Talkback Live
Controversial Author Seymour Hersh/Cancer Survivor and Baseball Player Brett Butler
Aired December 26, 1997 - 3:00 p.m. ET(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN F. KENNEDY, FORMER PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES: The presidency is the most powerful office in the free world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF HULLINGER, CNN HOST: Images of a time in our history that came to be known as Camelot. Has time tarnished them, or have authors like Seymour Hersh helped to dispel what was a myth in the first place? Find out about his new book, "The Dark Side of Camelot," next on TALKBACK LIVE.
Hello, and welcome to TALKBACK LIVE. I'm Jeff Hullinger at the CNN Center in Atlanta.
Well, it's called "The Dark Side of Camelot," a look at the under side of the JFK administration. The man who wrote the book won the Pulitzer Prize for uncovering the My Lai massacre. He investigated Watergate and the CIA. Author Seymour Hersh joins us now here in Atlanta.
Seymour, the firestorm has been unbelievable when you think about the combustible mix, first of all, of the celebrity, of the mythic nature of John F. Kennedy, of Bobby Kennedy, and certainly of your reputation as a journalist. It has made for a very fiery mix over the last four months. Even before the book came out, it has been a fiery mix.
SEYMOUR HERSH, AUTHOR, "THE DARK SIDE OF CAMELOT": Lots of heat, lots of heat. Not much life but a lot of heat sometimes.
HULLINGER: Now you began originally, you were going to write a book about the assassination. How did that change? Why did you decide to go this course instead.
HERSH: One of the ways I thought I'd approach the assassination was not to try and do the normal thing, you know, "Who killed him?" I thought I'd look first at the presidency and see basically if I could tell how he died from how he lived. The thought was to see if there was something internally, inside the mechanism of that White House that could tell me something about why people would want to kill him.
So I started off doing what I do for a living, which is find people, sit them down, interview them, take notes, and put it together.
HULLINGER: But you've been under attack by a lot of critics from the way that you've been able to gather information, the same way that you gathered information with My Lai, the same way that you were able to gather information with Henry Kissinger, the same way you were able to gather information on the CIA. Why is it different this time?
HERSH: Well, I don't know. I didn't do anything differently. You know, I find people interview them, think they're credible, check them out, put it down, and write it, and caveat what I know and caveat what I didn't know.
In this case, it's a myth. And if I'm right, or if I'm even partially right, a lot of journalists and a lot of historians, they've been wrong for 35 years. They've gotten an awful lot of bad history.
And so inevitably, anybody, let's say, who wrote as a journalist in that era in real time or any historian has published things in that period, is going to think I'm off the mark, you know. Nobody likes to know something they didn't find out themselves.
HULLINGER: Those supporters of the Kennedys, those that were in the administration and elsewhere -- Arthur Schlessinger, the noted historian; also Ted Sorensen -- they have attacked you on a very personal level as well. How do you read that? What do you make of that?
HERSH: You know, I don't know why I should believe Arthur Schlessinger writing about John F. Kennedy or Ted Sorensen writing about John F. Kennedy any more than I would believe H.R. Haldeman writing about Richard Nixon, Nixon's chief of staff. As far as I'm concerned, when you're close to a president and you write about him, you're still carrying water. And I don't -- you know, I would argue that all you have to do is look at the facts, look at the people I interviewed.
In the book, I make it clear that most of the stuff is on the record. I talk to secret servicemen and I name them, and I say where they can be found. They've been interviewed. Not many are going, you know, not many are criticizing me for what I've written.
HULLINGER: You know, you mention Nixon, and I have to tell you, even though these two were certainly associated in life, in death they are as well. No matter how you feel about Nixon, no matter how you feel about Kennedy, whatever you read about them, it does not inherently change your opinion of those two figures. Do you believe that to be true in the case even with the writing of this book?
HERSH: You know, Nixon was the kind of person you loved to hate. And John F. Kennedy was the kind of person you loved to love. This book almost can be subtitled "The Politics of Beauty," or "The Power of Beauty." He was a beautiful man. Nixon wasn't. And America, it seems, like the rest of the world, we love beauty. We also love royalty. He was like royalty. This country went bananas when Princess Di was killed appropriately. We suffered as much as they did in England. We do like royalty here.
HULLINGER: Let's take some questions off the net if we can right now. "I can see no valid purpose to this book." That is from Sherry Gogerty. How about "To what extent are you finding resistance to the revelations in your book?" That's from Bill Brown.
HERSH: Well, obviously, people -- The worst stuff, I think, in terms of the press, was what the secret service guys told me. And once I go tot he secret service and once they're willing to go on the record, I knew I had a problem.
HULLINGER: And the secret service guys have told you that there were prostitutes at various stops along his trail of speeches. There was also Fiddle and Faddle, the two women at the White House pool. There was also the issue of various times of venereal disease was an issue in President Kennedy's life.
