needed some party favors to
take back with me. Chico was on vacation with me,

(21:50):
so I knew I was leaving him in Miami, and
so I said to Chino, you need to bring me
some supplies because I'm leaving tomorrow morning with sixty minutes,
and he brought me a nice hefty supply of party material.

Speaker 1 (22:03):
We're talking cocaine, obviously.

Speaker 5 (22:06):
So imset lear jet Land.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
We get on fly to Monagua, and of course we're
not going through customs because it's cookie and it's sixty minutes.
Nothing's gonna be checked. I'm cool, nobody's gonna check anything.

Speaker 11 (22:21):
Low and the whole sixty minute flies in cookies coming
down the steps. So the lear Jet, she says, guys,
we're going right to the jail. We're gonna do this
right now. Okay, the Guatemalins crew is gonna come with us.
They'll be the second camera. But you guys got the
ball on this. So Manny and I were like, okay, great,
let's go, and she says, but first we got to
stop and we gotta make peace with the local CBS guys.

(22:42):
So we went to a restaurant. We sat down and
we're eating and Don Hewitt and Mike Wallace are having
lunch with our producer and our reporter people in charge
of Central America for CBS for the evening years.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
That would be CBS News correspondent Michael O'Connor and producer
on siselof who you've met several times in this series.

Speaker 11 (23:03):
They were not happy that sixty minutes was just flying in.
And the term we use in the business is bigfooting.
Mike Wallace is about as big a foot as there is.
There might not be any bigger. They come in and
they take the story from me and they make it theirs.
So they were complaining to Mike and Don about, Hey,

(23:24):
you know, it's not fair that we've been humping on
the story and then you guys come in here at
the last second and just get the interview. They were resentful.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
Boza told me that Michael Connell was leading the charge
and he respected him for it, but standing up against
big foot was probably not a good idea.

Speaker 11 (23:40):
Mike and Don they didn't like that. They didn't like
hearing that. And I remember that they said, you could
have come with us today and gotten one question. We
would have asked one question and you could have used
that one question for Tonight's evening used broadcast. But since
you got an attitude you're not coming. You can come,
They told the you can come and you can take notes,

(24:02):
but that's it. I was like, Wow, this is like
the big leagues. This is stuff that usually you know,
get the witness. And then we went to the jail.

Speaker 5 (24:12):
I was furious.

Speaker 7 (24:15):
They were just trying to move our pieces off the
board and take what we had. They were way behind us.
I'd gotten all kinds of heat for why are you
putting this garbage on the air? You know it's not true,
And I'd gotten that inside from the head of CBS News,
like you know, what is this hot air? Are you
kidding me? So then the proof is in this redheaded guy,

(24:39):
and the proof goes to someone who didn't even have
the story. Oh god, Mike Wallace was a nasty man
and a very sexist guy, a horribly sexist guy. It
wasn't just that he beat you on your own story,
it was that he didn't take you belonged there in
the first place.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
Every journalists that had been in Monagua based in Managua,
flown into Monogua for the story. They're all outside at
the bottom of the stairs in the street, and of
course everyone wants hasidfoos and nobody's getting hasid foods except yours, truly,
And when we get there, you know, it's like all
the journalists had to part like the Red Sea to

(25:20):
let us through.

Speaker 5 (25:21):
And I remember there was one.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Journalist from ABC who kind of whispered to me and said, well,
we know how you got this story. I whispered back
to him, Well, in l Salvador, we know how you
get your stories.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
That ABC News correspondent was Peter Collins, one of the
biggest stars of that network. As far as what Cookie
is referring to, I'll just leave that there.

Speaker 11 (25:43):
Super competitive. Everyone wanted that story. That's a career story.
That's one that makes your career. You know, you get
the exclusive on that one, and your life is going
to change. Yeah, there's a lot of jealousy involved, Dad,
and you had a lot of veteran reporters there, the
La Times, the AP you know upm all right, Cookie
out scooped them all. That hurts, you know, especially when
your boss in New York is calling and going, hey,

(26:06):
what happened? You know, why didn't you get it?

Speaker 2 (26:09):
We go upstairs, there's State security all over, there's the
head of State Security there. So while they're all setting
up for the interview, I of course asked the head
of State security, where's your bathroom? Because you know what,
I'm getting ready to go do. So I go to
the bathroom and I swear to this day I say
that was the best lines of coke that I ever did,

(26:32):
because I'm being escorted by the head of State security
to the bathroom in State security.

