'Wizard of Oz' Lyricist Gets His Face on a Stamp

DATE April 28, 2005 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: David Albright discusses how A.Q. Khan's actions
impact nuclear proliferations
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

You can't really understand how Iran, North Korea and Libya developed their
nuclear weapons programs without understanding the work of A.Q. Khan. He's
considered the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb. He headed that country's
nuclear weapons program for 25 years, starting in 1976. While developing
clandestine methods of obtaining information and materials to build a nuclear
weapon, he also developed a clandestine network for selling information and
technology to other countries trying to build nuclear weapons. A.Q. Khan was
arrested last year, and after making a confession, received a conditional
pardon from Pakistani President Pervaiz Musharraf. Khan is now under house
arrest.

My guest, David Albright, has been following Khan's story for about 20 years.
Albright is the president of the Institute for Science and International
Security and worked as a UN weapons inspector in Iraq.

What has A.Q. Khan confessed to?

Mr. DAVID ALBRIGHT (Physicist): A.Q. Khan has confessed to helping Iran,
North Korea and Libya acquire gas centrifuges; case of Libya, nuclear weapons
design. In essence, he's confessed that he was really at the center of this
illicit network that was transferring sensitive nuclear technology and actual
centrifuges to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

GROSS: So what are some of the things he's suspected of having done but that
he hasn't confessed to?

Mr. ALBRIGHT: Well, one is did he provide Iran and North Korea with secret
designs and manufacturing instructions for nuclear weapons? And the type of
nuclear weapons assistance that Khan offered to Libya would be extremely
useful to North Korea and Iran so that they could miniaturize their nuclear
weapon and fit it on their existing missiles like the Nodong in North Korea
and the Shahab-3 in Iran.

GROSS: So how would you say that A.Q. Khan and his network have thus far
affected the state of nuclear proliferation in the world?

Mr. ALBRIGHT: Well, they've scared everybody. I mean, it's--the thing you
always worry about most is is that a country will get a shortcut to nuclear
weapons. I mean, that's why people worried so much about the security of
stocks of plutonium and highly enriched uranium in Russia. It represents a
tremendous shortcut to nuclear weapons, and what Khan has done is in essence
given some of our worst enemies the wherewithal to make nuclear weapons. And
now Libya is out of the picture, thank God, and we don't worry about Libya,
but it could be that we have a military conflict with Iran or North Korea
where they would have nuclear weapons because of the assistance from A.Q.
Khan, and so I think if you look at the damage that Khan's done, you really do
have to think of him in the same way we think of Osama bin Laden.

GROSS: After A.Q. Khan made his confession, he was given by President
Musharraf of Pakistan--he was given a conditional pardon and sentenced to
house arrest and President Musharraf called A.Q. Khan, quote, "my hero."
He said, `I revere him for his contribution in making the defense of the
country impregnable.' Why is A.Q. Khan, who helped these other countries get
nuclear weapons--Why is he a hero to the president of Pakistan?

Mr. ALBRIGHT: Well, first of all, the Khan network was created by Khan and
his associates to get the wherewithal to make nuclear weapons for Pakistan.
And they wanted to use the stolen gas centrifuge design information that Khan
had acquired in the Netherlands and they needed to create an illicit
procurement network to buy all kinds of materials, machine tools, other
technology, principally from Europe. And so they set up a smuggling network
back in the 1970s and early '80s that was quite remarkable in getting all the
items that they needed. Then in the mid-'80s, they started to think about
selling to others, and so their first sale to Iran was in 1987. But first and
foremost the Khan network is a network created by the--Khan in full
cooperation with the Pakistani government to, in a sense, arm Pakistan and
give it nuclear weapons. And so he's a hero because of that.

And the fact that he broke laws all over the world, the Pakistani government
was lying all the time about Khan's activities because he would be--the
government would be regularly confronted about Khan and his associates buying
things illegally for Pakistan. Shed some light unfortunately to the culture
of the Pakistani government in that it's a culture where lying historically
has been accepted as a norm in order to get nuclear weapons. And that's part
of the reason why people don't trust Khan and the Pakistani government that
told the full story about all the activities of Khan in providing dangerous
items to other countries.

GROSS: So President Musharraf gave A.Q. Khan a conditional pardon and
sentenced him to house arrest. That seems like a very lenient sentence for
somebody who sold nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Why such a
lenient sentence?

