Writer Ben Cheever

DATE November 6, 2001 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Jeffrey Toobin discusses his new book, "Too Close to
Call," about last year's presidential election
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

On this Election Day, we're going to look back at last year's presidential
election, the election that wasn't decided until a Supreme Court decision 36
days later. My guest, Jeffrey Toobin, covered the election court cases for
ABC News and The New Yorker magazine. After the Supreme Court decision, he
continued to investigate what happened behind the scenes. Now he has a new
book called "Too Close to Call." Toobin is also the author of the
best-selling books "A Vast Conspiracy" about the impeachment of President
Clinton and "The Run of His Life" about the O.J. Simpson trial.

The recount story isn't over yet. A recount of the presidential vote was
commissioned by a consortium of The Wall Street Journal, The Washington
Post,
The New York Times and CNN. The consortium expects to publish its results
later this month. Jeffrey Toobin did not conduct a recount, but he
concludes,
based on his analysis of voting irregularities, that more people intended to
vote for Gore than Bush.

Jeffrey Toobin, welcome back to FRESH AIR.

Mr. JEFFREY TOOBIN (Author, "Too Close to Call"): Good to be with you.

GROSS: I'm sure you never expected to be reporting the results of your book
during a war against terrorism. Some people think this is an inappropriate
time to be going back over the contested election. What are your thoughts
about going back over it in this context?

Mr. TOOBIN: I don't know about inappropriate. I think it may be
unfortunate
for me, but I don't think George Bush is sitting up nights worrying about my
book. I think this is a work of history. "Too Close to Call" is a book
about
something that happened last year and is an exploration of something that
remains very important. But I'm not a politician. I'm not trying to get
the
vote overturned. George Bush is a legitimate president. He's the commander
in chief of the military. But this was a very troubled and troubling
election, and the events of September 11th don't change that.

GROSS: Now you say in your book that the way the Bush team and the Gore
team
went about their recount strategy said a lot about Bush and Gore and some of
the differences between them. Can you talk about some of those differences
as
they manifested themselves during the recount?

Mr. TOOBIN: Al Gore is a creature of Washington and the capital
establishment. He is someone who wakes up every morning and reads The New
York Times editorial page and really cares about how he's described there.
He
cares about being thought a bipartisan person, about being thought a
statesman
and about the values that are transmitted in establishment channels like The
Times and The Washington Post editorial pages. George Bush is not a
creature
of Washington. He is someone who grew up outside that world and doesn't
particularly care much about it or for it.

And what that led to--and I think what it led to in our politics both in the
recount, during the Clinton years and after September 11th--is that the
Republican Party--national Republican Party is a tougher, more ruthless
organization than the Democrats are. And the Democrats spent a lot more
time
worrying about how they will be perceived rather than whether they will win.
And I think that difference between the two parties is both profound and
profoundly important in the resolution of this 36-day struggle.

GROSS: Well, you said that the Bush team was willing to takes risks, to bet
their careers and bear almost any burden for a Republican victory. Your
implication is that the Democrats were not willing to go that far for Gore.
Was there a lack of interest or faith in Gore, or was there just a fear on
the
part of the Democrats that they would be perceived as challenging an
election
that shouldn't have been challenged?

Mr. TOOBIN: I think there were two forces at work here, at least two. One
relates to Gore and Bush specifically. The people around George Bush
absolutely love the man. When you're talking about people like Karl Rove,
Karen Hughes, Joe Allbaugh, these are people who have staked their
professional lives on George Bush's success, and they were going to do what
it
took. If George Bush lost this election, their careers were deeply, deeply
injured, if not ruined.

The people around Al Gore did not have that same level of commitment. You
know, of the two dozen or so people around Gore that I spoke to, precisely
one
wanted to see him run again. This is a guy, Al Gore, who received more
votes
for president than anyone in American history, except Ronald Reagan in 1984,
and his own people didn't even want to see him run again. I mean, there was
just a personal magnetism gap between the candidates that was extremely
important.

