Lindh, Frank - Interview master file / Witness to Guantanamo / Duke Digital Repository

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Ready.

0:05

-

Yep.

Peter

Okay good evening.

0:06

-

Good evening.

0:07

Peter

We are very grateful to you

0:09

for participating in the Witness to Guantanamo project.

0:10

We invite you to speak of your experiences

0:14

and involvement in the life of your son, John Walker Lindh

0:16

and we are hoping to provide you

0:20

with an opportunity to tell you a story in your own words.

0:21

We are creating an archive of stories

0:25

so that people in America and around the world

0:27

will have a better understanding

0:30

of what you and others have observed and experienced.

0:32

Future generations must know what happened.

0:37

Post 911 in America.

0:39

And by telling your story, you contributing to history.

0:41

We appreciate your courage and willingness to speak with us.

0:44

If at any time during the interview

0:48

you wanna take a break, please let us know.

0:50

And if there's anything you would like us to remove

0:52

as you're talking, just let us know and we can move it.

0:56

-

Okay.

0:58

Peter

So I wanna begin with just some basic information

0:59

like your name and hometown and birth date and age,

1:02

maybe start with that.

1:06

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My name is Franklin.

1:08

I live in San Rafael, California.

1:09

I was born December, 1952 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1:11

Peter

And your age today?

1:16

-

Oh, my age today is 58.

1:17

Peter

Okay and your marital status and children

1:19

-

I'm Married and between us,

1:25

my partner and I have five children.

1:28

Peter

And, your.

1:30

-

Well we have a sixth now my adopted at my nephew

1:31

from North Carolina

1:34

after my brother died so six kids really.

1:35

Peter

Oh you officially adopted?

1:37

-

Not officially but informally adopted, yeah.

1:39

Peter

And your education.

1:42

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I'm an attorney I'm graduated

1:44

from the Georgetown Law Center in Washington.

1:46

I have a master's degree

1:48

from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

1:50

and my bachelor's degree from Pennsylvania State University.

1:53

Peter

And your current occupation.

1:57

-

I'm an attorney in California

1:59

and I teach law at the University of San Francisco

2:00

Peter

And at Berkeley.

2:03

-

And at Berkeley at Boalt Hall.

2:05

-

Great.

2:08

-

When they have me.

Peter

So I'd like to begin by going back

2:09

to a little bit of background before 911

2:16

and before when John was first or captured in.

2:21

And if you could just give us a little background

2:25

how it was when John went to Yemen

2:28

and what the family was thinking of the time

2:31

just a little background on that.

2:33

I've gone back to the first time he went.

2:36

-

Okay well, John I mean John

2:38

the sort of the full story is John my son

2:40

converted to Islam when he was 16 years old.

2:42

He learned about Islam when he was 12.

2:45

When he went to see the movie "Malcolm X"

2:47

and he was very moved by it.

2:50

And he had prior to then

2:51

he didn't really know anything about Islam

2:52

like most American kids, I suspect at that point.

2:55

And so he became interested

2:57

and began studying it quietly on his own.

2:59

And then at 16, he went to a mosque in Mill Valley

3:01

not far from where we live and rode his bike over there

3:04

and walked in and asked to convert to Islam.

3:08

And he did, he kinda surprised the elders there.

3:10

And then we found about it

3:12

after the fact he had been raised Catholic.

3:15

I raised him in the Catholic religion.

3:17

And so then at age 17, within a year,

3:19

he wanted to go to to Yemen, to study Arabic,

3:23

to master the Arabic language.

3:26

And he persuaded me and his mother

3:28

that that was the right thing to do

3:30

as a developing Muslim

3:32

and to learn to read the Quran really

3:34

that was his motivation to read the original Arabic

3:35

the Quran and the original Arabic was really his intention.

3:39

So he persuaded us that Yemen was a good place

3:43

to learn classical Arabic and I think it is.

3:46

So he went to Sana'a when he was 17

3:49

and enrolled in a school there to study Arabic.

3:52

And then he was there for a period of time

3:55

but then his visa expired in 1999.

3:57

So he came home and he ended up

4:01

being home for about nine months

4:02

longer than he intended to get his visa renewed.

4:04

And then went back to Yemen

4:07

in the beginning of 2000 to continue studying there.

4:08

Peter

I'm going back, you had no idea from the

4:11

when John was 12 to age 16, that he was studying the Islam.

4:14

-

I honestly, I didn't know.

4:19

I don't remember noticing anything about it.

4:23

Peter

And when he went to the mosque

4:25

you had no idea that was happening.

4:27

-

No, we didn't know that he was going

4:29

to the mosque to convert until after, after the fact.

4:30

Peter

And what do you think when he came home and said

4:33

he's now Muslim?

4:36

-

Well, it didn't quite happen that way.

4:39

One of the elders from the mosque called our house

4:41

and the Marilyn, my then wife Marilyn, John's mother

4:44

answered the phone and she began talking to him and he said

4:47

"Oh, well your son has come to the mosque

4:50

"and it's converted to Islam."

4:52

And we didn't know about that.

4:54

So then we talked to John about it,

4:55

and honestly, I felt comfortable with it.

4:57

I respect Islam, I often think of Islam

5:00

and Judaism and Christianity

5:04

as being sort of three Leafs on the same tree.

5:06

And so I honestly, I never was upset by it.

5:09

I'm still a Catholic, I still go to the Catholic church

5:12

and follow my version of the Catholic tradition,

5:17

but John's conversion didn't bother me.

5:20

I respect Islam if he had converted to Judaism.

5:23

I think I would've had a similar reaction

5:26

that it's just a different version of my religion.

5:27

So I supported it and I think Marilyn

5:31

would feel the same way his mother.

5:34

Peter

Did John explained to you

5:35

why he made the conversion?

5:36

-

We've talked a lot about it over the years.

5:38

Peter

And back then at the beginning.

5:41

-

Yeah I think his thing was that he,

5:42

I think the simplicity of Islam is what appealed to John.

5:46

The Roman Catholic religion is anything but simple.

5:50

It's filled with all sorts of folk law and doctrine

5:53

and veneration of the saints

5:55

and the Trinity and all these various things

5:58

that John found a little hard to accept.

6:00

And when he discovered Islam,

6:02

it sort of peels away all that complexity

6:04

and has a very simple and kind of an elegant aspect to it

6:07

which is there's just God and there's the prophet

6:10

there's the word of God revealed through the prophet

6:13

but it's theologically speaking Islam as a much simpler

6:15

more cleaner, more pristine from John's perspective

6:18

religion than the Catholic religion.

6:23

Peter

And do you have any idea

6:25

that he was thinking of going to Yemen before he said to you

6:28

that he wanted to go there,

6:31

was he now open about studying after

6:34

you know, he had converted?

6:37

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Yeah I mean he became very enthusiastic

6:39

about this new religion and he began wearing a fob

6:43

you know, the traditional Arabic dress

6:45

even walking around in Marin County, California.

6:47

So he was full bore into being a Muslim.

6:50

And then the fact that he wanted to now go to Yemen

6:53

and study Arabic made,

6:55

you know it really did make complete sense.

6:56

And even, you know from my own tradition

6:58

in my Catholic tradition, my uncles are Catholic priests.

7:01

And one of them in particular

7:05

was very bright and was selected to go to Rome

7:07

when he was studying to be a priest.

7:10

And he went to the North American College in Rome

7:12

where bright seminarians are selected to go and study

7:14

and all of their classes, this was back in the 1950s,

7:18

all of their classes were conducted in Latin

7:22

and they spoke to one another in Latin,

7:24

you know so there's this sort of a tradition

7:26

that I'm aware of from my own religion of,

7:28

you know going back to the mother church,

7:30

so to speak or to the to the root place

7:32

where the religion sort of originates

7:34

and to learn the religion

7:37

in its original language in the Roman Catholic church

7:39

the original language of that church is Latin.

7:42

And there is that scholarly tradition

7:45

it's somewhat faded away,

7:47

but it's still there in that church.

7:48

And likewise in Islam

7:50

there's certainly a strong scholarly tradition.

7:51

And within that tradition learning Arabic

7:54

is absolutely an essential thing.

7:57

And you can't be an educated Muslim

7:59

and not understand the Arabic language.

8:00

So all of that, John revealed to me or explained to me

8:03

and then persuaded me that it was worthwhile

8:06

for him to go to Yemen to study.

8:09

Peter

Did he have friends

8:12

who also perverted with him or did he.

8:13

-

No, he did this on his own.

8:15

He made friends with younger Muslim guys his age

8:18

once he did convert, but this was really a solitary thing,

8:22

kind of a unique thing.

8:26

Peter

Were you afraid at all

8:27

for his safety when he was 17 and first went to Yemen?

8:30

Are you concerned about that at all?

8:34

-

Not particularly no.

8:36

And certainly when the people that we spoke to

8:39

Yemenis people always very cordial and very hospitable.

8:41

The tradition of hospitality in Yemen is remarkably strong.

8:45

And as soon as soon as people realize

8:50

that first of all, that John was a Muslim.

8:52

And secondly, that he wanted to go to Yemen to study Arabic,

8:55

the warmth and the receptivity was really quite amazing.

8:58

So I know, I mean Yemen today is a different place

9:03

than it was when John went, but I didn't have that fear.

9:06

I mean, there's always some trepidation

9:09

if my son went to France to study French

9:11

or went to Germany to study German,

9:14

and he's 17 you're going to have some misgivings,

9:16

not misgivings, but anxiety perhaps

9:19

that his mother would probably

9:21

have even more than the father.

9:22

So you have a little bit of anxiety

9:24

about your son going overseas,

9:25

but on the whole I felt

9:27

no concern because the main thing I felt really

9:28

was John's enthusiasm for it.

9:31

He was, this was what he wanted,

9:33

his heart was in this,

9:34

and he knew what he wanted and he was destined to go there

9:36

and he just felt really strongly about it.

9:40

And then once he was there,

9:42

he was very happy.

9:43

I mean, he really thrived in Yemen.

9:45

It was I mean it was a struggle,

9:47

his Arabic is a very difficult language

9:49

for a westerner to learn.

9:51

But, and so at first it was a difficult struggle

9:53

on the language front, but he always loved it in Yemen.

9:55

He really enjoyed the atmosphere there.

9:58

Peter

How do you know that?

10:00

-

Oh, we were in contact with him by,

10:01

He wrote by email, he would go to cafes

10:03

where there are internet access computers.

10:06

And he would write to me and his mom and his sister

10:10

and his brother, and just keep in touch with us that way.

10:12

And I still have all those emails

10:14

and he would be just sorta talking about life in Yemen.

10:16

And then I would ask him questions as well

10:19

you know, what's it like there?

10:21

What if what's your day like that kind of thing

10:22

he would write back and say, you know, the enthusiasm.

10:24

He was young, I mean 17, 18 years old

10:26

and embarked on this quest for knowledge

10:29

and for an understanding of this religion,

10:31

he was really enthusiastic and happy.

10:33

Peter

And his brother and sister did,

10:36

how did they, do they appreciate and support him

10:39

or did they not understand.

10:42

-

Oh yeah I'd say they appreciate and support him,

10:44

and we're still very close family.

10:46

And it's just John, you know John has his John is unique.

10:48

You know, he always had a sort of a serene quality

10:52

about him and of the three, you know my three children.

10:55

He was the one who would not believe in Santa Claus.

10:59

He was the one that was skeptical about things

11:03

my older son, and then my daughter

11:05

they were always more gullible.

11:08

They would just sort of police little stories

11:10

I would tell them.

11:12

But John was all, even from a really small child

11:13

he was the one that was always a little skeptical

11:15

about some of these things.

11:17

And that's what I think Islam had this appeal

11:18

for him because of that simplicity

11:21

the elegance of it, the authenticity of it.

11:23

And so it just was John and it didn't change him in any way.

11:26

And so his relationships with his siblings

11:32

I don't think changed at all.

11:35

He's farther away obviously when, once he went to Yemen

11:37

and he wasn't physically at home anymore

11:40

but he was still in touch with them.

11:42

And I don't think,

11:43

I don't think their relationship shifted any significant

11:45

in any significant way.

11:48

Peter

Had he finished high school

11:50

when he went there.

11:51

-

No, he left high school in order to do this.

11:52

Peter

And then when he came back.

11:54

-

Excuse me he took the high school equivalency exam

11:56

to sort of get his high school credential so that.

12:00

-

Before he left.

12:03

-

Yeah before he left

yeah so that he would have that finished.

12:04

I think he felt that his is a high school,

12:07

his continuing in high school was sort of a waste of time

12:10

because of where he wanted to go and what he wanted to do.

12:13

He wanted to get started on this study of Arabic and Islam.

12:16

And he was studying Islam as well as the Arabic language.

12:19

And I think he felt the sooner he could get to a place

12:23

like Yemen to really commence that study the better.

12:25

Peter

And when he came home,

12:27

how did you think he'd be going back?

12:30

Did he say that right away, what was?

12:33

-

Oh yeah, it was always understood.

12:35

He was only home in order to renew that VISA to get back.

12:37

And he and I felt that that's where his purpose was.

12:40

You know his purpose was to learn Arabic

12:44

and really to learn the theological, philosophical

12:47

intellectual traditions of Islam

12:53

and Marin County, California is not the place to do that.

12:55

I mean, if you're wanting to learn French

12:58

you would go to France.

13:00

If you want to learn Arabic, you go to Yemen

13:01

or someplace like Yemen, and that's where he wanted to go.

13:03

And he, yeah when he came home,

13:07

it was always with the full intention

13:08

of going back to Yemen.

13:09

Peter

Do you think of going

13:11

and visiting him in Yemen?

13:13

-

I can't recall ever really thinking that,

13:15

in hindsight now I wish maybe that I had,

13:18

I was busy, you know I have the other children

13:20

and my work keeps me really busy.

13:22

And so I never felt that I had the freedom

13:25

to take that time.

13:29

Peter

So when he left the second time

13:31

can you tell us a little about how that all unfolded?

13:33

-

Well, I remember distinctly taking him to the airport

13:36

in San Francisco and it was February of 2000.

13:40

It was right before his 19th birthday

13:43

and he didn't even stay

13:46

and once he got that visa, he said I wanna go.

13:46

And we tried to persuade him

13:49

it was only two days before his birthday.

13:50

I said, "Why, you know,

13:52

"why don't you stay for your birthday?"

13:54

And he said, "No, I've gotta go, I wanna go."

13:55

And so we took him in the,

13:58

in those days you could go to the

13:59

a little farther back

14:02

it's with the international terminal

14:04

at San Francisco airport.

14:05

But then there was a point where you could not go farther.

14:07

Couldn't go all the way to the gate

14:09

and we all kind of congregated there.

14:10

And Naomi was just heartbroken

14:12

you know, she was really weeping

14:15

to say goodbye to John again,

14:16

a very profound sense of loss for her

14:19

to see him leave again, they're very close.

14:21

Peter

How old was she?

14:23

-

Well, he was turning 19, she would be 10,

14:24

10 going on 11.

14:29

So pretty young, but they're very close.

14:32

John and Naomi he's eight years older than the Naomi.

14:34

There's an eight year difference in their age

14:36

but he was always really close to her.

14:38

He sort of took her under his wing

14:40

when he was eight or nine years old

14:42

and she was a little infant.

14:43

So that was a heartbreaking thing for Naomi.

14:46

And there was a interestingly

14:48

there was a family also onto that same flight to Yemen.

14:49

It was a flight to Frankfurt and then Yemen

14:52

and there was this really delightful Yemenis family.

14:54

And they were just so sweet and comforting to Naomi.

14:57

And they said, we'll take care of your brother

14:59

when he gets to Yemen,

15:02

you don't worry, we will take care of him.

15:03

And they did, I mean they visited him,

15:04

he visited their home and you know,

15:06

they really befriended John.

15:08

Peter

And so could you tell us a little bit more

15:11

than an how that all unfolded once he got then

15:14

from what you knew about John after that, you know.

15:17

-

Well, it wasn't that different.

