The Case Against Doping

DATE November 13, 2006 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Director John Rich talks about his new memoir about
directing films and some of the most well-known shows in TV
history
DAVE DAVIES, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily
News, filling in for Terry Gross.

(Soundbite from "The Dick Van Dyke Show")

TV Announcer #1: "The Dick Van Dyke Show," starring Dick Van Dyke, Rose
Marie, Morey Amsterdam...

(End of soundbite)

DAVIES: If you think there's a golden age of American television, chances are
pretty good that my guest, John Rich, had a hand in some of the shows you
love. Rich spent more than 50 years directing, writing and producing TV
shows, including "The Dick Van Dyke Show," "All in the Family," "Gunsmoke,"
"The Twilight Zone," "Gilligan's Island," "The Brady Bunch," "MacGyver" and
"Murphy Brown." He won three Emmys and three Golden Globe Awards, and he also
directed five feature films in the 1960s. Let's get a taste of his work.
Here's a scene from "The Dick Van Dyke Show."

(Soundbite from "The Dick Van Dyke Show")

Mr. DICK VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) Where's Rich? Shouldn't he be eating?

Ms. MARY TYLER MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) He's already had breakfast.

Mr. VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) What did he have?

Ms. MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) Waffles and bacon.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) How come he gets all those good things and I
always get scrambled eggs?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) Dear, because when I ask you what you want for
breakfast you always say scrambled eggs.

Mr. VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) Well, honey, it's because I'm half-asleep.
I've got scrambled eggs memorized.

(Soundbite of laughter)

(End of soundbite)

DAVIES: John Rich has written a book about his days with great actors and
writers, temperamental stars and cowardly studio executives. It's called
"Warm Up the Snake: A Hollywood Memoir."

After coming home from World War II, Rich did a stint in radio and was told
that if he wanted to direct television, he'd have to first work as a stage
manager. I asked him what he learned from his early days in TV.

Mr. JOHN RICH: Mostly I learned by watching bad directors, what not to do,
and I don't mean that facetiously.

(Soundbite of Dave Davies' laughter)

Mr. RICH: I learned, obviously, from good directors, but you learn more from
watching a bad director because you would see how he would get himself into a
scrape and you could say--after a while, you'd begin to figure out, `How would
I do that a little bit better?' And initially, in my mind, I was doing
different ways of approaching the sequence, and I'd be wrong, of course, but
then some wiser head, a producer, probably, or a writer, would bail the
director out, and I would say, `A-ha, so that's what happened.' The next time,
I would sharpen my instincts and say, `I would do it this way,' and I began to
hit where I was right.

DAVIES: Can you think of an example of something you learned from bad
directing?

Mr. RICH: Well, there was a director that was scathingly called "Captain
Video" because he used to ask for silly things. For example, they were doing
a remote once at the Brooklyn Navy Yard where the battleship New Jersey was
tied up, and he said looking through the camera lens, `Move the boat four feet
to the left.' Well, the boat was 45,000 tons of warship, and it was completely
secured by halters, and somebody mildly suggested, `Why don't you move the
camera right four inches' or whatever it was. `Oh, yeah, I'll do that.'
Again, a unique perspective on what could move and what couldn't move.

DAVIES: Well, you get into the business and, of course, catch the wave of
early television and then in the early '60s you--you know, you had the great
fortune to work on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" with that cast of...

Mr. RICH: Tremendous.

DAVIES: Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore and Rose Marie.

Mr. RICH: And Morey Amsterdam.

DAVIES: Right, right. You mentioned in the book that this was such a
crackling good cast that you actually had to kind of control the timing of
them.

Mr. RICH: Oh.

DAVIES: Early on, you found that if you weren't careful, you would kind of
peak too early in the week. Get too good before they were before the
audience.

Mr. RICH: That absolutely happened on my first try. I had been doing one
camera film shows like "Gunsmoke" and "Bonanza," peak--shows that were out in
the field. And there, when you do one camera, you get two or three-minute
sequence and get it up to speed and immediately put it in the can. You would
shoot a short section, and that's the way it was done. It was very
efficacious to do that. I came on to the Van Dyke company, a three-camera
film, and the company was so good that on my very first day, I found that I
was employing the same method. I was getting them up, and they were just
terrific, and by the end of the day, we had staged the entire piece and the
cast was euphoric. Everybody was saying, `What a wonderful day!" And it was.
Driving home, I thought it was a great day, and then suddenly it hit me. `Oh,
my God! I have just done what the coach of a professional team has done.'
I've got the people up on Thursday for a show that--for a football game that
doesn't play until Sunday. I've got this cast up on Wednesday and we don't go
on the air until Tuesday. It's going to be stale, and I said, `Oh, my
goodness! It was stupid of me to do that.'

