Author Barbara Ley Toffler
She is former partner-in-charge of Ethics & Responsible Business Practices consulting services for Arthur Andersen, Barbara Ley Toffler. She's the co-author of the new book, Final Accounting: Ambition, Greed, and the Fall of Arthur Andersen (with Jennifer Reingold, Broadway Books). Toffler writes about life inside the firm which she left before it collapsed in the wake of the Enron scandal. Toffler now teaches at Columbia University's business school.
Other segments from the episode on March 5, 2003
Transcript
DATE March 5, 2003 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A⨠TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A⨠NETWORK NPR⨠PROGRAM Fresh Airâ¨â¨Interview: Barbara Ley Toffler, co-author of "Final Accounting,"â¨discusses the fall of Arthur Andersenâ¨BARBARA BOGAEV, host:â¨â¨This is FRESH AIR. I'm Barbara Bogaev, in for Terry Gross.â¨â¨In 1995, Barbara Ley Toffler signed on with Arthur Andersen accounting as aâ¨partner in charge of their ethics consulting group. It was her job to adviseâ¨Andersen clients on responsible business practices. But soon after arrivingâ¨at the firm, Toffler, a former faculty member of the Harvard Business Schoolâ¨and the author of a book on business ethics, began to notice troublingâ¨ethnical behavior within the company itself. Her new book, "Final Accounting:â¨Ambition, Greed, and the Fall of Arthur Andersen," is her analysis of theâ¨flawed corporate culture, business strategies and fractured leadership thatâ¨led to Andersen's being implicated in the Enron scandal two years ago.â¨â¨Arthur Andersen was the auditing firm for Enron. It was found guilty ofâ¨obstruction of justice for shredding documents related to the Securities andâ¨Exchange Commission's inquiry into the corporation. In her book, Tofflerâ¨writes that Andersen's indoctrination of young employees created a culture ofâ¨conformity which was more extreme than in most accounting firms. Andersenâ¨sent new hires to a training facility in St. Charles, Illinois, which Tofflerâ¨likens to a boot camp.â¨â¨Ms. BARBARA LEY TOFFLER (Author, "Final Accounting"): Every young person whoâ¨was brought into the firm had an accounting degree and was recruited right outâ¨of their undergraduate education. They were 21, 22 years old, and they wereâ¨then brought in, sent to this St. Charles facility, and basically--Oh, whatâ¨shall we say?--transformed into what they called androids. The process byâ¨which they learned to do the kind of audits, to follow the kind of accountingâ¨procedures that a public accountant does was one that was carefully worked outâ¨so that each year of approximately seven or eight years they acquired newâ¨skills, they performed new activities and they learned to behave in a certainâ¨way. They learned to dress in a certain way. They learned to eat lunch in aâ¨certain way. They learned a variety of particular activities so that youâ¨recognized worldwide an Arthur Andersen person.â¨â¨BOGAEV: It sounds as if the young recruits, at least at Arthur Andersen, wereâ¨taught to follow the rules and also follow the leader, follow their leaders.â¨What were they taught about business ethics?â¨â¨Ms. TOFFLER: I don't think that they were taught anything that reallyâ¨translated into what ethical behavior should mean. One of the things that, atâ¨least in the time--by the time I came there, I found the most unsettling wasâ¨that I had no sense that any young person was taught that the primaryâ¨stakeholder they served was the investing public. That was something that didâ¨not seem to be part of their ethical training. My experience led me toâ¨believe that the primary stakeholder they learned, the young people learned,â¨to attend to was, in fact, the partner who could control their future career.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Now conformity works as long as the leadership is ethical and decentâ¨and has a certain amount of integrity. But you write that when the game andâ¨the leaders changed direction, the culture of conformity led to disaster. Youâ¨write about the practice of boosting revenues, which was a companywideâ¨practice of overcharging. In fact, it was referred to as `billing your brainsâ¨out.' So what were some of the techniques that Andersen used to inflateâ¨client fees?â¨â¨Ms. TOFFLER: Well, of course, our hourly rates were enormously high.â¨Partners were billed out at anywhere from maybe $350 an hour when they startedâ¨to about $500 an hour. And we found problems within the firm. I actuallyâ¨talk about something that was known as the planned fee adjustment, which wasâ¨sort of the hook to pull in clients, and this was a plan by which you wouldâ¨offer for a first job a substantial discount. We want your business, you're aâ¨good client. I think we referred to it as something similar to what used carâ¨salesmen do, and it was very, very similar. And then on that first job,â¨though you've already set such a high fee by exploding the number of hoursâ¨that you're going to be working, you then say, `But we're going to give youâ¨this wonderful discount.'â¨â¨Part of the practice, then, would be while delivering the service that you hadâ¨signed on to deliver was, indeed, to find a variety of other problems, andâ¨when those are presented as you're walking out the door and the client says,â¨`Oh, but we need you,' you say, `Well, yes, of course, but our regular feesâ¨are such and such.' And that, of course, then allowed you to come--well,â¨perhaps stay in--rather than even come back in with these higher fees andâ¨hopefully, carte blanche, to be able to expand the services and deliver themâ¨as richly as you could.