15:21

He enrolled in the Al-Imam University in Sana'a.

15:24

And so his studies now we're turning more towards Islam.

15:29

And his Arabic language skills were much stronger.

15:33

I mean, he's really getting to the point

15:38

on that second trip to Yemen where he's becoming fluent.

15:39

And he is, I mean he's very skilled at languages.

15:42

He always had a good musical ear.

15:44

So he was able to become,

15:47

I think he was probably fluent

15:48

enough to speak even without much of an accent.

15:50

So he, you know he was really serious about his studies.

15:53

He's a scholarly, hardworking, focused person

15:56

so that he was quite happy

16:01

and again, he stayed in touch with us

16:03

on a regular basis by email,

16:04

beginning in this is now February of 2000

16:07

through that, through the rest of the year 2000

16:09

until November.

16:13

And so anyway, we're just kind of continually

16:15

in contact by email about his studies

16:17

and what he's doing, and what he's thinking

16:20

and what he sees and what society is like there

16:22

compared to the United States.

16:25

I mean, it's very different.

16:26

It's a very poor country for one thing

16:28

and a very traditional country.

16:29

There's not a whole lot of modern culture in Yemen.

16:32

And it was at the time at least in Sana'a

16:36

was relatively peaceful country as well.

16:38

And so we you know, we just had that regular contact

16:41

and got a flavor from his emails, these letters,

16:45

what it was like in Yemen

16:48

and what it was like for John in particular.

16:50

And then in November, his visa expired again.

16:52

And so he had to face the prospect of leaving Yemen

16:57

but he had been in contact even back here in the Bay Area.

17:00

There was, he was always going to lectures

17:04

at the mosques in San Francisco or here in the East Bay

17:08

anywhere where there was a visiting scholar.

17:11

John would seek out that scholar and listen,

17:14

you know he was really hungry for knowledge about Islam.

17:16

And he had met on the course of those visits

17:19

here in the Bay Area to the mosques here.

17:24

He had met a guy from a

17:26

it's sort of a missionary group called Tablighi Jamaat.

17:28

I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that correctly.

17:33

And it's a religious, a spiritual sort of

17:35

missionary movement within Islam

17:38

not to convert non-Muslims to Islam

17:42

but rather to invigorate Muslims to embrace their faith.

17:45

More vigorously is how I understand it.

17:50

And so this guy from the Tablighi movement,

17:54

John had been in contact with him and he was Pakistani.

17:56

So he invited John to come to Pakistan

17:59

to enroll in a Korean memorization school there.

18:02

So John was in contact with him

18:06

by email and then with me, and he said,

18:08

I wanna, my next trip is to go to the next leg of my journey

18:10

is to go to Pakistan, to study

18:14

to literally to memorize the Quran.

18:17

And we had this dialogue back and forth,

18:18

my questions for John were always,

18:21

will this lead you to become a student

18:25

at the Madinah University?

18:29

You know, it just pick that as a kind of an emblematic

18:32

scholarly place within Islam,

18:34

you know a higher education,

18:37

institution of higher learning

18:39

where an educated Muslim would go

18:41

you know, if it were Harvard

18:43

or the University of San Francisco, you know.

18:45

A good education is what I was after for him.

18:48

And so my questions were always,

18:50

you know will this prepare you for that?

18:51

Is this in some respect, a credential,

18:54

will this build your credentials to get

18:57

to the Al-Iman University

18:58

or to the Madinah University in Saudi Arabia?

19:00

I just, in my own mind

19:03

I kinda held that out as the highest level

19:04

of an educational institution for an educated Muslim.

19:09

And he said, "Yes, it will.

19:12

"You have to memorize the Quran to go

19:14

to the Madinah University,

19:17

every student who would go there would have to first of all,

19:18

be completely fluent in Arabic which he had now achieved.

19:20

And secondly, would have to have gone

19:23

through a Quran memorization

19:26

as part of their fundamental education.

19:27

So as you know that was sort of the question

19:30

he answered the question, "Yes."

19:32

And then I said, "All right, well then I prove

19:33

"you can go with my blessing to Pakistan."

19:34

So he did in November of 2000

19:38

he flew from Yemen to Pakistan

19:39

and met with this guy from the Tablighi Movement

19:42

who sort of gave down a tour of Pakistan.

19:44

And he took him to several different cities

19:47

where they have these madrassas to teach the Quran.

19:49

And he eventually found one that he liked

19:53

that was in a small town,

19:56

outside of a small city called Bannu

19:57

near the Northwest frontier part of Pakistan

20:00

which is the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

20:03

And that's where he settled in

20:06

just to do this cram memorization beginning,

20:07

probably by the time he got there

20:10

I'd have to talk to John to get these specifics.

20:12

He flew there, flew to Pakistan in November.

20:15

I think by the time he settled into the madrasa

20:18

it was probably December or maybe even early January of 2001

20:20

Peter

Did you finance all these, both these trips?

20:26

-

Yeah they weren't that expensive though.

20:29

John can squeeze a penny,

20:31

you know and make it last for a really long time.

20:34

And Yemen is as I said, it's a very poor country.

20:35

So and John was living very simply.

20:38

He wasn't living in like a fancy dormitory

20:41

and eating hamburgers.

20:44

He was living in, you know in housing with local people

20:45

and eating the local food both in Yemen and then in Pakistan

20:49

living very simply.

20:52

And so I recall giving him at one point

20:54

on that second trip to Yemen, I wired him $1,200

20:56

and that $1,200 lasted him for more than a year.

21:00

He lived very simply.

21:05

He kind of you know, as we might say

21:07

he went native in these countries.

21:08

He really adapted to this countries in those cultures

21:10

he didn't live like a foreigner or a visitor.

21:13

He lived really among the people

21:15

really got to know the culture and the language.

21:18

And you know, by learning the local language

21:22

was able to really integrate himself.

21:24

Peter

And could you then go further

21:28

as to while he's in Pakistan

21:30

and your relationship with him during that time?

21:32

-

Okay well, he was pretty much the same

21:33

except that in Pakistan, his access to Sana'a is a city.

21:36

It's the capital city of Yemen,

21:41

so it has more in the way of facilities,

21:42

these internet cafes.

21:44

So his regularity of contact fell off a bit

21:46

once he got to Pakistan, but he still stayed in touch

21:49

with all of us by email, just periodically.

21:52

But for in Pakistan, he had to leave the mosque.

21:55

He was living literally living in a mosque

21:59

where this madrasa was and he would have to go some distance

22:00

into town to get to a computer,

22:04

to send emails home.

22:06

But we did stay in regular touch,

22:08

and I just, I hadn't really enjoyed our connection.

22:10

I would often do it like early in the morning

22:13

when I would first get to work

22:15

before I started doing other work

22:16

I would send an email to John.

22:18

And I remember one time I sent him a quick email

22:20

just sort of testing him.

22:22

I said, "John, what are the five pillars of Islam?

22:23

Is like a religion test?

22:27

And he wrote back this essay

22:29

and for each of the five pillars,

22:30

prayer, fasting, pilgrimage and so forth, almsgiving.

22:32

He wrote a little essay about each one

22:35

and what a Muslim would aspire to live up to that ideal.

22:37

It was really a beautiful little essay.

22:42

And I gave him a time limit on his answer.

22:44

I think I said that you have five minutes

22:46

to respond to the five pillars or something like that.

22:48

And he said, "I believe I've exceeded your time limit

22:50

"by the hope you'll accept my answer."

22:53

So anyway, we did, you know, we stayed right in touch.

22:55

I remember another question I asked him,

22:58

I said, "Are you still,

22:59

"are you going to the mosque regularly?"

23:00

I want, you know kind of making sure

23:02

he's keeping up his observance.

23:03

And he said, "Papa, I live in the mosque.

23:05

"Of course I go to the mosque."

23:08

Peter

So it sounds like on some level

23:10

you were proud of him too.

23:11

-

Oh yeah I really am, he's someone to be proud of.

23:14

You know, he went to these countries

23:18

both Yemen and Pakistan he adapted to the local culture.

23:21

He loved the culture, he loved the people.

23:25

He was well-received by his teachers

23:27

and by local people who met him,

23:30

he was a respectful, curious, young American

23:32

who I honestly I think he presented probably

23:36

the best possible face for America in these countries,

23:40

you know, an interested, respectful a young man

23:42

who was genuinely interested in their culture

23:46

and respectful towards the local people

23:48

you know really a serious scholar in his own way

23:51

in his unique way was,

23:55

is and still remains a serious scholar.

23:56

And so I'm very proud of my son.

24:00

Peter

And you it sounds also like you weren't worried

24:01

for him at least up to this time.

24:04

I mean you've got.

24:06

-

Not at all, really honestly, no who would harm John?

24:07

You know, the tradition of hospitality

24:10

in these Muslim countries is so powerful

24:13

and so strong especially for a Muslim,

24:16

a fellow Muslim that I never felt any,

24:20

I mean, there's crime in every country

24:24

but I think a Pakistani family sending a young man

24:26

to the United States of America

24:30

would probably have more cause for concern

24:32

about violence than an American family,

24:34

sending a young man to Pakistan.

24:36

I never had any real concern about violence

24:39

nor did I have concern or, you know crime.

24:42

I don't think I had any real concern

24:45

that John would be a victim of any sort of crime and.

24:47

Peter

Were you even aware

24:52

of radical Islam Islam at that time, was that something?

24:54

-

Oh yeah, I think we all were, I mean 911,

24:58

it's a different time.

25:02

911 sharpened everybody's awareness

25:04

about the extremist element within Islam

25:06

or people at least who claim Islam as their cause.

25:10

We're more aware of it now,

25:13

but you know the embassy bombings in Africa had occurred.

25:14

Osama Bin Laden was a name that I certainly knew

25:18

as someone who the government had identified

25:22

as a terrorist who had planned those attacks

25:23

where hundreds of people were killed.

25:26

The World Trade Center in New York had been bombed.

25:28

The attacks on civilians in Israel were a common occurrence.

25:32

So the existence of terrorism in the world

25:34

was certainly something I was aware of.

25:38

Peter

But you weren't worried for John

25:41

in that context that he may be close to it.

25:43

-

My honest answer is no,

25:46

I didn't feel that John would be a victim

25:48

of a terrorist attack, it didn't worry me.

25:51

It didn't seem that the odds of that

25:55

were something I needed to worry about.

25:56

Peter

One week ago, Frank.

25:59

And so then while he's in Pakistan,

26:01

could you take us further up to,

26:03

you know, when he crossed the border and so

26:07

from your angle, what you knew.

26:09

-

What I know and even still what I know today.

26:10

Peter

But it's more like you knew then.

26:13

-

Well in the spring of 2001,

26:15

he sent an email to me and he sent a similar email

26:19

to his mother in which he said,

26:23

I'm going up into the mountains, I'll be leaving soon.

26:25

I'm going up into the mountains for the summer

26:29

to escape the heat in Bannu.

26:32

In this semi, I guess it's a semi-tropical area

26:35

in the summertime, extreme heat, extreme humidity.

26:40

And John didn't, he was born in Washington, DC

26:42

and then we moved to California.

26:45

In California the climate where we live

26:47

is actually quite nice in the summer.

26:49

But in Washington, we had very humid, hot summers

26:51

and John did not tolerate heat and humidity very well.

26:53

It made him asthmatic.

26:56

So he really was uncomfortable with heat and humidity.

26:58

So that aspect of his email rang true to me,

27:01

I thought, yeah that sounds like John,

27:04

he would not want to stay

27:06

in a sultry hot climate for the summertime.

27:08

And so his email

27:12

I thought was not nothing to be worried about, but he said

27:15

"You won't hear from me for awhile

27:18

"because there are no places to get internet access

27:19

"up in the mountains in Pakistan."

27:22

And I thought, "Well all right, here we go.

27:25

"There's another leg of John's adventure."

27:27

But I wasn't concerned,

27:29

and he was certainly his plan was

27:29

to come back to that school.

27:31

In fact, he left his belongings there

27:32

most of his books and things he left at the school

27:35

in the at the madrasa

27:37

and then he left and then we didn't hear from him.

27:39

What we now know, what we learned later

27:42

is that he didn't go into the mountains.

27:45

Well, he did go into the mountains of Pakistan,

27:47

but he kept going, he deliberately went up over

27:48

the Khyber Pass and into Afghanistan.

27:51

And his intention that he didn't reveal to me

27:53

or to his mother was to volunteer to be a soldier

27:56

in the army in Afghanistan.

27:59

And John has explained this in his,

28:01

he did a statement in court

28:02

after all this legal thing happened to him.

28:04

And he explained he had heard reports

28:08

while he was there in Pakistan

28:10

about atrocities being committed in Afghanistan

28:13

by the Northern Alliance warlords.

28:16

And those atrocities are authentic, true things.

28:18

They were really in fact, happening.

28:21

I've gone back myself

28:23

and looked at the United States human,

28:24

the United States Department of State Human Rights reports

28:26

for the entire period of the 1990s,

28:32

leading up to this time.

28:34

Report these atrocities every year,

28:36

they were really horrible.

28:38

The Northern Alliance were real kind of

28:39

sorta criminal style people who,

28:42

you know plagued upon civilians

28:44

and they would kill prisoners and rape women.

28:47

They were really horrible human rights violators

28:50

documented by our own government.

28:53

And so this is all of course John told us

28:56

this after the fact he was moved by those stories

28:58

of those atrocities.

29:01

And he felt that it was his duty as a young Muslim

29:02

in the tradition of Islam to go and volunteer his services

29:05

in the army of Afghanistan

29:08

to help defend against those kinds of attacks.

29:10

But he did not tell me or his mother

29:14

that he was doing that,

29:17

he gave us an inaccurate image of what he was going to do,

29:18

saying he was just going into the mountains.

29:23

Peter

So he, so your contact with them ended

29:26

in the spring of '01.

29:30

-

Yeah late April.

29:32

-

Late April.

Well, when you started worrying as before 911

29:33

just between April to September one.

29:36

-

Yeah, yes we did.

29:40

-

We had no opportunity to get back to John

29:42

to say, you know don't do this,

29:45

or you know find a way to get in touch with us.

29:47

And so he really just disappeared,

29:50

we had no contact further contact with him

29:52

and no way of finding him to make contact.

29:54

And so as that Summer, this is late April.

29:58

Then you get into may, may leads into June,

30:00

June into July as each month passed each week passed.

30:03

We began to be more and more concerned

30:06

about the fact that we hadn't heard anything

30:09

and didn't know where he was or how we would find him again.

30:11

And I think it's also Peter,

30:16

it's also fair to say that his mother

30:17

was more anxious than I was.

30:20

I think it's you know, it's the nature of things

30:21

for the mother to be more worried than the father

30:23

but we were both worried as the summer progressed

30:25

about the fact that we didn't know where John was.

30:28

He was somewhere in the wilds of Central Asia

30:31

with no contact.

30:33

Peter

Did you think of going to the U.S embassies

30:36

or to other people to reach out,

30:39

to see if they can find John?

30:41

-

Not really, not until 911.

30:43

And then once 911 happened,

30:48

then our level of concern just went really high.

30:50

We were really worried at that point.

30:54

Where is John?

30:56

And now for the first time

30:57

I actually began to fear that his,

30:59

you know for his safety,

31:01

that an American in that part of the world

31:02

might be victimized by people who were anti-American

31:06

who had hatred towards America.

31:10

Peter

So after 911, did you try to find him more?

31:12

-

Well, what I did it, I know it's gonna sound

31:19

awfully paltry or small,

31:22

but what I did was I took a photograph of John

31:25

and had it reproduced, made multiple copies of it

31:28

at the drug store.

31:32

And then we also Maryland had written to the teacher

31:34

of at the school in Bannu that summer in July,

31:37

inquiring "Do you know where John is?"

31:41

So that was what she had done.

31:43

Peter

Did he respond.

31:45

-

And he responded with a really beautiful letter,

31:46

kind of someone had interpreted it or translated it rather

31:49

from his language into English.