Mr. ALBRIGHT: He is a hero, and I think that Musharraf calculated--and I
disagree with this--that if he imprisoned A.Q. Khan, he could have major
dissent from within the army or within the population of Pakistan. And so I
think he decided not to go very far with Khan for fear of the reaction within
Pakistan. Now I think you can say, `OK, perhaps pardon Khan if he fully
confesses,' but it doesn't answer why none of the other Pakistanis have been
brought to justice. I mean, there's at least 10 that we know of that have
been arrested and questioned. I mean, there may be one who's still in jail.
And so it's not only Khan has not received any punishment, none of them have.

GROSS: Well, some people have speculated that one of the reasons why
President Musharraf gave such a light sentence to A.Q. Khan was that the
government and the intelligence agencies in Pakistan knew some of the illegal
things that Khan was doing and they're protecting themselves. What do you
think of that theory?

Mr. ALBRIGHT: I think--no, I think there is some truth to that. In fact,
before Khan was arrested--I mean, he knew--the writing was on the wall. I
mean, the United States officials had been there to tell them that a lot of
information was coming out. They better do something about Khan. Khan was
talking to reporters and those stories were being printed where Khan was more
or less sending signals--there's others involved. I mean, particularly, North
Korea. Maybe there was government-to-government arrangements on North Korea.
And so I think that Khan was in a position to make a deal with the Pakistani
government, that `I won't--I'll take all the blame and I won't implicate
anybody else in the government, particularly above me, or had retired from
office, and--but I don't want any serious punishment.'

So I think there's certainly some truth there. It's hard to prove, certainly.
And the Pakistani government denies it. And now, of course, Khan denies it.
But I do think that it's one of the reasons why Khan was not punished, and he
may have also in that negotiation said, `Don't punish my associates,' too, and
that may explain, or partially explain, why they have not suffered any jail
time.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, we're talking about A.Q. Khan. He was
the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb program. And he confessed last year to
having sold nuclear secrets and technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.
He's now under house arrest in Pakistan. My guest, David Albright, is
president of the Institute for Science and International Security. He's been
tracking Khan for about 20 years.

What are the odds that although A.Q. Khan is now under house arrest that his
network is still functioning?

Mr. ALBRIGHT: Well, it's a big concern. Certainly many of the members of the
network have been arrested. I mean, there's been arrests in South Africa,
Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands. People are being investigated in Britain,
Dubai, so there's--a lot of them have been identified. But you worry that not
everybody's been identified and you worry about sort of the kernel of this--of
the Khan network which is the secret drawings, manufacturing instructions,
much of which is digital now, that could be hidden and used by someone else to
re-create this network later on. And so you do worry that out of the remnants
of the network a new one could arise that we'll have to change down or suffer
the consequences of in the future. And that's why it's so important to be
thorough now in the investigation is to try to get to the bottom of what
is--what was the Khan network, who was involved, and what exactly did they do.

And then what's happened to all their secret drawings, their--the things they
made. I mean, there are still questions about some of the items that the Khan
network was making for Libya. I mean, not all those items have been accounted
for. And so where are they? There's also real questions about were there
other customers. We know in the case of Iraq, Khan says that Iraq was offered
and they didn't accept. I mean, the actual story is that in 1990, in the
fall, after the invasion of Kuwait, but prior to the allied attack on Iraq,
Khan's intermediary went to Baghdad and said, `Look, we'll help you build
nuclear weapons, we'll help you with gas centrifuges, and it's--you know,
here's what we can do, here's the price.'

Iraqis were actually suspicious. They wondered if Pakistan or this Pakistani
was working with the United States government, it was a sting operation. But,
nonetheless, what Khan was offering, particularly on nuclear weapons design,
was attractive to the Iraqis. They were having a lot of trouble then
miniaturizing their nuclear warhead. They had a lot of trouble, in fact,
learning how to build a nuclear weapon. There's a lot of complicated things
that go into that if it's gonna work properly and reliably. So what the
Iraqis did in the end is they asked for a sample of the wares. They didn't
turn it down. They asked for a sample of wares but within about two or three
months the bombing campaign started and the whole thing became moot.

So I think the concern is is that while A.Q. Khan says no assistance was given
to Iraq, that that wasn't the whole story, that if Iraq had had more time, it
may have pursued the assistance on nuclear weapons. And so questions come up
that, you know, what happened exactly with Syria, what's happened with
al-Qaeda, and are there other countries? Saudi Arabia comes up quite often.
Was there some kind of arrangement with Saudi Arabia? They're--one of the
ironic customers of the Khan network, or at least members of the Khan network,
was India, that we now know that a very important member of the Khan network
in South Africa sold to India's gas centrifuge program. I mean, we don't
think that...

GROSS: Well, wait, wait, wait a minute. That makes no sense to me because
the whole--I mean, the reason why--the primary reason why Khan wanted Pakistan
to have a nuclear weapon, to defend itself against India.

