>> today we remember the life of legendary journalist william worthy. at the height of the cold war, he defied u.s. government by reporting from cuba, china, the soviet union, and iran. he went to north vietnam. the folksinger phil ochs once even wrote a song about him. >> went down to cuba am a he's not an american anymore. somehow it is strange to hear the state department say, you're living in the free world in the free world you must day ♪ >> we will air excerpts of our 1998 interview with william worthy and speak to three journalists who knew him. jeremy scahill and former washington post reporter scott armstrong. he took documents bill worthy brought back from iran and published them in the washington post when the new york times refused. we will also speak with the worthy's close associate photographer randy goodman who went with him to iran on a number of trips. all of that and more coming up. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. dozens of people have been killed and tens of thousands displaced after unprecedented flooding in the balkans. an estimated three months worth of rain hit the region in just three days. about one third of bosnia's landmass has been submerged, affecting an estimated one lean people. dangerous water levels have threaten flooding at two of the country's power plants. thousands are without water and electricity. the flooding has also washed away warning signs near the thousands of landmines that remain from the 1992 to 1995 war. a recent european union more warned countries are at greater risk of flooding due to human driven climate change. dozens of people were killed in libya over the weekend and -- in a tax forces loyal to renegade former general khalifa haftar my market offple the, launched an offensive in benghazi in what he called her bid to root out islamist militants. his forces also storm the libyan parliament building in tripoli, demanding the government suspension. the libyan government has accused him of attempting a coup. west african countries have declared a war on the militant group boko haram after last month's kidnapping of over -- close to 300 schoolgirls. at a meeting in paris, heads of state from nigeria and its neighbors declared the boko haram a threat to all of africa. adjourn president goodluck jonathan likened the group to al qaeda. >> it is no longer [indiscernible] -- two 2004. it has changed. it is operating clearly as an al qaeda organization. boko haramnger the the camera the sentiment that within education is prohibited and women must not go to school. >> adjourn president goodluck jonathan has faced sustained calls to resign in the aftermath of the kidnapping. protests continued over the weekend seeking accountability for the government delayed response. usman of the bring back our girls campaign said her group will demand a face to face meeting. >> we have not yet got confirmation. we intend to march to the president on thursday to ask questions and demand to know what is the nigerian government doing. held in thewere occupied west bank over the weekend for two palestinians shot dead during the annual not talk they protest. the father of 17-year-old nadim nuwara called on israel to try his son's killer in court. >> ourselves is our son is a martyr in heaven. he died in the nakba day. israel will face its day. it is an unjust state which shoots boys. this man must be tried for the sake of justice and for my sons dignity. if you will not be tried, israel will faith its day. our children will grow up and take revenge for my son. >> another palestinian shot in the protest was left in critical condition. 66thweek marked the whenersary of the nakba hundreds of thousands of palestinians were displaced during the period around israel's declaration of statehood. telefonica says it is preparing for its worst off-season ever after the wildfires that engulfed 20,000 acres around san diego. houses of evacuees return home after the weekend after firefighters contained the blaze. speaking to abc news, california governor jerry brown said thousands of additional onefighters will be needed the frontlines of climate change. >> we're getting ready for the worst. we don't want to anticipate before we know, but we need a full complement of firefighting capacity. the state climate appears to be changing a scientist tell us that definitely. we have to gear up your. we here in california on the front lines. we have to deal with it. we have already appropriated $600 million. we have 5000 firefighters and we will need thousands more. in the years to come, we're going to have to make a very expensive adjustment and the people are going to have to be careful of how they live, how they build their homes, and what kind of vegetation is allowed to grow around them. federal judge has ordered the military's to stop force-feeding a hunger striking prisoner at guantanamo bay. syrian national abu wa'el dhiab is among the dozens of prisoners who have refused to eat in protest of indefinite imprisonment and harsh conditions at guantánamo. on friday, district court judge gladys kessler ordered a halt to the force-feeding and told the military to preserve video footage of the practice until a hearing this week. a court hasrst time blocked a force-feeding since the guantánamo hunger strike began over a year ago. the telecom giant at&t has agreed to buy satellite