â¨â¨There was the other side of the problem, of course, which is that the clientâ¨said, `Look, this is the amount of money we're spending, and that's it. We'reâ¨capping it at this.' Then, of course, there was the question as to whether orâ¨not you really got very good service.â¨â¨BOGAEV: On the surface of it, again, none of this is overtly illegal,â¨certainly, or even unethical. I mean, someone might say, `Well, why'd theâ¨marketplace put up with it? A client can always go elsewhere.' Is that howâ¨people within Andersen, I guess, rationalized this kind ofâ¨billing-your-brains-out behavior to themselves?â¨â¨Ms. TOFFLER: Well, I think there was certainly the belief that kind of we'reâ¨worth it, we're Arthur Andersen, we're the best. Certainly some of theseâ¨things were practices across professional service firms, other accountingâ¨firms, and I daresay some law firms, as well. So what we are talking aboutâ¨is not necessarily something that is illegal. That is what is so insidiousâ¨about this. You know, if they had been doing things that were illegal, thatâ¨were egregiously unethical that you, I, and everyone else could say, `That'sâ¨outright unethical,' they wouldn't have gotten away with it.â¨â¨The fact was that this all came within the way we do business. This becameâ¨certainly in the last years of the firm with the new economy and the dot-coms,â¨this became the way we do business around here, long forgotten the way theyâ¨used to do business. But that's what's so important about this story is theâ¨fact that these were standard activities that just kept moving further andâ¨further, whether you call it down the slippery slope or outside the acceptableâ¨way of doing business. But they were not egregiously unethical, not illegal,â¨and that's why it took so long and I guess became so very, very dysfunctionalâ¨before it destroyed the firm.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Now one of the key charges in the Enron fiasco is that Andersen had aâ¨conflict of interest in that they were both an auditing firm for Enron andâ¨they were also hired on as financial consultants so they had a vestedâ¨interested in maintaining this illusion that Enron was in good financialâ¨order. How common is this among accounting firms, to serve both as financialâ¨consultants and as auditors?â¨â¨Ms. TOFFLER: In the last 10, 12, 15 years, it has become more and moreâ¨common. In fact, I believe all of what were Big Six at the time, developedâ¨consulting services, among them the outsourcing of internal audit which, forâ¨many people, and I would include myself in this, became the ultimate ofâ¨conflict of interest. In this case, you have one firm, Arthur Andersen, doingâ¨both the internal auditing for a firm, and the external auditing. It's aâ¨conflict. That's all there is. One side is doing the work and the other sideâ¨is essentially assessing whether or not the work is done properly and they'reâ¨all the same group.â¨â¨BOGAEV: So you would think that the checks and balances you would need inâ¨order to avoid that conflict of interest, it sounds as if they simply weren'tâ¨there, weren't even thought of, there wasn't even a nod to it.â¨â¨Ms. TOFFLER: That's exactly right, and it was a blindness, I think, andâ¨again, a blindness driven by the desire for revenues. That became the drivingâ¨force, and the mantra in the firm became `Keep the clients happy,' because byâ¨keeping the client happy is how, in fact, you bring in more revenues. Keepingâ¨the client happy, of course, had disastrous outcomes because it meant youâ¨don't want to tell a client anything that may upset them.â¨â¨Just to go back briefly to the original Arthur Andersen, early on in hisâ¨career, he stood up to a very major client, basically said, `I am not going toâ¨change these numbers to make you happy. If you want to take your business andâ¨walk, you can take your business and walk,' which the client did, but itâ¨established who that firm, Arthur Andersen, was going to be. By the time Iâ¨came in, there was not this sense of if the client doesn't adhere to the wayâ¨we want to do it, then we'll have to lose the client. The point was `What'sâ¨the client want? Let's give it to them.'â¨â¨BOGAEV: I'm talking with Barbara Ley Toffler. She was a partner in charge ofâ¨Ethics and Responsible Business Practices consulting services for Arthurâ¨Andersen accounting firm from 1995 to 1999. She's co-written a book about herâ¨experience at Andersen. It's called "Final Accounting: Ambition, Greed, andâ¨the Fall of Arthur Andersen." Barbara Ley Toffler now teaches at Columbiaâ¨University Business School.â¨â¨We'll talk more after the break.â¨â¨This is FRESH AIR.â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨BOGAEV: If you're just joining us, our guest is Barbara Ley Toffler. She wasâ¨the partner in charge of the accounting firm Arthur Andersen's ethicsâ¨consulting group in the late '90s. She left before Andersen was implicated inâ¨the Enron debacle.â¨â¨She has a new book about her understanding of the business practices that ledâ¨to Andersen's demise. It's called "Final Accounting."â¨â¨What did these problematic business practices and corporate clashes amount toâ¨in the late '90s for Arthur Andersen?â¨â¨Ms. TOFFLER: In the late '90s, we began to see the first of a series ofâ¨client disasters. Probably the first most prominent one was Waste Management,â¨which was followed then by Sunbeam and the Arizona Baptist Foundation, andâ¨then subsequently, of course, Enron, WorldCom, several others. But what wasâ¨coming out--and it wasn't just Arthur Andersen, remember, there were a numberâ¨of these, none quite as dramatic, I think, as Waste Management and Sunbeam,â¨that led to a couple of things. One, in 1998, BusinessWeek had an articleâ¨that was headlined Where Were The Accountants? which enumerated the manyâ¨accounting failures that were starting to emerge and then in September ofâ¨1998, Arthur Levitt, then head of the SEC, of course, raised then the bigâ¨concern about managing earnings and basically put the accounting firms onâ¨notice that something was awry and he and his team were going to do everythingâ¨they could to look into it and correct whatever was going on.