When I came in the next day I said, they were all raring to go, the best day
of rehearsal they've ever had. I said, `Yeah, it was very good, but I have a
couple of ideas.' I called the prop department, the prop man over. I said,
`Please, rearrange'--I told him quietly--`rearrange the set so that it's
completely backwards in a sense.' And I took a break. We rearranged the set.
I asked the actors to go through the motions and they keep stumbling into
things and they say, `What was wrong with yesterday?' I said, `Well, it was
good, but maybe there's something we can find better here.' I forced them to
fool around for an entire day. Wrecked the day, actually. They were irate.
I shouldn't say irate, but they were puzzled, mostly, but a little annoyed.
And on the third day, on Friday, when I came in, I said, `You know, you were
all right. Let's put the set back the way it was on Wednesday.' And then they
performed beautifully. From then on, I said I will never, ever get a company
up that fast. You've got to do it incrementally, a little bit at a time,
before you--you don't want them to peak too soon.

DAVIES: Well, let's talk about "All in the Family," which was such a hit and
something that--a real breakthrough series on television. And it was
interesting how this came to you. You had two great opportunities at once,
and this looked like the weaker of the two, right? In some ways.

Mr. RICH: Oh, not just the weaker, it looked like--no, it was the stronger
of the two, but in my view, it was the one least likely to succeed because of
its language. The shows that you're referring to, on the same day, it was
incredible for a free-lance director, I was offered the pilot for "The Mary
Tyler Moore Show," and Norman Lear had called with the pilot of "All in the
Family." I read both scripts. Mary's script was outstanding. It was funny
and wonderful, but in the genre of really excellent situation comedy. But
"All in the Family" had this language that I said, `This is 1970, nobody will
allow this on American television.' And it was so compelling to make because
the writing was terrific. I called Mary and I said, `Look, I'm going to have
to pass on your show, but I know it's going to be a big hit, but I've got to
try this other thing as an experiment. Now I don't think it's going to get on
the air, mind you, and I think it's going to be dead after the first couple of
episodes, but I've got to try it, so if you will have me when this thing
fails, I'd be delighted to come back and do some of the episodes of "Mary
Tyler Moore," gladly, but I have to pass right now.'

Well, I took the job on "All in the Family." It was a great risk because I
thought this will never get on the air.

DAVIES: Well, it was so different. And one of the moments that I love in the
book is where, I guess you'd done the first 13 episodes and it wasn't clear if
the network was going to renew it. And then...

Mr. RICH: It was very clear.

DAVIES: The answer was no.

Mr. RICH: The answer was we're finished.

DAVIES: And then you're in Hawaii.

Mr. RICH: Right.

DAVIES: And you meet this person--tell that story.

Mr. RICH: Well, because we were cancelled and I was rather tired of it.
After 13 weeks of live live work, no editing, I took my family to the island
of Kauai and we were having lunch and the waitress was a very nice Japanese
lady who was very apologetic. She said, `Do you mind paying for the lunch
right now? It was 2:00 and I have to leave early.' I said, `Sure. But may I
ask what's so compelling on a Sunday afternoon that you want to get home?' She
said, `It's television. There's a new show called "All in the Family" and
I've got to watch this.' Well, I was amazed, but I didn't tell her my
connection. I said, `What is it about the show that appeals to you so?' And
she said, `That Archie Bunker, that's my husband.' Well, I thought, `Holy
mackerel!' If a Japanese lady can make this adjustment, I bet you this is
happening in other places because people are going to be--I'd heard already
from some people who had said, you know, `That's my father.' In fact, it was
Norman Lear's father and a good piece of my father, I hate to say, people who
are trapped by old-fashioned notions.

So, sure enough, when I got back, apparently, they had put the show on in
re-runs in the summer, and it began to catch on.

DAVIES: One of the more memorable episodes was where Sammy Davis Jr. ends up
coming to visit Archie Bunker, who happens to be a black guy that Archie
Bunker really likes.

Mr. RICH: Oh, yes, yeah, yeah.

DAVIES: But this is a film of working class people in Queens. Why did you
decide to get Sammy Davis into the show?

Mr. RICH: Well, we didn't want to do it, frankly. Norman came to me one day
and he said, `Sammy Davis' agent had said when is Sammy going to be on?' I
said, `What are you talking about?' Well, apparently in our opening weeks,
Sammy had been on the Johnny Carson show and had been talking about this new
show, "All in the Family," and praising it. And we thought this is wonderful.
We need the publicity, it's great. And so the agent called Norman and said,
`When is he going to be on the show?' And Norman said, `I don't think he's
going to be.' He came to me. He said, `What do you think about Sammy Davis on
the'--I said, `No, exactly what you just said.' It's a middle-class Queens
family, how do you put these two together? If anything, it would be
type-cast--not type-casting, but it would be celebrity-casting, which we don't
want to do because you can't have that kind of visitation. And the agent
said, `Well, he can play any part.' We said, `No, no, no. If he ever showed
up, he'd have to be himself. He's too big a star.' And he kept going and
going. And Sammy kept talking about, `I'm going to be on the show. I'm going
to be on the show.' And one day Norman came and said, `You know, the pressure
is on. Maybe we can do one episode.' I said, `Well, you're going to have to
lay down an awful lot of pipe,' which is a phrase we use for exposition, to
explain how it's even possible, so cleverly, Norman began to write...