HERSH: The issue with the secret service guys, by the way, they're cops. They're there to protect him, take a bullet for him. And they're not there to make judgments about his personal life. And they couldn't have cared less what he did personally.
What happened was he would have these women run into the White House, and the secret service was not allowed to clear them. If you go there, I go there, the president of Turner, of CNN go there, he has to be cleared. They have to run a name check, make sure he's not -- no police record, no criminal record.
And with these women, they were brought in by the Irish Mafia, Kenny O'Donald and Dave Powers, who were basically the only other word like procurers of the president. And the secret service guys, whose job is to protect the life of the president were told, "You're not to know who they are. Stay out of the way. Don't check their handbags for guns, syringes, or tape recorders." And so they were very demoralized, because for hours every day and certainly hours at night, or many times overnight, they wouldn't know who he was with or where.
HULLINGER: Why should we be concerned about that? After all of these years that have passed, why does it matter that he might have been promiscuous, or that he might have been involved in a myriad of affairs with an assortment of women?
HERSH: It's a great question, and there's a simple answer to it. Because it turns out, as I got into it -- I don't write about this stuff normally, but it turns out that the recklessness that we saw in his private life I also found in the public life.
I also found in the way he dealt with Castro, in the way he won election with the use of the mob, in the way -- The missile crisis, he lied about the missile crisis. It was not a great victory for us. It was a secret deal. And also, in Vietnam, where at the very end of his life, he was involved in an overthrow very cynically. And so the recklessness we saw, just to restate it, there's a continuum. It goes on. It just didn't exist in his private life. It was the man.
HULLINGER: What do you think is the most astonishing part of what you have you learned about JFK? Was it the recklessness in your view of how he led affairs of state, the way that he stared down the
Russians, the way that he and Bobby played at least in your view that they were not as careful with what might have been the destruction of the earth?
HERSH: That's one big one, because the missile crisis, the famous crisis in which we made Nikita Kruschev withdraw his missiles, John F. Kennedy drew a line in the sand for the world. He said that the Russians don't cross this line in the Caribbean. He set up a blockade of boats. And to the world, it looked like, wow, we really showed the Russians. Kruschev stopped the boats, took out his missiles, went back. The big Russian bear had his tail between his legs.
We now know there was a secret deal. That in the back channel privately, John F. Kennedy resolved the crisis rather shrewdly, I think. Agreed to take American nuclear missiles that were threatening Russia out of Europe. I don't think it's a bad deal, but he didn't tell anybody about the deal. He let it seem as if he'd won the war, when the fact is it was a compromise that won the war.
HULLINGER: Seymour, let's take a question now from Francisco. He's from Portugal.
FRANCISCO: Mr. Hersh, what do you expect from readers? What's the feedback you are willing to have from them when they read your book? What do you expect readers to think when they read your book?
HULLINGER: What sort of conclusions do you think that readers will draw from the information that you have in your book?
HERSH: Well, I want them to think about what the press did not tell them. I want them to understand that sometimes what you see is not what you don't get. We're all victimized here by something the politicians call spin control. We have it all the time. We have it with the current White House.
And I guess the real message is for the American people and the people of the world is you have to draw your own conclusions. You really have to do your own reading and your own work. Don't let me and don't let the television or even the newspapers necessarily tell you want to think. You have to make your own judgments.
In this case, the real thesis of my book it seems to me is that we were not told the full story by the American press. And in part, that's a very sad finding for somebody like me who believes in the press. I spent my life as a reporter 35 years in this business.
HULLINGER: Why do you think the press protected him so, at least in your view?
HERSH: Oh, my gosh, John F. Kennedy's real love affair was not with women. It was with men. Men loved him. The McNamaras, Robert McNamara, George Bundy, his aides, they were just -- All they wanted to do was have dinner with Jack and Jackie. And the same with the press corps.
HULLINGER: We are going to take a break. When we come back, the question is: Was John F. Kennedy a bigamist? That story and more as we continue on TALKBACK LIVE. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HULLINGER: Welcome back, everybody. I'm Jeff Hullinger. This is CNN, the CNN Center.
We are with Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. The name of the book is called "The Dark Side of Camelot." And we were talking about this before we went to break. We know that John F. Kennedy was married once before he married Jacqueline. What sort of evidence do you have that this first wedding came to an end?
HERSH: None.
HULLINGER: None at all?
HERSH: No.
HULLINGER: How did you get the information to begin with?
HERSH: One of John F. Kennedy's closest friends was a guy named Charles Spalding, who spent a lot of time with Jack Kennedy. He was a World War II pilot. He wrote a bestseller about being a pilot in World War II. Spalding is a very interesting man, became Jack's greatest friend in the '40s and '50s.