â¨â¨So that is what started to happen in the late '90s. Now something else wasâ¨happening at Arthur Andersen, too, at the time, was that it was becoming veryâ¨intrigued by the new economy. As we say, we believe Arthur Andersen hadâ¨jumped into the arms of the new economy like a teen-ager with raging hormones.â¨I'm not sure we say it just like that, but basically that was the case, soâ¨that while there were concerns on the part of the oversight committees, thereâ¨was also this wild abandon on the part of Arthur Andersen and several of theâ¨other firms as well.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Now at this point, and this is around 1998, or so, late '90s...â¨â¨Ms. TOFFLER: Right.â¨â¨BOGAEV: ...before Enron. At this point did Andersen take any action to cleanâ¨up its accounting?â¨â¨Ms. TOFFLER: 1998 should have provided Arthur Andersen the opportunity toâ¨both clean up its business and to be a leader in reshaping the accounting firmâ¨and I fault them perhaps most of all for not taking advantage of theâ¨extraordinary capability that they had at that point to have made a phenomenalâ¨difference. In 1998, I was invited to attend two meetings of an existingâ¨committee called the risk management executive committee. This committee wasâ¨made up of top partners in the firm. It was made up of people from theâ¨Professional Standards Group, it was made up of attorneys, and leadingâ¨partners nationally. At these two committee meetings, discussion took placeâ¨at which it was clear that the Arthur Andersen leadership was absolutely awareâ¨of the many kinds of problems, both internally and externally, that the firmâ¨and the profession were facing. In point of fact, they laid out a document,â¨which we were all asked to comment on, that enumerated the internal risks, theâ¨external risks, and even went so far as to stating in one place that thereâ¨should be real concern of the impact of aggressive accounting when the economyâ¨tanks. Now if you know this in 1998, and disasters that occurred in 2000 wereâ¨still allowed to occur, I feel that that was the greatest tragedy that we sawâ¨at Arthur Andersen.â¨â¨BOGAEV: They had this risk management committee and this kind of landmarkâ¨meeting. What came of it?â¨â¨Ms. TOFFLER: As far as I know, almost nothing. There was a single documentâ¨that in point of fact my group was asked to design to make it one of theâ¨pieces of material going out that would grab everyone's attention that came toâ¨be known as the `cooking the books' memo. This went out in, I believe,â¨October of 1998. That basically said our clients are at risk; we are at risk;â¨there's cooking the books going on; we've got to pay attention; we can allâ¨suffer great harm. And it went out. What happened? I don't know. I don'tâ¨think there was any major effort that was taken. I never heard anyone standâ¨up and say, `We have just gone through Waste Management. We have just goneâ¨through Sunbeam. This is a sin, a shame, that a firm like Arthur Andersenâ¨should be engaged in this. It's horrifying. We are going to change andâ¨we're going to lead the way to change others.' That's what should have beenâ¨done, and it was never done. The words that I heard about Waste Management isâ¨`We didn't do anything wrong. We've paid and we've put that all behind us andâ¨we're going forward.'â¨â¨BOGAEV: They paid settlement fees.â¨â¨Ms. TOFFLER: Yes, they paid settlement fees, no indication, as they wouldâ¨say, that they had done anything wrong.â¨â¨BOGAEV: You resigned in 1999.â¨â¨Ms. TOFFLER: Right.â¨â¨BOGAEV: What was the final straw for you that prompted your leaving theâ¨company?â¨â¨Ms. TOFFLER: There were several, certainly, final straws. I went through aâ¨series of events and certainly at the time of the global risk managementâ¨committee presentation I had high hopes that maybe we--this was really goingâ¨to finally turn around and the firm was going to start to pay some attentionâ¨to its own concerns, and to--we hoped--the ethics group as well. But I thinkâ¨for me the fact that there was no follow-up to that and that ultimately Iâ¨signed onto a project in which I egregiously inflated my proposal--this was aâ¨large project for a international bank that was merging--that I inflated myâ¨proposal was part of an uncomfortable presentation to a client who should haveâ¨been a wonderful client and I suddenly became so terribly embarrassed aboutâ¨what I had done and about the proposal that we were presenting that I actuallyâ¨called up the client. No one will know until they read the book. I don'tâ¨think anyone knew at the time. Said, `We're ripping you off.' Hung up theâ¨phone. And said, `That's it. I really cannot stay in this firm any longer.'â¨â¨BOGAEV: What do you see as the moral of this Enron-Arthur Andersen story?â¨What lessons does it teach about reforms that are needed in the accountingâ¨industry?â¨â¨Ms. TOFFLER: Probably the most important lesson is that there must be aâ¨greater awareness of conflicts of interest, of the broad range of conflicts ofâ¨interest. There must be greater recognition that accounting firms are thereâ¨to serve the public, that they are there to clarify and assure the numbers areâ¨accurate and that we at least for the near future need some very strenuousâ¨regulation and oversight. There are some perhaps lesser issues. Our publicâ¨accounting firms are partnerships. I think that structure probably has to beâ¨looked into because it is a structure that allows the diffusion ofâ¨responsibility, and it does not allow independence in the leadership who areâ¨completely subject to the whim and will of the partners.