The other factor is the Clinton years. For eight years, the Republican
Party
had been beside itself with loathing for Bill Clinton, and one time after
another he slipped out of their grasp. They managed to impeach him, but
they
never really closed the deal. The recount allowed all of that passion to be
transferred to a new cause: winning this recount. And the Democrats had no
comparable source of inspiration. And I think--so those two points, the

personal appeal of the candidates and the Clinton legacy, contributed to the
passion gap a lot.

GROSS: You write a little bit about how David Boies became Gore's lead
lawyer, and I was interested to read that he wasn't necessarily the first
choice.

Mr. TOOBIN: No. Again, an example of how Gore did not have a network of
people who were personally loyal to him. He and Boies had never met except
for once briefly at a dinner. And Ron Klain and Walter Dellinger, who were
two lawyers working part time for Gore--they sort of sat around one day
right
near the beginning of the recount and they said, `Well, who's the best
lawyer
we can get?' And they came up with two names; one was David Boies, and the
other was Joel Cohen, who was the head of the Antitrust Division in the
Clinton administration.

And so what they did was they had a race. They both--Klain called Boies,
and
Dellinger called Cohen, and they saw who would say yes first. As it turned
out, Boies was readily available; Cohen has just gotten married and was on
his
honeymoon. So that's how David Boies was hired. It turned out to be a very
good decision; Boies did a great job. But, again, an example of how there
was
not a Gore network in place.

GROSS: Did you talk to Boies directly, and did he have any regrets about
his
strategy?

Mr. TOOBIN: I did speak to Boies at length, and I thought one of the--you
know, he was given a good deal of free reign, but some of his regrets
related
to an overall theme of "Too Close to Call." One of his big regrets was
related to Seminole and Martin counties in Florida. And if you recall,
Seminole and Martin were counties where the Republican Party organized an
absentee ballot drive, and they distributed applications for absentee
ballots
and they were sent in by Republican voters.

Well, it turns out that they were defective applications; they didn't ask
for
all the information. And Republican Party operatives were allowed to set up
shop within these Republican Party offices and edit the applications that
their people had made, clearly, it seems in violation of how Florida law
should work. Boies thought that they should have asked to have all those
ballots thrown out, and it was several thousand ballots. Gore overruled him
on that, saying, `You know, we're committed to the policy of count all the
votes. I'm not going to try to exclude these votes because that would be an
inconsistent argument.'

The Bush campaign never had the slightest worry about making inconsistent
arguments, but that was just the kind of self-censorship that Gore was
involved--you know, characterized his effort. You know, you can argue that
that was a statesmanlike, honorable thing to do. You can also argue that it
made Al Gore the man on the lecture circuit that he is today.

GROSS: You say in your book that it was David Boies' strategy to lose
quickly
in the Leon County court, where Judge N. Sanders Sauls was presiding 'cause
he
wanted to get to the Florida Supreme Court as quickly as possible. Was he
confident he was going to lose in Judge Sauls' court?

Mr. TOOBIN: Well, Judge Sanders Sauls--this was--I mean, again, one of the
wonderful things about covering a story like the Florida recount in "Too
Close
to Call" is you see these great characters. And, you know, the Leon County
Circuit Court is a Tallahassee court, medium-sized city. And Terry Lewis
was
a judge there, wonderful, intelligent judge. Sanders Sauls was also a judge
there who was actually, I think, one of the worst judges I have ever seen,
and
I think the Gore campaign recognized that they had very little chance in
front
of him.