Mr. ALBRIGHT: That's right, so it's certainly ironic, and it shows you that,
for much of the network, money was the motive. And they would sell almost to
anybody. And so now we don't think that India got the gas centrifuge design
plans. I mean, I don't think they got the kinds of things that Khan would
have controlled. So I think Khan would have himself probably have taken a
very dim view on providing gas centrifuge technology to India but members of
his network didn't view that as sufficient to keep them from selling things,
dual-use items, or, in some cases, direct-use items, to India's gas centrifuge
program.

GROSS: Besides money, did Khan have other motivations? Did he have any
political or religious motivations to sell nuclear technology to other
countries?

Mr. ALBRIGHT: I think he did. I mean, my--one of the first cases I had to
look at back in the late 1980s, early '90s was Khan's publishing of what would
be considered secret gas centrifuge information in Western journals. And in
those journals, at least in one case, he talked about, you know, the sort of
hostility to the West and their so-called secrecy, and so I think it--over
time you--I saw that he had this contempt of Western export controls, of
feeling that he was gonna give this information away despite US efforts and
Western European efforts to keep it secret. Also if you look at his
customers, you can't help but think that he tended to favor Islamic states.
And that there were some kind of Islamic flavor to this assistance. I mean,
other than North Korea, the only cases we know of where he was directly
involved are Islamic states.

GROSS: My guest is David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and
International Security. We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest is David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and
International Security. We're talking about A.Q. Khan, the father of
Pakistan's nuclear bomb, who's now under house arrest in Pakistan for
operating a network that smuggled nuclear information and technology to
countries trying to create nuclear weapons, including Iran, Libya and North
Korea.

How was A.Q. Khan busted?

Mr. ALBRIGHT: Oh. The whole story--certainly, the whole story has not been
made public. I mean, we're hoping George Tenet will write a book and--or
write his book and reveal a lot more. I mean, it's a very exciting story
where the CIA was able to--or the British intelligence were able to--I would
imagine through perhaps communication intercepts kind of get a real sense of
what the Khan--that Khan was selling, that he wasn't just buying, but he was
also selling. And what people were looking for was really strong evidence. I
mean, there was all kinds of indirect evidence this was taking place. Some of
it goes back to the late 1980s, particularly with Iran. There were strong
suspicions, or even evidence, that Khan was selling gas centrifuge technology
to Iran but people were looking for really concrete evidence and part of the
reason for that was that if you confronted the Pakistani government, they
would just vehemently deny that any of it was true and just blindly defend
Khan.

And so the idea was to get very good evidence and then whatever evidence they
got around 2000 they decided that it made sense to hold back and penetrate the
network rather than use that evidence to confront the Pakistani government or
try to bust up the network. For a couple years the intelligence agencies in
Britain and the United States penetrated this network, developed evidence, I
believe a portion of the network, and then at some point--and, actually, the
point was more or less decided. They were getting nervous about how far Libya
was getting toward getting nuclear weapons. They decided to bust up the
network, and one of the more dramatic aspects of that was the seizure of the
BBC China, a ship on its--a German-registered ship, I believe, that was going
from Dubai to Libya. And they intercepted it, and, you know, it was taken to
an Italian port, then they seized centrifuge components that had been made in
Malaysia for the Libyan centrifuge program. And then after that, there was a
series of arrests as the investigation gained steam.

GROSS: Do you think that al-Qaeda or any other terrorist group has a nuclear
device now with or without the help of A.Q. Khan?

Mr. ALBRIGHT: There's no evidence of it. I mean, you know, you don't know
what you don't know. I mean--but, again, I think, one of the lessons of the
Iraqi WMD--I guess call it--fiasco is that we shouldn't rush to worst-case
analysis and just assume, well, there must be some fissile material missing,
some plutonium or highly enriched uranium and maybe it's in the hands of
terrorists. So I think--there's no indications that I know of that any
terrorist group has any nuclear explosive material, or a nuclear weapon. I
mean, there's been many media reports to that effect but when we've chased
them down, they haven't been substantiated. But the fact that you can't
eliminate the possibility that there's some plutonium or highly enriched
uranium missing, and the CIA in assessments has stated that to Congress, makes
you worry that we need to put a lot of energy into trying to secure all the
fissile material in the world and we can drastically reduce the chance that
some of it could go missing.

GROSS: So what's your best guess about the state of the nuclear weapons
program in Iran and North Korea?