â¨â¨But that is probably secondary right now to the kind of very strong oversightâ¨that is going to be essential. And the firms asked for it, unfortunately,â¨and I think, or hope, that they're going to get it.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Barbara Ley Toffler, I want to thank you so much for talking with meâ¨today on FRESH AIR.â¨â¨Ms. TOFFLER: Barbara, thank you for having me. I was delighted to be here.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Barbara Ley Toffler's new book is book, "Final Accounting: Ambition,â¨Greed, and the Fall of Arthur Andersen."â¨â¨I'm Barbara Bogaev and this is FRESH AIR.â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨(Credits)â¨â¨BOGAEV: This is NPR, National Public Radio.â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨BOGAEV: At the 1966 World Cup, the scrappy North Korean soccer team beat theâ¨favorite and more brawny Italians to become the first Asian team to make it toâ¨the quarter-finals. It was considered the most shocking upset in World Cupâ¨history. That game is the subject of a new documentary, "The Game of Theirâ¨Lives." Coming up, we meet filmmakers Dan Gordon and Nick Bonner, and Maureenâ¨Corrigan reviews Scott Spencer's new novel, "A Ship Made of Paper."â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *â¨â¨Interview: Dan Gordon and Nick Bonner discuss their documentaryâ¨about the events at the 1966 World Cupâ¨BARBARA BOGAEV, host:â¨â¨This is FRESH AIR. I'm Barbara Bogaev.â¨â¨Every sport has its legends, the stories of victories or upsets that fans comeâ¨back to again and again over beers at the corner pub. For soccer fans, one ofâ¨those legendary events was the 1966 World Cup when an underdog team from Northâ¨Korea defeated Italy. The North Koreans became the stars of the Cup evenâ¨after losing to Portugal in the quarterfinals. They then returned to Northâ¨Korea and were never heard from again. Now filmmakers Dan Gordon and Nickâ¨Bonner tell their story in the new documentary "The Game of Their Lives."â¨Gordon and Bonner spent five years tracking down the players and working toâ¨get permission from the North Korean government to film in private homes,â¨which the Western press rarely has access to.â¨â¨They found that the story of this long-ago soccer match has politicalâ¨dimensions that resonate today in this period of rising tensions between theâ¨US and North Korea. Just to get a sense of how exciting this match was, let'sâ¨listen to the end of the 1966 World Cup game, North Korea vs. Italy.â¨â¨(Soundbite of World Cup game)â¨â¨Unidentified Man: ...(Unintelligible) an uproar. And they've won! Goodâ¨heavens, they won! North Korea have beaten Italy. What is going on here?â¨They are delighted. This is fantastic. And North Korea will be in theâ¨quarterfinals. And the crowd rising to them, and they're in tears. They areâ¨weeping tears of joy.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Dan, can you give us an idea just how legendary this 1966 upset was?â¨Is this a story that you hear soccer fans tell all the time?â¨â¨Mr. DAN GORDON (Filmmaker): Yeah. This is quite well-known as the greatestâ¨shock in World Cup history. It's really a story that I knew a lot about justâ¨in the bare facts of the Koreans beat Italy 1-nil, legendary game in 1966 inâ¨Middlesbrough, which is in the northeast of England. That story's quiteâ¨legendary, and also what's legendary is the Italians were so shamed on theirâ¨return, that they returned to a hail of rotten tomatoes from their fans.â¨â¨BOGAEV: How did this North Korean soccer team come to qualify for the Worldâ¨Cup in 1966 in the first place? I mean, this is only--What?--13 years afterâ¨the Korean War and they didn't have diplomatic relations with the sponsoringâ¨countries, did they?â¨â¨Mr. GORDON: Yeah. I mean, the more we researched the story, the more weâ¨realized it was far more than just, you know, one match in Middlesbrough. Andâ¨they qualified by playing Australia in a playoff game, the qualification atâ¨that time. There was only one place open to Africa, Asia and Oceania. It wasâ¨very, very dominated by South America and Europe, the World Cup at that time.â¨And all the African nations withdrew as a boycott, which then led to themâ¨getting a place at the 1970 World Cup. So it left South Korea and North Koreaâ¨and Australia, and because North and South didn't want to play each other, theâ¨South actually withdrew, so it left two teams to qualify for one place.â¨â¨And in football parlance, they murdered them. They won 9-2 in aggregate, 6-1â¨and 3-1, and that was a huge shock because the Australians were made up ofâ¨mainly British players, who had been lower league players but stillâ¨professional.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Now I think you say the average height of the North Korean playersâ¨was--What?--about 5"5'.â¨â¨Mr. GORDON: Five-foot-five, yeah.â¨â¨BOGAEV: And the first game they had to play before they played Chile and theâ¨Italians were USSR, the Russians.â¨â¨Mr. GORDON: Yeah.â¨â¨BOGAEV: They must have towered over them, the Russians.