television operator direct tv for $48.5 billion. it is the second major media takeover this year following the merger of comcast and time warner, which remains up for federal approval. in a statement, the media reform group free press of the at&t directv deal would hurt consumers and stifle competition , calling it a result "of more than a decade of shortsighted fcc policies that have encouraged consolidation over competition." the auto giant general motors has been hit with a $35 million fine over its concealment of safety defects linked to hundreds of deaths. gm began recalling millions of vehicles this year despite knowing of a faulty ignition switch in its vehicles at least a decade earlier. the transportation department fined gm on friday as part of its probe into the defect, one of several investigations under way the government agencies and congress. transportation secretary anthony foxx said gm's silence caused deaths. perfect,w no one is but what we cannot tolerate, what we will never accept is a person or company that knows danger exists and says nothing. silence can kill. what we now know is that gm knew about this issue years before this past february. , gme at least november 2009 has had information linking the ignition switch problems with airbags failing to deploy. they had that information and they told no one. recalled another 2.7 million vehicles last week, bringing the total this year to 12 point 8 million. the arkansas supreme court has halted same-sex marriages one week after a state judge struck down a ban on marriage equality. hundreds of couples obtained licenses in the days after the initial ruling, but arkansas justices put those unions on hold friday pending the outcome of the state appeal. the case is expected to reach the supreme court which set off a wave of state marriage equality rulings after overturning the defense of marriage act last year. idaho also saw its marriage equality ban struck down last week, but same-sex marriages have also been put on hold as a court weighs a state request to appeal. orissouri death prisoner death row prisoner is seeking to have his execution captured on videotape for potential evidence of cruel and unusual punishment. russell bucklew is set to die this week for 1996 murder. his attorneys want the execution filmed in case he survives and wants to pursue legal action, or if he dies and his state wants to file a claim. a argue his chances of suffering a painful death are heightened by rare medical condition that has left him with vascular tumors partially blocking his airway. a doctor who examined bucklew says he will be at great risk of choking and suffocating. a botched execution in oklahoma last month left the prisoner writhing in pain on the gurney before dying 45 minutes later of a heart attack. steven hawkins of amnesty international said videotaping would help lift the veil of secrecy surrounding executions. >> at this point, there have been journalistic accounts of hing, towns of people saying they can't breathe, and just when he gets bad, the state closes the curtain. we want to stop that curtain from being closed so the public can see firsthand just how barbaric, how torturous executions are, even under these so-called humane people injection procedures. >> a lawsuit filed by several media outlets last week called on missouri to disclose the type, quality, and source of lethal injection drugs. and the labor organizer an educator general baker has died. a founder of the league of revolutionary black workers, baker helped organize strikes at detroit auto plans of the 1960's. he was also one of the first public draft resisters during the vietnam war. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. today we spend the hour remembering the pioneering african-american journalist william worthy. he died earlier this month at the age of 92. during the height of the cold war, he defied u.s. government by reporting from the soviet union am a cuba, from china, vietnam,, from north and algeria. he was correspondent for the weekly newspaper the fromamerican of baltimore 1953 to 1980. he also could committed reports to cbs news, "the new york post," and to abc and other media outlets. he worked closely with many african-american leaders including a philip randolph and malcolm x. in the late 1950's, the state department refused to renew his passport after he returned from a reporting trip indochina. despite not having a passport, --traveled to cuba in 1961 two years after the cuban revolution. during his trip, he interviewed fidel castro. when he returned to the u.s., he was arrested not for traveling to cuba, but for entering united states illegally. he was an american citizen without a passport. he was originally sentenced to three months in prison, but his conviction was eventually overturned. his legal team included a young william kunstler. the legendary phil ochs wrote about this ordeal in a song "the battle of william worthy." >> ♪ well, it's of a bold reporter whose story i will tell he went down to the cuban land, the nearest place to hell he'd been there many times before, but now the law does say the only way to cuba is with the cia william worthy isn't worthy to enter our door went down to cuba, he's not american anymore but somehow it is strange to hear the state department say you are living in the free world, in the free world