DAVIES: Meaning, to set up a plot so he gets there, and it's believable.

Mr. RICH: Set up a plot line.

DAVIES: Right.

Mr. RICH: But it had to have been done carefully six or seven weeks earlier.
So Norman came up with the idea of having Bunker occasionally
drive--moonlighting a cab, Munson's cab. He would drive a taxi, which would
allow Sammy Davis to get into the cab one night, leave a briefcase. And with
that conceived, we would say, well, Archie would find the briefcase and
because he had given Sammy his address and his phone number because he wanted
a picture, and the briefcase was left in the cab and Archie had it. The phone
rings, and it's Sammy saying, `You've got my briefcase.' And Bunker says, `Oh,
yeah, it's over at the cab office, but I can get it for you.' He said, `Well,
if you can't, I'm on my way to the airport and I can stop over at your house.'

DAVIES: And I guess the big payoff moment of the show is when Sammy Davis
meets Archie and says goodbye, right?

Mr. RICH: Right. They had talked for a while, and it was beautifully done.
Sammy was great. But at the first reading, everything went very well. The
script sounded terrific, and we were all very happy, but as the script ended
and the cast was dismissed for coffee, to take a break, I kept sitting there
thinking there's something wrong. And Lear came over and said, `What's going
on?' I said, `Well, I think we have a good show. The script is good, but
there's no finish.' The finish that was written was that a neighbor wants to
take a picture of Sammy Davis Jr. and Sammy says--Archie says, `No, no, no
pictures.' And Sammy says, `No, I want a picture with my friend Archie,'
whatever it was, `And, by all means, take the picture, I want to remember this
occasion.' And then he leaves. And I said to Norman, `It's flat. I'd like to
have something really physical that goes on. And I don't know what.' And as I
sat there, I started to grin, and Norman said, `You got something?' I said,
`Maybe.' I said, `I think Sammy ought to kiss Archie on the cheek.' And Norman
said, `You think? Really?' I said, `Yeah. It's worth a shot. I think it's a
wonderful finish. I think it'll work.' Well, it worked, if I might say,
brilliantly. In fact, the applause and the laughter was so long that we had
to cut it down because you couldn't stay on it that long. The audience just
went berserk.

DAVIES: We're speaking with John Rich. He's a veteran TV and movie director
and he has a new memoir called "Warm Up the Snake." Let's hear some of Sammy
Davis Jr.'s visit to the Bunker House.

(Soundbite from "All in the Family")

Mr. CARROLL O'CONNOR: (As Archie Bunker) You know, Sammy, them words I just
hear you saying here, they reminded me of something I always wanted to ask
you.

Mr. SAMMY DAVIS Jr.: (As himself) Yes, Arch.

Mr. O'CONNOR: (As Archie Bunker) Well, you being colored, I know you had no
choice in that.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. O'CONNOR: (As Archie Bunker) But whatever made you turn Jew?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. SALLY STRUTHERS: (As Gloria Bunker-Stivic) Sorry, Mr. Davis, sometimes
my father says the wrong things.

Mr. DAVIS: (As himself) Yeah, I've noticed that.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Unidentified Man: But he's not a bad guy, Mr. Davis. I mean, like, he'd
never burn a cross on your lawn.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. DAVIS: No, but if he saw one burning, he's liable to toast a marshmallow
on it.

(Soundbite of laughter)

(End of soundbite)

DAVIES: More with John Rich after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

DAVIES: If you're just joining me, my guest is John Rich. His new memoir is
"Warm Up the Snake."

One other question I had to ask you about "All in the Family." A lot of--one
of the sets that was used a lot was the dinner table; the four of them sitting
around the dinner table.

Mr. RICH: Right.

DAVIES: And you see this a lot in movies and television where people are
supposed to be eating, but they're not really eating. They don't really take
bites. They push food around.

Mr. RICH: Right.

DAVIES: You insisted that people ram food into their mouths. Why?

Mr. RICH: Because one of my deep complaints is exactly what you just said.
I hate to see an eating scene where people sit down to a meal and they don't
eat. They just push the peas around or--and, of course, there's a real reason
for it. It's because an actor doesn't want to get stuck with food in his or
her mouth to deliver their lines. But I said, `Look, on the Bunker family,' I
said, `When dinner is served, you folks should be ravenous and we should
really play it with real food.' Eating carefully has to be choreographed. It
is not a simple thing to do. You have to be able to figure out how much you
can take, how much you can masticate, how much you can put on the side of your
mouth and be able to deliver your lines. So I said, `Let's rehearse with
food,' so we got stew. The prop man brought in--I think it was some canned
stew, and Carroll O'Connor said, `I can't eat this stuff.' I said, `Well.' He
said, `You're right about the eating, but I can't eat this.' I said, `OK.
Let's send out to Chason's.' It was a very famous restaurant in Hollywood.
They made a stew that was made of Kobe beef, I think. It was very expensive
but it was terrific. And the family would sit down, and we would eat all this
food, and I said, `It has to be ravenous. You must--everybody fight for
your--and eat a lot,' which they did. Now, that's what gave it the...