â¨â¨Mr. GORDON: Yeah, they did. And again, we didn't know this until we lookedâ¨more into the, you know, research side of things, but they had actually goneâ¨on a tour of Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the August before the Worldâ¨Cup, and they'd played, you know, some of the best teams in Russia and beatenâ¨them. And the way they'd beaten them was with their speed and, you know,â¨their nimbleness and, you know, their skill. And the Russians, you know,â¨certainly weren't stupid, and they learned from that and they realized thatâ¨they've got this enormous physical presence, and whilst the North Koreansâ¨weren't scared, they were certainly well and truly beaten around. I thinkâ¨there was a foul every three minutes, which, you know, for that time--well,â¨even for now--is quite an exceptional foul rate. And they weren't just nigglyâ¨fouls. They were smashed around the pitch. But the amazing thing is, I mean,â¨they were well-built, the Koreans, just on a slightly smaller scale than theâ¨Russians.â¨â¨So they certainly didn't--I think that the amazing thing is in England, peopleâ¨thought, `Well, you know, we've wondered what these Koreans are like, and nowâ¨we've seen they're not really up to much.' But the Koreans themselves saidâ¨they went back to the dressing room or locker room, as in America, and, youâ¨know, they said, `Right. Well, you know, we've been defeated, but, you know,â¨we've still got two more games to play, and we'll show people.'â¨â¨BOGAEV: Now this Russian game was played in Middlesbrough, and apparently theâ¨townspeople of this northeast town in England just went crazy over the Northâ¨Koreans. How fanatical did they get?â¨â¨Mr. GORDON: Initially, they were disappointed that it was going to be theâ¨North Koreans based in Middlesbrough rather than, you know, a more glamorousâ¨side like Italy. But then there was this huge curiosity about these littleâ¨men. And, you know, again, some of the media had sort of said, you know,â¨they'd be little evil Communists and, you know, really hard. And when theyâ¨met them, the townspeople went to see them train, they realized immediatelyâ¨that, you know, these were really, really nice people and, you know, we'll getâ¨behind them. And then they got the sympathy vote after the Russia game. Andâ¨then suddenly, it just seemed to turn in the Chile game. The crowd wasâ¨screaming and chanting and, you know, screaming for Korea. And at that time,â¨that didn't really happen in the English leagues. And as, you know, the BBCâ¨commentator says, you know, they've never cheered Middlesbrough like this forâ¨years here. And it was incredible. The people just seemed to be carriedâ¨along with this fervor that was developing, and they did completely identifyâ¨with these North Koreans as their team.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Let's talk about the famed game against Italy. How'd the game shapeâ¨up and how good was the Italian team in 1966?â¨â¨Mr. GORDON: Well, the Italian team was one of the favorites for theâ¨tournament. They were a young team and they would win the Europeanâ¨championships two years later, and they would be the runners-up at the Worldâ¨Cup in 1970, and Facchetti was an incredible player, Mazzola was a realâ¨leader, and Rivera, you know, was the Golden Ball winner, which is like theâ¨most valuable player in Europe. So they should have been on a real high. Butâ¨I think they approached the World Cup quite nonchalantly. They assumed thatâ¨they would easily get through this group and they'd probably, you know, winâ¨all three games.â¨â¨And the easiest thing was that, you know, they beat Chile in that first game,â¨and they thought they would then beat Russia and stroll--you know, play aâ¨reserve side against North Korea and still stroll through. They actually lostâ¨to Russia in their second game, so there was a number of things that wereâ¨going wrong within the camp. There was a lot of disquiet and the manager,â¨Fabri, you know, he recognized--in the local papers, he said, `You know, myâ¨players have lost faith in themselves.' And so you've got this real, youâ¨know, Italian crisis within themselves and a fading of confidence.â¨â¨And in the meantime, the Koreans were getting better and better. They'd lostâ¨their first game. They drew the second with this amazing last-minuteâ¨equalizer, and they approached the game thinking, `Yes, we're going to win.'â¨But again, I think the Italians did approach the game thinking, `Well, we onlyâ¨need to draw. You know, if we tie the game, then that's good enough.' Andâ¨there's a big--you know, no one ever learns from history, but so many teamsâ¨have approached a game thinking, `We only need to tie this game, and we'll beâ¨fine,' and they end up losing and going home.â¨â¨And that's what happened. The Italians started amazingly well. Rechumâ¨Yung(ph), the goalkeeper, was, you know, in really, really fine form and savedâ¨lots of shots, and the Italians missed. Then their captain was injured andâ¨taken off and there were no replacement players at that time. And slowly, youâ¨could see the Italian players lose heart and the Koreans gaining confidence.â¨And then, you know, Park Doo-ik scored this legendary goal four minutes beforeâ¨halftime, and then they held on in the second half.â¨â¨And it's amazing. You can see--you know, the BBC commentator says, you know,â¨`They've won. Good heavens, they've won.' And, you know, it was the greatestâ¨shock in World Cup history. Now the Koreans say they weren't shocked by it.â¨They believed that they would win. But in Italy, it still remains a nationalâ¨disgrace. And, in fact, you know, it's still known, if anything goes wrong inâ¨Italy, they call it another Korea, and that's the extent to which the Italiansâ¨sort of--you know, they still suffer from that fateful day, July the 19th,â¨'66.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Now a big part of the story and part of the mystery and the mystiqueâ¨of it is due to the fact that these extraordinary players went back to Koreaâ¨and virtually disappeared to the West and to the world of sports. And youâ¨point out in the film that there were rumors about what happened to them whenâ¨they returned. After they beat Italy, they lost in the quarterfinals toâ¨Portugal. And what were the rumors?