And again, I can't tell you why or how, but I went to see him. He lives outside San Francisco, and he just started telling me about what happened.
He said in 1947, Jack did marry. I'd head about it, and I asked him about it. And he said that his father tore the marriage apart. Jack was a Catholic, and the woman was Episcopalian, and she'd been divorced. And in those days, that would have been the end of his career to be married to a divorced woman. And Spalding simply said that he married her in the spur of the moment. Dad got mad. Joseph P. Kennedy, the family patriarch. And Jack Kennedy asked Spalding and a said that he married her in the spur of the moment. Dad got mad. Joseph P. Kennedy, the family patriarch. And Jack Kennedy ask Spalding and a lawyer to tear out the records in the Palm Beach County Courthouse.
HULLINGER: But getting married is a public thing is it not?
HERSH: It should be a public thing. And what happened is the records were removed. And, of course, I didn't believe Spalding by himself. I went to his ex-wife, who was then since divorced, she told us similar stories. She didn't know all the facts, but she certainly knew he'd been married.
The woman's name was Dury Malcolm. She later married a man named Chevlon. I went to people in the Chevlon family, who were still alive, and they remembered it, and they talked on the record.
And then I found an amazing priest who still runs -- a parish priest, a Catholic priest in Boston who was very close to Cardinal Cushing, the archbishop of Boston, who was the family cleric, in a way. He took care of the Kennedys, took care of their messes. And Cardinal Cushing, he had told them all about it, Father O'Rourke. And Father O'Rourke to his credit just went on television I understand the other night in Boston and said, "Yes, it's true. Cardinal Cushing told me not only had they been married, but that Joe Kennedy destroyed the records."
So on the basis of those four or five or six people, all of whom I named, I thought there was certainly enough there as a journalist to write this story.
HULLINGER: You know, we were talking about the sexual high jinks and why it's important. The issue of blackmail certainly is very important. And it is your charge in the book that that's how LBJ got on the ticket in 1960. Can you illustrate that for us?
HERSH: Well, the story is simply, what happens is one of the things that's confusing in history is why did they pick Lyndon Johnson. And the Kennedys came into the convention. They didn't like Lyndon Johnson. Their families were not friendly at all.
In fact, Johnson had been very critical of Jack Kennedy, and he called Joe Kennedy a pro-Nazi guy. Joe Kennedy, when he was an ambassador to Berlin, the father -- ambassador to England, rather, right before the war in the late '30s, had been known to be anti- semitic and pro-Hitler.
And so Johnson was saying all these things. The Kennedys were enraged at them. And all of a sudden, Johnson is picked as "veep," vice president. And out of this comes - we talk about spin control - five or six different stories, all authentic.
So it's always been a mystery. And I found an old Powell, a guy named Hy Raskyn (ph)n out of Chicago.
HULLINGER: How do you get these people to talk to you?
HERSH: Well, in this case, it's really weird. I found him. He was retired outside of L.A. And I saw him twice and he didn't say much. But I took him and his wife out to dinner a couple of times. We talked in '95. He had a stroke and died.
And I called his wife to commiserate. You know, believe it or not, we reporters sometimes are human beings, too. Her name was Frances, and she said, "You know, he had a book he wrote and decided not to publish. Do you want to see it?" Zoom, zoom, you know. I'm there and I'm in the Kinko's in ten minutes, you know what I mean, literally.
And in the book is a long chapter that he did not publish about Jack Kennedy telling him that the night Jack Kennedy won the nomination, they were going to pick Stewart Symington. But he went, and Johnson said to him, in effect, he made him an offer he couldn't refuse, that old organized crime term. He said "He threatened me. He
knew things about me I couldn't live with. I couldn't take the threats. I have to live with Nixon. I put him on the ticket." That's the best I can get.
I can tell you that that story was confirmed, that Raskyn had that conversation. I confirmed from two or three other sources. In fact, Johnson bragged about what he did. And on Friday mornings, Miami Herald, for one edition there's a big headline story, and I have a copy of it: "How Johnson Forced His Way onto the Ticket." And they took it off. The next edition, it was gone. The Kennedys got to the publisher.
HULLINGER: Speaking of the Kennedys, here's a question off of the Internet, if you would answer this one, please. We'll take a look at it right now. Here's the question: "Was the Kennedy family told this book would be published?" That's from Charles Welles.
HERSH: Here's how it works. It's obviously -- I think Ted Kennedy is a good senator. Whether you agree or disagree with him, he represents a point of view, a liberal point of view very well, and he's a very effective senator. And I think on children's rights and welfare, he's a very stand-up guy.
The way it works in Washington is a lawyer from that part of the Kennedy family did see me privately. And I'll just say honestly what I told them. I said I would do everything I could not to hurt Ted Kennedy.