31:52

So it had a funny quality of sort of stilted quality,

31:55

but very sweet letter

31:58

that was very complimentary towards John

32:00

and said something to the effect that John is our brother.

32:04

He has become our brother, we all love him here.

32:08

And we admire him, he's a great student

32:11

and a lot of very positive things about John,

32:12

but at the end of the letter, it said

32:15

"We have no idea where he is,

32:16

"we're sure that he's safe,

32:18

"we have no concern for his safety,

32:20

"but we do not know where he is."

32:22

Peter

Is that true.

32:23

-

Yeah, oh yeah they didn't know.

32:25

They didn't know where John had gone.

32:27

Peter

So after 911, when you said you did that.

32:30

-

So then I took that letter.

32:32

And oh, the other thing the letter said

32:35

that his, he had been brought there by the Tablighi Jamaat

32:36

this missionary organization and the teacher from the school

32:40

said you have nothing to be concerned about

32:44

with that organization, that they're not political

32:46

and they're not involved in politics at all.

32:50

They're just a spiritual religious group.

32:53

And so I took that letter as an indication

32:56

as some had some information

32:59

about where John had been and his photograph.

33:00

And I went to the mosques

33:03

around the Bay Area where John had visited

33:06

to just see if I could find anybody at those mosques

33:08

who might be able to help me, do some detective work.

33:11

And maybe, you know, maybe now in hindsight

33:17

I should have done more,

33:20

I should have hired a detective

33:21

or someone to actually do this,

33:22

but I visited these mosques.

33:23

And at each mosque I went to,

33:25

there was, it was very warm and receiving what

33:28

cause they all remember John,

33:31

this young American from Marin County

33:33

who had converted to Islam

33:36

and then began dressing

33:38

in the traditional fob and everything.

33:39

There was no question,

33:41

they remembered him and show them that picture.

33:43

Even people that didn't speak English

33:45

there was this funny going back

33:47

and forth between my English and their language

33:49

whatever it might've been Arabic or whatever.

33:51

And they would say, "Oh yeah, we know him.

33:54

"We recognize him

33:56

"at every single one of the mosques that I went to."

33:57

And then they also, when I showed them

34:01

the letter from the teacher

34:03

and this and that reference in the letter

34:04

to Tablighi Jamaat,

34:07

they all said,

34:08

"Oh you have nothing to worry about with Tablighi,

34:10

"they're wonderful people, they're very spiritual.

34:12

"They're very good."

34:14

But no one was able to give us any actual concrete

34:16

information about where we might think

34:21

about looking for John or how we might track him down.

34:23

This was after 911, this was literally in September.

34:27

Peter

So you just bothered your time.

34:30

Hoping that John would get in touch with you is an.

34:33

-

Yeah honestly, I didn't know what else to do.

34:36

Peter

And so could you tell us

34:40

how you did finally then hear about John?

34:41

-

Well then as we all know, 911 happened,

34:45

these attacks in New York and Washington,

34:47

and then a month later there was an invasion of Afghanistan,

34:49

the beginning of this long war that we're still involved in.

34:52

And we had no idea, I honestly,

34:55

in all that time that we were worried and thinking

34:59

and pondering, where is John?

35:03

It never occurred to me or to Marilyn

35:05

that he was not in the mountains of Pakistan.

35:08

Can you know, because that's what he had told us.

35:11

And we didn't think about the prospect

35:15

that he had gone into Afghanistan.

35:17

It just never, literally never occurred to us.

35:19

But nevertheless, there we were sort of worried

35:21

and uncertain for what turned out

35:24

to be about seven months from the beginning of May

35:28

really the end of April until December 1st

35:32

and on the 1st of December, which was a Saturday.

35:35

I remember it clearly Marilyn sent me

35:37

she called me on my cell phone, left me a voicemail message

35:42

and said, "Come right away."

35:45

And to her house, they she lives nearby.

35:47

I think I have information about John

35:51

and I went and my cousin, my whole big extended family

35:53

everyone was aware that John was missing.

35:58

And you know, the whole family were always saying

36:00

"Have you heard from John, have you heard about John?"

36:03

It was, you know we all had this sort of shared anxiety

36:06

and concern and this cousin,

36:08

my first cousin sent an email

36:11

with a link to a story on MSNBC the website

36:14

and it's Newsweek and MSNBC,

36:18

the two of them somehow had a combination.

36:21

And there was a story on the website

36:22

about a young American named the name they gave was

36:25

Abdul Hamid kind of a (indistinct)

36:30

But he was a young American found in the wreckage

36:34

of this horrible massacre that had occurred that week.

36:36

And I'd followed this story in the "New York Times."

36:39

And even that Saturday morning

36:41

I get the "New York Times" delivered at home.

36:43

And there was a story about this place

36:44

in Northern Afghanistan where this terrible massacre

36:47

prisoners is was it uprising inside the fortress?

36:50

And these prisoners were slaughtered

36:54

like 400 of them were slaughtered.

36:56

And then there was a group that had retreated

36:58

down into the basement of a building

37:00

and they thought they had killed them all,

37:02

they tried to kill them all this warlord.

37:03

And then at the end of that week on that Saturday

37:06

86 prisoners emerged out of the basement of that building.

37:08

Unlikely, you know no one had expected

37:12

any survivors to be down there.

37:14

And I had read that story in the "New York Times"

37:16

that morning and had followed that story during the week.

37:18

And that was a quite a pitched battle that occurred

37:21

in the inside the walls of that fortress that week,

37:23

leading up to that Saturday

37:26

when these guys were then pulled out

37:27

and then that night there was this story and in MSNBC

37:30

that one of those survivors was this young American

37:33

from Marin County, California,

37:36

who had been born in Washington DC,

37:40

which is where John was born.

37:42

And then there also was a grainy photograph of this person.

37:44

And I knew instantly and Marilyn did too.

37:47

We knew instantly, even though the name wasn't correct

37:49

we knew it was John.

37:52

Peter

So the media hadn't contacted you yet

37:54

'cause they didn't make the connection.

37:56

-

No, we contacted them.

37:58

There were, the story was written

38:00

by a young stringer for "Newsweek" named Colin Soloway

38:01

and Marilyn then immediately called "Newsweek Magazine"

38:06

and got his phone number

38:11

and we reached him and then spoke to him on Sunday morning

38:12

and talked to him.

38:15

Well, mostly we asked him, is he all right?

38:16

Is John all right?

38:19

'Cause he was pretty severely wounded.

38:20

I don't know how much of this detail you want me to go into

38:22

about what went on in the basement of that building.

38:25

But they were very lucky to have survived a week

38:27

of horrible condition.

38:30

Peter

But this string of.

38:32

-

And he was whooping.

38:33

Peter

And he was happy to tell you

38:34

all the details?

38:35

-

He told us some details

38:36

and then he also took advantage of us to,

38:37

you know to get us to talk.

38:39

We weren't sophisticated about talking to the media.

38:42

And then this magazine "Newsweek Magazine"

38:44

is a nationally circulated news magazine

38:48

in the United States, put John on the cover

38:51

called him the American Taliban

38:55

and just ran a very sensational story about him

38:56

as if he was a terrorist that had been discovered

38:59

among the fighters in Afghanistan.

39:02

Peter

But at this point still,

39:07

no other media had contacted you.

39:08

It was just this one.

39:11

-

No just, and we contacted him.

39:12

Peter

And other than that.

39:14

-

Well, on that first day I mean it quickly mushroomed.

39:16

I mean, that was on Saturday night,

39:19

we found this article and then on Sunday

39:21

things began to percolate and it was by Sunday

39:23

it was on all of the, all of the television news

39:28

all over the United States

39:32

that a young American had been discovered

39:33

among the Taliban prisoners in Afghanistan.

39:35

Peter

This is December 2nd.

39:39

-

Yeah, Sunday the 2nd.

39:41

And then by my Monday the 3rd

39:42

it was on the front page of all the newspapers.

39:45

Peter

And were you yet have media contact

39:48

you by Monday 3rd.

39:51

-

Yeah, by Monday they were calling us

39:53

and I had to escape from my house and go stay with friends.

39:55

And in fact, on Monday Larry King this news broadcaster

39:59

on Cable News Network got in touch.

40:03

And I appeared on "Larry King Live" on Monday, December 3rd

40:05

and spoke on national television live.

40:09

It was quite a big story,

40:12

it became quite a big story by Monday

40:13

that this American boy, John Lindh

40:15

by then they began to identify him by name.

40:17

And actually initially they called him John Walker.

40:20

John's name is John Philip Walker Lindh.

40:22

And all three of our kids have the name Walker

40:26

as a middle name, 'cause that's their mother's name.

40:29

We used to tease him like George Herbert Walker Bush,

40:31

'cause Bush's, Bush Senior's mother was a Walker,

40:34

no relation.

40:38

So it's not an uncommon practice

40:40

to have the mother's name as a middle name.

40:42

And so all of our kids, Connell Tonne Walker Lindh

40:44

John Phillip Walker Lindh, Naomi Alyson Walker Lindh,

40:47

that's their names.

40:50

Nevertheless that media,

40:52

the military on the media initially identified John

40:53

as John Walker.

40:56

It took a while to get them to realize

40:58

that his name is John Lindh.

41:00

And even still today, people refer to him

41:01

as John Walker Lindh.

41:04

You'll hear him refer to mostly

41:06

by that acronym or that name, but his name is John Lindh.

41:07

Peter

And what were you,

41:13

what was going through your mind

41:14

and feel Marilyn's mind during these first couple of days,

41:16

when you did the Larry King,

41:20

what were you, why did you do it and what were you thinking?

41:21

-

Well, we were I have to say

41:26

it was the worst anxiety I've can imagine

41:29

that I've ever experienced was horribly anxiety provoking.

41:31

We didn't know where John was

41:35

what kind of condition he was in.

41:36

We were shocked to find that he was in Afghanistan at all.

41:37

I was really shocked to realize

41:41

that he had survived this horrific massacre

41:42

in this ungodly place, in Northern Afghanistan

41:45

at the hands of this really murderous war Lord.

41:50

We didn't know what kind of condition he was in.

41:53

We knew he was alive

41:56

but we didn't know how physically, mentally

41:57

what condition he was in.

42:00

We couldn't get any information whatsoever

42:02

from the government.

42:04

We tried the State Department

42:05

and our local Congresswoman

42:07

no one they would just virtually hang up on us.

42:09

We can't help you.

42:12

There was a really strange very cold response

42:13

whenever we made any and we stopped.

42:17

I mean, we've made a couple of calls to the government,

42:19

but it was clear nobody in the government was interested.

42:20

Peter

Who did you try to call.

42:22

-

Well, Maryland called the State Department

42:24

on that Saturday night actually.

42:25

Peter

And they hung up?

42:28

-

Yeah, verb pretty much said we can't help you people.

42:29

Peter

And you don't know who it was

42:34

in the state department who said that?

42:36

-

It was, no I don't know it was a woman

42:38

who was the situation desk or something like that.

42:40

Peter

And you said the.

42:44

-

It became clear Peter right away,

42:46

honestly within the first couple of hours

42:48

that the government of the United States

42:50

was gonna treat this as a hostile situation

42:52

and that they were were overtly hostile towards my son.

42:57

And they were not gonna be a source

43:00

of any kind of assistance or information to us,

43:02

it was a terrible feeling.

43:05

Peter

Do you know if that was a policy

43:07

that from high up,

43:09

did you ever find out where that came from?

43:11

-

I don't know where it came from

43:14

but it permeated the whole government.

43:15

Peter

So have you tried your local representative

43:18

if you had the same response.

43:19

-

Yeah, pretty much yeah.

43:22

She was kind to us and sympathetic but she wouldn't help us.

43:23

There was no, there was just no going to the government

43:28

for help.

43:30

So the first thing that I did

43:30

was call a lawyer on Sunday morning.

43:33

There's a very capable trial lawyer in San Francisco

43:36

really a nationally known lawyer named James Brosnahan.

43:40

And coincidentally, I had met him not long before

43:45

about a year within that prior year

43:48

I had met him on a case where I was on his opponent.

43:49

We didn't go to trial on that case

43:52

against I didn't go to trial against him

43:54

but I did have a case where he was my opponent.

43:56

And I remember at the time being really impressed

43:59

with his stature his integrity and his ability to speak.

44:01

He's really a remarkable lawyer

44:05

and that's who I thought of that Sunday morning.

44:07

I thought that's who I need,

44:09

I need someone of that stature with that kind of moral

44:10

and physical courage to stand up and represent John.

44:14

So I called his office,

44:17

he works at a big law firm in San Francisco

44:19

and I called the office that Sunday and that morning

44:21

reached his voicemail and left him a message saying,

44:23

"I don't know if you remember me

44:26

"but we met in this professional situation.

44:27

"And my son is in real trouble.

44:30

"And I wonder if you could represent him."

44:32

And then he called me later that day at home.

44:34

I left him my home number.

44:36

I didn't expect to hear from him until maybe on Monday

44:37

but he called me on Sunday afternoon

44:40

and he had checked his voicemail at the office.

44:41

But before he did, he has he was home watching

44:43

the 49ers football game on television.

44:47

And they broke in with this news story.

44:49

This big, this story about John

44:51

became a quite a sensational story right away

44:53

on that Sunday.

44:55

This American was found among the Taliban in Afghanistan.

44:57

And he was, you know just riveted by that right away.

45:01

And then he called and got the message

45:04

that I needed him to help represent my son.

45:05

So he was willing.

45:08

He said, "Yes I'll meet with you on Monday morning."

45:10

So on Monday morning I couldn't stay at home.

45:14

We had to stay with friends in the East Bay,

45:16

'cause by then the media was all over us.

45:18

And there were cameras parked in front of our home

45:21

and the phone was ringing constantly.

45:23

And so we kind of had to escape with a few things

45:25

of clothing and go to some friend's house

45:28

in the East Bay and Marilyn went from her home.

45:30

She went to a different place as well.

45:33

We had to, we could not be in our homes

45:34

because of this incredible media attention that was.

45:36

Peter

Were the children with you or they.

45:39

-

Yeah Naomi went with Maryland

45:40

and then Connell our other son was living in San Francisco.

45:42

And so well anyway,

45:46

we ended up in several different safe houses

45:48

for a long time, we were at Naomi's best friend's house,

45:50

her her best friend's father has a house

45:53

and he put us up for several weeks.

45:56

Really people were very kind to us, but it was a

45:58

you were asking about what it was like

46:01

and it was just extremely anxiety written.

46:02

But the, I guess what I wanted to say

46:05

it was on I went in on that Monday morning

46:07

I had to get my work things situated.

46:09

I had to get my, I was busy with some fairly important cases

46:12

and I had to get them situated and assigned out

46:16

to other people so that I could, so I could focus on my son.

46:18

And then I went and saw the lawyer at 10 o'clock

46:23

in the morning and he said, I will take the case.

46:25

And immediately, honestly immediately once we had a lawyer

46:28

that was a great relief to us,

46:32

to Marilyn and to me

46:35

because we now felt

46:37

that we had someone who could defend us in it.

46:38

I have often said it was,

46:40

as if a protective shell had gone up around our family

46:41

that we now had someone to protect us from this onslaught

46:45

of the media and also to protect John,

46:48

you know from the government

46:50

that we're now gonna come after him

46:51

in this hostile adversarial way.

46:53

We knew that this was a dreadful,

46:55

dreadful sense that the government was coming after our son.

46:58

And it made a huge difference to us

47:03

psychologically to know that we had this capable,

47:05

ethical, and courageous lawyer now,

47:08

who's prepared to defend John

47:11

and he wrote a letter immediately that day

47:13

on the 3rd of December to address it to the attorney general

47:15

of the United States and to the secretary of defense,

47:18

Donald Rumsfeld, to the Director of Central Intelligence,

47:21

George Tenet to the General Counsel of the Department

47:24

of Defense and said, "I represent John Lindh, his parents.

47:28

"And I would like to have safe passage to visit him

47:31

"and please give us respect and give us access to him."

47:36

It was exactly the right thing to do.