you must stay five thousand dollars or a five year sentence may well be for a man who had the nerve to think that travelin' is free oh why'd he waste his time to see a dictator's reign when he could have seen democracy by travelin' on to spain? william worthy isn't worthy to enter our door went down to cuba, he's not american anymore but somehow it is strange to hear the state department say you are living in the free world, in the free world you must stay so, come all you good travelers and fellow-travelers, too yes, and travel all around the world, see every country through i'd surely like to come along and see what may be new but my passport's disappearing as i sing these words to you well, there really is no need to travel to these evil lands yes, and though the list grows larger you must try to understand try hard not to be surprised if someday you should hear the whole world is off limits, visit disneyland this year william worthy isn't worthy to enter our door went down to cuba, he's not american anymore but somehow it is strange to hear the state department say you are living in the free world, in the free world you must stay ♪ >> "the ballad of william worthy" from phil ochs. it wasn't until 1968 when the state department granted william worthy a new passport. despite this worthy managed to from north vietnam, indonesia, cambodia, and algeria. in 1981, william worthy traveled to iran, two years after the revolution ousted u.s.-backed shah. his trip resulted in a series of lock buster exposés about u.s. actions in iran. worthy brought back to the united states a multivolume set of books compiling intelligence documents seized from the u.s. in 1970 nine. you get a copy of the books to investigative journalist scott armstrong of "the washington post" who would write a series .f exposés in the paper "the new york times" refused. scott armstrong is joining us today from santa fe, new mexico. on new year's day, 1998, democracy now! aired an hour-long interview with william worthy. >> one of the most discouraging things about this country is the lack of critical thinking by americans. the educational system fails americans miserably in any kind of analysis what is going on. and any government line which is echoed daily by the mass media becomes gospel in this country. >> william worthy speaking on democracy now! in 1998 when juan gonzalez sat down and interviewed him. we will play more of that interview throughout the broadcast. first, to investigative journalist scott armstrong, former "washington post" reporter, founder of the national security archive, published a series of articles in "the washington post" and generate 1982 based on the book. -- documents william worthy brought back from iran. thank you for joining us. can you talk about first meeting william worthy and the significance of the information he brought back, why the u.s. government was so angry? well, bill worthy was a mixture in your character. he defended the bill of rights by acting on it and was known for that. i got a call from somebody from the aclu and was put together with randy i guess who is with he's a verynd self-effacing man. he is very straightforward and said here was important information, the actual documents. the students i collected them into paperback books with introductory polemics. realpeared to be the thing. you thought they ought to be in the united states and brought back two sets, one having been and i talked with him and asked if i could get the second set. he quite happily turned it over. you can see the u.s. government -- there were documents in their there were unlike any other documents. they were raw, cia reports and not just studies, there were not as becameshed things part of the pentagon papers or the other things our policy document circulated by snowden, but these were actual reports, meetings with agents. and from it, some have been reconstructed from shredded materials and painstakingly by the students. the difficulty was in dedicating them. i done a series the previous 1980 on thefall of hostage crisis and the situation that jimmy carter had found himself in was very critical of the united states government. i had written about it a couple of times since. this was unlike anything i had seen. this was a whole history. 12 ofk you brought back 13 volumes that existed then. later we ended up with 90 volumes and all. but it was an extraordinary insight into the history of overthrowing the popularly like a leader of iran, reinstalling h.e sha and the cooperation the cia gave what the dreaded secret police of iran. it was every intimate detail was included. they had some documents in their entirety that hadn't even gotten to the shredder and other things they were able to print out that were still in electronic form that showed u.s. government shahion to pressure on the as a revolution occurred in iran. dealnited states did not with itself well. u.s. government at one point during the hostage crisis considered releasing these touments, but chose instead try military rescue. so these documents were essentially put a lie to every defense that have been given for the u.s. role in iran over 30 or 40 yearpe-riod at that point. >> scott armstrong, william worthy had first gone to "the new york times," is that right? but they refused to do a piece on this and then went to you. i was unaware of that. i would