DAVIES: Why did you want them? Why did you want that? Wouldn't it have been
just as effective to deliver the lines, no?

Mr. RICH: No. No, no. It's very funny because you've got extra moments out
of it that were terrific. Glaring, you know, somebody going for the same
piece of meat. Somebody going for the same roll, whatever. Or Archie
deliberately putting too much ketchup on something and Edith looks at him
reproachfully and Archie puts more ketchup on. It all has to be timed. Yeah,
there was a moment I had between Carroll and "Meathead" where they meet over a
piece of something and glare at each other. But it, yes, there's an air of
verisimilitude? Is that the word?

DAVIES: Right. Like a real family. Right.

Mr. RICH: It was a real family. Right.

DAVIES: John Rich, you opened this book with describing a meeting with some
young TV people where you're pitching yourself for a job, and they love you
because you've done all this amazing stuff, and they kind of say, `Well, this
is kind of like talking to a legend.' And then you realize that once you're a
legend, maybe it's time to stop doing it and start writing it.

(Soundbite of John Rich's laughter)

DAVIES: I wanted you to reflect a little bit on how the business has changed.
I mean, you write about this some in the book. Do you think you could direct
television nowadays?

Mr. RICH: No. No. I know I could direct it if they left me alone, but they
don't let you alone. I don't care who you are, you now have the assistance of
a phalanx of writers, you have the assistance of a network or you have the
assistance of a studio, you have people who are sponsors for the product.
They all come down, and they all have an idea of what to do. And it's
direction by committee. And, of course, like the old song, `A camel is a
horse that has been designed by a committee.'

DAVIES: Right, right.

Mr. RICH: And also I believe in the privacy of the rehearsal. It's
essential to me to let the actors be able to be foolish if they want to be in
rehearsal, to find something deeper than the words themselves. You can't do
that when there are people who are watching. You just--you have to have an in
group, so I forbad everybody, anybody, to visit during the three days of
private rehearsal. And that way, the actors could really find something to
play. They can do physical things that they would never try in front of
somebody else. The minute somebody walks into that room who is not in the in
group, they begin to perform. And the last thing I want on a rehearsal day is
a performance. I want investigation.

DAVIES: Huh!

Mr. RICH: And that's what they were able to do.

DAVIES: There's a moment you describe in the book where the child and some
friends of studio executives came in.

(Soundbite of John Rich's laughter)

DAVIES: And very important people. You didn't care. You chased them out.

Mr. RICH: It was not studio executives. It was the network that I was on.
It was ABC. Yeah, one day, I was--I had my rule. I was working privately
with my group and I noticed a cadre of people suddenly standing at one end of
the stage--the studio, so I immediately called a break. I didn't want
anything to be seen. And I looked at my assistant, Doug Smart, and I said,
`Doug.' And I just nodded. And he said, `Yeah, I know.' And he went to talk
to these people to leave. Then he came back, and they were still there. I
said, `What's going on?' He said, `It's Buffy Thomopoulos.' I said, `That's a
great name, but what's Buffy Thomopoulos?' I said, `I recognize the last
name. It could be Tony Thomopoulos' daughter,' who happens to be president
of ABC. And he said, `Yeah, that's who it is. And she wants to watch you
work.' And I said, `No. Be very polite and tell her that this is a closed set
today. She's welcome to come on any Monday or Tuesday because then we have
cameras and the actors are no longer investigating, they're really playing now
and it's almost a finished product. So be nice.' So he went over, and they
left. And he came back and he said, `Boy, she was steaming! You're going to
hear about this.' I said, `Look, you know how we work.' All right. Half-hour
went by. The phone page on the set came over and said, `Mr. Rich, there's a
phone call for you from New York.' Tony Thomopoulos was calling, my
president. I said, `OK. I'll take the call.' Now I was conscious that
everybody would hear my end of the conversation, so I launched into a
rapid-fire delivery. I said, `Tony, I'm so glad you called because I was
going to call you. I don't know if you remember my two boys, Anthony and
Robert. Anthony is now 12, Robert is 10. They're going to be in New York in
a couple of weeks and they have both expressed great interest in seeing how a
network executive conducts his business. They're very well-behaved boys, so
do you mind if I bring them into your office? They'll stand quietly in a
corner and watch you negotiate contracts. Would that be all right with you,
Tony? OK? What do you think?'

(Soundbite of Dave Davies' laughter)

Mr. RICH: There was a long, long silence. I said, `By the way, why did you
call me?' `Well, just seeing how things are going.' I said, `Thanks for the
call. Bye.'

DAVIES: Oh.

Well, John Rich, thanks so much for spending some time with us.