47:42

And the government didn't respond to me for 54 days.

47:44

They held my son in captivity

47:47

before they allowed him to see any of us.

47:49

Peter

Is there anything else you did

47:52

or doing that time to try to see John?

47:53

Or you just always up to the lawyer and to take charge?

47:56

-

It was kind of up to the lawyer to take charge

48:00

and the government was not responding.

48:02

So if I can go back to if,

48:04

I mean so here we are in the United States

48:05

and I went and I did this interview on the television

48:08

-

Larry King

48:11

-

And Larry King.

-

It's live television national.

48:13

And that helped, I think, to show that John had a father

48:15

and a family that was caring about him

48:18

that he's a real person, he's not some caricature.

48:20

And then the next morning I appeared on

48:23

I went and stayed in a hotel,

48:25

I didn't sleep very much, but in a hotel near my home

48:27

in San Rafael, all of the morning television programs

48:30

"Good Morning America," "The Today Show,"

48:34

there were five of them, including international.

48:37

And they, each of them had a hotel room,

48:40

they set up their cameras

48:42

and there were five hotel rooms in a row.

48:43

CBS was one room, ABC and I just went from room

48:45

to room and was interviewed as it were

48:49

like we're doing right here

48:50

on all of those morning shows as well.

48:52

Peter

What was your goal to do those interviews?

48:55

-

My goal was to try to defend my son,

48:57

to explain to people that he's not a terrorist

49:01

because right away the media here in this country

49:03

began saying that suggesting that John was a terrorist,

49:06

that he supported 911,

49:09

that he supported the Taliban's oppression of women

49:11

whatever, all sorts of extreme views

49:14

were being attributed to John.

49:16

And he was a traitor,

49:18

it was a highly hysterical atmosphere about him.

49:19

And so my goal was with counsel from this lawyer

49:22

he said, "Go ahead and do this.

49:26

"Try to calm people down, make them realize

49:28

"that these are historical allegations.

49:30

"They're not true, he's a normal American kid.

49:33

"you know, he's in an unusual situation,

49:36

"but he's not a terrorist and he's not a danger to anybody."

49:39

So that was our goal,

49:44

but just to try a little bit at the beginning

49:45

to get to humanize him.

49:47

But after that series of interviews,

49:49

then we pulled back and I didn't neither Marilyn,

49:50

nor I would do much in the way of media interviews

49:53

at all after

49:56

-

Why is that?

49:57

-

I have a question.

Peter

Okay.

49:59

-

How were you so sure that he was not a terrorist

50:00

since he'd disappeared, and you hadn't heard from him

50:04

in six months where you go in acting on faith

50:08

this was the kid you knew,

50:11

did you have internal anxiety

50:12

that in fact maybe you were wrong or,

50:16

what prompted your.

50:19

-

That's a good question you know did I fear that John

50:22

might have gone over to the side and become a terrorist?

50:25

And I have to say in all honesty, yes.

50:29

I had some anxiety about that

50:32

and I had no facts to go on really

50:34

except that the only facts that we knew though

50:36

were that he was a soldier in the army in Afghanistan.

50:38

Peter

You knew that from the government,

50:44

you didn't know from the media.

50:45

-

Well from no, from the circumstances where he was found,

50:47

he was found among a group of Taliban prisoners

50:49

who had surrendered to this warlord,

50:53

who then suffered through this horrible massacre.

50:54

So I knew that he had been a foot soldier.

50:57

I could, you know those basic facts were clear.

50:59

So there was nothing in those facts

51:02

that could suggest any involvement in terrorism.

51:04

And so I had some assurance from just the basic facts

51:08

that he was just a soldier in an army.

51:12

I would certainly wish he hadn't gone there and done that

51:14

but I didn't have any factual information to suggest

51:17

that there was anything more than that.

51:20

And yeah, I did have faith, I mean he's my son.

51:21

I had lost contact with him for a period of seven months.

51:25

But prior to that seven months,

51:30

I was in regular contact with John

51:32

and I knew his values and his sympathies

51:34

towards human beings

51:39

and he's a highly cultured and civil person.

51:40

He, you know, criminal activity of any kind

51:44

would be like the farthest thing

51:47

you could imagine, John being involved in.

51:49

And so you know honestly it was faith

51:51

on my part perhaps, I am his father

51:54

but he's not capable of violence or terrorism,

51:55

it's just not in his makeup.

52:01

And so I, you know I was pretty stalwart

52:03

in my defense that, you know

52:06

that he could not have been involved.

52:07

And now we know all the facts,

52:10

we know that he wasn't involved in terrorism at all

52:11

but I guess I just know my son well enough

52:14

to be able to categorically say, he's not a terrorist.

52:17

And again, you see there were no facts

52:20

to suggest that he was.

52:23

In America after 911 people the media and the government

52:24

and an ordinary people who take their information

52:30

from the media and the government

52:33

began to confuse the Taliban with Al-Qaeda.

52:35

And everybody associated with all that

52:38

was considered to be a terrorist.

52:41

It was an irrational fear-based emotional response

52:43

to the 911 attacks.

52:48

The 911 attacks were carried out

52:50

by authentic hardened terrorists

52:52

who really a depraved sense of values.

52:54

And they killed all those innocent people,

52:58

a horrible thing.

53:00

But soldiers fighting in this civil war

53:01

inside of Afghanistan were just that,

53:04

they were just soldiers in a civil war in Afghanistan.

53:06

And many of them like John were there for altruistic,

53:10

idealistic reasons.

53:15

They were there because they thought

53:16

they were going to defend innocent people.

53:18

They were in fact defending innocent people from attack.

53:20

So it's again I would certainly not want

53:24

my son to go to Afghanistan

53:28

and volunteer for the army there in a civil war like that.

53:29

I wish he hadn't done that, but that is not terrorism.

53:32

That's just joining an army,

53:36

That's what Ernest Hemingway did for the

53:38

for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil war.

53:39

He fought in an army.

53:43

So I was pretty confident,

53:44

I understand the question,

53:46

you know well, how do you know,

53:47

maybe as you go on Larry King,

53:49

you know in these early days in December

53:51

and you haven't had contact with your son for seven months

53:52

how do you know that he hasn't become a terrorist

53:55

and hasn't aligned himself with terrorism?

53:58

And the answer is on some level I don't really know

54:02

completely, and I have a little anxiety about that,

54:04

but for the most part, I feel pretty confident

54:06

about my son and how, you know what kind of person he is.

54:09

And I've been vindicated in that,

54:12

I mean, it's certainly clear now,

54:14

now that all the facts are known

54:16

that no John never had any involvement

54:17

of any kind with terrorism or sympathy for terrorism.

54:19

So I was right, he wasn't involved,

54:24

he was just a soldier in the army.

54:26

Woman

Second question.

54:29

Had you had previous experience in working

54:30

and dealing with the media,

54:33

or was this your first exposure?

54:36

-

This was my first exposure to the media,

54:37

I'd had as a lawyer I handled some fairly big cases,

54:39

indeed and right around that time,

54:43

I handled, the California had its Energy Crisis in 2000

54:45

and 2001 and natural gas and electricity prices

54:49

ran through the roof.

54:53

And this company, Enron was involved in a lot of shenanigans

54:54

manipulating the market and driving these prices up.

54:58

And I prosecuted a case against

55:00

another one of those energy companies from Texas

55:03

called El Paso and we pushed it all the way through

55:05

a trial in Washington and got a judgment

55:09

against that company for manipulating natural gas prices

55:12

into California from Texas.

55:15

Quite like an antitrust type of case

55:18

and that case attracted a lot of media attention.

55:21

It was covered in the wall street journal

55:24

and in the "New York Times,"

55:25

and ultimately result in a really large settlement

55:27

where the company from Texas paid back California

55:30

over a billion dollars.

55:33

So through that case

55:34

and a couple of other cases I'd handled.

55:37

I had some exposure to the media

55:38

but I had never been the subject of a media attention.

55:40

And I certainly had no background on,

55:44

you know how to handle the media,

55:46

it was something I had to learn.

55:49

Peter

And so what made you then pull back

55:52

after those interviews that those five interviews at one day

55:54

why did you then pull back

55:57

and no longer in a face for the media?

56:00

-

I think it was a sense that we first of all

56:02

we had to maintain our own equilibrium.

56:04

We had, John was being prosecuted by the government,

56:07

we knew that was coming.

56:12

So we had to maintain our momentum,

56:13

our equilibrium as people,

56:16

we couldn't be out there in the media.

56:18

And then I think the second thing was

56:19

and anyone who would go back

56:21

and look at the media coverage of my son

56:23

would understand this.

56:25

It was overwhelmingly hysterical,

56:26

he was on, you know his name was throughout

56:29

the United States on every media outlet

56:31

that you can imagine, television, radio, newspapers,

56:34

magazines, and every one of those outlets

56:37

including the prominent mainstream media

56:40

like the "New York Times,"

56:42

they all accused John of being a terrorist.

56:43

They all accepted the propaganda

56:46

that the government put out

56:48

that John was involved in 911.

56:49

And that John was fighting against the United States.

56:51

Those two themes were just completely rampant

56:57

in the media coverage of our son.

57:02

And there's a point at which

57:04

it doesn't help to try to fight that.

57:06

I mean, if to stand up and try to fight

57:08

it would only in a sense feed it,

57:10

you know and people would say,

57:12

"Oh, those crazy parents,

57:13

"they don't understand their son's a terrorist.

57:14

"They're defending someone who cannot be defended."

57:17

And it was, I'm not exaggerating this.

57:20

It was, there's never quite been a case like this

57:22

in our country where a single person

57:25

especially a 20 year old kid like this,

57:26

was just so widely accused of the most heinous crimes.

57:29

And that the proof of this really

57:34

is that an associated press poll conducted in December

57:36

of 2001 showed that overwhelmingly,

57:39

overwhelmingly like in you know,

57:43

close to a 100% of American people

57:46

knew that John Walker Lindh,

57:48

they believed that he was guilty of treason

57:49

and that he was probably connected with 911

57:52

and the only real debate in the United States at that time

57:56

then he became a household name.

58:00

Everyone knew the name, John Walker Lindh

58:02

and the only real point of debate among people

58:05

according to this associated press poll,

58:08

was whether he should be sentenced to death

58:10

or given life in prison.

58:12

There was no question about his guilt

58:14

and the media were guilty of this

58:17

but the politicians were also part of this.

58:20

I mean, the President Bush repeatedly said

58:23

that my son was an Al-Qaeda terrorist fighter

58:28

Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense

58:31

Vice President Cheney, John Ashcroft, the attorney general,

58:34

the speaker of the house of representatives Dennis Hastert,

58:41

Senator Hillary Clinton of New York,

58:44

Senator Boxer of California.

58:48

All of these people went on television

58:50

and in the media and accused John of being a traitor

58:53

and a terrorist or participating in 911.

58:56

John McCain said that John should,

59:00

he said they should take him to ground zero

59:03

and show him ground zero and see how he feels after that.

59:06

As I talk about my son's case to law students,

59:09

and I've told them, and I honestly I believe this,

59:13

there's never been a case like it in our country

59:15

where the most powerful politicians

59:18

from both parties were going out of their way

59:21

to go into the media and make these terrible,

59:24

hysterical accusations against an individual citizen,

59:27

a private citizen.

59:33

There's never quite been a case that that's severe.

59:35

Someone was just telling me the other day

59:39

about the Rosenberg's in the 1950s,

59:41

this couple that were a married couple

59:44

and they were accused,

59:45

the husband in particular was accused of selling

59:47

the secret to the hydrogen bomb to the Soviet Union

59:48

a really horrible crime, if that's what he did.

59:52

And even there, the media coverage

59:57

this person had gone back and researched

59:59

that the media coverage was sort of,

1:00:01

he said sober and restrained

1:00:02

about whether Mr. Rosenberg really did that.

1:00:04

And it was a sense that it was a very significant allegation

1:00:07

and it had to be handled in a dispassionate manner.

1:00:11

And eventually he was convicted,

1:00:13

but in my son's case, there was no restraint.

1:00:16

I don't know if it was because of 911,

1:00:18

I think it was in the wake of 911.

1:00:20

There was just such hysteria in the United States.

1:00:23

We had never really had an attack

1:00:25

comparable to that against our country

1:00:27

and the media and the politicians

1:00:29

the powerful institutions of our democracy,

1:00:32

lost their perspective, lost their bearing.

1:00:35

And they themselves became somewhat hysterical

1:00:38

and accused my son of being a terrorist.

1:00:41

There wasn't, there was no truth to it

1:00:45

but he became a convenient foil

1:00:47

and all the anger and all that grief around 911 honestly,

1:00:48

was focused on John, on my son.

1:00:51

Peter

Could we reach out to these politicians

1:00:54

and tell them, no that's (indistinct).

1:00:56

-

Well, I did call Senator Clinton's office

1:00:57

but there was no stopping.

1:01:00

And I called, I said "We're very disappointed

1:01:01

"in the Senator."

1:01:03

She on a very popular Sunday talk show called,

1:01:04

"Meet The Press."

1:01:10

She said she was asked and she said,

1:01:12

"Oh yeah, I think he's a traitor, John's a traitor."

1:01:15

There was no fairness.

1:01:18

Peter

What happened when you called?

1:01:20

-

Oh nothing, and nobody,

1:01:21

I literally just left a voicemail message

1:01:23

for one of her staff people, it was really an overwhelming.

1:01:26

Woman

Were you also attacked as parents?

1:01:31

-

Oh yeah, there was you can go back and find in the media.

1:01:33

There was I collected all the immediate stories

1:01:35

and scrapbooks I have about 30 volumes

1:01:40

of scrapbook material at home.

1:01:42

And the coverage about us as parents was very critical.

1:01:44

There was one, the "New York Post"

1:01:49

which is a Murdoch publication,

1:01:51

said something like California, Airheads

1:01:53

unfit to raise lettuce.

1:01:57

You know is that yes, there was a lot.

1:01:59

And "The Wall Street Journal" ran a very prominent article

1:02:01

about what bad parents we were

1:02:03

and how could we allow our son to go to Yemen

1:02:05

and go to Pakistan and give him no direction and so forth.

1:02:08

And I have to say, Peter I'm very proud of my son.

1:02:12

My son is an exemplary young man.

1:02:16

He's scholarly, he's thoughtful, he's, well-traveled,

1:02:18

he's extremely well-read, he's intuitive, he's curious.

1:02:22

There's nothing about my son that I shouldn't as a father

1:02:28

that I shouldn't be proud of.

1:02:32

You know, he's a great person

1:02:34

and I'm proud of the way he was raised.

1:02:36

We're not bad parents at all.

1:02:38

I feel like we're the opposite.

1:02:41

I feel like what we've produced in all three of our kids

1:02:42

are remarkable young people who are

1:02:44

really wonderful in every sense.

1:02:47

And I know maybe I'm not a perfect father,

1:02:50

but I'm a good father.

1:02:52

It was hard to take,

1:02:54

it was really hard to take president Bush and his wife

1:02:55

went on TV at one point and start talking about us

1:02:58

as parents.

1:03:00

Laura Bush was the first lady criticizing us as parents.

1:03:01

Again, I don't honestly, there's never been a case like this

1:03:07

in the history of our country

1:03:10

where a person was singled out like this,

1:03:12

and accused us of this horrible heinous crime

1:03:14

of being a terrorist.

1:03:17

And somehow in some vague way

1:03:18

of perpetrating the 911 attacks.

1:03:20

Peter

How did you manage her in that time?

1:03:23

How did you sleep with both your son

1:03:24

and yourselves being attacked?

1:03:27

And with the ferocity that you're describing

1:03:30

how did you manage day to day?

1:03:34

-

I don't know.

1:03:37

Peter

Were you working at the time?

1:03:42

-

Yeah, I had to keep up my work.

1:03:44

the first few days I had to not,

1:03:47

you know but I did, I kept I had that big case going on.

1:03:49

So I kept up with my work

1:03:51

and my mother said, at some point, my mother said,

1:03:53

"Well I think your work is good for you.