not have let my pride stand in my way. these were extra near documents. >> when we come back from break, we're are going to play william worthy in his own words describing that trip, several trips to iran, and we will also come in addition to former washington post reporter scott armstrong who founded the national security archives, we will also speak with randy goodman who traveled with him on these trips. stay with us. ♪ [music break] >> this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. today we are remembering the life of william worthy. he worked for the afro-american in baltimore for decades. he went to iran, north vietnam, cuba, china. he defied u.s. government. he was indicted and convicted for coming back into this country without a passport. he presented his birth certificate. they had pulled his passport. he would ultimately win the case years later. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. and iost juan gonzalez had a chance to talk with william worthy in a new year's interview which we broadcast on january 1, 1998. william worthy talked about his trip to iran and bringing back the books based on seized u.s. files that u.s. government threatened to indict him over. quick you never would know it from the coverage of iran after 1979 that u.s. had been in bed with the vicious, corrupt, oustedited shah who was great religious leader, scholar, who had been in exile for years, came back to a triumphant return. and the u.s. seemed determined under carter and others to try to restore something of the status quote. don't hold me at 100% to this to my memory -- but there was some plot afoot to restore the shah. and iranian students, including some who had been trained up berkeley and others, i think it was november 4, 1980, 1979 or 1980, when over the walls of n andembassy in tehra immediately the cia operatives inside began shredding documents, but they did not have much time so it was an incomplete job. and they held the embassy staff there for 444 days, which helped to lead to carter's defeat for reelection because of that unresolved crisis. >> it was also the birth of "nightline" as a show on television. talks yes, ted koppel owes that to those students. -- i think named norman fora, came to me, organized about a group of 50 americans to go over during the crisis to get a different perspective. i was allowed to go along with a young woman in boston named randy goodman, and we got acquainted particularly with one of the berkeley educated students who later became the deputy foreign minister. some of our stories came out then. they taped -- the documents later at a time of a subsequent trip were the shredded documents which had been restored plus those that had not been restored, were published in iran by the students in paperback form and sold on newsstands and exported to other countries, but not to this country. butan, not by their design, by the u.s. design. and so randy goodman and terry taylor and i purchased at a newsstand in one city and some others later, these paperbacks. we had two batches in all. when we came back through jfk airport in new york, we had one batch in our luggage which, no problem, we shipped the others with camera equipment and unaccompanied baggage to boston, and that is where customs spotted them and turned them over to the cia and it resulted in the cia and the government talking about indicting us for possession of classified documents. these were public things, distributed all over the world, nothing private about them any longer. and the seized them aclu took up the case, and over a period of a year, we got the documents back and they dropped all talk of prosecuting us, which had been ridiculous to begin with, and settled out of court for $16,000 in damages. >> and yet it is interesting how the boston globe played it in march of 19 -- >> 1982, i think. quicker march of 1982. it says i'm a "the justice department has dropped plans to prosecute a freelance journalist for possession of purported copies of secret american documents stolen during the occupation of the us embassy in .ran sources said the decision to return the papers and in the criminal investigation was based on an unwillingness by government agencies to confirm the documents authenticity. privately officials say the documents release was a serious intelligence breach and all really it says u.s. customs agents seized the government -- documents and the justice department considered charging worthy under the theft of government property act." >> no mention that these racks the published paperbacks. >> there's no limit to absurdity in washington. the reason, for one of those references, their unwillingness to prosecute, it would have meant that a cia official would have had to testify in open court at the trial. and of course, that would've given my aclu lawyer a chance to cross-examine with all kinds of embarrassment. so some cooler heads did prevail on that. we never lost a wink of sleep over it. even if they had prosecuted, they would have lost miserably in court, at least on appeal. >> and you're saying the cia would have said openly in court -- >> that these were authentic, yes. that these evil things were disclosed in the documents were there. >> what were some of those things? >> all sorts of things to bring down the government and to grade disruption. the usual counterrevolutionary