Mr. RICH: Well, I thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to talk to you.

DAVIES: John Rich spent more than 50 years in television. His new book is
"Warm Up the Snake: A Hollywood Memoir."

I'm Dave Davies, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite from "All in the Family")

TV Announcer #2: From Television City in Hollywood...

Mr. O'CONNOR: (As Archie Bunker, singing) "Oh, the way Glen Miller played."

Ms. JEAN STAPLETON: (As Edith Bunker, singing) "Songs that made `The Hit
Parade.'"

Mr. O'CONNOR: (As Archie Bunker, singing) "Guys like us we had it made."

Ms. STAPLETON and Mr. O'CONNOR: (As Edith and Archie Bunker, singing in
unison) "Those were the days."

Ms. STAPLETON: (As Edith Bunker, singing) "And you knew when you were then."

Mr. O'CONNOR: (As Archie Bunker, singing): "Girls were girls and men were
men."

Ms. STAPLETON and Mr. O'CONNOR: (As Edith and Archie Bunker, singing in
unison) "Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again."

Mr. O'CONNOR: (As Archie Bunker, singing) "Didn't need no welfare state."

(End of soundbite)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Richard Pound talks about his new book and the problem
of performance-enhancing drugs in sports
DAVE DAVIES, host:

Sitting in for Terry Gross.

If there's a true zealot in the battle against steroids and other
performance-enhancing drugs in sports, it's our guest Dick Pound. He calls
athletes who stoke their performances with drugs the sociopaths of sport,
cheaters who respect neither their fellow competitors nor the games they're
playing. Pound was an Olympic swimmer for Canada in the early '60s and has
been a member of the International Olympic Committee for 25 years. In 1999 he
founded the World Anti-Doping Agency, which has worked to develop a single
list of banned substances, as well as testing protocols and uniform
punishments for those caught doping. The agency has had considerable success
in amateur athletics, but Pound has harshly criticized those sports for moving
slowly on the issue. Pound's blunt comments about drugs in sport have
embroiled him in several public controversies, most famously with champion
cyclist Lance Armstrong. Dick Pound's new book is called "Inside Dope: How
Drugs Are the Biggest Threat to Sports, Why You Should Care and What Can Be
Done About Them."

Well, Dick Pound, welcome to FRESH AIR.

You know, you were an Olympic swimmer, competed in the 1960 Olympics in Rome.
Do you think the athletes around you then were doping?

Mr. RICHARD POUND: Certainly not in swimming. I think there was some
indication that, you know, the weightlifters had already got into the
steroids, and I think the field folks, you know, the shot-putters and discus
throwers in track and field. But beyond that, certainly not to my knowledge.
It hadn't spread generally to other sports.

DAVIES: Well, Dick Pound, it's interesting, I think, for a lot of people to
observe that your organization, the World Anti-Doping Agency, is a relatively
young thing. I mean, this really came out of scandals in the late '90s. What
prompted the formation of the World Anti-Doping Agency?

Mr. POUND: Well, I think the real key event was the 1998 scandal in the Tour
de France when the Festina Team was caught with industrial quantities of
doping substances and equipment and so forth and were arrested by the French
police. That was kind of a wake-up call for, you know, the European-based
International Sports Federations who said, `Eh, if this can happen to cycling,
which is a very popular sport in its blue ribbon event, the Tour de France,
this could happen to my sport, and I don't want to see that happen to my
sport.' So that was one element of it. The other element of it was that
unfortunately the then-president of the International Olympic Committee also
watching all of this stuff on television says, `For me, this is not doping.
You know, unless you can prove that whatever it is is actively damaging to
health, I don't think it should be called doping, and I think the IOC list is
too long,' and on he went, having forgotten that he'd invited a Spanish
journalist to be with him for the day. You know, to see how Juan Antonio runs
sport, that sort of thing. And this guy could hardly believe his ears because
everything was on the record. He's writing it all down and since Samaran is
saying this and the next day out it comes in the Spanish media. And that
produced an absolutely fire storm of public attention and criticism about the
IOC.

The result was we said, `Look, you know, nobody trusts the individual sports
to go after their riders or players, and nobody trusts particular countries to
be hard on their own athletes if they catch them doping and nobody trusts the
IOC anymore,' so what we need is an independent agency that's not controlled
by any of these stakeholders to kind of take charge of this on a world level
and also to recognize that while sport can do a lot of things, they--you know,
we know who the athletes are. We know where they are. We know pretty well
what they're doing. We know who their coaches are. We know who the bad
coaches are. You know, that sort of thing. But there's a lot of things we
can't do. We can't prevent trafficking in drugs. We can't enter into
premises and seize evidence. We can't compel the giving of evidence under
oath and a whole bunch of things that only governments can do. So the
solution has to be a combination of sport plus the public authorities.

DAVIES: One of the stories that you tell in the book is that of the sprinter,
Kelli White.

Mr. POUND: Hmm.

DAVIES: You go into that in some detail. Remind our audience of her
experience with doping and the lessons you think it bears?