And if you recall, you know, by the time--this was the contest part of the
litigation. It was already December 1st before they got to Sanders Sauls,
and
they realized that they were really running out of time. So I thought
Boies,
very cleverly, did what good lawyers did and he saw what his options were.
He
needed to get in front of the Florida Supreme Court because he thought his
arguments would succeed there, just as he was certain they would fail in
front
of Judge Sauls. And he was absolutely right, and it was sort of a brilliant
rope-a-dope kind of strategy, to use a Muhammad Ali reference, of just
getting
pounded in front of Judge Sauls. In fact, Judge Sauls ruled so
overwhelmingly
against the Gore campaign that it was easier for Gore to win in front of the
Florida Supreme Court, which he did win 4-to-3, only to be overturned by the
US Supreme Court.

GROSS: So since it was David Boies' strategy to lose quickly in Judge
Sauls'
court, did he try to not make a strong case or to just make a strong a case
as
he could in as brief a time as possible?

Mr. TOOBIN: Well, he tried to make a strong case, but the thing that he did
that was so clever was to do what lawyers say: make a record. His top
priority was to get the ballots physically in evidence; get the disputed
ballots from Miami-Dade County, from Palm Beach County--get them physically
in
evidence because he knew that the Florida Supreme Court would be
uncomfortable
with the idea of having these ballots in evidence, physically in front of
Judge Sauls, and not look at them. And the Florida Supreme Court reacted, I
think quite properly, viscerally to that, and ultimately part of what the
Florida Supreme Court ruled was you've got to look at the ballots.

GROSS: My guest is Jeffrey Toobin. He's the author of the new book "Too
Close to Call." He's a legal analyst for ABC News and a staff writer for
The
New Yorker. We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Jeffrey Toobin is my guest. He's written a new book called "Too
Close
to Call," an investigation of the contested presidential election. Toobin
is
a legal analyst for ABC News and a staff writer for The New Yorker.

Why was James Baker the head of the Republican effort in the recount? Why
was
he chosen?

Mr. TOOBIN: Because Bush is a smart person. In simple terms, the reason
why
he was chosen was, if you recall, on election night--really, it was still
the
middle of the night--the Gore campaign recruited Warren Christopher to come
from Los Angeles and be the initial representative of the Gore campaign in
Florida. As the Bush people sat around, Don Evans, who was the campaign
chairman, now secretary of Commerce; Joe Allbaugh--they said, `Well, who do
we
have who is a comparable figure?'

Well, in poker, they matched Gore and then raised him one because they said,
`Well, we have a former secretary of State, James Baker.' But unlike Warren
Christopher, James Baker was also an extremely savvy political operative.
James Baker had done something that no other person in American history has
done: He ran five consecutive major party campaigns for president. From
'76
to '92, he ran every single Republican campaign. That kind of experience is
something money can't buy. So he had the stature as a secretary of State,
but
also the street-fighting savvy of a campaign manager.

GROSS: What are some of the new things you learned about James Baker's
strategy?

Mr. TOOBIN: Well, James Baker was hired on the Wednesday after the
election,
and he got a private plane with Joe Allbaugh and they flew to Tallahassee
together. And they had a young staffer on the plane who gave them a
briefing
on what little they knew about the situation there. And just before they
landed, Baker said to Allbaugh, `You know, this thing is going to end in the
United States Supreme Court.' This was on November 8th, one day after the
election, and Baker had the sort of big picture savvy to recognize that this
story was really just too big for Florida. And he knew that the Supreme
Court
couldn't help but get involved.

The other thing James Baker said from the very beginning is, `We need
political people involved here. I want to see protesters in the streets. I
want to see people outraged about this.' You know, Baker was very deeply
involved in the legal strategy, but he also didn't hesitate to exert
political
pressure. He was behind the idea of getting surrogates in Florida.
Everybody
will probably remember Governor Mark Racicot of Montana, George Pataki of
New
York, Christie Whitman of New Jersey, how they all came down to Florida and
set up shop there. That was because Baker recognized that this was not just
a
legal process, but it was a political process, as well.

GROSS: What's one of the most interesting things you feel you learned in
your
research for your new book that had not got reported by the press?