Speaker 5 (26:37):
It was just surreal.

Speaker 11 (26:40):
The Sandinistas are always uncomfortable when it comes to journalists,
especially American journalists, especially American TV cameras, and when you
have a star like Mike Wallace there, the detention level
just goes through the roof. So everything is being done
very methodically. They're searching, they're questioning, they're talking about where

(27:00):
is the most secure place to do this? So we
finally hammer out everything. Cookie was a big part of that.
Cookie was handling most of the negotiations, interpreting, and we
find the spot, we put all the lights up. It
took us half an hour to get it all ready.
Two crews, two cameras, one camera on Geen No one camera.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
On Mike Pozardfus is still just panicked because now he
thinks that after he does this interview, he's going to
be shot. First he looks over at me and I'm
wearing two different color rebox tennis shoes. I'm wearing two
different color socks. I'm wearing two different earrings in each
ear and he kind of looks over at me in

(27:39):
the nervous humor says to me, Wow, I've never seen
anybody dressed like that, and we kind of laughed. His
was a nervous laugh. I leaned over and I whispered
to him. I said, you're not going to be killed
after this interview.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
Did you feel like the interview itself was going to
be sort of a layer of protection for him?

Speaker 5 (28:00):
No, not at all.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
That interview was going to be him admitting to all
his quote unquote sins, which is what the Sandinistas we're
going to put him on trial for. So no, he
was convinced he would be shot after our interview because
he would be admitting to everything that the Sandinistas wanted
him to admit.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
So why would he admit to it?

Speaker 2 (28:24):
Because he's around Americans, he's with sixty minutes. I'm convincing
him that everything's going to be okay. If and when
you do this interview, it could be some protection because
now the world will know that you exist. So I
think I sort of allayed his fears, got him a
little comfortable.

Speaker 11 (28:44):
Door opens. Then comes hasin first and shackled. They walk
him around to the front of the chair. As soon
as hozin First's but hits the chair, the lights go
out right out. Que I mean, it couldn't have happened
in a more timely fashion.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
All hell broken and then precedes what we call Murphy's law.
Everything that could go wrong starts to go wrong. The
electricity goes out. Remember we're in a third world country.
One of the camera crews, one of their pieces of
equipment goes out, and just slowly everything is going wrong.

Speaker 11 (29:20):
It's dark, you can see a little bit, but immediately
the Sandinistas are on full alert. They grab hazard for us.
They got their guns up. I think that they actually
thought that there was a rescue attempt going to happen,
like Chuck Norris was out there with the Delta Force
and they were gonna come in and snatch them. So
they're moving a mile a minute, and in the meantime,
Hewitt is standing up and he's saying.

Speaker 14 (29:41):
Everybody's stay put, stay hut, stay hut.

Speaker 11 (29:43):
Nobody moved.

Speaker 14 (29:45):
Wallace is yelling, let's move everything outside, dice everything, let's
just grab it. We'll do it outside. We don't need lights,
let's just go. So we're all there like frozen. Manny
and I are looking at each other like, who do
we listen to? Do we listen to you with the
creator of sixty minutes? Or do we listen to Mike Wallace?
It's a death sentence. Wherever you listen to the other,

(30:06):
one's gonna get pissed off. So we're frozen and we're
trying to see what's gonna be next.

Speaker 11 (30:11):
And somebody I don't remember if it was Cookie or
it could have been Manny, that said, let's just do
it outside. And we went outside and we set it up,
and the Sandinistas were cool about the whole thing. They
held on for him until we were ready. Literally we
set up in seven minutes, like bam, bam, bam, bam bam.
Put the chair on the ground, they brought him, They

(30:31):
sat him, and Don Yue It stepped in between both
cameras like he used to do in the good old
days of film. He looked and he said, okay, guys,
we're gonna roll. Here's the slate and he slapped his hands.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
But it's starting to get late in the afternoon. We're
going to lose the natural light. We're under a time constraight,
we need to get this interview done. So the interview proceeds.
Poor guy is admitting to everything. He's admitting that he
worked for the CIA. You know, he's former military or
still military. He's a kicker. It wasn't his first mission.

(31:06):
He'd been doing that throughout the Sandinista conflict. It's not
that this guy really knew any kind of you know,
secret information or top secret things, but he knew enough
to admit that he was guilty of what he had done.