Mr. POUND: Well, Kelli White was one of the American sprinters who was
caught up in the famous BALCO affair. Her initial brush with doping came out
of the world championships in 2003 in Paris when she tested positive for a
stimulant, a very strong stimulant called modafinil. And the explanation that
was concocted for this was, first of all, that it wasn't a stimulant, which is
wrong, it is a stimulant. And, secondly, that she was taking it for a
condition called narcolepsy, which meant that she could fall asleep without
warning and, you know, circumstances that might be dangerous. You don't want
to have somebody with narcolepsy driving a car because they could fall asleep
at the wheel. It turned out on examination that, of course, she did not have
narcolepsy. There was a doctor produced by the BALCO people who said that he
had met with her four times as a patient and he'd prescribed modafinil as
required. Like she had a few little pills of this stuff available for the
so-called condition of narcolepsy. Kelli White said she'd never even heard
the word until it had been mounted in her defense. And it was so obviously
preposterous position. Was she going to fall asleep sometime between the
start of the 100 meters and the finish? You know.

(Soundbite of Dave Davies' laughter)

Mr. POUND: Over the course of an 11-second race. I mean, it just didn't
make any sense. So she got disciplined for that and then, of course, her name
turned out as part of the big THG scandal. And this was one of the designer
steroids discovered. She was one of the users and when confronted with this,
she agreed to accept a suspension for having used that. But she came and
spoke to the World Anti-Doping Agency Foundation Board a couple of years ago
just to describe how this happened. How her coach basically pushed her into
doing this and introduced her to the guy that ran BALCO.

DAVIES: BALCO being the Bay Area Lab that was the source for doping for a lot
of athletes.

Mr. POUND: Yeah.

DAVIES: Yeah.

Mr. POUND: And she was introduced to Victor Conte who supplied the stuff to
her. But the scary part of it was this was stuff that is going straight from
a laboratory into the system of athletes with nobody having done any testing
to see what the side effects would be. And she had, I mean, aside from the
acne and all of that, the sort of stuff that you get from steroids. She was
having, you know, two menstrual cycles every month and she had blood pressure
that was going through the roof. And these folks had no idea. They'd say,
`Well, maybe you should take a little less. Maybe drink some more water.'
Stuff like that. It's probably a miracle that some of those athletes didn't,
you know, didn't die from what they were being given.

DAVIES: You know, you mentioned that she had explained the presence of this
stimulant, or people had explained on her behalf that it was for this
condition, narcolepsy, this spontaneous falling asleep, and she said that not
only did she not have it, she'd never heard of it. Did the doctor who offered
that explanation suffer any repercussions from this phony defense?

Mr. POUND: Not to my knowledge. No. That's part of the whole difficulty in
the whole doping issue is that, to date, 99.9 percent of the people who bare
the brunt of sanctions are the athletes and then the enablers get away.

DAVIES: You know, one of the things you write about are some of the creative
techniques that athletes employ to hide doping. What are some of the more
innovative things we've seen?

Mr. POUND: Well, there are masking agents. Of course, there are making
yourself unavailable for out-of-competition testing. And there are--you know,
you use the substances and the methods prior to competition, and you do it far
enough in advance that the stuff has cleared your system, even though you
still have the benefit of it, as would be the case for human growth hormone or
steroids. And then there's some--for some urine tests, there's some
manipulation. You try and make it--you know, you provide the different urine
from your own. You try and make sure that the samples get degraded in some
way so that you don't get a positive test. There's lots of innovative things
that can happen.

DAVIES: Do athletes actually inject clean urine into their bladders?

Mr. POUND: That is--it has been done, yes. The other thing they do is they
have a different, like a balloon or a bladder that they insert the, depending
on whether you're male or female, into your anus or your vagina with a little
tube and they provide the urine from that rather than their own urine. Some
of it's very disgusting.

DAVIES: Yeah. And then just to extend the bad taste one more step, what's
the Whizzinator?

Mr. POUND: The Whizzinator is a false penis to which is attached a, sort of
a catheter and another source of urine. That's one of the things that the NFL
football player, Onterrio Smith, was caught with. And it's clearly to avoid
detection of doping substances in a urine test.

DAVIES: My guest is Dick Pound. His new book is called "Inside Dope."

We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

DAVIES: If you're just joining me, my guest is Dick Pound. He is chair of
the World Anti-Doping Agency and author of a new book called, "Inside Dope:
How Drugs Are the Biggest Threat Sports, Why You Should Care and What Can Be
Done About Them."

You know, one of the issues that's raised in this issue and professional
sports and amateur sports is what is a fair penalty for a positive doping
test? And I think major league baseball now has finally come to a 50-game
suspension, I believe, which is about a third of a major league season. What
is fair, do you think, for someone who is clearly caught using
performance-enhancing drugs?