policies that the u.s. carries out after a revolution that they don't agree with. >> journalist william worthy in interview's day 1998 that we broadcast. i was talking to him with juan gonzalez. our guest is scott armstrong who took those documents and based the series and "the washington post" on them. randy william went with william worthy on a trip as well as a number of others. she is a photojournalist who worked and traveled with william worthy for a decade in the 1980's. she's joining us from boston. welcome, randy. you came back with bill worthy through the airport, through jfk. what happened? you had two sets of books and once that were taken? >> yes. we were on assignment, a freelance assignment for cbs-tv news in iran. 1981 andne in october returning and the november. because we had accumulated so much but extending what was supposed to be our two-week assignment to a two-month assignment, william worthy's ways of getting interview after interview that was totally unexpected by us as well as the iranians, we had just casually taken one set of the books with transport back to the hounded states, to jfk, along with some of our camera equipment that we were due to report back to cbs news. but the extra bags, because we do not even have the money to transported, sent via air freight into logan airport in boston. bill and i went to cbs-tv news upon our arrival, learned unexpectedly from terry taylor, the other journalist who had accompanied us, that when she went to lufthansa, they're freight terminal to pick up our boxes, that she was greeted kind of casually and led to this back room in their freight terminal and greeted by two fbi agents who said they were threatening to an died as for perhaps having stolen government property. for perhaps us having stolen government property. so bill and i decided, well, if we have the identical set of books, why don't we see if cbs is interested. unfortunately, they had no all.est in it at they said, well, we just had a special relationship with his freelance crew and kind of disassociated themselves with us , we thought, a little bit. as got were you mentioned, we said we would try "the new york times" because we were right there in ne times square. we wanted to clarify we could get some representation from the civil liberties union. that is when bill decided we should perhaps call start on strong --scott armstrong because he would perhaps be the next best person that looking at these and see if you can authenticate them in such as the story that scott had described. talks scott armstrong, these documents, were they the beginning of the national security archives, these documents that william worthy brought back from iran? these documents were so complete and once authenticated, painted such an and usually detailed picture of u.s. machinations in iran that it became apparent that there was always going to be a understory, there was always going to be something in the background that journalists suspected were were at that point, the reagan administration was there and attempted to intimidate bill arthy and other journalists year after i wrote the series, they came down with a national security decision directive which said no person in the united states government could talk to a member of the press about anything involving national security without first clearing it with the national security council. that lasted about a week because there's such an up or from the press. if thewas still unclear press was going to pursue things like the iran-contra activities that were beginning to go on, the war in all salvador had heated up again. the reagan administration was riveting facts -- reinventing fax every day of the week. they would make conclusory statements, deny things that were obvious to journalists on the ground in different countries. often our editors were intimidated. the question became, was a possible to put together large groups of documents, get them declassified or otherwise accumulate them, and keep them in the public domain? we tried it -- it was in a cell you project in washington that -- aclu project in washington that dealt with assignment for salvador ian's. independently use the freedom of information act request things and we had gotten back different or the same documents often rate would get back one with the top half was excluded in the bottom half was there under national security grounds. i would get back the same document. the bottom would be excluded. we put them together and began to see there were ways to get in authenticated version of what actually happened on the ground. it really is big in japan down the administration on what its policies -- i mean, documents the sense that we are talking about communications between policymakers who have their own point of view. they lease have the awesome intensity -- authenticity of what they were and allowing to say something definitive about the position of the united states government at that particular point in time. it was that notion that we could do this, we did do something that was across the board on many different topics that caused the national security archive to be created. it was one of the unintended consequences, i guess, of bill worthy's exercise of his right to travel and his right to read and think and do what he wanted as a journalist. we began to exploit that