Speaker 5 (31:22):
And we finished up the interview. It was great. He
confessed to everything here.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
We know he's going to confess to the US audience
on sixty minutes. And then as we're wrapping up, Don
Hewitt looks at me and says, can we get anybody else,
you know in the government to add to this peace?
And I said, well, would you like to talk to
the president? He says, you mean Ortega? I said sure,

(31:47):
He says, can you get him? So I called my
guy in you know, Ortega's inner circle, and I said
to him, look, we've just wrapped up this hazardfous interview
went well, he confessed to everything. You guys are gonna
like what he said, can we possibly get the president
to be in this piece and weigh in on what

(32:08):
we've accomplished here. He said, you got it. I turned
to Dunn and said we got it. He says, fuck yeah.
So we all packed up. We went to where the
president was going to meet us, and we're setting up. Mike, Wallace,
Don myself, everybody's there. The interview begins and some lull.

(32:30):
I leaned over to Mike and I said, Mike, ask
the President if it's possible that Hazifus could be home
for Christmas, because of course they had been asking ortego,
you're going to put this.

Speaker 5 (32:41):
Guy on trial.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
He said, yes, obviously he's going to be found guilty
or take us says, well, we don't know that. We're
gonna let justice take its course. Of course, he already
knew that Hazifusa had confessed to us.

Speaker 5 (32:55):
Mike's like, no, I'm not going to ask him that.
I said, Mike, ask him if he's going to be.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
Home for christ and Don Hewitt overheard that and he
liked that, and he says, Mike asked the question semi begrudgingly.
Mike says to the President, mister President is it possible
after the trial that this guy, obviously he could be
thrown in prison, he could be shot.

Speaker 5 (33:19):
Is it possible that he could be home for Christmas?

Speaker 2 (33:22):
And Ortega smiles and he says, anything is possible, mister Wallace.

Speaker 5 (33:27):
We knew we had it.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
We knew this guy was going to be home for Christmas,
but that was still a few months away.

Speaker 5 (33:34):
We got the story on both sides.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
It was perfect, and of course we're getting ready to
fly out back to New York to edit the piece, and.

Speaker 11 (33:44):
It aired the next day on sixty minutes on Sunday,
and it was earth shattering. It was a tremendous crew
for CBS who came maneuver the government to accommodate us
in this fashion, not only accommodate us with the interview,
which was brilliant. For shoot inside a secure facility in

(34:04):
a carnalist country where there's other prisoners is unheard of.
This all happened because, of course it's sixty minutes, but
it's the diplomacy and the tactfulness of Cookiehood that was
able to make it all happen. Without her, that interview
would have never happened, not in a million years.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
You think that's where this story ends. Not a chance.
Cookie's just getting started. Pasen Fus was the smoking gun,
but she's about to find the missing link, the money.
We'll be right back, Welcome back. Cookie should have been

(34:48):
heading back to Miami to finish your vacation with Chiico.
But she wasn't done, not by a long shot.

Speaker 4 (34:54):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
A stipulation that the Sandinista government made. They wanted a
copy of our interview because they wanted to air it.
Our stipulation was that it air after the sixty minutes
broadcast aired. So I was going to be the one
carrying back the copy. But of course I'm not going
to fly back to Monagua and the lear jet because

(35:15):
the big boys were already back home.

Speaker 5 (35:17):
So I was going to fly commercial. I get on
the flight and there's a.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
Ton of journalists on the flight that were flying in
for this big story.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Because Miami is the direct connection too there you have
to go to Miami to get there.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
Almost right, I flew back from New York to Miami
and then Miami. I'm going to fly to Nicaragua and
I get winn because I have family connections with the
airline Tacka Airlines, and I get winned that Hazidfuss's wife,
Sally is on the flight, but she didn't want to
be harassed, so she's in the cockpit with the pilots.

(35:52):
So not only myself gets wind of it, all the
other journalists get.

Speaker 5 (35:56):
Wind of it.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
Everybody's talking about it.

Speaker 5 (35:58):
Everybody's talking about it. But since I have the family
connection with the airline, I go up to the front to.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
At that time, we're called stewardesses, and I go up
to one that I actually knew in person because of
all my year's fly tackle, because of our family connection,
And I said to her, I know that there's someone
in the cockpit, and I know you can't say it
or agree with me that there is, but is it

(36:26):
possible for you to give a note to the person
that's not in the cockpit? And she says, Cookie, I'll
do it because it's you. I said the note to Sally,
saying my name is Cookie. I'm with CBS, I was
with Eugene yesterday, your husband, can I speak to you
in the cockpit?