â¨â¨Mr. GORDON: Yeah. The r...â¨â¨BOGAEV: That they were censured or punished in some way for their loss?â¨â¨Mr. GORDON: Yeah. I mean, the rumors had spread that they'd been imprisoned.â¨But the stories were so conflicting that we weren't really sure, you know, ofâ¨their authenticity, anyway. The big thing was no one had ever asked theâ¨players what had happened and, you know, to a man, they all said, `Well, youâ¨know, we came home as heroes. You know, look at the footage. You'll see.'â¨And they are still regarded as heroes.â¨â¨Mr. NICK BONNER (Filmmaker): Some of the allegations were thatâ¨they'd--particularly the ones that came out from England, but that they threwâ¨the Portuguese match by womanizing and drinking beforehand. And we went toâ¨sort of try and find out about this theory, and we went up to Middlesbrough toâ¨see if they'd been womanizing. And they're very good-looking lads. I mean,â¨even now, you've got girls going, `Whoo-hoo, what a team.' And there was noâ¨incidents. This is a very small town, Middlesbrough, and you'd soon know ifâ¨anything had been going on there. And at that time--we looked in theâ¨records--there were no sort of pregnancies going on with Korean kids goingâ¨around.â¨â¨We then went up to Liverpool to check about the drinking allegations, and muchâ¨to sort of Dan and my shock, you know, the man we interviewed who was theâ¨original chap around the bar, said, `Yes, you know, they did. They drunk theâ¨bar dry.' And Dan and I went, `Oh, no. This is awful.' But, `Oh, no, sodaâ¨water.' And that sort of gives you an idea. I mean, they were there to playâ¨football.â¨â¨BOGAEV: My guests are Dan Gordon and Nick Bonner. Dan Gordon is the directorâ¨and producer of the documentary film "The Game of Their Lives." Nick Bonnerâ¨is the associate producer of the film. It's about the North Korean soccerâ¨team who upset the favored Italians in the 1966 World Cup. It was aâ¨performance that made sports history.â¨â¨Dan and Nick, we're going to take a break now, and then we'll talk some more.â¨â¨This is FRESH AIR.â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨BOGAEV: Back with filmmakers Dan Gordon and Nick Bonner. Their newâ¨documentary, "The Game of Their Lives," is the story of how an unknownâ¨underdog soccer team from North Korea in 1966 brought off the greatest upsetâ¨in the history of the World Cup.â¨â¨Now let's talk about the making of the film, because that's a big part of thisâ¨story. How did you get access to the players in their homes? It's veryâ¨difficult for the press to get into people's homes in North Korea.â¨â¨Mr. BONNER: Yeah, it is...â¨â¨BOGAEV: And I understand, Nick, you have business connections in North Korea.â¨What are they? What's the nature of your business there?â¨â¨Mr. BONNER: I don't know if it's really business connections. But whatâ¨happened is I was a landscape architect lecturing in Leeds in Sheffieldâ¨University in England and in 1993 went to Beijing to teach at one of theâ¨universities there and do some more studying, and started playing footballâ¨with the British Embassy team. And one of the players--he was an attack, Iâ¨was goalkeeper--happened to be a North Korean. And for the past 10 yearsâ¨we've been best mates, and we just get on very well.â¨â¨And then when Dan came on with this idea of making this film, the first thingâ¨I thought was, `Well, who is this man, Dan Gordon?' No one goes into Northâ¨Korea to make--if you're going to North Korea, you're going as a journalist,â¨you're going for something certainly more than a football story. But we metâ¨up and I spoke back to my North Korean friend and said, `Is it possible for usâ¨to go and see if we can find these players?' And he sort of knew about theâ¨story and said, `Yeah, no, certainly.' But even at that time we thought we'dâ¨only have access to the most famous one, Park Doo-ik, and also one other, theâ¨goalkeeper, Rechum Yung, who was still coaching, and they'd been out withâ¨their team to Beijing beforehand. And it was from there that we--that sort ofâ¨initial trust.â¨â¨In North Korea, the reports we get are from journalists who go in, mostlyâ¨Western journalists; very few journalists from South Korea get in. And, ofâ¨course, if they're only there for a week, there's only so much they can learnâ¨about the country. Having been there for 10 years, I've got a lot moreâ¨access, and I think there's an enormous amount of trust.â¨â¨And so when we came in with Dan--and Dan, who can actually head a ball forâ¨about sort of 10 minutes in the air--we realized that--you know, I think theâ¨players very soon realized that this is an expert in football and theyâ¨relaxed, and suddenly the doors opened.â¨â¨BOGAEV: What rules and restrictions were placed on your filming? What wereâ¨you allowed to show and what not?â¨â¨Mr. BONNER: We thought, like everyone else, I think, who questions us, thatâ¨we would be wholly restricted and we wouldn't be able to this and we wouldn'tâ¨be able to do that. We got everything that we asked for and more. We wereâ¨assigned two minders, as you always are when you're in North Korea, but theyâ¨actually, you know, were our interpreters and really guides rather thanâ¨minders.â¨â¨We asked to go to Park Doo-ik's house. We got it. We asked to go on theâ¨trams. We got it. Everything that we wanted to get we got, which, you know,â¨for a filmmaker is just unbelievable. You wouldn't get that sort ofâ¨cooperation if I was making a film about the English World Cup team of '66.