Mr. TOOBIN: To me, what always has interested me in these is going behind
the
scenes and particularly in an institution like the United States Supreme
Court. And I learned something that I thought really was illustrative not
just of the Supreme Court, but of the whole recount.

Just to refresh your recollection, everyone remembers the Supreme Court
ruled
5 to 4 that George Bush's equal protection rights had been violated. Well,
in
an initial draft of her dissenting opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said
that not only didn't she think George Bush's equal protection rights were
violated, the only person's rights she thought violated were those of black
voters in Florida. And Justice Antonin Scalia, who's one of the leading
members of the majority, was so outraged by this claim that he wrote Justice
Ginsburg a memo saying, `You know, you're using Al Sharpton tactics in the
Supreme Court. You're playing the race card, and you shouldn't do it.'

So what did Ruth Bader Ginsburg do? Well, she removed that passage from her
dissenting opinion. Scalia, essentially, intimidated her into not playing
the
race card, and I think it illustrates the differences, again, between the
Republicans and the Democrats. The Republicans were willing to do what it
took to win this election. Justice Ginsburg, like Al Gore, like Warren
Christopher, was worried about how he was being perceived and how she was
being perceived, and so she shied away from the confrontation. That, to me,
tells you a little something about the Supreme Court and a lot about the
differences between Democrats and Republicans.

GROSS: My guest is Jeffrey Toobin. He's a legal analyst for ABC News and a
staff writer for The New Yorker. His new book is called "Too Close to Call:
The 36-Day Battle to Decide the 2000 Election."

One of the more controversial figures in the Florida recount was Katherine
Harris, the secretary of State in Florida. Her office is going to be
abolished next year, and she will also be running for Congress next year.
You
conclude in your book that she was biased in favor of Bush; that she
politicized her office. What leads you to that conclusion?

Mr. TOOBIN: Well, you know, you ask about new things that I learned in the
book, and I have to say this may be the single most shocking fact, to me
anyway. Everybody remembers that there was what was called a machine
recount,
an automatic recount. The election was within half a percent, so that under
Florida law, there had to be an automatic recount of all the votes by
machine
in the immediate two days after the election. And this is what prompted
Republicans to say--James Baker must have said it 50 times--`The votes have
been counted and recounted,' and I think many of us simply took that for
granted.

But what I learned when I went behind the scenes in Katherine Harris' office
was that there was no complete recount of the votes. Fully, a quarter of
all
the votes in the state, 1.25 million votes, were never recounted; to this
day
have never been recounted because Katherine Harris' office didn't want to
take
the chance that those votes would turn out to favor Gore. Harris' office,
time after time after time, operated like a wholly owned subsidiary of the
Republican campaign, which is what it was. And, again, it was no
coincidence.

There is a great sort of Mistophelian(ph) character named Max
Stepanovich(ph),
sort of a Florida lobbyist, former chief of staff for a Republican governor,
who called up the Bush campaign on the day after the election and said, `Put
me to work. How can I--what can I do?' And the Bush campaign sent
Stepanovich to sit by Katherine Harris' side, as he did for the next several
weeks, making sure that she ruled every single time in Bush's favor, which
is
precisely what she did.

GROSS: What do you think her odds are for winning the race next year?

Mr. TOOBIN: Oh, I don't think the odds are much more than 100 percent that
she's going to win. I mean, it's a heavily Republican district. Name
recognition, to put it mildly, is not a problem for Katherine Harris in
Florida. And she's going to win in a walk.

GROSS: Now today is Election Day. Have we done anything substantive in
terms
of election reform since last year?

Mr. TOOBIN: Well, you know, in the intense controversy over Florida's
recount, there was one point of virtual universal agreement, which was that
our election laws are a disgrace, our voting technology is terrible and we
need to change that. So one year later we have done almost absolutely
nothing about that. And there are no signs that anything's going to be
done.