Speaker 5 (36:43):
Flight attended takes it up. I don't know what's going
to happen. Next thing.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
I know she's coming back looking for me, saying come on,
you're going to the cockpit. And you could just see
the journalists in the flight. They're all, oh, you know,
everybody's revolting. Why does she get to go up?

Speaker 5 (37:00):
Whatever? I don't care.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
So I'm in the cockpit with Sally and I said, Sally,
I was with Eugene yesterday. We did a segment for
sixty minutes. He did a great interview. I just want
to tell you he's okay. And she says to me, well,
how do I.

Speaker 5 (37:17):
Know that you were with Eugene? I said, well, he
said something funny.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
I was wearing two different color Tendi shoes, two different
color pair of socks, two different types of earrings.

Speaker 5 (37:27):
In each ear and he looked over at me and
he made.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
A comment, a funny comment, saying I've never seen anybody
dressed like that before. And for some reason, that let
her know, and she believed that I had been with Eugene,
and so she was at that.

Speaker 5 (37:43):
Point, Oh, please tell me. Is he okay?

Speaker 2 (37:46):
I said, he's okay, And I want to tell you something.
I tried to comfort him, and I'm going to tell
you the same thing.

Speaker 5 (37:53):
I told him. He's going to be put on trial.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
He's going to be found guilty, but he will not
go to prison, and he will not be shot.

Speaker 5 (38:01):
He will be going home with you. I don't know when.
I said, maybe Christmas, but he will be going home
with you.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
And she just grabbed my hand and in tears said, oh,
I'm so grateful, you know, I'm so grateful that you
were able to see him and give him some hope.
And I said, well, we have a caveat here. I'm
going to ask you for one favor. I am not
going to follow you around for how many months you're
in Monagua. I am not going to bother you and call.

Speaker 5 (38:29):
You for interviews.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
You won't even see me except in the background. But
the day your husband gets released, I'm going to call
you and you're going to be mine that day. You're
not going to give anyone else to tom of day.
You're not going to give any interviews, You're not going
to give any soundbites to anybody. You're going to be
with me, She says, cookie, anything, anything.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
Meanwhile, the sixty minutes Hazen food story runs that Sunday night.
The New York j Times wrote this about the historic interview.

Speaker 8 (39:02):
Eugene Hasenfus, The American survivor from the aircraft that was
shot down over Nicaragua on October fifth, said yesterday that
he believed Vice President Bush was well aware of the
private operation to resupply the Nicaraguan rebels. In the interview
with Mike Wallace on the CBS news program Sixty Minutes,
Hassenphus said he was told the resupply effort for the rebels,

(39:24):
or contrast, was similar to CIA sponsored operations in which
he took part in Southeast Asia. He estimated that about
fourteen Americans operating out of El Salvador were engaged in
the underground effort to resupply the contries with arms and ammunition.
Hassenfas said twenty four to twenty six company people, a
term commonly used in connection with the CIA, were involved.

(39:47):
Hassenfas said he believes the Reagan administration quote is backing
this resupply operation one hundred percent. Asked by Wallace if
he had felt that you were working for the US government, applied, yes, sir.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
You think this story is crazy, wait till you hear this.
So you got access to what was found in the.

Speaker 5 (40:09):
Wreckage, right, I was thinking I was going to get
first access. I didn't know.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
I got only access every piece of evidence that was
found in the wreckage was logged in by number, by picture,
and an explanation of what each item was. So I asked,
can I, you know, get a look at all this stuff?

(40:34):
And I'm told Jess, you can, but you'll be the
only one, and we don't want you sharing the information
with other journalists or anybody for that matter. We don't
really want anybody to know we're giving you access to
all this high level secret stuff.

Speaker 5 (40:52):
So I spent the.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
Whole day going through you know, little things, big things, minutia.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
What kind of stuff was.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
Well, some of it it said that it was from
the pilot, some of it was from the second victim
of the crash, and some of it was Hasenfusa stuff.
I think like they had his parachute and maybe some
of the things that he was kicking out and hadn't
yet completed. Apparently the pilot had a briefcase with him,

(41:22):
you know, he didn't think he was going to get
shot down and killed. And in this briefcase is just
a slew of paperwork and business cards and just a
ton of stuff that who knows what it was. So
I come across this business card, and this business card
on the front was from a Swiss bank. The business

(41:43):
card belonged to the vice president of this Swiss bank,
and of course it had his phone number.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
What bank?