Mr. ALBRIGHT: Well, they're different. I mean, North Korea has nuclear
weapons, and for a couple years they've been--or at least over--a year they've
been saying they have--well, they use the term nuclear deterrent but they
talked about it in terms of `we're improving the number and quality of our
nuclear deterrent.' They recently have shifted over to just calling them
nuclear weapons or in some--I guess in the initial release they called them
nukes. You know, in some ways they've been talking to Americans too much and
they've picked up our lingo.

But they do have nuclear weapons. We don't know that we--but, unfortunately,
we don't know the quality and we don't know the number. I mean, it can't be
more than a--seven, eight, nine nuclear weapons, and they--we don't know if
they can miniaturize to put them on their missiles in a way that they trust
they'll work but we do fear that they've learned to put a warhead on at least
a Nodong missile that could reach Japan. And now the question is: Will they
increase the number? Will--or will they settle down and so some negotiations
where they'd give up all these nuclear weapons? We just don't know at this
time. I mean, things right now don't look very good.

In the case of Iran, they don't have nuclear weapons. I mean, we think
they've been involved in operations to try to buy nuclear weapons from the
former Soviet Union. A very senior CIA person told me a couple years ago that
Iran actually thought it was buying nuclear weapons, paid a lot of money and
got scammed. So--and that's been a case that was--received a lot of publicity
back in the early '90s. But Iran is mostly concentrating on trying to build
indigenous facilities. And this is where it used the Khan network's
assistance to help it get over some very important bumps in the road on
building the gas centrifuge plant. And in fact I--without the Khan
assistance, I don't think they could have gotten over those bumps. I think
they would have been stopped, at least for decades, based on the Iranian
scientific capabilities and the rate that they make progress at.

And, more importantly, Iran has agreed to suspend its enrichment program so
it's negotiating what they call long-term arrangements with the EU, European
Union, principally Germany, France and Britain, and those negotiations aren't
going very well right now because in the end Iran says, `We want to have a gas
centrifuge program. We want to enrich uranium. It's our right under the
Non-Proliferation Treaty.' Europeans are saying, `Well, look, if you don't
end this program permanently, you're not going to have good relations with
us,' and hardly a day goes by where Iran isn't threatening to end those
negotiations if they don't get the agreement of the European Union to continue
their enrichment program. So it's--again, it's a situation that isn't going
that well and we're just waiting to see how it develops.

GROSS: David Albright is the president of the Institute for Science and
International Security. He'll be back in the second half of the show.

I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

(Announcements)

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Coming up, Iran's nuclear weapons program. We continue our
conversation with David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and
International Security. And David Edelstein reviews the new documentary
"Enron: The Smartest Guys In the Room."

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with David Albright,
president of the Institute for Science and International Security, which
tracks issues of nuclear proliferation. When we left off, we were talking
about negotiations with Iran, attempting to get that country to abandon its
attempt to develop nuclear weapons.

What are some of the most effective carrots or sticks do you think the United
States could use now in trying to convince Iran to stop its nuclear weapons
program?

Mr. ALBRIGHT: Well, there are two things that the United States needs to do.
One is it needs to--and it started this process--work with the European Union.
Just say, `Look, your approach, Germany, France and Britain, is a reasonable
one,' and it may convince Iran to give up these dangerous nuclear
technologies. Unfortunately, when Iran looks at any deal with the European
Union, it wants to know that if it gives up these nuclear capabilities, that
it's getting back some kind of security guarantee from the United States that
it's not going to be attacked or that the United States won't have a policy of
regime change. And so I think the most important thing the US could do is
signal, just as it's done in North Korea, that the whole point of this is not
to change your regime, it's not to attack you, it's to get you to give up
these capabilities and to get you on a road to be integrated into the
international community. And it's going to be a costly road for Iran, but
nonetheless, the United States isn't, through all of this, standing back and
saying, `Whatever happens, we're going to try to bring you down.'

And so far, the United States has not been willing to move away from that, and
I don't know all the inner deliberations of the administration, what I hear is
the typical thing. The hard-liners in Cheney's office, including Cheney
himself, I'm told--although I don't know for sure--and the hard-liners in the
Pentagon just will not settle into a policy where if Iran makes all these
significant concessions that the Europeans are demanding, that the United
States would offer Iran some kind of security guarantee, and some kind of
assurance that it won't try to work--actively work to change the regime.

GROSS: What do you think the odds are that the United States will intervene
militarily in Iran?

Mr. ALBRIGHT: Well, I don't think it's very high. I mean, I think there's
been some recent reports where some have said, you know, it's almost certain.
I don't think so. I mean, the problem for the United States is that the
Iranian nuclear program is very diffuse. I mean, it's at a lot of different
sites. Gas centrifuges are very mobile. I think that's one of the problems
that they confront us with, is that they're easy to hide, they don't need a
lot of electricity. There's no clear signatures when you look from outside
with satellite surveillance or, you know, just look at a building. You can be
even close to it and not know it's a gas centrifuge plant. And so what do you
bomb?