1:03:55

"It keeps you occupied."

1:03:57

And the honestly, the biggest thing that made the difference

1:03:58

to us as a family was having that lawyer.

1:04:01

And he, you know he had a team of lawyers then

1:04:04

that worked with him to represent John and help guide us.

1:04:06

And without that, it would have been,

1:04:10

honestly it would have been devastating,

1:04:12

but with them on our side and helping

1:04:13

that really did make the difference.

1:04:17

And so I did sleep at night,

1:04:19

I never had trouble sleeping through this.

1:04:21

And I also think that

1:04:24

you know, as parents there's a instinctual desire

1:04:25

to defend your child against anyone,

1:04:31

whoever it might be,

1:04:36

even if it's the president of the United States

1:04:37

or the secretary of defense

1:04:40

or the Vice President of the United States

1:04:42

it doesn't matter how powerful that person,

1:04:45

if it's my son and they're attacking him,

1:04:47

I'm going to defend him, it's an instinctual thing.

1:04:50

And there's a kind of an adrenaline

1:04:53

that goes with it that keeps you strong

1:04:54

and keeps you moving,

1:04:56

that's all I can say is by way of explanation,

1:04:58

is that I was able to sleep at night

1:05:01

and I was able to sustain myself,

1:05:03

partly I think out of that defense thing

1:05:05

that somebody had to be there for John

1:05:08

and to stand up to you know for him.

1:05:10

'Cause what if I collapsed?

1:05:11

Where would John be?

1:05:13

if I couldn't help him?

1:05:14

Peter

And being attacked as parents

1:05:15

you were able to withstand that too in a sense.

1:05:17

-

Yeah and I think,

1:05:20

I mean I know many public figures get attacked in the media.

1:05:22

The president, President Obama is routinely attacked

1:05:26

and I think they develop a thick skin

1:05:29

about that kind of thing, they don't let it get to them.

1:05:30

And I had to be that way, I had to not let it get to me.

1:05:33

You know I had to revisit and think about myself as a dad.

1:05:35

And it did make me question, you know,

1:05:39

it's, you can't not be somewhat affected by it,

1:05:41

but on the whole I think I was able to stand up to it

1:05:45

and stay resilient because I needed to

1:05:49

because you know that it just was required by the situation

1:05:54

John needed us and Connell, my son Connell

1:05:58

and my daughter Naomi, they all needed us to stay strong.

1:06:01

And so we just did it and then if I can add,

1:06:04

I was always motivated by a strong sense

1:06:09

that John was innocent,

1:06:12

that he couldn't possibly be involved

1:06:14

in what they were saying.

1:06:17

And so I had a strong belief and it's,

1:06:19

as I say I think it's been vindicated.

1:06:21

He was not a terrorist, he was not involved in terrorism.

1:06:23

He never fought against American troops in Afghanistan.

1:06:27

When we invaded Afghanistan,

1:06:30

all he did was to try to survive against the odds there.

1:06:32

Peter

So maybe then you can go forward Frank.

1:06:40

And during those 54 days before you saw John,

1:06:42

is there anything else you want,

1:06:46

-

Well a couple of things I wanted to mention

1:06:49

that first week I did.

1:06:51

I appeared on Larry King,

1:06:54

it was my birthday, the 3rd of December.

1:06:56

And then the next morning

1:06:58

the series of interviews on the media.

1:06:59

And then I went to visit the Red Cross in San Rafael.

1:07:03

It's a beautiful little office

1:07:06

in an old-fashioned a 19th Century building.

1:07:08

There's the American Red Cross.

1:07:10

And I had heard through a contact

1:07:13

at Senator Feinstein's office.

1:07:15

I didn't know about this before,

1:07:16

but the red cross under the Geneva conventions

1:07:17

will take letters to prisoners of war from their family.

1:07:21

And they actually literally have a form for that.

1:07:26

That's been developed and they are named

1:07:30

that Red Cross is actually named in the Geneva conventions

1:07:33

as the organization that's authorized to do this.

1:07:36

So I went to my local red cross office in San Rafael,

1:07:39

California and sure enough, they had that form.

1:07:42

And I called ahead,

1:07:45

so they knew I was coming

1:07:47

and I was able to write a little letter to John.

1:07:48

It's just like sort of a postcard size form.

1:07:51

And it says only information of a family nature

1:07:52

or something to that effect,

1:07:57

that's the guideline that they give you.

1:07:58

And I just wrote a little note that,

1:07:59

"John we love you and we support you

1:08:01

"and we have a lawyer for you.

1:08:07

"So please ask the authorities

1:08:09

"to allow mama and me and the lawyer to come and visit you."

1:08:11

And then I gave it to the lady

1:08:15

at the Red Cross and she had it sent through Geneva

1:08:16

in Switzerland to be delivered to John in Afghanistan.

1:08:22

But the American military I learned later

1:08:28

would not allow any of this to get through to John.

1:08:31

I actually wrote multiple times to him

1:08:33

try to get those letters through

1:08:35

under the Geneva conventions,

1:08:38

you know to have that contact with him from his family

1:08:40

but the Americans, when the American government

1:08:43

when it invaded Afghanistan declared and meant,

1:08:45

they meant what they said,

1:08:48

they were not going to follow the Geneva conventions

1:08:50

in Afghanistan it was really literally true,

1:08:52

and they said it and they meant it.

1:08:55

Peter

You had no indication

1:08:58

that he didn't receive it until much later.

1:09:00

When did you first?

1:09:03

-

Well, I found out later when John was finally brought back

1:09:04

there was this 54 day period where he was kept away from us.

1:09:07

And then they brought him back to a jail in Virginia.

1:09:10

And I visited him in the jail,

1:09:13

the people at the jail were actually very courteous

1:09:15

to me and I carry my lawyer bag,

1:09:17

'cause I had this case going on in Washington.

1:09:19

So one day into my lawyer bag,

1:09:21

I just brought copies of all those letters

1:09:23

'cause the lawyers had actually filed them in the court

1:09:26

for some purpose to try to demonstrate

1:09:29

to the court some of the conditions of John's detention.

1:09:31

And so there, were there are these photocopies

1:09:35

of my letters inside.

1:09:37

I was in the jail and there's a glass

1:09:39

between me and John and we talk on the phone like that.

1:09:41

And I just held up each letter to the glass

1:09:44

so that he could read each one

1:09:46

this was several months later.

1:09:49

So he found it, but he had never seen any of them.

1:09:52

But he, John on his end when he was finally came

1:09:54

into the custody of the Americans,

1:09:58

there was this brief moment

1:10:00

where they did allow a red cross representative

1:10:02

in to see him in Northern Afghanistan.

1:10:05

And he wrote a letter on that same kind of form back to me.

1:10:08

And it said to me and his mom,

1:10:12

and it said, "I'm in safe hands."

1:10:14

He used that expression.

1:10:17

"I'm in safe hands,"

1:10:18

to explain that he was now in the custody of the Americans

1:10:20

and has been no longer in the custody

1:10:23

of this murderous war Lord.

1:10:26

But then, and I don't know.

1:10:28

-

Did you see that?

-

Yes we did.

1:10:31

Peter

Before you met him before (indistinct)

1:10:32

-

Yeah came through the red cross.

1:10:33

Peter

How did you feel about it?

1:10:36

-

Well, I felt really reassured and of course,

1:10:38

even once I knew that he was in American hands,

1:10:42

I felt reassured.

1:10:43

I thought, "Oh God, he's with our guys now,

1:10:45

"the Americans," and my father was in the army air Corps

1:10:47

in World War II.

1:10:55

He used to tell us when we were little boys

1:10:57

I have three brothers and he would say,

1:10:58

"You know if you ever get taken prisoner of war

1:11:00

"they can only ask you three things,

1:11:02

"name, rank and serial number, name, rank,

1:11:04

"and serial number."

1:11:06

He used to tell us that all the time.

1:11:07

And it was this notion that you know

1:11:10

that when under the laws of war

1:11:12

and under the Geneva conventions,

1:11:15

we treat prisoners humanely, that's what we do.

1:11:16

It's not just the law, it's the way we are as people.

1:11:20

And I had this great assurance

1:11:23

of the sense of assurance that good

1:11:25

Johns now with people like my father,

1:11:26

you know who are American soldiers

1:11:28

and he'll be okay now he'll be treated well and humanely.

1:11:30

And even if the government's gonna prosecute him

1:11:35

and come after him with these accusations

1:11:37

at least he'll get humane treatment

1:11:39

and his wounds will be treated and so forth.

1:11:41

And then as now, you know we know later

1:11:44

we learned later he was treated very inhumanely

1:11:47

by the Americans.

1:11:50

He was allowed to send that initial letter

1:11:52

but then they packed him on a plane

1:11:53

and they flew him down to Southern Afghanistan,

1:11:55

to a place called Camp Rhino and Marine Corps base

1:11:58

and Southern Afghanistan.

1:12:01

And they stripped off his clothes

1:12:03

in the nighttime in the desert there

1:12:07

and bound him and his, his wounds were untreated.

1:12:09

He had an AK 47 bullet in his leg,

1:12:13

shrapnel wounds, hypothermia.

1:12:16

He was in very bad shape from this situation

1:12:19

he had been rescued from, the massacre

1:12:23

and instead of giving him medical treatment

1:12:26

they bound him hand and foot naked on a stretcher

1:12:29

with these extremely painful plastic restraints

1:12:32

and put him in a shipping container,

1:12:35

out in the unheated desert in the winter and Afghanistan,

1:12:38

he said, they say that later they said

1:12:42

he was shivering uncontrollably.

1:12:44

And they kept them that way for like a night and two days

1:12:46

or two days and two nights,

1:12:50

some long period of time strapped to a stretcher naked,

1:12:51

the American Marines.

1:12:56

And there were Marines and there's photographs of all this

1:13:00

there's photographs of John in that condition

1:13:02

that were taken.

1:13:04

And while they were kept them that way

1:13:05

they were shouting to inside from the outside,

1:13:08

shouting into the shipping container,

1:13:11

we're gonna kill you, we're gonna kill you.

1:13:12

He was in terrible condition.

1:13:14

And he was psychologically in horrible fear

1:13:17

of being killed by his own people

1:13:21

the American troops there in Camp Rhino.

1:13:23

It was really disgraceful.

1:13:26

Peter

And they're saying, Frank,

1:13:30

so you get that one note is

1:13:32

that the only note you've got?

1:13:33

-

That's the only note.

1:13:34

Peter

And you was there another incident

1:13:36

you said you want to talk about besides

1:13:38

during the 54 days before you finally got to see John again.

1:13:40

Woman

Before we go to,

1:13:45

-

Okay.

1:13:46

-

Can I ask a question,

during that altercation that fight

1:13:48

in which John was in prison,

1:13:52

there was a CIA agent who was killed.

1:13:55

-

Yeah.

1:13:58

-

Who was not

I believe at the time identified as a CIA agent

1:13:59

but wasn't American internally among the Americans.

1:14:03

Do you feel that that had an impact

1:14:08

on how they responded to John?

1:14:12

-

Yes, it's a strange really tragic sort of juxtaposition

1:14:15

of what happens here,

1:14:21

but yes I'm glad you asked about that.

1:14:22

When John was with a group

1:14:25

of about four to 500 Taliban prisoners

1:14:27

who gave up their arms to this war Lord in return for

1:14:31

they also gave the war Lord,

1:14:36

the Taliban commander gave the warlord

1:14:38

several hundred thousand dollars.

1:14:40

Peter

You should say the name, Dostum.

1:14:41

-

Dostum General Abdul Rashid Dostum

1:14:44

A really heinous warlord

1:14:48

from Northern Afghanistan,

1:14:50

had been part of the Soviet occupation government

1:14:51

in Afghanistan and a terrible person.

1:14:53

There was a 1997 "Pulitzer Prize" article

1:14:56

in the New York Times that talked about him

1:14:59

and his horrible record.

1:15:01

He's a very bad person, a real thug.

1:15:03

And these Taliban tried to,

1:15:06

again the Americans were not a bang, the Geneva conventions.

1:15:08

And so these warlords were free to kill the prisoners

1:15:11

and they did in fact, kill those them killed

1:15:15

several thousand prisoners in Afghanistan

1:15:17

in November and December of 2001,

1:15:20

John was with a group of this four or 500

1:15:22

who tried to make a deal with him.

1:15:25

This has all been documented in an article

1:15:27

in the new Yorker magazine.

1:15:29

And Dostum then took the money

1:15:31

and took the troops, took their weapons.

1:15:34

They all gave up their weapons,

1:15:36

and then he diverted them

1:15:37

into this fortress that it was his military headquarters

1:15:38

Qala-i-Jangi fortress outside of Mazar-i-Sharif

1:15:41

the city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

1:15:44

And in that fortress Dostum has his military headquarters.

1:15:46

It looks like the Alamo, except it's actually much bigger.

1:15:50

It's a great big fortress from,

1:15:53

you know many centuries old

1:15:55

with surrounded by these big high walls.

1:15:57

And they began to abuse the prisoners in there.

1:15:59

And then some of them staged

1:16:04

they decided to fight some of the ethnic Uzbeks.

1:16:06

Dostum is ethnic Uzbek

1:16:09

and as they were pulling these guys out of that basement

1:16:11

this was on a Sunday morning after they were brought

1:16:14

to the fortress and John was among them.

1:16:17

They were tied with their arms behind their backs

1:16:19

with ropes and so forth.

1:16:21

And they were being abused,

1:16:23

someone hit John in the head with the butt of a rifle.

1:16:24

Well, in amongst those Dostum's troops

1:16:27

on that Sunday morning where these two Americans

1:16:31

CIA agents, Mike Spann and got another guy named Dave Tyson.

1:16:33

And all of this was being videotaped

1:16:38

as they're abusing these guys.

1:16:40

And there was a video tape of an interview

1:16:41

between these two Americans and John and John's kneeling.

1:16:45

He was already in pretty bad condition from the whole series

1:16:47

of things he had suffered through up until that point.

1:16:50

And he's kneeling on the ground on a blanket.

1:16:54

It's a sunny Sunday morning in this fortress

1:16:56

and they're trying to get them to talk

1:17:01

but he's afraid to talk

1:17:02

because of he's in Dostum's custody.

1:17:04

And everybody there knows who Dostum is

1:17:06

that he's this thug

1:17:08

and Spann and Tyson try to get John to talk.

1:17:10

And they thought he was Irish

1:17:13

and they tried to get them to talk.

1:17:14

And this is all captured on videotape

1:17:16

and they threatened to kill him.

1:17:18

They say, "If you don't talk to us, you'll be killed here."

1:17:19

You know, Tyson, I think is the one that says,

1:17:22

"You'll spend the rest of your short fucking life here."

1:17:25

If John was in mortal fear for good reason,

1:17:29

'cause he's in the hands of someone

1:17:32

who will kill the prisoners.

1:17:33

And so John didn't speak to them.

1:17:35

And then moments after that,

1:17:37

this group of ethnic Uzbeks who were being led out

1:17:39

at the last of them to come out of that basement

1:17:43

decided to fight rather than just be killed.

1:17:44

They could see it coming I think,

1:17:48

they in their minds they thought were going to be killed

1:17:50

by this Dostum.

1:17:52

So they overcame Dostum guards and grabbed their weapons

1:17:53

and then Dostum's troops panicked

1:17:56

and just began to kind of wantonly gun

1:17:59

down all these 500 Taliban prisoners in that yard

1:18:03

inside the fortress and Mike Spann and Dave Tyson

1:18:08

were right there among the prisoners.

1:18:12

And Mike Spann was shot right in those moments

1:18:13

and with a bullet to the head and he died instantly.

1:18:16

And he was the first American combat casualty

1:18:19

in the war in Afghanistan and a hero.

1:18:22

He was a former Marine, he was trying to,

1:18:26

he was there in Afghanistan with the CIA.

1:18:28

They were legitimately there trying to track down

1:18:30

Osama Bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda terrorists

1:18:33

who had plotted the 911 attacks, and he was killed.