Speaker 2 (41:52):
And on the back of the card was a slew
of numbers and the Sandinistas had logged this in as
a business card, and that on the back was.

Speaker 5 (42:01):
A phone number.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
I knew that was not a phone number. It was
too damn long of a sequence of numbers. I said
to myself, what if this is a Swiss bank account?
But would this pilot have been stupid enough to be
carrying that information? Because I think he was in charge
of the Swiss bank account he had access to it.

Speaker 5 (42:25):
I actually took the card with me.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
I wasn't supposed to, but I took the card with
me and went back to the office called Switzerland and
asked to speak to the vice president of this bank.
I identified myself, I said, in one of your cards
was found in the wreckage in Nicaragua by I assume
one of the people that could access an account. I said,

(42:48):
I know you can't tell me if somebody has an
account in your bank. I know you can't tell me
anything about anything, but would it be okay if I
read you a sequence of numbers and all I want
you to say is yes or no? Could this be
a Swiss bank account? And I read the sequence of numbers,

(43:09):
he said yes and hung up the phone. Okay, what
is this pilot doing with a Swiss bank account? I
just knew there was a lot more to the story
because we still don't know about the Iran Contra connection
at this point, but we now know there's a Swiss
bank account that this guy that obviously worked for the

(43:30):
CIA has access to. So I remember calling Miami, and
I remember calling New York. I said it may be nothing,
but I think it's something big, and I explained to
him what I had. New York and Miami were beyond disbelief.
What could this possibly be? So at that point, not

(43:52):
knowing that I had Iran Contra proof, I passed it
then on to Miami and then obviously New York Foreign Desk,
and I think that went on to Washington CBS Foreign
Desk in Washington, let them figure it out.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
About a year later this happened.

Speaker 8 (44:12):
More than two thousand pages of Swiss bank records considered
crucial to the criminal investigation of the Iran Contra affair
were turned over in Switzerland yesterday to AIDS to Independent
Council Lawrence E.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
Walsh.

Speaker 8 (44:24):
The records are expected to provide Walsh's office its first
direct access to the secret Swiss bank accounts used by
fired National Security Council AID Lieutenant Colonel Oliver L. North
and his assistants to divert funds to the Nicaraguan countries
from the sale of US arms to Iran.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
Now I've got to say, yes, I was a part
of this blowing the whistle on Iran contra. But there
were many journalists based in Nicaragua. There were people in Washington.

Speaker 5 (44:57):
In fact, a very.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
Close friend of mine, Leslie Coburn, was at the time
writing a book about this whole Iran Contra connection. Everybody
was coming at it from a different angle. People were
coming at it from different countries. So I want to
make it quite clear I'm not the only one. Everybody
was involved.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
So all this goes down. So whatever happened with Sally
and Eugene.

Speaker 5 (45:20):
Okay, So for the next few months there's the trial.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
Everybody knew it was going to be a sham, that
he was going to be found guilty and now they've
got the sixty minutes peace as evidence because he's confessing
to everything.

Speaker 5 (45:36):
So the trial goes on. It's every day, sweltering heat.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
Sally Hasenfus was just trying to get through it.

Speaker 9 (45:45):
It's hard, it's really hard. We've gone through one trial
and I think we're looking forward to another trial. Not literally,
but I think it's something that has to be done.
We need to get through this, get it over with.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
Senator Christopher Dodd had flown in at some point to
try to broker Eugene Hazfuz's release with the Sandinistas, and
I don't think he was getting anywhere the talks were ongoing.
I don't think he knew where they stood at this particular.

Speaker 5 (46:19):
Moment that we're going to talk about.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
So I get a call before dawn for Mortega's right
hand guy and he tells me today's the day it's
going to happen. And I'm like, what's going to happen?
And he says, you know what I'm talking about, Today's
the day. So I put down the phone. I call
Senator Dodd, wake him up. I tell him today's the

(46:43):
day he's getting out. He goes, what do you mean
I said, they're letting him out today. Of course, I
wanted him to feel like he had been the one
that accomplished the release. I said, whatever you did, whatever
you said, it worked. They're letting him out today. So
I hung up with him, and then my final call
was to Sally hazard Fuchs. I wake her up and

(47:05):
I said, Sally, hate to wake you up, but today's
the day.