HULLINGER: Couple of questions from the audience. Sally from South Carolina, your question for Seymour Hersh.
SALLY: Yes. I'd like to know if the president truly was a bigamist. Was this style of living reflective of the Cabinet he embraced?
HERSH: That's a great question, and the answer is no. The thing about John F. Kennedy is nobody knew what he thought. He kept his peace. He was very, the word they use is "compartmentalized." Everybody saw a little piece of him. Nobody saw it all. In fact, my motto for Lyndon Johnson -- When Jack Kennedy dies, Johnson comes in, my motto is "Don't die in office without telling your vice president what you're planning to do in places like Vietnam." Johnson thought Kennedy was going to go all out in Vietnam. But it turns out there's a chance Kennedy wouldn't have.
HULLINGER: A question for Seymour Hersh.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well, I think this subject is very important from the standpoint that a president should have to be liable for all his actions, not only the political ones as well. So is there anything in the situation of Kennedy that you were motivated by the current situation in the White House, the philandering president, that you wanted to get this story out to have some reflection on what's happening today?
HULLINGER: Those, of course, are allegations of a philandering president as well. They are not substantiated.
HERSH: You know, I think the world is better off now because we didn't know anything about John F. Kennedy. They hid that in a way because of Nixon and Watergate. Reporters are much more eager to probe into the private life. It's tough to say, because we all value privacy, family privacy. But he is the president. So what Bill Clinton, because of the press being more aggressive, what you see is what you got. We know about Bill Clinton's pecadellios (ph), and the messy affairs, and we still reelect him, knowing full well what we're getting for whatever reason. Maybe because the economy good, he's great on television. In John F. Kennedy's case, we didn't know what we were getting.
And, you know, why is it important that he was married once and divorced or not divorced? Anybody's entitled to a mistake. John F. Kennedy was a young kid. He was 30 years old after fighting a war, risking his life. So what if he made a mistake? I don't hold his getting married against him. What I hold against him is that he and his family systematically lied about it after there were rumors about it in the late '50s. They lied and they lied and they lied about it, and that's wrong.
HULLINGER: Bob from New York, a question, very quickly. We're running out of time, if you could make it brief.
BOB: Given his charisma, his personality, and this great person that Kennedy was, if we were to fast forward to the year 1997, with all the modern technological changes we have, do you think the dark side or the personal side of Kennedy would be exposed much like the current sitting president?
HULLINGER: Hang on to the answer to that, Seymour, and we will come right back. Stay with us. We continue from the CNN Center. We're talking with Seymour Hersh, the author of "The Dark Side of Camelot." Stay with us. We continue. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HULLINGER: Welcome back. We're talking with Seymour Hersh, author of "The Dark Side of Camelot." And there are so many issues, so many things to talk about, Seymour, I'm not sure where to begin, as we get late into this broadcast.
But let's talk a little bit about assassinations. While JFK was in office, you think about the assassinations of (unintelligible) in South Vietnam. You think about in the Congo. You think about Trujillo and the Dominican Republic. And those are some of the killings that many have wondered if the Kennedys were involved with, the administration. Was it, in your estimation?
HERSH: Jack Kennedy wanted the capability when he got into office, he called it executive action. He wanted the capability to kill foreign leaders. I write about this at length. It's very sad. And there's also no question that Jack Kennedy and his brother Robert were absolutely avid and determined to assassinate Fidel Castro. In fact, if there's any one scene in this government is that from the moment Castro defeated the Kennedy White House in the Bay of Pigs in April 1961, Jack Kennedy wanted payback.
HULLINGER: But the public pronouncement was anything but that. The spin that he put on it was he was not troubled by that, but behind the scenes, he was.
HERSH: Behind the scenes, he put the orders out to the CIA to "Get off your butts." He didn't use that language, a little more direct, "And get it done." And he also brought in the mob, Sam Giancana, the leader of the Chicago mob to do so, to help him kill Castro. No question about that.
HULLINGER: What about the connection with Giancana, and Judith Exner (ph), and the money, and all of that? Is that legit?
HERSH: He did a lot of work on Judith Campbell Exner and determined that she truly was a beautiful young girl who had the misfortune of falling in love with John F. Kennedy. And John F. Kennedy asked her -- In the beginning for two years, John F. Kennedy had an affair with that woman, asked her to send packages between her and Sam Giancana, the gangsters - he was living in Chicago -- and also another guy named Johnny Roselli in Los Angeles to the point where J. Edgar Hoover put a 24-hour watch on the apartment of Judy Campbell in Los Angeles. He had an FBI agent -- The FBI agents rented an apartment across the street and watched her for 24 hours a day for over a year.
And so here you have a president of the United States having an affair with this lovely woman, who is considered to be so close to the mob that J. Edgar Hoover has her apartment watched every minute of the day. Is there something wrong with that picture.