1:18:37

And he was there for his reason,

1:18:43

John Lindh was there for his reason,

1:18:45

it's this completely unlikely confluence

1:18:47

of these two young American men.

1:18:50

I mean, Spann is older.

1:18:52

He's in his thirties, John's 20 years old

1:18:53

but there they were on they encountered each other.

1:18:56

And then in moments later, John was shot as well.

1:18:58

John got up to run when the shooting broke out,

1:19:03

he got up and started to run

1:19:05

and he was shot down with an AK 47 bullet

1:19:07

and fell to the ground, but he wasn't killed.

1:19:10

And Mike Spann was shot also with an AK 47 bullet wound

1:19:13

but he was killed and he became the first combat casualty.

1:19:17

And it was quite a tragedy for his family.

1:19:20

And he was quite a prominent case as well back here at home.

1:19:24

He Mrs. Spann his widow,

1:19:27

was brought to the State of the Union Address in January

1:19:29

and seated up in with President Bush's wife

1:19:33

and with President Karzai from Afghanistan

1:19:36

up in the visitor's gallery in the Capitol,

1:19:40

in this in the chamber, in the House Chamber in Washington

1:19:42

during the State of The Union Address.

1:19:44

And he was Spann's widow was given recognition

1:19:46

by the entire Congress of the United States

1:19:49

in recognition of what her husband had sacrificed.

1:19:51

And then that contributed further to this hysteria

1:19:55

about John, because the accusation came out

1:19:59

from the government that John Lindh

1:20:02

somehow was responsible for death of Mike Spann

1:20:04

that John somehow could have stopped that

1:20:08

or could have prevented that from happening.

1:20:10

So, yeah that's an important part of the case, right?

1:20:13

Peter

So during the 54 days

1:20:18

is there something else before you saw John,

1:20:21

is building up along here.

1:20:23

-

Well, if I could just quickly summarize

1:20:25

that there was the horrible abuse that John suffered

1:20:28

by those Marines at that base in Camp Rhino.

1:20:31

And after that, they brought him into a room.

1:20:34

They really tortured him, that's torture.

1:20:36

He has physical wounds on his wrists,

1:20:40

permanent wounds from these wristbands,

1:20:43

this is torture it's completely unjustified.

1:20:46

If I can say that it was shameful conduct,

1:20:51

John is labeled as the government by the Pentagon

1:20:54

as detainees 001 in the war on terror,

1:20:57

this has come out later.

1:21:02

He's the first detainee and this practice

1:21:03

of stripping them naked, stripping prisoners naked

1:21:06

and torturing them physical,

1:21:10

putting them through physical torture

1:21:12

is something that was not unique to my son.

1:21:14

It was practiced on a wide scale basis in Afghanistan.

1:21:18

And then later in Iraq,

1:21:22

I hate to have to say this

1:21:24

I'm sorry to have to say this,

1:21:28

but the Government of the United States,

1:21:30

that the Military of the United States

1:21:32

engaged in that practice on a very large scale

1:21:34

in both of these two Wars.

1:21:38

Stripping prisoners naked,

1:21:40

and putting them through physical abuse

1:21:42

and physical torture.

1:21:44

It wasn't episodic, it was widespread

1:21:46

and John is the first.

1:21:50

Peter

Do you know, there was a policy that early

1:21:53

and the way John was treated.

1:21:57

-

I think it's a policy.

1:21:59

-

You know.

-

I don't think it's just random bullying

1:22:00

by a handful of soldiers.

1:22:02

And the one thing we do know from the discovery

1:22:04

in John's case is lawyers then put on a strong defense

1:22:07

for him when he was brought back

1:22:10

and obtained from the government,

1:22:12

a lot of interesting material.

1:22:13

And one of the things they obtained

1:22:15

was a memorandum confirming that defense secretary,

1:22:16

Donald Rumsfeld ordered in those first days

1:22:20

in December, that he used this expression,

1:22:24

"Take the gloves off,

1:22:27

"take the gloves off in your questioning of John Lindh

1:22:29

"of John Walker."

1:22:33

They were calling it, take the gloves off.

1:22:35

So there was no doubt

1:22:36

that from the highest level of the Pentagon

1:22:37

from the secretary of defense, literally himself

1:22:38

there was a direction down all the way down the line

1:22:41

through the chain of command

1:22:44

to really essentially do anything you want to John Lindh.

1:22:46

Peter

So that was very early on in the policy.

1:22:50

You said in December.

1:22:53

-

Well yeah you used the word policy.

1:22:55

I'm not sure, it certainly appears to me to be a policy.

1:22:58

It's certainly a widespread practice,

1:23:01

this abuse of prisoners.

1:23:02

And in John's case, we can trays literally

1:23:04

to an order from the secretary,

1:23:07

take the gloves off that I think had a particular meaning

1:23:09

to the soldiers at that Marine base at Camp Rhino

1:23:12

and to their commanders.

1:23:16

It meant you could do anything you want to this boy.

1:23:18

And it meant that, like my father used to say.

1:23:21

Name, rank and serial number and treat them humanely

1:23:25

that those rules were off were under different rules.

1:23:28

He was very clear I think,

1:23:31

Rumsfeld was clear that we're now going to have

1:23:32

different rules, there's something different now.

1:23:35

We're not having the Geneva conventions,

1:23:37

this is for whatever reason,

1:23:39

we're gonna do a different approach here,

1:23:41

we're going to abuse the hell out of these people.

1:23:42

So, yeah I believe it's a policy

1:23:45

and I believe it was deliberate and willful

1:23:47

and that it literally came directly

1:23:49

from the secretary's mouth

1:23:51

because we have this document that confirms it.

1:23:52

Peter

During those 54 days, you knew nothing.

1:23:56

I mean, you didn't know anything

1:23:58

about how Jeremy's being treated or did you have.

1:24:00

-

Well we began to get some insight

1:24:02

we learned mostly just from the media.

1:24:03

But after that, those first few days at Camp Rhino

1:24:05

he was taken in an interviewed

1:24:10

by an FBI agent without a lawyer,

1:24:11

and actually John himself said,

1:24:13

"I wanna have a lawyer,"

1:24:15

and the FBI agents said, "We don't have lawyers here."

1:24:16

And then he took down a statement

1:24:19

and John didn't write the statement

1:24:21

and certainly didn't sign it.

1:24:23

And the FBI agent, I have to say

1:24:24

he really distorted some of these facts

1:24:26

to make it seem as if John had somehow

1:24:27

been connected with Al-Qaeda.

1:24:29

So he wrote a statement that was

1:24:32

that took some of the facts of John's case

1:24:34

but then added his own embellishments.

1:24:36

And then after that,

1:24:38

that became the basis of the prosecution, his statement.

1:24:40

And I also, if I could say Peter,

1:24:43

John was always willing to talk to the military,

1:24:45

to the Americans, he had nothing to hide,

1:24:49

He could tell his story about where he had been,

1:24:52

what he had seen.

1:24:54

You know, he had nothing, he had an honorable story to tell

1:24:56

about having gone to Afghanistan,

1:24:59

to try to be in the army to try to defend civilian people,

1:25:00

and then had having gone through these series,

1:25:04

this series of experiences, he can tell all of that.

1:25:06

And he was willing to do that and he did do that.

1:25:08

He didn't have to be tortured to extract information.

1:25:10

It was really gratuitous to put them through this,

1:25:13

but in any event, if I could just

1:25:17

try to finish on the 54 days.

1:25:18

-

Yeah.

-

After he, the FBI agent got that statement

1:25:20

and wrote it up, then they took, they put clothes on him.

1:25:23

They gave him clothes and took him to a ship

1:25:27

in the Indian Ocean.

1:25:32

And there they finally gave him medical treatment

1:25:33

to remove the bullet from his thigh

1:25:35

and the shrapnel and so forth.

1:25:37

And then at that point he began on the Navy ship

1:25:39

began to get some humane treatment.

1:25:42

Peter

Well, I guess what I was asking

1:25:44

is what you knew during the 54 days.

1:25:46

-

We knew very little, we knew he was on a Navy ship,

1:25:48

because it was reported on the news,

1:25:51

on CNN and the other news outlets.

1:25:55

So we knew about his movements from Afghanistan

1:25:57

onto the Navy ship.

1:26:00

And then as lawyers, were constantly trying to make contact

1:26:01

through the Department of Defense to get better information

1:26:04

Peter

Unsuccessfully or successfully.

1:26:08

-

Now some moderate success,

1:26:10

they were able to get some information I think,

1:26:13

in fact, there was a chaplain.

1:26:15

I think there was a Navy chaplain.

1:26:17

My uncle is a Navy or is a retired Navy chaplain.

1:26:18

So we have a kind of a family history there

1:26:21

but there was a Navy chaplain

1:26:23

who provided them with some information

1:26:25

but essentially he was held incommunicado

1:26:26

really with just no communication with his lawyers

1:26:29

or his family for a total period of 54 days,

1:26:32

partly at Camp Rhino, partly on the Navy ship,

1:26:36

there was two ships.

1:26:39

He was transferred from one ship to another

1:26:40

in the Indian Ocean.

1:26:42

So for the most of that,

1:26:43

the bulk of that time,

1:26:43

he was at sea in the Indian Ocean.

1:26:44

And then eventually he was taken back to Afghanistan

1:26:47

and flown to Alexandria, Virginia

1:26:50

to be put through this prosecution there

1:26:53

at the federal court right near the Pentagon,

1:26:56

one of the targets of the 911 attacks.

1:26:58

Peter

Did you know he was gonna arrive?

1:27:00

Did you, were you noticed ahead of time?

1:27:02

-

No we didn't we had several false starts.

1:27:05

We did know from the television

1:27:08

that he was going to be taken to Virginia.

1:27:10

They deliberately wanted him to go there for trial

1:27:12

because the government felt that taking them to trial

1:27:14

right by the Pentagon would be an effective way

1:27:17

to get him convicted and I think they were right.

1:27:19

And so we knew he was coming there, but we didn't know when.

1:27:23

So there was a couple of times,

1:27:26

at least once I remember,

1:27:27

distinctly flying back to Washington

1:27:28

thinking John was coming and then realizing,

1:27:30

no, he's not coming and then we flew back home again.

1:27:32

So we didn't know until he arrived, when to expect him.

1:27:36

Peter

When he arrived then you wouldn't notice.

1:27:41

And then you, yeah.

1:27:43

-

Yeah well, it was all on the,

1:27:43

it was covered by the media,

1:27:45

the airplane was photographed as it's landing.

1:27:46

It was quite, it was,

1:27:48

you know it was really as if we had the way the government

1:27:50

and the media handled my son.

1:27:53

It was as if we had Osama Bin Laden in custody.

1:27:54

And we're now bringing this terrorist to trial

1:27:58

that's really the nature and the scale of the coverage.

1:28:01

It was every single media outlet you can imagine

1:28:06

was covering this thing.

1:28:09

So, and that's how we learned everything

1:28:11

was we didn't learn anything from the government.

1:28:12

Peter

So the day he arrived,

1:28:16

could you tell us what happened,

1:28:18

when you did you come that day too?

1:28:20

-

Well he arrived in the evening at Dallas Airport.

1:28:22

And then they flew in by helicopter

1:28:25

to the Alexandria jail which is about 30, 40 miles

1:28:27

from the airport.

1:28:31

And they have this rule

1:28:32

the government that if wherever he touches down

1:28:33

on American soil, that's the court where he now

1:28:35

is going to be taken for trial.

1:28:37

So they flew him there on purpose

1:28:39

to take them to where the Pentagon was.

1:28:41

And we actually went to the jail,

1:28:43

Mr. Brosnahan the lawyer in Marylyn and I,

1:28:46

went to the jail that night

1:28:48

and to see if we could get in to see John,

1:28:51

and they told us no,

1:28:53

"You know we understand you wanna see your son

1:28:56

"but you can't see him here, not tonight."

1:28:58

And the next morning, this was late January, 2001.

1:29:00

They brought him to the courthouse,

1:29:04

and in the basement of the court,

1:29:07

or the first level of the courthouse

1:29:09

there's a holding cell for inmates

1:29:11

who are being taken to the court for trial

1:29:13

to federal United States Courthouse.

1:29:15

And that's where they finally let us see John

1:29:17

was in the visiting in the holding area of the courthouse,

1:29:19

ground floor of the courthouse.

1:29:22

Peter

Could you tell us about that?

1:29:24

-

Well they, the lawyers waited outside

1:29:27

'cause John hadn't met these lawyers yet

1:29:30

and they hadn't met him

1:29:32

and Marilyn and I then went in just the two of us.

1:29:35

And there was a guard there with us, as I remember

1:29:39

and there was John and he actually looked okay.

1:29:42

He was sitting behind a mesh screen,

1:29:46

a prison where we visited,

1:29:49

where we now visit John there's glass

1:29:51

in the jail and Alexandria also there's glass.

1:29:53

And you talk through a phone, but at the jail,

1:29:56

excuse me at the courthouse,

1:29:58

the holding cell in the courthouse

1:30:00

instead of a glass screen with telephones,

1:30:01

it was just a wire mesh screen that you could talk through

1:30:04

and kind of feel the person.

1:30:09

And we talked and I remember distinctly putting our hands

1:30:10

up to John's hand like that.

1:30:15

And you could see through that mesh screen

1:30:16

you could feel the warmth.

1:30:18

And it was a powerful, emotional moment

1:30:20

after all that time and everything we all had been through

1:30:23

to finally do back together,

1:30:26

to see him and talk to him

1:30:28

and thank God, thank God he was all right.

1:30:30

His spirits were good, his mental acuity was good.

1:30:33

You know, he had been through a horrible series of ordeals,

1:30:36

but he was in psychological and mental and physical

1:30:41

good health was quite remarkable and quite reassuring.

1:30:46

And then we only had five minutes or so or seven minutes

1:30:49

and then they let us out,

1:30:54

took us out and let the lawyers come in.

1:30:56

And then the lawyers finally got to meet John.

1:30:58

And they've told the story about how

1:31:00

at first thing he said to them is,

1:31:01

"Boy, am I glad to see you guys?"

1:31:03

Because he had wanted, he knew he was in trouble.

1:31:05

I need one at a lawyer all along.

1:31:07

And, but the government really

1:31:08

the government really behaved in John's cases.

1:31:10

It's sort of like a,

1:31:12

like a medieval government

1:31:14

where we could just take an accused person

1:31:15

and keep him isolated and not let him have any access

1:31:18

to a lawyer and whip up a whole lot of accusations

1:31:22

of an incendiary style of accusation,

1:31:25

really horrible, accusations murder,

1:31:29

conspiracy to commit murder,

1:31:31

helping terrorists carry out the 911 attacks.

1:31:33

These are the kinds of charges the government

1:31:36

was educating the people about my son

1:31:38

keeping him all the while in isolation

1:31:42

for this 54 day period to the point where the populace then

1:31:44

is completely prejudiced.

1:31:47

Everyone now believes he's guilty of some horrible crime

1:31:49

and now we're going to have the trial.

1:31:52

It was really, it's just a shocking departure

1:31:54

from the principles of human rights

1:31:57

or of the constitution of the United States

1:32:00

the way we are supposed to take a person

1:32:02

accused of a crime and put them on trial.

1:32:05

Peter

Did the government telling you.

1:32:08

Man

Nine minutes on this cut.

1:32:09

Peter

Okay, did the government tell the lawyers

1:32:11

that they couldn't see John

1:32:13

or they ignored the lawyers request

1:32:16

-

They ignored the lawyer's requests?

1:32:18

As far as I know,

1:32:20

they may have affirmatively denied it,

1:32:21

but as far as I know,

1:32:23

they just never acknowledged the request.

1:32:23

And then attorney general Ashcroft

1:32:26

actually had the temerity to go on television and say,

1:32:28

"Oh John didn't have a lawyer.

1:32:31

"So it was okay to question him without a lawyer."