â¨â¨And the amazing story is that they took a documentary crew in 1966, and I knewâ¨they had this footage and I assumed that they would have kept it in theirâ¨archive. And when we asked to see it, they showed it to us. And it was quiteâ¨good, but color--which the English TV was black and white at the time--so it'sâ¨color film from '66. And they said to us, `We don't think it's good enoughâ¨quality for you. We'd like to take it back to negative and then reprint it toâ¨brand-new color positive.' And, you know, I thought that there is no way inâ¨the world that we can afford to pay for that. And they said, `No, no, no. Weâ¨will give that to you, because we want you to have the best possible film.'â¨And again, you wouldn't get that in England from anyone.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Now relations are so tense right now between the US and North Korea.â¨And you two are probably among very few Westerners who have spent time inâ¨people's homes in the DPRK. So on this tour have you been approached byâ¨anyone from the US government or from foreign relations, policy organizations,â¨who want to get more of a handle on what daily life is like inside Northâ¨Korea?â¨â¨Mr. BONNER: Certainly, no. I think what is interesting, under Clinton whatâ¨was happening in North Korea was suddenly America was not being touted as sortâ¨of the fire-wielding enemy across the border. Madeleine Albright had beenâ¨over; the various exchanges were happening. They even thought there was goingâ¨to be an American cultural office set up in Pyongyang. And the rhetoric hadâ¨been turned down over the last 10 years. In 1993, it was very, very serious.â¨There was the threat, which, in fact, 10 years later is the exact same threatâ¨now, both from North Korea having the nuclear capability. In 1993 there wasâ¨the idea that the States would go and take a strike on one of thoseâ¨manufacturing bases for that. But since then, things calmed down.â¨â¨And when Dan and I started going in in 2000, it is almost like North Korea hadâ¨lost this enemy, that it wasn't every so often `The Americans are responsibleâ¨for this, the Americans have done this,' and there was positive press. Whatâ¨is so sad now is that there's such pressure that they feel that they'reâ¨getting from America that, in fact, all it does is refocus them on saying,â¨`Oh, yes, my gosh, there is an enemy across there. This is why we are whatâ¨we're doing.' Unfortunately, now it's back up to the old levels.â¨â¨BOGAEV: So when you were talking to those people on this trip while filming,â¨were you able to talk politics?â¨â¨Mr. BONNER: Yeah. I mean, we talk everything. I mean, I obviously prefer toâ¨talk football with anyone that would care to listen. But, you know, we talkedâ¨politics. And on this trip recently, you know, we were talking about theâ¨situation, and really, you know, we can see, you know, both sides. But fromâ¨their point of view, you know, they were saying--you know, they've done theâ¨air raid drills and they've had blackout practice. They're completely readyâ¨for war, which is frightening for us. But they, you know, again, just feelâ¨like 50 years on nothing's changed. They still have this enemy that wants toâ¨destroy them.â¨â¨And from their point of view, all they can see is that America wants toâ¨attack, and they're ready for it. And we think that, you know, it's tragicâ¨really that we're back at square one. And they say that they're notâ¨frightened, you know, of the enemy, but I'm sure that underneath it all, youâ¨know, it scares everyone that this, you know, potential standoff, you know,â¨could end in absolute catastrophe.â¨â¨BOGAEV: So what kind of sense do you have after making this film about theâ¨relationship between sports and politics?â¨â¨Mr. BONNER: I've always believed that football, you know, will transcend allâ¨boundaries, and that certainly was the case in '66. And what we found is thatâ¨it's the case now. We took the players back to Middlesbrough in October, andâ¨they received a standing ovation from 33,000 people there. They also receivedâ¨a standing ovation from 40,000 at Aveton. They were received by the speakerâ¨of the House of Commons, received by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office; Iâ¨mean, from the highest political level to the man in the street. And theyâ¨were welcomed as people, and they've never forgotten that, to the extent thatâ¨Middlesbrough's talking of twinning itself with Pyongyang and having a Northâ¨Korea day on July the 19th to commemorate that achievement and raising theâ¨North Korean flag from the town hall.â¨â¨So on a people-to-people level, you know, football, and sports in generalâ¨actually, transcends all boundaries.â¨â¨Mr. GORDON: It was obviously beautiful when we took the players--I mean,â¨Middlesbrough to the North Koreans is home; it's their sort of home abroad.â¨And we walked on with the remaining players, some players, and we weren't tooâ¨sure what the reception would be like. And just before a football match, theâ¨stadium's normally pretty empty. But we walked on, the stadium was full. Andâ¨33,000 people stood up to a man and a woman and a child, and it was the stuffâ¨out of movies. You couldn't have asked for a more beautiful reception forâ¨them.â¨â¨Mr. BONNER: Yeah. And basically, I mean, Park Doo-ik said that, you know,â¨the thing he took, you know, the English people took them to their hearts.â¨And really the most important thing he learned was that football isn't aboutâ¨just winning; you know, playing football wherever we go can improve diplomaticâ¨relations and help promote peace. And I think that's what, you know, a lot ofâ¨our audiences have taken from the film and really has been the main message ofâ¨the film, and especially at this moment in time, that, you know, there is anâ¨alternative to the vitriol that's being spoken at the moment.