HULLINGER: You know, you were talking about J. Edgar Hoover. Your book, as I read it over the weekend makes me believe it's the only book that I've read in the last 20 years where Hoover comes out not as a bad guy.
HERSH: In most books, he comes across as this sort of deranged cross dresser blackmailing presidents. The fact of the matter is he was in business for almost 45 years as head of the FBI, and the one thing he understood was he respected the presidency. I'm not saying he didn't keep book. I'm not saying he -- You know, he kept files on people. He wanted to stay in office. But if the president asked him to do something, even if he did not like the president, as he did not like John F. Kennedy's morality, he did it. He was a loyal soldier.
HULLINGER: Bob, before we went to the break, you were talking. And let's go back to you with your question. We now join the following question already in progress, right, Bob?
BOB: Let's fast forward to the year 1997. Would his life be exposed much like the sitting president's life is exposed?
HERSH: Absolutely, absolutely. John F. Kennedy could not have gotten away with what he got away with then. First of all, now, remember the fellow Richard -- Dick Morris, the aide to Bill Clinton, who had an affair with a prostitute, she was taking notes as she was doing the affair, and somebody was across the street taking
photographs. Now it would be on, you know, tabloid press within two minutes. The girls would go out after having sex, and they'd have a tape recorder, and they would sell the story.
But back then, the thought of telling something bad about John F. Kennedy, our God -- Look at the heat I'm getting 35 years later.
HULLINGER: Beth, you have a question for Seymour Hersh?
BETH: Yes. Was Jackie fully aware of his womanizing?
HERSH: You know, I don't write much about Jacqueline Kennedy because of a great -- You know, she was a victim, too, of John F. Kennedy. The answer is yes. And the secret service agents, my source for this, really the best ones, they protected her, too, and her children. They described her as basically a sad woman.
And, in fact, at one point, the big issue in the White House used to be Kennedy liked to have parties in the pool, and Jackie sometimes used to like to make trouble for him. And they had an early warning protection. If she were out of town and coming in from out of town, the agents would call up, the president's agents who were with him in the pool with women wherever, and they'd say, "Fifteen minutes away." They watched her coming in like they'd watch for an incoming missile. And they would try and make sure that she didn't get there and find him in the act so to speak.
So she had a sad life. She knew what was going on, of course.
HULLINGER: Seymour, do you think that a lot of people don't want to believe what you have written because they loved her so?
HERSH: Yeah, and there's so much respect for her, you know, because -- Don't you remember, after the funeral, John-John saluting. I mean, she was truly magnificent at the funeral. She stood up there, she was courageous, and everybody had that image. She became a heroine for a lot of people and a role model for a lot of women. Unfortunately, as we learn more about it, she did know a great deal about his private life and tolerated it.
HULLINGER: So the legacy of John F. Kennedy is what? Is it as the great cold warrior, the "Ich ben ein Berliner" speech? Is it the founder of the peace corps? Is it as the first president to stand out about civil rights? Is it about the nuclear test ban of 1963? Or is it all of the debauchery that you have chronicled?
HERSH: It's certainly what you just said. All of those are the good points. And let me say something about what I wrote. I didn't write a complete biography of John F. Kennedy. I didn't write a well- balanced, rounded history of his presidency. I wrote about the dark side. We do know about the test ban. We do know about his stand on civil rights. He did make a stand on civil rights. We do know that there were many good moments.
On the cold war, he was not the great hero of the cold war. That I am not going to concede in that case. He made deals. He did not win the missile crisis. He had a compromise.
HULLINGER: Was he a good human being or not?
HERSH: No, I think he really had a defective character. I think he thought he was above the law like his father thought he was above the law. I think he thought his consequences -- There were no consequences for his actions. He was honest. He didn't hide what he did in the White House. He just assumed everybody would protect him.
HULLINGER: Was he a good president or not?
HERSH: Oh, no. He left us with a terrible legacy. He left us with an awful war in Vietnam that by the way I don't think he believed in. I make a strong argument at the end of the book, he did not believe in that war, that it was winnable. But he didn't stop it either.
HULLINGER: We want to thank Seymour Hersh, author of "The Dark Side of Camelot." Thanks for joining us. We'll continue. Stay with us from the CNN Center right here. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HULLINGER: Welcome back to TALKBACK LIVE, everyone. I'm Jeff Hullinger at the CNN Center in Atlanta.
A lot of people didn't think our next guest would ever make it to the big leagues. Unwilling to let go of his dreams, Brett Butler kept on fighting. He went on to become one of the most successful lead off hitters in major league baseball history.
But in 1996, he overcame possibly his greatest challenge when he was diagnosed with throat cancer. He writes about his inspirational life in his new book "Field of Hope." Brett Butler joins us today on CNN TALKBACK LIVE.