Speaker 5 (47:08):
What what day? I said, Sally, Remember I.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Told you that I didn't know when, didn't know how,
but that you were going to be taking Eugene home.
She says, yes, I said, today's the day. And do
you remember the promise you made me? And she says,
I think so. I said, you promised me that you
were going to be mine. I'm going to be with
you the whole day till the release. You speak to

(47:34):
no one, give you give no interviews, you give no quotes.

Speaker 5 (47:38):
Your mind, she says, Cookie.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
Of course, that was the fateful day that Eugene Hasenfus
was released. Released It to the care Senator Christopher Dodd
with his wife by his side, and guess what he
was going.

Speaker 5 (47:56):
Home for Christmas?

Speaker 1 (47:57):
Mission accomplished, Mission accomplished. Our good friend Stephen Kinzer wrote
this in the New York Times.

Speaker 8 (48:03):
Eugene Hassenphuss, the American air cargo handler captured when his
arms laden plane was shot down over Nicaragua in October,
was pardoned and freed today. Mister Hassenphus, who had been
sentenced to a thirty year jail term by a Nicaraguan
people's tribunal, was turned over to Senator Christopher J. Dodd,
Democrat of Connecticut, and left the country aboard a jet

(48:25):
with mister Dodd. We want to turn citizen Hausentphus over
to the American people, and we are doing so through
the person of Senator Dodd. President Daniel Ortega Savedra said
as he made the announcement, this is a Christmas and
New Year message to the American people. It is a
very concrete message of peace.

Speaker 5 (48:45):
So the whistle was blown.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
I would like to think that I sort of got
that ball rolling with that Swiss Bank account number. What
we came to find out was the US government in
order to finance the contrast, because it's against you know,
I guess the Geneva Convention.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
To it's against the law. In the United States. They
passed law saying you can't fund the contrast the.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
Way they went around That is, the US then began
to secretly sell weapons to our mortal enemy at the time, Iran,
how crazy is this. We're selling our mortal enemy weapons
so that we could take that money, invest it and

(49:31):
finance drug dealers, some of them my friends, working kahoots
with the DEA to give them the oka to bring
in crack cocaine into the US so as to make.

Speaker 5 (49:45):
More money to finance this army.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
Known as the Contras, or as Reagan referred to them,
the freedom fighters.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
I think he really did believe that. But what they
were doing was illegal, probably a war crime.

Speaker 15 (50:02):
My fellow Americans, I thought long and often about how
to explain to you what I intended to accomplish the
fact of the matter is that there's nothing I can
say that will make the situation right. I was stubborn
in my pursuit of a policy that went astray. The
other major issue of the hearings, of course, was the
diversion of funds to the Nicaraguan Contres. Colonel North and

(50:25):
Admiral Poindexter believed they were doing what I would have
wanted done. Yet the buck does not stop with Admiral Poindexter,
as he stated in his testimony, it stops with me.
I am the one who is ultimately accountable to the
American people.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
As I said in the first episode, eleven Reagan administration
officials were convicted in this scandal, all pardoned when Bush
took office in nineteen eighty nine, So not much accountability.
This is Sally hasenfuss on the men and women behind
the scandal.

Speaker 9 (50:57):
I've found out things through this that are going on
that are wrong. Some of these people may start out
on the right foot with the right beliefs. Somewhere along
the line here money, profit took over. Profit became more
important than Jean's life, mister Sawyer's life, mister Cooper's life.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
That pretty much sums it up. Were you ever contacted
by authorities officials to possibly testify.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
Or to Oh, that happened years later once I was
out of the business and I was back in New
Orleans trying to lead a quiet normal.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
But it did happen. It happened, And your response I.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
Got whined that they were looking to get me to
testify before a committee about my knowledge of the US
government introducing or facilitating the introduction of crack cocaine into
this country. I just at that point went underground again
because I'm not going to go and testify against the

(52:06):
US government and about drugs.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
It did not happen, all right. So Cookie lived somehow
to tell her story, and what a fucking story it is.
She has a few more things to say. We'll be
right back. Welcome back. It's been a hell of a ride.

(52:29):
Before Cookie finishes telling her story, we have one more guest,
justin Wolf. You remember the two Lane history professor who
looks like the bass player from zz Top.