right. the bill of rights exists only insofar as you exercise it. left "the washington post" and founded the national security archive. >> were also joined by jeremy scahill, the producer of the oscar-nominated documentary film, "dirty wars: the world is a battlefield." day i, i met you the same met william worthy because you introduce me to him when i came down to the catholic worker in new york. can you describe how you came to know this pioneering revolutionary journalist? >> first of all, amy, i would say, especially for this generation of younger journalists who are coming of age in the era of the edward snowden documents of wikileaks, of government surveillance on the metadata of journalists and millions of people in this country and around the world, i would say that william worthy is the single most important journalists that they have never heard of. i think if bill worthy was a white journalist and had not been an african-american journalist, he would be much better known than he is right now. i actually came across william worthy by accident. i was researching the correspondence of david belanger who was one of the most famous .pacifists it was during the 1968 democratic convention in chicago. the correspondence between him and the founder of the catholic worker movement door the day, and of course it was founded in the 1930's with the anarchist, pacifist movement within the catholic church. and they both had traveled to in fidel early on castro's first few years in office following the cuban revolution of new year's. in the course of reading the correspondence between david dellinger and dorothy day, they were debating what the position of pacifists should be on a violent revolution, the outcome supported.e they i came across the name of a journalist i never heard of named william worthy and read the correspondence of the three of them debating these issues, all of them having been to fidel castro's cuba. i was stunned at their brilliance and eloquence of these letters of william worthy where he was articulating his revolutionthe cuban very early on. i was assuredly worthy was still alive. this was in 1997. i managed to track down a relative of his in boston who then gave me a telephone number for him and washington, d.c., and i just called him up and said, could i take [indiscernible] friendship endured over the years. he was a mentor to me. bill and i had talked at some point about -- i really wanted to write his biography. i found them to be such a fascinating person. his insights were incredible. to me what was sort of amazing as a young journalist, bill worthy was a man of impeccable principle. he would constantly talk about the struggle for african people around the world come to carve out states for themselves, fight for the rights. he did not believe there was a such thing as an objective journalist at all. he believed in being on the side of the poor and being against empire and holding those in power accountable. it was really through bill worthy that my passion for journalism led me to actually wanting to work at democracy now! amy, our member you came int that day and i had invited bill worthy to talk about his experience in cuba. we play that song at this event where he was speaking. that of phil ochs where he talks about when bill worthy to cuba against the wishes of the u.s. government, without a passport because it'd been taken away from him from his previous travels to other countries where the u.s. did not want them to go, and phil ochs wrote the song "the ballad of william worthy" or he's saying william worthy wasn't worthy to enter our doors, window to cuba, not american anymore. you and i met there at the catholic worker and i think i've heard you joke about it before that i can of tuna middle of a sentence and said, you have to talk to this guy and the next thing i knew, i was bringing bill worthy into democracy now! to do that interview that we're playing parts of. >> used in an instant saying, there's a man here unique interview. i said, sir, what is your name? you said, my name isn't important. you said, what is important is the name of bill worthy. that is how i met you and william worthy. >> bill worthy did this incredibly important work that randy and scott have been talking about regarding iran, but also traveled to many, many countries around the world. often told stories that were meticulously documented the contradicted the official version that washington was projecting around the world, and he was sort of the [indiscernible] journalist and was remarkable man. to have known him. it is a treasure to hear his words being played today. >> we're speaking to jeremy scahill, former producer at democracy now!, in sydney, australia for film and book festivals, talking about journalism. , thank you for joining us from our partners in new mexico, housed in the long house in the new mexico legislature. and also with that, randy goodman, who traveled with william worthy for a decade in the 1980's. when we come back from break, we're going to go back to that phil ochs song, so listen carefully. you might want to sing along. we will go to william worthy in his own words describing his see to cuba as well as to joann live. we will also hear him talking about china. stay with us. ♪ [music break] >> that is phil ochs. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. as we remember today the life of william worthy. he died may 4 in brewster, massachusetts of complications related to alzheimer's. he was a journalist for decades. he was also an assistant to the dean at howard university school of communications. to theto go back pioneering journalist william worthy in his own words. juan gonzalez and i interviewed him for our new year's day 1998 broadcast. i asked william worthy to talk about being arrested when he returned from reporting from cuba in 1961. during his trip, he interviewed fidel castro. he was arrested when he returned to the u.s., not for traveling to cuba, but entering the u.s. illegally. he was an american citizen without a passport. towas originally sentenced three months in prison, but his conviction was overturned. this is bill worthy. >> the federal indictment that 1962 in the case dragged on for two years, was much more serious than losing one's passport. but for some reason, the aclu which defended me and the whole legal community could never understand, the justice department internal security division, which was very reactionary and if it is still in existence, i presume it hasn't changed, indicted me not for going to cuba, but for coming back. i was prosecuted for the novel crime of coming home. circuitfifth unanimously reversed that on the ground for the citizen has an inherent right, an inherent constitutional right to come home. and there had been so much embarrassment to the kennedy ministration from the case, that although the internal security division of the justice department wanted to appeal to the supreme court, bobby kennedy, the attorney general, vetoed it. he and his brother were sick and tired of the case. it had enough embarrassment over it. >> previously, you had had problems with visits in the late 1950's to china and other places, hadn't you? >> correct. >> could you tell us a live at about that? after the chinese revolution, 1949, the official line of the state department was communism in china was a passing phase, and that anything that indicted recognition, journalistic interest or whatever, would only delay that passing. and so there was a ban on china. in fact, there was a ban on the whole soviet, communist bloc, but particularly china. and i had tried for about three years before actually got the visa to get there. the prime minister at the first asian african congress -- conference in jakarta, indonesia in 1955. but one sunday morning at adams house at harvard, where was a neiman fellow for the year, i came up from breakfast and saw a western union telegram under my door. i'm eagerly knew what it was, instinctively. a week later, i was in china, to the great distress of the state department. the was consulate in hong kong went into an honest terror-stricken episode. later, scottears nearing and his wife were in hong kong and with no intention of going to china. they moved from one hotel to another, not leaving a forwarding address. the u.s. consulate in hong kong wanted or demanded to know whether they had any intention of going into china. he said, that guy worthy almost caused me to lose my job. i went in on christmas eve, by pure chance, and i think they were parting and not patrolling the border. and this man caught hell. >> and scott nearing, is that the author of "dollar diplomacy"? >> it was in my bates college days, by pure chance at the college library, i came across his classic book, 1925, called "dollar diplomacy." i have never gotten over the section on haiti, where he disclosed that when he was was pressing, around 1914, for more and more concessions from the haitian government, and they declined to bow to that pressure, a contingent of u.s. military landed from a navy ship and marched to the national bank , and i think it took out about half $1 million, which in those days, for a tiny country, was a lot of money. and put it back on the ship and took it to the national city bank in new york. >> in broad daylight, wasn't it? >> yes, and still known by every haitian as the great and yankee bank robbery. it was one of the great shocks of my life to read that. injournalist william worthy an interview we broadcast new year's day 1998. we want to turn to another section of the interview were he explains why he chose to cover china and other countries widely viewed as enemy here in the united states. >> discouraging things about is the lack of critical thinking by americans. the educational system fails americans miserably in any kind of analysis of what is going on, and any government in line which is echoed daily by the mass media becomes gospel in this country. and anyone who knew anything about the abominable conditions the leader in china could understand why there was a revolution. it didn't necessarily mean that you shared all their political beliefs and orientation, but that the revolution was entirely understandable and justified. and since the u.s. was in a inlear mood and came close 1955 to actually using nuclear weapons on china, over those offshore islands, it was important to get, even on a small scale, something of a different perspective. and i think that was both a journalist and an intellectual reason for challenging the travel ban. >> and what kind of dispatches or reports where you able to bring back? i understand you did some work for abc on a documentary on cuba, and were yours the first reports