Florida is an honorable exception. Florida has done a serious reform of its
election laws, and I think a lot of the problems that we saw there will not
recur. But in other states, at the federal level, absolutely nothing has
been
done. And in an era when there's always a lot of competition for government
resources, it's always better to just sort of put it off and ignore it. And
if no one's pestering you to change, it won't change. And it hasn't changed
yet.

GROSS: Jeffrey Toobin is the author of the new book "Too Close to Call."
He's a legal analyst for ABC News and a staff writer for The New Yorker. In
the second half of the show we'll talk with him about the new anti-terrorism
law, which he wrote about in last week's New Yorker. I'm Terry Gross and
this
is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

(Credits)

GROSS: Coming up, what does a writer do when he loses his publisher and
fails to sell his third novel? We talk to novelist Ben Cheever about his
new book "Selling Ben Cheever."

Also, David Bianculli reviews the new TV series "24," and we continue our
conversation with Jeffrey Toobin about the new anti-terrorism law.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with Jeffrey Toobin.
We're
going to talk about the new anti-terrorism law. Toobin is a legal analyst
for
ABC News and a staff writer for The New Yorker. Earlier we talked about his
new book, "Too Close To Call: The Thirty-Six-Day Battle to Decide the 2000
Election."

You had a very interesting article in last week's New Yorker on the new
anti-terrorism law and on Michael Chertoff, the assistant attorney general
in
charge of the criminal division of the Justice Department. And he thought
that information sharing within American intelligence was a major problem.
Describe the kind of problem that he felt he was up against after September
11th, when the real hard-core anti-terrorism investigation began.

Mr. TOOBIN: Well, since the 1970s, there have been really two different
tracks that wiretapping and eavesdropping is conducted on in American law
enforcement. There is one track that is criminal law enforcement. When the
FBI thinks that the Mafia is using a social club, they tell a judge, `We
have
probable cause to believe there is evidence of a crime in this place,' and
they get what's called permission for a bug to be placed there. That's one
track, the law enforcement track. The other track is national security,
foreign intelligence, where the FBI says, `You know, we need to put a bug in
the Russian Embassy because it'll help our foreign policy, and we believe
it's
a foreign intelligence target.' That goes to a separate court called the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court, FISA. They get what's called a
FISA warrant.

Well, what September 11th really illustrated to a lot of people is that the
difference between national security and law enforcement is kind of a
meaningless distinction now, because when you have foreign groups and
foreign
countries involved in committing crimes on our soil, as happened in the most
dramatic way on September 11th, there is no distinction between what's
foreign
and what's domestic. The problem is, is that for foreign intelligence taps,
the bar tends to be a lot lower. It's a lot easier to get permission for an
intelligence tap. So civil libertarians were worried that if everything was
a
foreign intelligence tap, the FBI would simply be tapping everything.

So what happened in this anti-terrorism bill was that it made it easier for
foreign intelligence information to be shared with law enforcement. And
while
that will lead to, I think, some expansion of tapping and some greater
dissemination of the information gathered in those taps, it did not strike
me
and it didn't strike 99 members of the US Senate as a significant
infringement
on civil liberties, as we've seen in this country in the past.

GROSS: You give an example in your article of a person that the FBI wanted
to
investigate but they couldn't get a search warrant. Would you describe that
example? This was searching the computer of a French Moroccan who--go
ahead.

Mr. TOOBIN: Right. This is the fellow in Minnesota, Mr. Masoi, who in
August
of this year--he was one of the famous people who went to a flight school in
Minnesota and said, `I want to learn how to steer an airplane, but I don't
want to learn how to take off and land.' And he also offered to pay his fee
at the flight school in cash. The system, in many respects, worked very
well.
The flight school alerted the local FBI. The local FBI then arrested Mr.
Masoi on an immigration violation, and he's been in jail since August. He
was
not involved in the September 11th hijackings, although some people think he
may have been destined to be the 20th hijacker. But what happened during
the
period of August to September is some in the FBI locally wanted to get a
search warrant to examine his computer and see if there was any evidence
there, and FBI headquarters said, `Well, we don't want to do that because we
don't know whether that would be a foreign intelligence tap, and then we
couldn't share it in a criminal investigation.' So there was no search of
his
computer done before September 11th.