1:32:32

And he was one of the people who received

1:32:34

the letter on December 3rd, from Mr. Brosnahan

1:32:36

saying, "I represent John Lindh,

1:32:39

"I mean he just literally lied about that,

1:32:41

"really important fact that he just lied about."

1:32:45

Peter

We'll take a break to change the card

1:32:48

in just a moment but I just want,

1:32:50

and then we can go forward just once John came home.

1:32:51

But I just wanted to ask you, you kind of said it

1:32:54

but I wouldn't mind if he just repeated

1:32:57

what was your feelings of time that you saw John

1:32:59

and he was back in the United States?

1:33:03

What was going on in you and Marilyn then at that point?

1:33:06

-

Well, there's a great sense of relief

1:33:10

to know that John's all right.

1:33:13

And he's the same John,

1:33:14

you know he had that same sense of humor

1:33:16

that somehow he had come through this ordeal.

1:33:18

So on the one hand there was a sense of relief

1:33:21

and thankfulness.

1:33:25

But on the other hand,

1:33:28

there was this horrible sense of foreboding

1:33:29

that he was going to be put on this trial

1:33:32

and there was no hope of a fair trial.

1:33:37

No hope, the trial judge was determined to get a conviction.

1:33:40

He deliberately set the trial date

1:33:45

to coincide with the one-year anniversary of 911

1:33:47

just eight miles from the Pentagon.

1:33:51

And then in the Washington Area,

1:33:53

if I can just add this little bit of color

1:33:55

during that time the anthrax attacks were occurring.

1:33:57

If you recall, those were poison was being sent

1:34:00

through the mail and killing people.

1:34:03

And there was a sniper going around,

1:34:05

Washington killing people from the back of a car

1:34:08

and nobody knew where he was or where it was coming from.

1:34:10

All of that was happening at the same time,

1:34:13

John was brought to trial

1:34:15

and there was this terrible atmosphere

1:34:16

of as if the entire Washington area

1:34:19

where we had lived all those years

1:34:21

for 11 years, we lived there where John was born.

1:34:23

The entire Washington area felt

1:34:25

as if it were under attack.

1:34:27

The 911 attacks, the anthrax attacks,

1:34:30

the sniper attack, multiple sniper attacks.

1:34:32

It was a terrible sort of war-like atmosphere in Washington.

1:34:35

And in that atmosphere they brought back John Lindh

1:34:38

and said, " We're never gonna try this terrorist

1:34:41

"here in Washington or in Virginia, Northern Virginia."

1:34:43

There was no hope, no prospect of a fair trial

1:34:46

in that atmosphere.

1:34:48

Peter

Well, let's take a break

1:34:50

and change a card.

1:34:51

-

Okay.

Peter

Okay so we'll go back to when John was brought

1:34:58

to the jail and I'll take, you can go from there,

1:35:02

Frank as you wanna do it in terms of your

1:35:06

on sense and how you felt at that point

1:35:08

in going through and Marilyn experienced these years,

1:35:12

you know.

1:35:17

-

Well, he was brought back

1:35:18

at the end of January, as I recall or early February.

1:35:21

No, it was February

1:35:25

because it was 54 days from the 1st of December.

1:35:26

And then the attorney general took a direct interest.

1:35:30

In this case, John Ashcroft was the attorney general

1:35:35

and he did,

1:35:38

he held two nationally televised press conferences

1:35:40

two of them to announce charges against John

1:35:43

and made these incredibly outlandish

1:35:47

and prejudicial statements, accusing John

1:35:50

of trying to kill thousands of Americans.

1:35:52

In other words, trying to tie him to the 911 attacks

1:35:55

and it was widely covered and people really believed it.

1:35:58

And he also said that John was responsible

1:36:02

for the killing of Mike Spann

1:36:05

during the uprising of those prisoners

1:36:07

in a general Dostum's custody.

1:36:10

So those two things were really enough

1:36:12

to get everybody convinced,

1:36:15

you know that John was guilty

1:36:17

and that was widely covered in the press

1:36:20

and so those are just examples of the sort

1:36:24

of the the drum beat of prejudicial governmental statements

1:36:27

and media attention on John

1:36:31

that made it all but certain

1:36:33

he was going to be convicted of virtually

1:36:35

any charge the government wanted to make up.

1:36:38

You could charge him with killing John F. Kennedy,

1:36:41

I think and they might've,

1:36:43

you know they might've convicted him of that.

1:36:45

There was nothing, they couldn't find him guilty of

1:36:47

in that atmosphere, but he did have John had a courageous

1:36:49

and capable defense team,

1:36:54

these lawyers that Rose to his defense.

1:36:56

And the question that came before the court

1:36:59

as this case progressed through the spring

1:37:02

and the summer of 2002 now,

1:37:04

was whether the statement

1:37:06

that the FBI agent took down in Afghanistan

1:37:09

after that terrible abuse John had been through,

1:37:12

whether a statement of that kind,

1:37:15

from a person who had been so severely abused

1:37:17

could be admitted in the court

1:37:20

because of the constitution

1:37:23

the fourth and the fifth amendment

1:37:24

of the constitution that prohibit unreasonable searches

1:37:26

and seizures and prohibit incriminating statements

1:37:29

from being extracted from a person.

1:37:32

And so there was gonna be a hearing in July

1:37:34

then of that year,

1:37:37

the case was progressing towards this hearing.

1:37:37

It was an actual, a trial type,

1:37:40

hearing an evidentiary hearing

1:37:42

on the abuse that John had suffered.

1:37:44

And the lawyers were prepared to call as witnesses.

1:37:46

A whole lot of these soldiers

1:37:51

who had witnessed what John was put through

1:37:52

by the American soldiers there,

1:37:55

this torture, and the nudity,

1:37:57

the stripping naked and all that

1:37:59

leaving the wounds untreated

1:38:02

and all that then pres,

1:38:03

as a precursor to this statement

1:38:07

that then is extracted by the FBI agent.

1:38:09

And would that statement be admitted in court?

1:38:12

And there were all this testimony

1:38:14

was now gonna come before the court,

1:38:17

and it was all coming to a head that in July of 2002

1:38:18

and on that weekend, we all flew back for this hearing.

1:38:22

And John himself was going to testify.

1:38:24

It was going to be a very powerful and emotional experience

1:38:26

for all of us, for him to actually talk in court

1:38:29

about the torture that he had suffered

1:38:33

as an American and at the hands of American soldiers.

1:38:35

And on that weekend, the secretary of defense

1:38:39

and the White House, literally the White House got involved

1:38:42

and got the prosecution team to get in touch

1:38:46

with John's lawyers to negotiate a settlement

1:38:49

of the case a plea bargain

1:38:53

in which they would drop all of the

1:38:55

these really outrageous charges

1:38:57

about murdering Americans and things like that

1:38:59

and conspiracy to murder, and then supporting terrorism

1:39:02

all those charges over the course of that weekend

1:39:06

the government dropped them all,

1:39:09

agreed to drop all of those charges

1:39:11

in return for John agreeing to a 20 year prison sentence,

1:39:13

for aiding the Taliban for violating the economic sanctions.

1:39:17

That's literally the charge that John serving prison,

1:39:22

time for is for violating the economic sanctions

1:39:24

the prohibited providing assistance to the Taliban.

1:39:28

And John agreed to that bargain

1:39:31

because they did drop the false charges.

1:39:33

And John did in fact, assist the Taliban,

1:39:35

he was in a sense guilty of that.

1:39:37

He agreed, I did go and I did help the Taliban.

1:39:39

I went there to help defend civilians, but I did do it.

1:39:42

I provided my services to the Government of Afghanistan.

1:39:45

And for that conviction

1:39:49

he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

1:39:50

In addition to he had carried a weapon

1:39:53

'cause he was a soldier.

1:39:55

He had carried a rifle into hand-grenades

1:39:56

as an Afghan soldier.

1:40:00

And so because he carried weapons

1:40:01

and violated those sanctions

1:40:03

he was given a total of 20 years of imprisonment.

1:40:05

But the point is that the government

1:40:08

was motivated to drop these charges

1:40:10

that they had every opportunity to get a conviction.

1:40:13

And the reason was because they didn't want that abuse

1:40:16

to be explained publicly in court.

1:40:19

The torture that Joan had suffered,

1:40:23

detainee 001.

1:40:25

In the spring and summer of 2002

1:40:27

the secretary of defense took a strong interest.

1:40:30

Donald Rumsfeld took a strong and direct interest

1:40:33

in making sure that hearing didn't happen.

1:40:36

He didn't want that abuse to be displayed before the world.

1:40:38

And the media attention on this case

1:40:42

was literally worldwide.

1:40:44

I mean, it wasn't just the United States media

1:40:45

when we would leave that courthouse,

1:40:47

in the days when John had some sort of pre-trial

1:40:49

appearance before the judge,

1:40:53

and we'd go out in front of the courthouse,

1:40:55

there were dozens and dozens of television cameras

1:40:56

assembled to photograph us and to take statements from us.

1:41:00

And there was the media from all over the world.

1:41:03

And so I do think that this abuse that John had suffered,

1:41:06

which became atypical of the abuse

1:41:10

that the government put all their prisoners through,

1:41:14

typical, in a sense the nudity

1:41:16

and the abuse and the torture,

1:41:19

John I have to say was not as not abused

1:41:21

as severely as other prisoners,

1:41:23

but nevertheless he was severely abused

1:41:26

by the American military.

1:41:28

That the government had a very strong interest

1:41:30

in not allowing that to be portrayed

1:41:33

before all of that assembled media.

1:41:35

They wanted that case taken out of the public eye.

1:41:38

And so for that reason, and it was,

1:41:41

as I say the secretary of defense was directly involved.

1:41:43

And the White House

1:41:46

that the white house directly was involved

1:41:46

in this plea bargain with John

1:41:49

to get this case taken out of the public eye.

1:41:52

And initially as that weekend began,

1:41:56

I'll never forget this experience.

1:41:58

I was flying to Washington that weekend,

1:42:01

John's mother and I and his brother and sister

1:42:04

we were gonna fly to be there for that Monday hearing.

1:42:06

And on Friday I had to work,

1:42:09

I was trying to get all my work wrapped up

1:42:10

and I was driving home.

1:42:12

And I finally bought a cell phone at this time

1:42:14

because I had to be in contact with those lawyers.

1:42:15

And I got a call on my cell phone,

1:42:18

so I pulled over to the curb where I could talk.

1:42:20

And Mr. Brosnahan had said,

1:42:22

"The government wants to have a plea bargain

1:42:24

"with John, but the one thing they're insisting on

1:42:28

"is that he has to agree

1:42:31

"that he provided his services to Al-Qaeda

1:42:32

"that he assisted Al-Qaeda as a terrorist organization.

1:42:35

"And that's the deal they want them to agree to that."

1:42:39

And I said to Brosnahan, "He'll never agree to that."

1:42:43

You know, is John is,

1:42:47

he's a stubborn person when it comes to the truth

1:42:50

he will never say something that's not true.

1:42:54

He would never agree to something that's not true.

1:42:57

So I said, "He won't agree to that,

1:43:00

"he would face he was facing

1:43:02

"as a result of all these charges.

1:43:05

"He would have had multiple life sentences,

1:43:06

"He had no hope of ever coming out of prison

1:43:07

"for the rest of his life,

1:43:10

"if he had gone through to a conviction

1:43:11

"on all of those charges,"

1:43:14

but I predicted, and I was right

1:43:15

that John would not agree to that plea bargain

1:43:17

if it included the charge of assisting Al-Qaeda

1:43:20

because it wasn't true,

1:43:23

he had never assisted Al-Qaeda.

1:43:24

He didn't even know what Al Qaeda was.

1:43:26

And so sure enough, over that weekend, John stood them down.

1:43:28

He said, "No, I will not agree to that charge."

1:43:31

And then Rumsfeld and the White House,

1:43:34

this is, I'm not exaggerating here.

1:43:35

It was the White House and I think it was Cheney,

1:43:38

Vice President Cheney.

1:43:40

They had to agree to drop that piece,

1:43:42

but John did have to accept the 20 year prison sentence.

1:43:44

So that's where he is now,

1:43:48

we're almost, what is it nine years now after that

1:43:50

he's still in federal prison,

1:43:53

serving a 20 year prison sentence.

1:43:55

Peter

I wanna talk about that

1:43:58

but how do you know that Rumsfeld was involved

1:43:59

in this plea bargain or unchanged?

1:44:02

-

Because the lawyers were told some of that

1:44:04

from within the negotiations, but also the next day,

1:44:08

when the plea bargain was announced

1:44:11

Rumsfeld made a point of announcing it

1:44:12

at his daily press conference on that Monday.

1:44:14

So they did reach the plea bargain

1:44:18

over that weekend in July.

1:44:19

And then that hearing that was scheduled

1:44:20

to begin that Monday morning,

1:44:22

where the torture was going to be brought forth to the court

1:44:24

was canceled because of the plea bargain.

1:44:28

Peter

If the judge had decided

1:44:31

that in that hearing

1:44:34

that the statement of John couldn't be admitted into trial

1:44:37

would that have made a difference?

1:44:42

Would that have meant.

1:44:45

-

Yes the whole case would have collapsed at that point

1:44:46

because that was the only basis

1:44:47

for the government's charges against John,

1:44:49

was that statement.

1:44:51

So I think it's fair to say

1:44:53

that if that statement was not admitted

1:44:54

was ruled inadmissible,

1:44:56

then the whole case would have collapsed.

1:44:58

I mean, the case was a false case to begin with,

1:45:00

John was not a terrorist.

1:45:03

John had not fought against the Americans,

1:45:04

John had not conspired to kill Americans.

1:45:06

These were all false accusations in the first place,

1:45:08

but without that statement

1:45:11

and the FBI agents characterizations

1:45:13

in that statement about John's activities

1:45:16

there would have been no factual basis for anything.

1:45:18

So I think it was a high stakes motion on John's behalf.

1:45:21

Peter

Were you optimistic at all

1:45:25

before you heard that there was gonna be a settlement?

1:45:27

Did you think maybe the judge would say this now?

1:45:29

-

No, honestly I wasn't.

1:45:32

This judge was dead set against my son from the beginning.

1:45:33

He was very, he was broadcasting that

1:45:37

it was quite clear that you didn't,

1:45:39

there was no mistaking that this judge wanted a conviction

1:45:41

he set the trial date to coincide with 911.

1:45:43

He denied a whole bunch of other motions,

1:45:46

the defense brought me.

1:45:48

The primary, honestly,

1:45:49

really the primary defense for John is combat immunity.

1:45:51

This is doctrine called combat immunity.

1:45:54

A soldier in an army can not be prosecuted

1:45:57

as a criminal when that soldier is taken prisoner

1:46:00

this is an established doctrine.

1:46:03

So when our troops, for example are fighting overseas

1:46:05

and get captured by the enemy,

1:46:08

the enemy cannot put them on trial for being criminals

1:46:10

for carrying weapons or for shooting those weapons

1:46:13

and for killing people it's combat immunity

1:46:17

and Ho Chi Minh during the Vietnam War

1:46:19

at one point threatened to take American soldiers

1:46:21

and put them on trial in North Vietnam

1:46:25

as criminals.

1:46:29

And Lyndon Johnson, President Johnson went on television

1:46:30

and said, "Don't you dare, they have combat immunity."

1:46:33

And that same principle attached to John.

1:46:37

John was a soldier in the army of Afghanistan

1:46:38

and say what you will about whether that was a good

1:46:41

or a bad thing for him to do,

1:46:43

he's immune from any sort of criminal prosecution

1:46:45

under that doctrine, this is an established doctrine

1:46:48

and the judge, they filed it.

1:46:50

The lawyers filed a perfectly well-written motion

1:46:52

explaining the doctrine of combat immunity

1:46:55

and even citing to the example of Ho Chi Minh

1:46:58

and President Johnson.

1:47:00

And the judge just denied the motion.

1:47:02

There was no motion, that he wasn't prepared to deny,

1:47:04

you know any motion on John's behalf.

1:47:08

He denied them all,

1:47:10

he denied a motion to move the venue

1:47:11

to move the trial venue to a less prejudicial location.