Hello, Brett, good to see you again.
BRETT BUTLER, FORMER BASEBALL PLAYER: Hi, Jeff. Thanks for having me.
BUTLER: Tell me the story of seeing Ted Turner a couple of minutes ago and what Mr. Turner said to you as he talked about your baseball life which, of course, includes a lengthy stop here in Atlanta where you were a fan favorite for years and years and years. And I have to tell you, you still are.
BUTLER: Well, thanks. We pulled into the valet, and I walked in, and here was Ted right in front of me with his two dogs slobbering all over me. And I said, "Hi, Ted. It's good to see you. I haven't seen you in a while." And I said, "Merry Christmas to you." And he's walking away, he goes, "I should have never traded you. I should have never traded you." So even after all these years, it's nice to be remembered.
HULLINGER: Well, you should have told him, "Hey, look, I'd like to play another year. Let's do it with the Braves. They could use a lead off hitter, and I'm feeling fit and fine."
BUTLER: Well, I don't know about that. They tried to get Otis, and Otis decided to go somewhere else, too. And, you know, he did very well while he was here in Atlanta in the years when they won. And so for me, like I said, I played as long as I possibly could. I went out on my own terms. I didn't expect to play 17 years anyway. So it's time to go home and spend time with the family.
HULLINGER: By Otis, you're talking about Otis Nixon?
BUTLER: Yeah.
HULLINGER: You know, when I flip through your book, yours is a long odyssey of overcoming great odds. You were a tiny little boy that nobody gave much a shot to to making it in major league baseball, in fact making any kind of roster because you were that small. And it seems as though one hurdle after the other has been one that you have been able to jump, and that certainly includes cancer at a very, very dark time in your life.
BUTLER: Well, I only had 32 at bats my senior year in high school. I didn't start on my high school baseball team, but my father said something to me when I was very young, and that was, "Son, if you don't believe in yourself, nobody else will. Go out there and do the very best that you can, and there's always the ability to dream." I think each and every one of us here and throughout the country have the ability to dream. I think a lot of people don't succeed because they're afraid of failure.
Well, to me, I think, you know, you'll never know if you're going to make it or not unless you absolutely take a step out there and try to do it. And consequently, I was able to do that. And after 17 years, I never expected to play this long. It's been a dream come true. And it's been a lot of fun for me.
HULLINGER: You were off to one of your best starts in your career when you found out that you had cancer. Can you tell me how that came about?
BUTLER: Basically, it was right before spring training. And I went in, I had a sore throat, and my ANT buddy of mine, Bob Gatlett (ph) said, you know -- I thought I had tonsillitis, and he says, "Hey, we'll just take it out. Everything will be OK." They took it out about a month into the season. I couldn't stand it any more. And they told me that I had cancer. I was shocked initially. Four or five days was mad at God, like "Lord, you know, I've lived my life the way you wanted me to. You know, why?"
But if we're going to accept the good God gives us, we have to accept the bad. God's not a good luck charm, and he says you know, "Not if you suffer, but when you do, count it all joy, and let me use you in a powerful way." And that's what I was able to do. Then step back and look at it in that way. And people were telling me I wouldn't be able to come back and play, but people were telling me years ago I wouldn't be able to play.
So that was just a driving force for me to be able to get back. And September 6th of that year, we would be able to get back on the field.
Five days later, we broke our hand, and God had another plan for us. And that was more or less to rest and recover. And then took a kind of a toll on the family. And so I made a commitment that '97 would be my final year, and they all agreed with that. And so we were able to walk out after 17 years of a lot of fun.
HULLINGER: You let your kids be in from the beginning on the cancer talk. You let them ask questions. Along with your wife, did you have any thoughts that maybe we should not let them know the truth; we should not let them know of everything that is going on?
BUTLER: No. One thing that we've been able to do ever since the kids were very little and that is be honest. You know, in our relationship, my wife and I, we've been honest. Our communication skills, you have to have those and you have to be honest. I think that's the key. Even if at times it might hurt, you need to tell the truth and be able to encourage others to tell the truth. So you know, there's a lot of things going on in this world that people lie and manipulate and whatever, but to me, I think the truth sets you free.
And so in turn, when we had cancer, we didn't want to keep anything from the kids. We sat them down and we said, "Hey, this is what's going on. Dad has cancer. Ask the questions the way you want."
"Dad, are you going to die?"
"Well, there's a better chance that I'm going to live than I'm going to die."
"Well, Dad, does it hurt?," you know, all these things. The questions were all answered and then from there, they were able to go forward and deal with it along with me. And they all handled it in their own little way, and it worked out fine.
HULLINGER: Cara from Georgia, a question for Brett Butler.
CARA: Yes. I would like to know when you were diagnosed with cancer, what was the most comforting thing or things that others could say or do for you?