with another perspective coming out of these countries? emory, iow, from quick can't say yes to that with any certainty, but if there were any dissenting views, they were very rare. and this country has a political line, in general, which the mass media followed rather uncritically, with exceptions. any majorind that network, newspaper, magazine, that there are people who are trying to get some of the truth across on every opportunity, at every opportunity. >> talk about what you did in china. what were the news dispatches that you filed, and who did you file for? >> probably the most "significant" was interview with the prime minister of china. i was at the cable office. i think it was a sunday. he was getting ready to go on a trip somewhere to europe, i think. i of course had requested an interview. and the people, i guess, from his office, finally tracked me down that sunday morning at the cable office and rushed me to his residence. me,member him asking ironically and satirically, how far long island was from new york. farthe parallel was, how were these two offshore islands from the chinese mainland. the distance is approximately the same. and it pointed out the arrogance of the united states of wanting to bomb china with nuclear weapons because they claimed that those islands belonged to the departed and discredited kai-shek government on what we called formosa -- i should not say we, but the official name for it was formosa , but the rest of the world, even then, was calling taiwan. let me just interject a little story which i think is of great historic interest. the fellowship of reconciliation across the river here in nyack was -- had their concerns verified when prime minister nehru of india visited china in 1955, and came back and disclosed that there were areas where there was famine. food -- a total embargo with commerce on china at that time. projecthey instituted a asking people, their members and others, to send little rice bags with a ticket, a little tag, to president eisenhower with the label "if thine enemy hunger, feed him." and they had no idea what the reaction was. they found out later, indirectly, after eisenhower went out of office, through one of his aides, that this project had been discussed at cabinet meetings and with the us military, which was pressing for nuclear attack on china. and eisenhower, not many people know this, but i'm pretty sure it is true, it came out of -- had a jehovah's witness mother who was opposed to his military career. he turned to the cabinet meeting with a high command sitting there and said, how many of these bags of rice have come in? "the new york times" ran a big story and there are been a news follow up. he was told, i think 40 or 45,000 plus thousands of letters and he said, if the american people want reconciliation with china, this is no time to be bombing it. and that was the end of that threat. a very interesting little side light to history. but that is william worthy. we ran this on new year's day 1998. juan gonzalez and i interviewed him. to hear the whole our, you can go to democracynow.org. i want to read a quote that "the new york times taken from "the boston globe, talking about his life. his father was a prominent obstetrician in boston and he 19 21.n in he said -- "my sisters and i were clearly aware as children of are inferior minority group status. he said this in an article in 1968. "the problem was discussed at the dinner table, more important, it was all around us, he said. >> randy goodman, you traveled with william worthy for a decade. she went to many different countries with them. he taught courses at boston university. can you summarize your feelings about the significance of william worthy today? >> wow. that is a big job for a two-minute answer. >> you've got one minute. >> ok a. well, the significance and impact was that he was a man who believed intellectually, emotionally, passionately and civil liberties and and anti-anchor list perspective, inequality, injustice. he was not going to be fooled by any interpretation that masked the truth. in all of the three countries i traveled with him to, and all of discussions weg had, this was at the core of william worthy. every single they had meaning. every single hour seemingly he was working. many ways.iet man in he was a very respectable man. he had kind of that upright stance, very strong-willed and intention, but his passion was for the people, not only of his race -- various races and ethnicity in the u.s., but really of the people of the world. he wanted the truth about their circumstances, politically, culturally and ideologically, to be part of everybody's everyday reality. >> let's go back to william worthy in his own words. which inlitical line, general, the mass media follow, rather uncritically, with exceptions, you will find in any major network, newspaper, magazine, that there are people who are trying to get some of the truth across on every -- at every opportunity. >> that was william worthy in his own words. 1921 he was born, 2014 he died in brewster, massachusetts. to hear the full interview with william worthy, go to democracynow.org. transcript form. that does it for our broadcast. a special thanks to jeremy scahill joining us and scott armstrong. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. 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