1:47:13

Not right by the Pentagon, not right there on Washington.

1:47:16

Find a venue like back here at home in California

1:47:19

he denied that he denied a motion to stay the trial

1:47:24

to postpone the trial

1:47:27

and not holding on the 911 Anniversary.

1:47:29

There was, you know there was nothing that

1:47:30

that judge would deny every motion on John's behalf.

1:47:32

So I was never optimistic that the judge

1:47:35

would even with the severe abuse,

1:47:37

you know, I'm a lawyer and I've been through law school

1:47:39

and we learn these cases in law school

1:47:42

about under the fifth amendment

1:47:44

and under the fourth amendment,

1:47:47

different kinds of activities by the government

1:47:48

that sometimes cause evidence to be not admitted in court.

1:47:51

There's never been a case in the decided cases

1:47:56

that I'm aware of that involved the abuse

1:47:59

of the severity that John suffered.

1:48:00

So, and you know in terms of the reported cases,

1:48:04

this statement,

1:48:06

there's no way it should be admitted in court.

1:48:06

And he was tortured,

1:48:09

we do not allow the evidence of torture

1:48:10

to be taken and brought into court,

1:48:12

you know and then used as evidence

1:48:14

against the accused person.

1:48:16

But I have no doubt that this judge

1:48:18

would have found a way to allow that evidence in,

1:48:20

he just didn't care, he wanted a conviction.

1:48:22

Peter

So were you relieved to know

1:48:25

that the government was willing to settle in plea bargain?

1:48:28

-

Yes I was very relieved.

1:48:30

I mean, the atmosphere in that court was so poisonous

1:48:33

that it was honestly I have no hope

1:48:36

that John could get a fair trial

1:48:38

both with this judge, but also with the jury pool,

1:48:40

the jury pool had been so poisoned by these statements

1:48:42

by attorney general Ashcroft and others

1:48:45

there was no fair jury to be found

1:48:48

anywhere in Northern Virginia for John Lindh

1:48:50

there was no presumption of innocence for John Lindh.

1:48:53

He was presumed guilty, there was no explaining it.

1:48:57

There was no getting around it

1:49:00

and he was gonna face multiple life sentences,

1:49:01

almost to a certainty versus no fairness there.

1:49:03

And so the fact that he was able to get a plea bargain

1:49:08

and get a 20 year prison sentence,

1:49:10

as dreadful as that is,

1:49:13

was really the best he could've hoped for.

1:49:14

Peter

So when they settled on the 20 years,

1:49:17

what happened next for you

1:49:20

in terms of how you saw the world?

1:49:24

-

Well, the immediate thing is,

1:49:29

I remember we had to meet with,

1:49:31

there was this whole pre-sentence investigation

1:49:33

that the court then conducted the probation office

1:49:36

of the federal court.

1:49:39

There was then a sign and there was a psychologist

1:49:41

appointed to interview John

1:49:44

and prepare a report for the judge.

1:49:46

And I remember the psychologist meeting with me and Marilyn

1:49:48

and it was very emotional moment.

1:49:51

She said, "I just wanna say, as parents

1:49:53

"that's your son is the most,

1:49:57

"one of the most moral people I have ever encountered

1:49:59

"his sense of right and wrong is so strong."

1:50:01

Interesting thing, that's my son.

1:50:05

That's the person that the government has accused.

1:50:08

That's the person that they've got in prison.

1:50:11

He's a really remarkably good person.

1:50:14

Peter

Well, we're almost over,

1:50:17

but maybe you could just

1:50:18

-

Yeah.

tell us briefly Frank,

1:50:19

about the different prisons that John was centered

1:50:21

just in your reaction when you see him and.

1:50:25

-

All right, I'll try to summarize that quickly.

1:50:28

He was kept for almost a full year there

1:50:30

in the Alexandria prison,

1:50:32

in the Alexandria jail in solitary confinement.

1:50:34

And we would visit him there regularly

1:50:37

but our visits were all, are and still are monitored

1:50:38

by the FBI.

1:50:41

They come and they listen while we talk to John

1:50:42

and they record what we say to John,

1:50:44

it's kind of intimidating.

1:50:47

And now he's being held at a special prison in Indiana

1:50:49

along with other Muslim inmates, it's an isolated group.

1:50:52

It's in the, literally in the old death row wing

1:50:56

of an old federal prison building.

1:50:59

It's no longer death row,

1:51:00

but it's a segregated wing

1:51:02

where there were about 40 or 45 inmates

1:51:03

and most of them are Muslims.

1:51:06

And again, our visits are monitored

1:51:08

and we talked to John through a glass window.

1:51:10

We're not allowed to embrace him,

1:51:13

we can't touch him.

1:51:15

For the first several years though after he left Alexandria,

1:51:17

he was kept at a federal prison in Southern California

1:51:20

in a medium security prison,

1:51:22

where he was in a in a large inmate population

1:51:24

of like 1200 inmates.

1:51:27

In that prison we were able to have physical contact visits

1:51:28

in the visiting room at the prison.

1:51:31

But then after that, there was an article published

1:51:33

in a magazine called "Innocent."

1:51:37

It was about John and the whole title

1:51:40

and the theme of the article is that John

1:51:42

is this innocent person and we were not quoted,

1:51:43

we didn't talk to the journalist

1:51:48

but it was a very sympathetic article about John.

1:51:50

And immediately when that article was published

1:51:53

they took him and put him into isolation

1:51:55

at the prison where he was

1:51:57

and then moved him after a month or two.

1:51:59

They moved him to the supermax prison in Colorado

1:52:01

and kept him there for almost a full year

1:52:05

in complete isolation from all other inmates.

1:52:07

So we had to go visit him there in Colorado

1:52:12

in the supermax prison,

1:52:14

which is quite an extraordinary place.

1:52:15

He was kept in chains

1:52:16

and kept in his cell by himself 24 hours a day

1:52:18

for a full year until he was moved several years ago

1:52:20

to where he is now, which is Indiana.

1:52:24

Peter

Did you ever find out

1:52:26

why he was treated like that in the supermax?

1:52:27

-

Oh I can only surmise

1:52:30

but I think it was because literally because

1:52:32

of the news and this magazine article

1:52:34

that declared him to be an innocent person.

1:52:35

And I think the Bureau of Prisons

1:52:37

was honestly concerned about the sympathy factor.

1:52:39

They know that there would be so much sympathy

1:52:42

for this young man, the other inmates

1:52:44

in the federal prison system,

1:52:46

that he would become some sort of a catalyst

1:52:47

for unrest among federal inmates.

1:52:49

And so they had to take them out of circulation.

1:52:52

It's a strange, terrible irony

1:52:54

that he really is innocent and that he has to be kept

1:52:57

in isolation because of his innocence.

1:53:01

Peter

How did you feel when you go to the supermax

1:53:03

and see him chained and isolated?

1:53:06

-

It's really a surreal place

1:53:09

but honestly I felt okay because John was all right with it.

1:53:14

He had this sereneness, they'd bring them in and chains

1:53:17

and he just had this kind of ability to rise above

1:53:21

and not get flustered by it and take it with good humor.

1:53:25

And he understood,

1:53:29

he always has understood that he's not guilty of anything.

1:53:31

And these prison people and the FBI people

1:53:34

and the government prosecutors,

1:53:37

they all are pretending that John is a bad guy

1:53:40

and he knows he's not a bad guy

1:53:44

and they all know he's not a bad guy.

1:53:45

But they all go through these motions anyway.

1:53:48

But he just took it in stride

1:53:49

and he wasn't abused.

1:53:51

He wasn't being beaten or tortured at the supermax

1:53:53

but he was kept in chains,

1:53:57

you know double handcuffs that were attached

1:53:59

to a chain around his waist.

1:54:01

And then as his ankles are shackled,

1:54:02

it was quite shocking

1:54:05

to see him brought into a visiting room that way.

1:54:06

-

He was kept that way 24 hours?

1:54:08

-

No, only when he was out of his cell,

1:54:10

but they treated him

1:54:12

like he was the most dangerous of criminals

1:54:13

the most dangerous of criminals.

1:54:16

That's the atmosphere there at the supermax prison.

1:54:18

Peter

And when you said that they have monitored

1:54:22

by the FBI monitors your conversations.

1:54:25

So has he.

1:54:28

-

Including our telephone,

1:54:31

we do talk by telephone once a week

1:54:32

and they listen and they record those conversations as well.

1:54:34

Peter

And do you do a video conference with him?

1:54:39

-

No just telephone.

1:54:41

Peter

I guess since I know you're tired

1:54:45

and we should end soon,

1:54:48

is there's something thoughts you wanted to

1:54:49

tell us about the last, I guess it

1:54:53

John might be released in nine more years, you said.

1:54:56

-

Yes nine more years with time off for good behavior.

1:54:59

Peter

It could be less or?

1:55:03

-

No that is with good behavior.

1:55:04

Peter

And do you have any thoughts

1:55:06

about these past nine years and these coming nine years

1:55:09

that I didn't ask you about

1:55:11

that you might wanna just address

1:55:13

if there's something there.

1:55:17

-

No I just think that,

1:55:18

you know it's an awfully long sentence,

1:55:20

20 years is a really long prison sentence.

1:55:22

It's a large chunk of a human's life

1:55:24

it's a tragic thing for a young man

1:55:27

of John's potential to be deprived of ordinary Liberty.

1:55:29

And that's a hard thing that John remains in good spirits

1:55:34

his sense of humor, his focus on his studies

1:55:38

is very strong.

1:55:43

And he told me one reason visitor years ago,

1:55:44

he said, "I actually have more freedom

1:55:47

"than people who aren't in prison."

1:55:50

He's got a very positive way of looking at things

1:55:53

and you know, he is scholarly, unusually scholarly.

1:55:55

And so he does pursue scholarship

1:56:00

he's really focused on his studies

1:56:02

and that's a wonderful thing.

1:56:04

It's a great attribute to be able to take it in stride

1:56:05

and to use his prison time for study

1:56:09

and to not feel sorry for himself,

1:56:12

he has no self pity at all.

1:56:14

And he never complains about prison conditions.

1:56:16

He refuses to complain, he just accepts it.

1:56:19

And those are great qualities and I admire him for that.

1:56:22

But at the same time, isn't it an awful tragedy

1:56:24

for an innocent person to be falsely accused.

1:56:28

And for the government then having made the false accusation

1:56:31

to insist on a long prison term

1:56:35

in order to sort of justify their own lies

1:56:37

and their own distortions about that person

1:56:40

and how they ruined his reputation.

1:56:43

It's a tragic thing,

1:56:46

I worry about it's that it's such a long time

1:56:47

that his grandmother won't see him again.

1:56:51

My mother.

1:56:54

-

She.

-

She's 87 she's not able to visit him there.

1:56:55

And I honestly, I worry about John safety

1:56:59

and because he was so vilified in this country

1:57:03

to a degree, that's really frightening.

1:57:06

People are hateful towards my son

1:57:08

as a result of what the government said

1:57:10

and what the media said about him.

1:57:13

That I really worry,

1:57:15

I worry about his safety you know when he's okay.

1:57:17

He's not in an unsafe situation now,

1:57:21

he's safe where he is.

1:57:23

But when he's released from prison

1:57:26

I do worry about his physical safety.

1:57:28

How are we gonna, how is John gonna have a normal life

1:57:30

and not be at risk of being attacked

1:57:33

by crazy people who think he's a terrorist?

1:57:35

So that's something we have to think about,

1:57:38

but he will, when he comes out,

1:57:41

John will be well equipped to be a teacher,

1:57:42

he's always wanted,

1:57:44

that's always been his ambition to be a teacher

1:57:45

he's scholarly, and then he wants to teach.

1:57:47

He wants to really master his subjects

1:57:50

and then be a teacher.

1:57:52

And I think that's what he'll do,

1:57:52

in some form or fashion in some school somewhere

1:57:54

he'll be a teacher and he'll have a lot to offer.

1:57:57

Peter

He's studying Quran.

1:58:00

-

Oh yeah the Quran

1:58:02

and Islamic scholarship going back centuries and centuries.

1:58:04

And he's also enrolled

1:58:08

in just a regular bachelor's degree program

1:58:09

at Indiana university, a correspondence program.

1:58:12

So he'll come out an educated man.

1:58:17

Peter

And I guess I have one more question,

1:58:22

which you kind of just was talking to Frank,

1:58:23

but I just have is anything else

1:58:25

about sense of America as an American

1:58:26

and looking back and seeing what happened

1:58:32

to you, is there something else you might wanna.

1:58:33

-

Yeah one Peter, the one thing I would say

1:58:35

in response to that question

1:58:38

is that when John was taken by those Marines

1:58:40

and stripped naked and put through that ordeal

1:58:44

and they photographed him naked bound,

1:58:47

his eyes were covered, his ankles and wrists were bound,

1:58:49

and he was tied to a stretcher,

1:58:55

in the desert in the winter, in Afghanistan.

1:58:58

And photograph like that,

1:59:01

that photograph appeared in every newspaper

1:59:02

in the United States.

1:59:05

And when I first saw that photograph

1:59:06

I still feel shocked by it.

1:59:09

I can't believe that a person was put through that

1:59:11

by American troops, it just shocks me.

1:59:13

And it is my son, of course.

1:59:17

But when I saw that photograph,

1:59:18

I thought to myself that people in America

1:59:20

will not tolerate this.

1:59:23

People will rise up and demand

1:59:25

that this boy be released from prison.

1:59:28

That's what I thought,

1:59:30

I thought people in America will never tolerate

1:59:32

this kind of horrible human rights abuse

1:59:34

of one of our own citizens and our own people

1:59:37

by our military.

1:59:40

And what I find discouraging,

1:59:42

or what's the word,

1:59:46

really kind of unbelievable is that that didn't happen.

1:59:48

That even though that photograph

1:59:52

it appeared in literally every newspaper

1:59:54

and every news magazine in the United States

1:59:55

there's not a ripple of objection to that treatment

1:59:57

of my son from any minister or priest or Imam or rabbi

2:00:02

or civil rights leader or politician or ordinary people.

2:00:09

It was just accepted,

2:00:13

that that's the way we treat terrorists suspects.

2:00:15

And I find that really deeply troubling

2:00:19

that everyone in America,

2:00:22

from the most powerful people down to the ordinary people

2:00:24

seems to have accepted that that's an acceptable way

2:00:27

to treat a human being when they're suspected

2:00:31

of any sort of terrorism involvement.

2:00:34

I think that's really troubling, I was wrong.

2:00:36

I thought that that photograph would change everything.

2:00:40

And it didn't, it was just accepted.

2:00:43

People just accepted it as if that's what he deserved.

2:00:45

Peter

Which says America has changed in your mind.

2:00:49

-

Yeah at least temporarily,

2:00:52

I hope not permanently, but yeah.

2:00:54

When my father was alive,

2:00:57

if he had seen a photograph like that,

2:00:59

he would have been outraged,

2:01:02

you know to treat any prisoner that way

2:01:03

but especially one of our own kids.

2:01:05

So something changed

2:01:09

yeah I don't think that photograph would have been tolerated

2:01:10

by Americans prior to 911.

2:01:12

Peter

Well you think things would get better

2:01:17

and we're closing?

2:01:18

-

I can only hope.

Peter

Is there anything else Frank

2:01:22

that you wanna say.

2:01:24

-

No that's I think that's plenty really,

2:01:26

appreciate what you're doing here, though.

2:01:29

-

Thank you, Johnny needs 20 seconds

2:01:31

to just have what he calls room tone.

2:01:33

So just sit here and he needs to average 20 seconds quiet.

2:01:36

Just shoots of your head, just to get a room tone.

2:01:41

Frank

Okay.

2:01:45

-

So.

2:01:46

-

So I'm I allowed to move

-

No, just sit there.

2:01:49

-

Just breath.

2:01:50

-

Just breath for 20 seconds.

Johnny

Begin room tone

2:01:54

end room tone.

2:02:07

Lindh, Frank - Interview master file

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