BUTLER: Cara, I think for me, it was really the support. I think the thing that touched me the most is the prayer: "Brett, we're praying for you." Being a born again Christian and knowing that God's in my life and is the head of my life. It goes God and then my family and my friends. Knowing that I had people throughout this city and throughout the country praying for me.
I think that was the biggest comfort for me, knowing that people were actually getting on their knees for me. And I can tell you that I felt the prayers throughout the whole ordeal, and that's part of what got me through it.
HULLINGER: Amy from Georgia, a question for Brett Butler.
AMY: Brett, I also wanted to ask, how did your teammates react, and was management supportive?
BUTLER: I think the team was a little bit shocked. Here I was a healthy individual. And you think that you're invincible as an athlete. Hey, it's not going to happen to me. I didn't drink. You know, I didn't smoke. I didn't do any of that. And so I think it came as an initial shock to them.
HULLINGER: We need to take a break right now, Brett. More with Brett Butler when TALKBACK LIVE continues from Atlanta. I'm Jeff Hullinger. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HULLINGER: Welcome back to TALKBACK LIVE, everyone. I'm Jeff Hullinger.
We are joined today by Brett Butler in 17 years as a major league baseball player, one of the all-time terrific lead off hitters that I possibly can think of. You were durable, you were strong, you were a terrific team player. Atlanta, Cleveland, San Francisco, the Dodgers. You contributed to every roster you were a part of. Do you miss it not being a part of baseball now?
BUTLER: Well, I'll pay you later. We'll go to dinner or something for saying that. That was nice.
HULLINGER: You had me read this, right here. I had to read it.
BUTLER: I think I'm going to miss the game, trying to get the adrenaline flow, the game itself, between the lines. I'm going to miss that. I'm going to miss some of the players, kind of the ragging that we did, kind of a family part of it.
But the rest of it, all the travel and all the headaches that went along with the travel, and I have to hit 300, and I have to get in shape, and I have to do all these things, I'm not going to miss any part of that. And like I said, for me, it's been more a relief knowing that now I don't have to do that any more, and I can go home and spend the time with my family.
And how many people have the ability to retire, to be able to go home and spend time with their family? And that's what we're going to do.
HULLINGER: When you were first diagnosed with cancer, how did you come to terms with the issue of death? Death is not supposed to happen to people that make their living with their bodies, people that have always physically been stronger or more gifted athletically than anybody else. How did you see that, and how did you deal with it?
BUTLER: Well, like I said, initially, I got mad at God for four or five days: "Lord, I live my life this way. I did the things that you wanted me to do. And in turn why?" And then when I was able to
step back from that and try to look at it in a third party, it was like, "You know what, God? You gave me the ability to take a kid who was 5 feet tall and weighed 89 pounds and put him in the big leagues for 17 years. You're limitless. You can do whatever you want.
So I'm going to trust you because I gave you my life years ago. I'm going to trust that you will use me to glorify your kingdom in whatever possible way."
And I can tell you, Jeff, that I didn't want the cancer. God gave me nothing I wanted in the cancer, but he gave me everything I needed to get through the cancer. And I've actually been blessed through the situation, and hopefully other people have been, too, also.
HULLINGER: Todd from Colorado, a question for Brett Butler. Go ahead.
TODD: They always said you were too small, and you wouldn't go on to play the next level. Besides hard work and your willingness to pay the price, what was the break you got that helped you get to that level? And then are you going to go on and coach from here?
BUTLER: What was the break? I think that preparation meets opportunity. I think if you're prepared, you have an opportunity, at some point, it's going to happen. Really it was in college. I walked on at Arizona State, transferred to a small school in Oklahoma called Southeastern. And my college coach, Don Parm (ph), who had known a scout, Bob Mavis, with the Braves for 20 years, said, "Hey, would you draft this guy as a favor to me? He'll do the rest." And I got drafted in the 23rd round for a thousand dollars. And then from there, I just worked my tail off. And I think that alone with God's guidance is what got me to the big leagues.
HULLINGER: Harry from Virginia, go ahead for Brett Butler.
HARRY: As a professional athlete and team player, how do you feel about some of the violence problems that have been going on lately in sports, especially in the NBA?
BUTLER: I think that in sports in general, I think we have lost the respect of authority. We have lost the respect of adults. And in turn, there isn't a black and white issue any more. It's all gray. And so what we have to do is go back to boundaries and the way things should be, and then from there, I think the respect factor will come back. Things have to be treated in a little harsher manner.
Like the Sprewell thing, you sit back and look at that. They let him go for a year. I don't know if that was so much true. But to send a sign that, hey, this is not going to be tolerated. And if, in fact, it happens again, because I think he should get a second chance, but if it does happen again, then you're gone for life.