Mr. POUND: Well, the consensus that we worked out when we put together the
World Anti-Doping code, which is kind of--you know, we had sports that gave a
lifetime ban for the first offense and then we had some that kind of gave a
two-week ban you could serve between Christmas and New Year's. You know, a
lot of different things. We settle on two years as being the normal penalty
for the first serious offense, doping, and, you know, sometimes there are
explanations and so on that might lead to a reduction of that and in some
cases, even an elimination. But professional sport teams just aren't
interested in that. I mean, I think we could probably get them along to, you
know, agreeing that the list should be the same and that the testing should be
more rigorous and that there should be an independent results management
service and so on so that positive cases aren't getting hidden, but the
thought of losing some star for two years over a little thing like drug use,
in their view, is just out of the question. You know, the third--you see a
little less than a third of a season penalty in baseball is a big improvement
over their first really tough, as they call it, program where the first time
you got caught you got counseling. I mean, I don't know what they would
counsel you rather than about being stupid or how to get around it the next
time. You know, the second time you tested positive, you might get a fine of
up to $10,000, which is walking around money for some of these guys. You
know, the third time, this is the third time you've been caught, you might get
up to a 10-game suspension. It really wasn't until you held up the same
liquor store five times that you might face a suspension of up to a year, so
that was clearly ludicrous.

DAVIES: You know, Dick Pound, you and I have never spoken, but I have to--I
note that you speak in measured terms and clearly think carefully about what
you say and yet your media image is as a bit of a bomb-thrower on this issue.
You've created a lot of controversy, and I read in piece earlier this year in
The New York Times where you said that your job is in part to make it visceral
and another quote maybe from the same piece you said in a sense, "I'm happy to
be known by the folks that hate me." Is it your personality to be
controversial or your mission?

Mr. POUND: It's really part of the job description. I mean, what you're
dealing with are pretty clear rules that everybody--and rules that for the
most part have been adopted with the interest of sport and the health of
athletes. You know, that's what the rules are and you've got people who are
cheating, and so that has to be confronted. You have to shine a bright light
on it. You have to, you know, lift up the carpet and see what's under there.
There's a lot of people who are not much interested in having that light shone
or the carpet lifted, so it is confrontational, and the people who scream are
not the athletes who are playing fair, and the visceral stuff is a way of
trying to get the public at-large to understand that this is a real problem,
you know, and you do that by saying, you know, `Do you want your child to have
to become a chemical stockpile in order to be successful at sport simply
because there's a whole bunch of sociopaths out there that are prepared to
ignore the rules?' They say, `Well, no. That's not what I want.'

DAVIES: I guess some of the controversial moments that have arisen involve
cases where there are athletes who, against whom there are some evidence of
doping, but the case maybe isn't so clear. Marion Jones, the international
track star in 2004 was, you know, the recipient--well, there was a lot of
circumstantial evidence involving her husband and, I guess, a boyfriend, and
then eventually some grand jury testimony in the Bay Area Lab case, but not a
positive test, and some would say in a situation like that, given the
authority of your position as chair of the World Anti-Doping Agency, you
should be careful about commenting until it's clear that you have a violation
here.

Mr. POUND: Well, I'm very careful about what I say. I mean, I have to
respond to questions. I mean, somebody in your business calls me up and says,
you know, `What's the story on Marion Jones?' I can't say, `Gee, I don't
know.'

DAVIES: Mm-hmm.

Mr. POUND: I have to say what's out there. Circumstantial evidence is
nevertheless evidence, and what I've always been very careful to say is that
she has not been charged with an anti-doping violation. There is a lot--you
mentioned something--there is a show on "20/20" on ABC a year or so ago where
Victor Conte said on national television, `I sat beside her. I dialed up a
shot of human growth hormone. I gave it to her. I watched her roll up her
shorts and inject it into her thigh,' you know. That's evidence of a sort.
Still, nobody has charged her with a doping violation, and she's entitled, and
I've made that very clear, to the presumption that she has not doped until
that happens. She had a case this summer where she had a positive A test for
EPO, which was not confirmed by...

DAVIES: Just explain for our audience, A test and EPO. What do you mean?

Mr. POUND: EPO is short for erythropoietin, and it's a substance that is
taken that stimulates the production of red blood cells in the blood which
means you can carry more oxygen to muscles and therefore, improve your
performance. When a test is done, the sample is divided into two roughly
equal parts which are called the A sample and the B sample, and if an A sample
produces a positive result, which is what happened in the case of Marion Jones
for EPO, she is entitled, as every other athlete, to request that the B sample
be analyzed and to have a representative present at that time. That was done,
and the B sample did not confirm the A. We're not sure why yet. We're trying
to figure out why that is, and the result is there is no doping. The failure
to confirm that the B sample cancels out the A sample, so she has not
officially tested positive. All I've ever said, and this goes back to 2004,
is that I hope the people who are looking after her interests have her best
interest at heart.

DAVIES: Right, and I have to say, when I read the comments that you made
about her, there were no case in which you convicted her before evidence was
clear. I think it was the kind of comment where if this evidence is such,
then serious consequences should result, like the removal of medals.