And the concern is that, yes, the program could be set back by a bombing
campaign, but it may not be that much, and it may make the Iranians so mad
that they may do other things by pouring in resources, in particular, to
actually accelerate the program and make more centrifuges faster than they
would have of if they just ended the suspension. The other part of it is, is
that it's not going to be a single strike like what Israel did in 1981 at the
Osirak reactor. It's going to be a multi-day bombing campaign at least, and
that's, in essence, declaring war. And I don't believe that if we did that,
that Iran is just going to sit back and say, `There's nothing we can do.' I
think that they could make our life miserable. In Iraq, they could launch
terrorist strikes various places. They could do all kinds of things, where it
would be very hard for the United States to then decide to invade Iran.

I mean, they're not going to get the British to go along, and the United
States, in any case, can't invade Iran and hope to occupy it, particularly
when, as this crisis develops, you can just see the nationalism growing in
Iran. I mean, most people in Iran now want nuclear weapons, and they're angry
that the United States is trying to deny them these weapons, so I think that
the United States and the Bush administration is well aware of these
considerations. And so I think people who talk lightly about military
strikes, I think are doing us all a disservice, because it's a very different
kind of country than Iraq, and if we attack, we are going to war, and I don't
think we're, in any way, prepared to do that, and I think most Americans would
be very opposed to such activity.

GROSS: When you look around the world both at countries and also at terrorist
groups, whose possible use of nuclear weapons worries you the most?

Mr. ALBRIGHT: Well, for the long term, certainly terrorists' use of nuclear
weapons worries me the most. I mean, finally Iran and North Korea are
rational actors. They're...

GROSS: North Korea--a lot of people would say that North Korea is not
rational.

Mr. ALBRIGHT: No, I think they're rational. I think we don't necessarily
always understand their thinking, and it's often very extremist and somewhat
hysterical in nature, but I think they're rational. They want to survive.
They want to economically grow. They want to use their nuclear weapons
capabilities to get benefits. They want to avoid a confrontation where
they're eliminated. And unfortunately, I don't see the terrorists in that
category. I mean, I don't necessarily see if a terrorist group gets a
nuclear weapon, they rush to detonate it here. They may do something else
with it. They may seek to use it to blackmail or gain leverage over a
country. We just don't know. But I think that the irrationality that I fear
of the terrorists is that you can't negotiate with them, that they have an
agenda, and they're going to live out that agenda regardless of what we can
offer them or threaten them with.

I worry, most of all, that if they do get a nuclear weapon and they decide to
detonate it in our country, that so many will die, and our social system may
never be the same. I mean, we may not have a democracy after such an event,
and I don't know what we'll do in response. Unleashing American anger could
be devastating around the world, given our military power, and so I do, in the
end, worry most about a nuclear strike here.

GROSS: You're an expert on nuclear weapons development around the world and
attempts to prevent that from happening. Is most of your research done
through reading information or do you actually do some, you know, like, you
know, undercover detective work or, you know, going around the world and
investigating these covert networks?

Mr. ALBRIGHT: Well, we do--reading, to us, would be open source information.
I mean, we spend a lot of time collecting information from the media and other
places, written products, TV, to get information. Journalists are very good
detectives, and their work, believe me, is looked at by groups like ours, but
also intelligence agencies. We also, for over a decade, have had a policy of
hiring people from inside programs, Iraqi programs, South African program,
others that we will work with to try to understand what they've done or what
others could do. And as part of that, we seek out Iranians who have inside
knowledge of the program. We also use satellite imagery to look at facilities
in Iran, North Korea. We don't do anything undercover, but we do other things
in order to build up information through working with companies and
individuals who may have access. So basically, we use all sources that we can
to try to answer the questions about these secret programs.

GROSS: Well, when you hire a former nuclear insider from a country like Iran
or Iraq, how do you know that what they're telling you is the truth? How do
you know that they're not still a part of that network and they're just trying
to give you misinformation to misdirect you and American intelligence experts?

Mr. ALBRIGHT: Well, you always worry about that. I mean, in some cases, I
may have known the person beforehand, but I'll give you a case. We hired an
Iraqi in the 1990s who came to us. I knew his debriefing--he defected from
Iraq, a guy named Khidhir Hamza, I knew him quite well, prior to when he
called me to set up a contact. The irony there was that while he was a
valuable source to us and worked with us very productively for about a year or
two, the misinformation he got into after he left ISIS was spinning up the
Iraqi nuclear threat. I mean, he was always on TV, wrote a book, exaggerating
wildly Iraqi nuclear threats. And we knew he was exaggerating, and we knew he
was even contradicting many of the things he told us, but there was no way we
could get that message out effectively, even though we tried.