And to me, if people understand, see that this is the criteria, these are the boundaries, then I think things will be a little bit more in order. And that's I think what we need.
HULLINGER: Here's a question off the Internet from Ted. The question is about baseball salaries. Where are salaries in baseball going today? Thank you, Ted.
BUTLER: I think the salaries are going to go into -- I think they're going to be like basketball. I think that you have management. There's a lot of money being made on both sides out there. And the players are going to get what the market will bear. And in turn, management has their philosophy of what they think needs to be done. Players have their philosophy. And in turn, at one point, there will be a plateauing aspect to salaries, but where that will end up, we'll have to wait and see.
HULLINGER: Because of the issue of money, has it changed the athletes that you've come in contact with now as opposed to when you first began? Are athletes now totally different from the rest of American society because of the gross revenue that these guys are now producing?
BUTLER: Well, I think some can be. They're not all like that. There are players -- I think a lot of it is the way you're brought up. Sometimes it doesn't have anything to do with the money they make. I know guys that are making tremendous amounts of money who were brought up the proper way and in turn handle it in that way. There's others that weren't, and in turn they have become negative role models in this country.
But to me, I think what we have to do is we have to sit back and look at each individual and say, "Well, really what was their foundation? How were they brought up?" And I think that is the key.
Has money changed players? I think they have, and I think they've lost respect for the games that they particularly play. And in turn, they have given up on the fact that being a role model. And we are put in a position to be a positive role model, and that's what we need to do.
HULLINGER: We continue on CNN TALKBACK LIVE from Atlanta. Brett Butler is our guest. For 17 years, one of the best lead off hitters in major league baseball. He dealt with pitchers, he dealt with tough players, he dealt with tough stadiums and teams, and then he dealt with cancer, all of them successfully. When we come back, we will continue with Brett Butler. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HULLINGER: Welcome back to TALKBACK LIVE, everyone. I'm Jeff Hullinger.
We are here with Brett Butler, and the life and times of Brett Butler in a new book entitled "Field of Hope." It is a very, very interesting read from a very, very interesting life of Brett Butler. And the thought of you not being in a major league baseball uniform is a very alien thought indeed. If it is for me, it must be doubly so, triply so for you.
BUTLER: Jeff, not really. Matter of fact, the last game that I played in, my wife was smiling like the cat that ate the canary, and everybody's going, "Geez, what are you laughing so much?" She says, "You just don't understand. We are looking forward to the time where he would retire and be able to come home and be with us." And really, I'm encouraged by the love and support that I've had throughout this country. I've enjoyed my time playing baseball.
But God's moving me in another direction, and I'm excited to see what he's going to do with that. And once the surgeries are done with shoulders, then we'll be able to move in that direction.
HULLINGER: We have some young people with some questions for you. Wesley from Georgia is back there in the back row. A question for Brett Butler. Go ahead.
WESLEY: OK. When you were littler like my age or younger, how did you decide to make baseball your career?
BUTLER: I think, Wesley, that for me, you have a dream, you have a desire or a goal. Don't let anybody tell you you can't do it. Ever since I was six years old, I wanted to be a major league baseball player. And if I didn't play ball, I wanted to be an actor.
So I guess was acting like playing baseball, I guess. But I wanted to play ball, and so I did it. Every waking moment, that's what I was thinking about. In the summer, I was out playing ball. In the winter, I was watching games or watching tapes and doing those kind of things so that if I ever had the opportunity, I'd be able to make it.
HULLINGER: Brett, I'm over here next to Devon in a Baltimore Orioles uniform. He wants to know what kind of things he should practice on so that some day he can be a major league baseball player.
BUTLER: Devon, I think what you should practice on are the things that you enjoy doing: Hitting, if you're going to play baseball, hitting and running and stealing and sliding and do those things. But really right now at your age, the best thing that you can do is go out and have fun. Don't try to do all these things that you're not capable of doing now. Go out there and have fun and enjoy yourself, because that's the key to sports is having fun.
HULLINGER: Absolute great advice. How about Art? Close it out. Final question today.
ART: I just wanted to say I'm not much of a sports follower, but it's very impressive to see someone like yourself who's so positive and really makes the whole athletic scheme something we all look up to.
BUTLER: Well, I appreciate the encouragement. And I think to much is given, much is required. I think it's our responsibility. And we've got a lot of role models out there. You're either going to be a good one or you're going to be a bad one. And I think it's our responsibility in whatever realm we're in to positive role models, because this world is going in the wrong direction, and we need to try to change that a little bit.
HULLINGER: Thank you, Brett. You're one of a kind.
We want to thank Brett Butler for joining us today. Thanks also to our audience here at Atlanta.
I'm Jeff Hullinger. Have a great weekend, everybody. We'll see you on Monday.
© 1997 Cable News Network, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.