â¨â¨BOGAEV: I'd like to thank both of you. I really enjoyed talking with youâ¨about soccer, about the story today. Thanks.â¨â¨Mr. BONNER: Thank you.â¨â¨Mr. GORDON: Thanks.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Filmmakers Dan Gordon and Nick Bonner. Their new documentary aboutâ¨the North Korean soccer team that made World Cup history is called "The Gameâ¨of Their Lives."â¨â¨Coming up, a review of the new Scott Spencer novel. This is FRESH AIR.â¨â¨* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *â¨â¨Review: Scott Spencer novel "A Ship Made of Paper"â¨TERRY GROSS, host:â¨â¨Scott Spencer's latest novel is called "A Ship Made of Paper." It gets itsâ¨odd title from an old song called "Just to Be With You," with lyrics like `Onâ¨a ship that's made of paper I would sail the Seven Seas.' Book critic Maureenâ¨Corrigan says that Spencer's novel makes you feel the heroism and the futilityâ¨of those lines.â¨â¨MAUREEN CORRIGAN reporting:â¨â¨Long before extreme adventure tales became such a hot literary genre, novelistâ¨Scott Spencer was charting perfect storms of the heart. His most famousâ¨novel, "Endless Love," describes teen-age passion run amok. Reading "Endlessâ¨Love" is like sitting in the eye of a hormonal hurricane and watching asâ¨ripped pillows, bloodied bedsheets and the broken psyches of the two youngâ¨lovers swirl madly around you. But though the love stories Spencer describesâ¨are typically out of control, his writing never is. He's such a precise andâ¨lyrical writer that feelings, experienced but possibly never expressed inâ¨language before, materialize in his words.â¨â¨It took me an unusually long time to read Spencer's wonderful new novel, "Aâ¨Ship Made of Paper," because I kept rereading sentences, savoring the shock ofâ¨their insights, delaying, I guess, what I knew would be the inevitableâ¨discovery at story's end, of the wreckage of his latest expedition into theâ¨thin air of peak emotional experience.â¨â¨When we first meet the main character here, 36-year-old Daniel Emerson, heâ¨foolishly thinks he's retreated from danger. Formerly a socially consciousâ¨lawyer in New York City, Daniel, who's white, was beaten up by some black kidsâ¨working for a client whom he failed to save from jail. Badly shaken, Danielâ¨moves back to his quaint hometown of Leyden in upstate New York, along withâ¨his lover, Kate, a novelist, and her four-year-old daughter, Ruby, whom Danielâ¨adores. But this escape into the quiet life boomerangs when Daniel develops aâ¨colossal crush on Iris Davenport, who's also one of the few black residents ofâ¨Leyden and whose son is Ruby's best friend.â¨â¨Issues of race run throughout this book. It's the autumn of the O.J. trial,â¨and black/white relations are on everyone's mind. And because we readersâ¨enter into every principal character's mind here, we're privy to the knee-jerkâ¨prejudices, fears and fantasies members of each race harbor about the other.â¨We also learn pretty early in the story that Iris shyly reciprocates Daniel'sâ¨desire, but their feelings are kept in check until one afternoon in Octoberâ¨when nature decides to conspire with the unconsummated lovers--a freak mammothâ¨snowstorm hits Leyden. And because the trees still have their leaves, theâ¨weight of the snow snaps them in two all over the countryside, downing powerâ¨lines, blotting out roads and isolating Daniel and Iris together at her houseâ¨after she's picked up the two kids early from their day-care center. Theyâ¨kiss, they couple and then the sky really begins to fall down.â¨â¨Iris' husband, Hampton, a stockbroker who works during the week in the city,â¨suspects that something's going on, but his self-regard is so towering that heâ¨can barely admit that Iris might be cheating. Kate, who's ironic, brittle andâ¨drinks too much, is also not a naturally endearing victim. Such is theâ¨brilliance of Spencer's storytelling, though, that you feel degrees ofâ¨sympathy for all these characters, felled like the trees by a blizzard out ofâ¨nowhere.â¨â¨In this passage late in the novel, for instance, Daniel, who's still livingâ¨with Kate, gazes at her at a party. As he describes his diminished feelingsâ¨for her, I think Spencer astonishingly manages to make our emotionalâ¨allegiances ricochet from Kate to Daniel and, finally, back to Kate again.â¨`She is wearing a black skirt, flattering and tight, a bolero jacket, clip-onâ¨pearl earrings. Her hands are on her hips. She looks lithe, high spirited.â¨If he didn't know her, he would want to. How strange it feels not to loveâ¨her. That love had once felt so stable, dependable. Its very lack of dramaâ¨made it feel eternal. And now to feel so little, to feel almost nothing,â¨outside of respect and a desire not to hurt her too badly, is like waking upâ¨one morning and finding that you can no longer enjoy the taste of bread.'â¨â¨Just when you think these characters simply can't go on in this tumult ofâ¨misery any longer, a horrible accident occurs that pretty much freezes themâ¨into place. Because of the accident, all that snow and, of course, all theâ¨wretched passion in this tale, I have a hunch Spencer may have intended "Shipâ¨Made of Paper" to be a black/white retelling of that grandmother of allâ¨American over-the-top illicit love stories, Edith Wharton's "Ethan Frome." Ifâ¨so, it's a stunning contemporary literary companion piece. Like Ethan, Danielâ¨is a man who risks all for one dizzying ride of a lifetime, and then findsâ¨himself stuck headfirst, flailing in a snowbank, a heroic fool of fortune andâ¨stormy weather.â¨â¨BOGAEV: Maureen Corrigan teaches literature at Georgetown University. Sheâ¨reviewed "A Ship Made of Paper" by Scott Spencer.â¨â¨(Credits)â¨â¨BOGAEV: For Terry Gross, I'm Barbara Bogaev.