GROSS: What do you think was Khidhir Hamza's motive in hyping the Iraqi
nuclear program?

Mr. ALBRIGHT: I think in the end, it was a deep hatred of Saddam and a desire
to have the regime changed, and I also think he needed the money. I mean,
the...

GROSS: Are you saying he was paid to hype the program?

Mr. ALBRIGHT: Oh, he was definitely paid while he hyped the program. I mean,
there's no doubt about that. And he...

GROSS: Paid by who?

Mr. ALBRIGHT: Well, he was paid, in some sense, to give speeches at
universities. Some media people paid him. I don't know what he received from
Chalabi's organization, but I wouldn't be surprised if they paid him. I mean,
he was a very important ally of Chalabi during 2002-2003.

GROSS: So you're just saying like the more dramatic the story he could tell,
the more likely he'd be asked to speak for a fee or whatever.

Mr. ALBRIGHT: Yeah. And the media, you know, was not every aggressive in
challenging his statements.

GROSS: Finally, just a kind of personal question about, you know, nuclear
terror. For a lot of people who grew up in the '50s, they were just--you
know, it was just kind of pounded into you that, you know, China and
Russia--those were--China and the Soviet Union--those were like the nuclear
powers. Those were the countries that might drop the bomb, and if the bomb
dropped, you know, that was going to be the end or, you know, you needed a
bomb shelter. You were hiding under your desk in school in case of nuclear
attack--that whole thing. And so I think like at least one generation grew up
with just nightmares of this nuclear holocaust that would be initiated by
China or Russia. Now after the Cold War, the whole nuclear nightmare
scenario changed, and now it's more, you know, countries that--Iran, North
Korea or terrorist groups. And I'm wondering like which nuclear age did you
come up in and are you kind of hard-wired with any specific nuclear fear
scenario? And I don't mean your rational side. I mean, like the side that
comes--that surfaces when you're dreaming at night and you just have your
average nightmare.

Mr. ALBRIGHT: Oh. No, I grew up in the '50s and early '60s, and the horror
continued into the '60s. I mean, I can remember a BBC documentary--actually,
it was banned in Britain--on what would happen if Britain was attacked by
nuclear weapons, and it became kind of a cult film in the '60s. And certainly
can remember sort of nuclear exercises when I was in grade school. But, yeah,
there it was kind of--it grew into kind of a fear or sort of the end of
humankind and the end of civilization; I mean, just massive damage. I mean,
limited nuclear war was just 20 million people dying all at once in America.
But there was confidence that I--at least I felt as a kid--I mean, increasing
confidence. Maybe it was irrational if you think of the Cuban missile crisis,
but nonetheless, I think it grew in the '60s and into the '70s. Chance of a
nuclear war was very small. You know, it was catastrophic for the world if it
happened, but it was a small risk, because the nations were managing this and
our leaders were managing this.

What I fear now and fear for my child is, is that there is--that you can't
manage it in the end, that you're fighting a battle to keep that one nuclear
weapon or a couple of nuclear weapons from going off on American cities, and
you can't quite get on top of it. So that's my nightmare, is that we're
trying to stop particular a nuclear terrorist attack on America, and we can't
quite get on top of it, and it's getting easier as the years click by for
terrorists to build nuclear weapons, because the technology's spreading. You
know, maybe they'll finally succeed in stealing some. I mean, people steal
from the strongest banks sometimes. And so ultimately, my nightmare is that
my child is inheriting a world where they won't feel secure, and that, to me,
would be a horrible tragedy.

GROSS: Well, I want to thank you very much for talking with us.

Mr. ALBRIGHT: OK, thank you.

GROSS: David Albright is the president of the Institute for Science and
International Security.

Coming up, a new postage stamp commemorating the lyricist Yip Harburg. This
is FRESH AIR.

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Interview: Ernie Harburg and Deena Rosenberg discuss the legacy of
Yip Harburg
JUDY GARLAND: Hello, Mr. Harburg. Hello, Mr. Arlen.

Unidentified Man #1: Hello, Judy, we've been waiting for you.

Unidentified Man #2: Judy, we've just finished writing one of the songs
you're to sing in "The Wizard of Oz," and no one's heard it yet, so we've got
our fingers crossed.

GARLAND: Oh, I can hardly wait. Will you teach it to me, please, now?

(Singing) Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high, there's a land that...