Speaker 16 (52:41):
Hey, Steve, how are you doing?

Speaker 1 (52:43):
How you doing? Resident expert on Nicaraguan history in Central
America and professor at Tulane University. Oz and Fuz falls
from the air and changes everything. Tell us about that.

Speaker 16 (52:55):
Yeah, I like that Osiphus falls from the air and
everything falls apart. I think about Hassamphus. It's like thread
or pc yarn in the sweater's just kind of starting
to come out, you know. And I think the Reagan
administration and everyone involved like, just pull that and clip
it off and will be done. But they kept pulling
and pulling, and the whole thing just fell apart. I

(53:18):
think in Nicaragua, Hassimphos was just like icing on the cake.
It just confirmed everything that they already knew. I think
for the Sandinistas, it was really hard to figure out
where an end game could come. I think that they
really wanted to gain the moral high ground, and Hassimphus
gave them an opportunity to do that. I think for

(53:39):
Nicaragua that's really the primary consequence. It gave them breathing room.
It shifted the focus in the US back to kind
of the US government playing the kind of cold war
games that it had long been doing, and allowed them
to come back in the US, if not as the
good guy, at least as the beleaguered small nation that

(54:03):
they were.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
What do you think Iran Contra ranks in the big
scandals of the recent Hey, the last fifty years. You
have Iron Contra, you have Trump Russia, you have Watergate, you.

Speaker 16 (54:14):
Have January sixth, January sixth. Where does it rank in
terms of the effort and its illegality and how deeply
it went. It's actually one of the worst. Right when
you think about Watergate, I mean it was small potatoes, right,
a break in. You know, they always say it's never
the crime, it's the cover up this It was the crime.

(54:35):
The CIA is breaking the law. The Reagan administration all
up and down the chain is breaking the law.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
And they knew it right.

Speaker 16 (54:42):
They thought, we're the executive.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
We know best.

Speaker 16 (54:45):
These guys are, you know, either fools or pansies or
whatever it is, and we're just going to do what
needs to be done.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
There is one person that we haven't talked too much
about in this podcast. Tell me about your daughter.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
Well, Ellie Lexandra very special. She and Chicho, who you
guys all know, were ten years apart, and she was
born after our story is told. A second child being
raised in a war zone definitely unique, dangerous, not easy.
I've never thought about it in this way, but I

(55:21):
can say it now. Having my two kids with me
during these hard times was a life at vest being
thrown out to me. When things would be dark, horrible, heinous, unthinkable.
I could always go back to my hotel, to my
living quarters, and there were my children.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
How does she feel about the podcast?

Speaker 5 (55:43):
She loves it.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
At first, I was a little scared that it was
going to be a little too much for because she's
a little more conservative.

Speaker 5 (55:52):
Than I am.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
But she has just relished in the fact that her
mom did all these things, and I'm going to taking
a step further. She's proud of mommy and she tells
me so every single day.

Speaker 1 (56:06):
So we've just done nine episodes of the Journalist of Podcasts.
How does that feel?

Speaker 2 (56:13):
At once exhilarating because the job is done, But at
the same time, I'm quite sad because the job is done.
The people that we've worked with, all the people that
have been on the podcast, my former colleagues, my still friends,
it's a sad feeling for me personally.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
Was it fun getting to know them again in a
different way?

Speaker 5 (56:38):
Yes and no.

Speaker 2 (56:40):
For so many years I kept a lot of these
bad memories buried deep down for obvious reasons, PTSD all
of that. So working with you bringing up all those
stories again has obviously brought up the PTSD again, some
bad memories, bad feelings. But touching base again with my

(57:00):
band of brothers has just been wonderful. When you have people, friends,
colleagues that you go through these imminent death experiences also
some fun experiences, you don't let that go. We were
a band of brothers then, we're a band of brothers now,
and we will be a band of brothers till we die.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
Now, with the benefit of history and taking this journey
through your life and the podcast, how do you feel
about your life then, the world you were part of,
and how does it apply to you now?

Speaker 2 (57:38):
I think the way I look at it now. First,
I'm lucky that I survived it. No shit, it was
an honor to do what I did with the people
that I did it with and the audience that I
did it for. If I was a badass warrior bish
back then, if I was a bad ass as warrior

(58:00):
bish back then.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
You're saying bish.

Speaker 5 (58:03):
Yeah, that's the new way of saying bitch.