One of the questions hers and others raise, what's the standard of proof that
should bear upon an athlete who violates a drug-use policy? I mean, should
it--I think a lot of their lawyers would say essentially it should be the same
standards that one would use in a criminal trial.

Mr. POUND: Yeah,.

DAVIES: What's your view?

Mr. POUND: My view is that this is not a criminal matter. This is a sport.
These are all sport rules and the standard of proof that has evolved in the
sport jurisprudence is what's called a comfortable satisfaction with the
evidence. So it's less than proof beyond all reasonable doubt and higher than
a mere balance of probabilities.

DAVIES: Well, Dick Pound, I want to thank you so much for spending some time
with us.

Mr. POUND: It was fun. Thank you.

DAVIES: Dick Pound chairs the World Anti-Doping Agency. His new book is
called "Inside Dope: How Drugs Are the Biggest Threat to Sports, Why You
Should Care and What Can Be Done About Them."

Coming up, Ken Tucker reviews the striking debut album of country singer
Bradley Walker.

This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews the debut album by country
singer Bradley Walker called "Highway of Dreams"
DAVE DAVIES, host:

Country singer Bradley Walker is 27 years old, but his vocal style harkens
back to an earlier generation of vocalists, such as George Jones and bluegrass
pioneer Bill Monroe. The Athens, Alabama, native was born with
nondegenerative muscular dystrophy, it's kept him in a wheelchair all his
life. As an adult, Walker's maintained a full-time job as a systems analyst
at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant while performing in local clubs on
weekends. Walker's first album is called "Highway of Dreams," and rock critic
Ken Tucker says it's one of the most striking debuts of the year.

(Soundbite of Bradley Walker singing)

Mr. BRADLEY WALKER: (Singing) "I like a happy song in a loud and smokey
place. Sweet home Alabama puts a smile on my face. But if you want my
opinion, I can tell you for certain that I sing a whole lot better when I'm
hurting. Some nights when I walk out..."

(End of soundbite)

Mr. KEN TUCKER: Bradley Walker possesses a remarkably flexible voice that
belies his youth. He usually starts out in warm middle range and then shifts
up into high plaintive register to reflect romantic agony, a strategy one of
his heroes, George Jones, perfected. But Walker also uses a conversational
tone on many of the songs on "Highway of Dreams." Content to put a lilt on the
end of syllables and let the rhymes of the verses carry the musicality, much
as Willie Nelson does. The fact that I can even dissect Walker's vocal
strategy so precisely attests to not only what a pro he is, for a guy who's
not yet 30 but to have such good music invites curiosity about how he pulls it
off.

(Soundbite of Bradley Walker singing)

Mr. WALKER: (Singing) "Here stands an open bottle, here stands an empty
glass. My new best friends console me and forgive for my past. We all join
here together to pay our last respects to love I couldn't keep alive, and now
I can't forget. Born in 1999 inside her heart and mine..."

(End of soundbite)

Mr. TUCKER: On "Highway of Dreams," Bradley Walker works with a backup band
that emphasizes fiddle and dobro and harmonies of guest stars such as Rhonda
Vincent and Vince Gill. His producer is Carl Jackson, who's worked as a
guitarist for everyone from Garth Brooks to Emmylou Harris. Because the album
Walker and Jackson have conceived is such a throw-back to old commercial
country music, even down to its number of songs, a succinct dozen, none much
over more than three minutes, he naturally didn't get signed to a big
commercial label, and so he's on Rhonda Records, home of bluegrass stars like
Alison Krauss and marketed as such. But while Bradley Walker has a lot of
bluegrass in his wail, he is at heart a hard-core honky-tonk man, as his
trenchant cover of Lefty Frizzell's "I Never Go Around Mirrors" proves
decisively.

(Soundbite of Bradley Walker singing "I Never Go Around Mirrors")

Mr. WALKER: (Singing) "Well, I can't stand to see a good man go to waste,
one who never combed his hair or shaved his face, a man who leans on wine over
love that's told a lie. It always tears me up to see a grown man cry. So I
never go around mirrors. I can't stand to see me without you by my side. No,
I..."

(End of soundbite)

Mr. TUCKER: I haven't referred to Bradley Walker's muscular dystrophy
because it doesn't influence his music in anyway that I can hear, but I
listened to his album before I'd seen or read about him and while he has a
definite attraction to liquor-soaked melancholy and plaintive loneliness,
well, so does every first-rate country singer. I hope what amounts for such a
fine performer to just a good publicity angle doesn't limit his appeal as a
star personality because this young man doesn't need our curiosity or our
sympathy. What he needs is enough of our appreciation to be able to quit that
nuclear power plant job to pursue this phenomenal country bluegrass thing he
has going for himself full-time.

DAVIES: Ken Tucker is editor at large for Entertainment Weekly. He reviewed
the debut album from Bradley Walker.

(Credits)

DAVIES: For Terry Gross, I'm Dave Davies.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.