TERRY GROSS, host:

Today, the US Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp honoring the lyricist
Yip Harburg. Alongside his picture are the words "Somewhere over the rainbow,
skies are blue," a quote from the song the American Film Institute named the
number-one film song of all time.

In addition to writing lyrics for the songs in "The Wizard of Oz," Harburg
wrote the lyrics for "Brother, Can You Spare A Dime," "It's Only a Paper
Moon," "April In Paris" and "Last Night When We Were Young." His collaborators
included Harold Arlen, George Gershwin and Burton Lane.

Harburg was born in 1896 and died in 1981. In 1999, I spoke about the
lyricist with his son, Ernie Harburg, who co-authored a book about his father,
and music theater scholar Deena Rosenberg who's married to Ernie Harburg.

What was Yip Harburg's role in "The Wizard of Oz" besides working on the
lyrics, 'cause he did more than that?

Mr. ERNIE HARBURG (Son of Yip Harburg): Yes, he did a lot more. First, he
conceived the idea of integrating the songs and the dances, and he wrote all
the setups, or dialogue, leading into the songs during that period. And then
he wrote the whole section at the end, where The Wizard gives out the heart,
the brain, the nerve. And finally, he was the final editor in which he put
the whole thing together in a way that he was eminently gifted for, because
he'd done that with Broadway shows as a show doctor on Broadway.

GROSS: So Yip Harburg pushed to have the songs tell the story...

Mr. HARBURG: Yes.

GROSS: ...and not just be added onto the story.

Mr. HARBURG: Exactly.

Ms. DEENA ROSENBERG (Music Theater Scholar; Wife of Ernie Harburg): And the
place where the songs tell the story that's the most striking example in "The
Wizard of Oz" is the Munchkinland sequence, where the house lands in
Munchkinland. And you've had "Somewhere Over The Rainbow," of course, the
great song. But basically, you've been in a black and white world where there
isn't color and much music in the little girl's life. Once you get to
Munchkinland, you've got music all the way through it, weaving in and out of
the whole story of what happened to that witch. And the Good Witch comes, and
the Bad Witch died, and you have to...

GROSS: "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead," and...

Ms. ROSENBERG: Dead, and you've got to go off to see The Wizard and follow
the yellow-brick road and that whole business. And in a way, you could think
of it that, you know, people credit rightly "Oklahoma" for setting a new trend
in the Broadway musical in terms of the integration of elements, but here you
have a film musical which is really integrating elements in a similar kind of
way that was several years "Oklahoma's" predecessor.

GROSS: The characters of The Cowardly Lion, The Tin Man and The Scarecrow are
told through song. The characters are described through their songs, and the
lyrics are wonderful for those three songs. Why don't we listen to Yip
Harburg, himself, singing the lyrics he wrote to introduce those characters?

Mr. HARBURG: (Singing) I could wile away the hours, conferrin' with the
flowers, consultin' with the rain. And my thoughts I'd be hatchin' while my
head was busy scratchin' if I only had a brain. I'd unravel any riddle for
any individ'le in trouble or in pain. And perhaps I'd deserve you and be even
worthy erv you if I only had a brain.

(Singing) When a man's an empty kettle, he should be on his mettle, yet I'm
torn apart. Just because I'm presumin' that I could be kind of human if I
only had a heart.

(Singing) Life is sad, believe me, Missy, when you're born to be a sissy
without the vim and verve. But I could show my prowess, be a lion, not a
mowess if I only had the nerve.

GROSS: That's Yip Harburg from a CD called "Yip Sings Harburg." I think
probably the most famous song from "The Wizard of Oz" is "Somewhere Over The
Rainbow," and there's a great story, Ernie Harburg, that you tell in your
biography of your father about how Yip Harburg suggested the idea of a rainbow
to Harold Arlen before Harold Arlen actually wrote the melody for the song.
So talk to us a little bit about the origins of the song "Somewhere Over The
Rainbow."

Mr. HARBURG: Yeah.

GROSS: What made your father think a rainbow should be in this song in the
first place?

Mr. HARBURG: In L. Frank Baum's book, in the first paragraph, he describes
a landscape in Kansas which has no color. It's all black and white and gray
and dim, and Dorothy resides there. She's an orphan apparently, and she has
this yearning to grow and live in other places, and she's in trouble there.
And then Yip conceived the idea of a rainbow that she could think about, and
Yip had the idea about, `I want to get to the other side of the rainbow.' And
that's what he told Harold.

GARLAND: (Singing as Dorothy) Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high,
there's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby. Somewhere over the rainbow,
skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.

GROSS: My interview with Ernie Harburg and Deena Rosenberg was recorded in
1999. Today, the Postal Service issued a new stamp commemorating Yip Harburg.