Speaker 16 (58:06):
Fuck.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
I didn't even know that.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
Yeah, you don't say bitch anymore because, OK, so you
say bitch.

Speaker 5 (58:12):
Do you want me to not say no, just bitch?

Speaker 4 (58:14):
Just start over.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
I'm sorry. I just hadn't heard. I thought you were
like having some sort of tongue twister.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
No, that's how you say bitch without disrespecting a woman.

Speaker 1 (58:23):
Damn, I'm so disrespectful. Then go ahead.

Speaker 2 (58:25):
So it took me being a fierce badass bish back
then to reminding me that I'm still a fierce badass
bish now. I may not be doing the dangerous memorable
things that I used to do. But I can see
the end result of a lot that I did back then.

Speaker 1 (58:48):
You know, we've been getting messages and comments from women
all over the world and they're saying you're an inspiration.
How does that make you feel and what do you
think that means?

Speaker 2 (58:59):
Well, obviously it makes me feel good, and I'm grateful,
especially to you, for helping me get that story out
there to where we can influence and help change women's lives.
Nobody's better than the other person, as you and I

(59:19):
have come to realize, and of course that's the way
we think. If we just change one person's life, I
think we've accomplished what we've set out to do.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
You might remember Cookie called the search for war footage
Looking for Bang Bang. Chuck Gomez, former CBS News correspondent
and forever friend of Cookie, wrote a play about his
time in Central America, The Bang Bang Blues.

Speaker 10 (59:44):
It's about a reporter who's stratening to cover the war
in the midst of these confers arriving and in the
end he becomes the casualty of the war himself. At
the very beginning of the play, there's a song Now
I can't sing, but it's something like this. I got
the Bang Bang blues wearing out my shoes, sitting dusty

(01:00:06):
highways for the network news. I got the Bang Bang blues.
I'm paying my blues, taking big chances, and I hope
I don't lose.

Speaker 5 (01:00:16):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
I want to give a shout out to journalists everywhere
for giving so much, including their lives, in the pursuit
of truth around the world. It can be a very
dangerous calling, and we can't thank you enough for what
you do in these crazy times. We need you now
more than ever. Before we go, I just want to
say something. I've known Cookie for a long time. She

(01:00:40):
is one of a kind, generous, loving, courageous, hilarious, insane,
the lover of animals and collector of amazing people. It's
been one of the great honors of my life to
help bring her story to you. I hope you've enjoyed
it as much as I have. Thanks for listening. The
Journalist of pot Cast features the stories and voice Cookie Hood,

(01:01:03):
narrated by Steven step produced by Sean J. Donnelly. Executive
producers Jason Wagetsback, Ellen Ka and Roy Laughlin. iHeart executive
producer Tyler Klang, Written and edited by Steven step Music
by Jay Weigel, Associate producer in sound design Stephen Tanti.
Sound mixing by Jesse Sallon Snyder guest sound mixer, Jack Mealy,

(01:01:28):
Web design and social media coordinator Sarah Rodolpho. Special guests
Jane Wallace, Stephen Kinzer, George Boza, Alejandro Belly Manny Alvarez,
Chuck Gomez, Carla Ferrell, John Basco, Patrick Hood, Lou Demetaeus,

(01:01:49):
Joe Frazier, and Tulaine history professor Justin Woolf. Podcast includes
the voices of Lloyd scherr, Ellen k Cindy Pohle, Rachel Wan,
Casey Groves, Pablo Sovalla, Jose Torres, Thomas, and Stephen Tonti.
Thanks to the talented New Orleans Dream team of musicians

(01:02:10):
that contributed to our score Shane Terrio guitar, Doug Below drums,
Alexe Martis percussion, Beaux Saint Pierre keyboards, Alan Maxwell bass,
and Dana b violin. Also Lindsay ze Orski composer assistant.
And a very special thanks to Beth Anne Macaluso, Will

(01:02:31):
Pearson and Alison Kantor Graber from My Heart Radio. Jason Gerwitz,
Christoph SAPARi, Kyle Frederick, Zach Slap, Jacob Meyer, Misha kashkash Ishveli.
I also want to thank CBS News, sixty Minutes West,
fifty seven, ABC News, NBC News, CNN, PBS, the BBC,

(01:02:55):
The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Miami Herald,
the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, Fox Television, and FX.
This is a production of Journalista podcast LLC and iHeartRadio