Coming up, David Edelstein reviews the new documentary "Enron: The Smartest
Guys in the Room." This is FRESH AIR.

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Review: New documentary "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room"
TERRY GROSS, host:

When the documentary "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" opened in
Houston, ex-employees of the company got into the screening for half price by
showing their old badges. Film critic David Edelstein says that even if you
didn't lose your job and your savings when Enron collapsed, you should still
see this movie.

DAVID EDELSTEIN:

We, Americans, agree on few things as we agree on the perfidy of the leaders
of the Enron Corporation. That's why Alex Gibney's documentary "Enron: The
Smartest Guys in the Room" is the feel-good movie of the year. Baby, it's
payback time.

Well, the film is not entirely unsympathetic to the men who presided over the
most spectacular business fraud since the gilded age. Enron leaders Ken Lay
and Jeffrey Skilling might not be tragic heroes, but they hung themselves with
their own hubris. You can't call the documentary muck-raking since the muck
has been pretty well raked, but the playful illustrations and ironic pop songs
have a touch of Michael Moore-ishness that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Along with millions of others, I lost a bit of money in Enron, actually not
that much if you consider my original investment, but a nice chunk of change
if you look at what I might have made had I sold as early as--well, as Lay and
Skilling, who divested themselves of tens of millions of dollars worth of
shares right before the stock price plummeted.

The actual trials of Lay and Skilling are yet to come, and I'd advise defense
attorneys to keep the jurors far from "The Smartest Guys in the Room." It's
based on a book by Fortune magazine reporters Peter Elkind and Bethany McLean
whose February 2001 article `Is Enron Overpriced?' sounded the first note of
skepticism. It was a lonely voice, because these men were regarded as
visionaries.

Lay was a poor Baptist preacher's son who became an apostle of deregulation.
He wanted to liberate businessmen from the shackles of government, and that's
what he got when the SEC, under his close friend George H.W. Bush approved,
quote, "mark-to-market accounting" that allowed Enron simply to shift its
losses to the books of bogus offshore companies.

The more fascinating figure is Skilling, the nerd who remodeled himself as a
macho gambler, and who used his favorite book, Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish
Gene," to justify savage competition both outside and inside the workplace.

The tone of the film and its narrator, Peter Coyote, is delightfully
deadpanned so that points are scored just by juxtaposing executives' public
testimony with facts. Here's Lay in October 2001, reporting on the state of
the incredible collapsing company to incredulous employees.

(Soundbite of "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room")

Mr. KENNETH LAY (Former Enron CEO): As you can foresee, the underlying
fundamentals of our business are very strong, indeed, the strongest they've
ever been. But regrettably, that's not what Wall Street is focusing on, and I
doubt that's what you're focusing on.

Unidentified Man: Rumors were just rampant. I mean, they had started to fly
with Jeff Skilling's resignation. But they were kind of a way of life now at
Enron.

Mr. LAY: This inquiry will take a lot of time on the part of our accountants
and lawyers and others, but it will finally put these issues to rest.

Mr. PETER COYOTE: At the very moment Ken Lay was talking to employees, only
a few blocks away, Enron's accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, had begun
destroying its Enron files. On October 23rd, Andersen shredded more than one
ton of paper.

EDELSTEIN: Two weeks after an anguished Enron executive named Cliff Baxter
committed suicide, Lay and Skilling were called to testify before Congress.
You scan their faces for signs of shame or conscience, but it's all bland
obfuscation. `They were,' one observer says, `like captains who didn't go
down with the ship, but lowered themselves into lifeboats, and shouted back up
to the passengers and crew that everything was just fine.'

Arguably, the biggest crook was their associate, Andrew Fastow, who was later
sentenced to 10 years for skimming scores of millions from employees, old-age
pensioners, you name it. Yet just by taking the Fifth, instead of egregiously
dissembling, he comes off as weirdly admirable.

The most chilling part of the movie covers the energy crisis and the rolling
blackouts in California, which turn out to have been partly engineered by
Enron traders exporting power from the state to raise prices artificially.
Director Gibney plays audiotapes of phone conversations which reveal the
traders commanding plant managers to, quote, "get creative in finding reasons
for shutdowns," and then exalting in their power. They watch wildfires on TV
exacerbated by a crippling heat wave and say, `Burn, baby burn.'

In this context, though, we're the ones burning, with rage. Thanks to "Enron:
The Smartest Guys in the Room," it's no longer blind rage. I now know where
my money went, and I'll do my damnedest not to get scammed again.

GROSS: David Edelstein is film critic for the online magazine Slate.

(Soundbite of music)

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
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.