And the problem potentially--I mean, the theory was, is that maybe they
would
have learned something to prevent the attack. They've since examined the
hard
drive and it probably wouldn't have led to stopping the attack. But that
whole notion of the sort of separate systems, the problems in it was
illustrated by this strange hesitation in the Masoi case.

GROSS: What is some of the history behind the difference of the standard
that
you need to get a warrant for a foreign case and for, you know, a domestic
crime case?

Mr. TOOBIN: What's interesting, in law enforcement, the standards have been
pretty clear all along that, you know, you have to tell a judge you have
probable cause to believe there'll be evidence of a crime, and that's how
you
get a law enforcement tap or bug placed. The foreign intelligence worked
very
differently. Until the 1970s, the FBI didn't ask for permission at all.
Whenever they wanted to bug an embassy or bug a foreign intelligence target,
they just went ahead and did it. But what happened during the 1970s was the
courts started to say, `You know, there is no way on American soil that you
can just bug willy-nilly.' Even if it's a foreign target, there have to be
some rules in place, and Congress in 1978 passed the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act that set up this system for obtaining warrants on foreign
intelligence targets.

So it was only since 1978 that these two tracks existed. You know, it is a
classic Cold War artifact, because in 1978, when the government was thinking
about foreign intelligence targets, they weren't really thinking about law
enforcement at all. Because what we were thinking about was getting
evidence
about what the Russians were up to. And that was not a law enforcement
issue
at all. That was a national security/diplomatic issue. What has happened
in
2001 is that any issue relating to terrorism is now both a foreign policy
issue and a domestic law enforcement issue of the highest importance, and
the
grounds for that separation simply don't exist anymore.

GROSS: So the new anti-terrorism law won't make it any easier to get a tap
on
someone who's alleged to be in the Mafia. It will only make it easier to
get
a tap on somebody who's alleged to be a terrorist.

Mr. TOOBIN: That's right. And it somewhat expands the definition of
terrorist, and that has caused some civil libertarians some concern. And it
makes it easier for the government to share the results of national security
taps with law enforcement, which again causes civil libertarians some upset.
But, you know, when I set out to write this New Yorker story, I was thinking
in terms of the great periods of repression we've had in this country during
and after wartime, things like the Red Scare after World War I, the
internment
of the Japanese during World War II, Nixon's surveillance of anti-war
protesters around the time of Vietnam. And when you place this
anti-terrorism
bill against those really dramatic violations of civil liberties, you know,
I
was left somewhat comforted. I did not think that this was a wholesale
violation of Americans' rights.

GROSS: Does the new anti-terrorism law affect communications and
information
sharing between the FBI and the CIA?

Mr. TOOBIN: Well, it almost did. Here was an example of where the
administration's proposal was cut back and limited. The administration
originally proposed that wiretaps or bugs, surveillance that had been
conducted by foreign governments which, you know, goes through our CIA and
is
reported to the American government, could be used in American courts, but
civil libertarians rebelled against this idea and it was dropped because,
you
know, foreign intelligence collection in foreign countries is conducted
under
very wild and wooly circumstances. I mean, if we think our intelligence
agencies don't respect human rights, you know--you talk about, like, the
French intelligence. I mean, those people really play for keeps. And
we--the
Congress decided that they weren't going to, essentially, contract out our
civil liberties to foreign intelligent operations. And that part was cut
from
the legislation.

GROSS: Well, Jeffrey Toobin, I thank you so much for talking with us.

Mr. TOOBIN: Always a pleasure.

GROSS: Jeffrey Toobin is a staff writer for The New Yorker and a legal
analyst for ABC News. His new book, "Too Close to Call," is about last
year's
presidential election.

Coming up, how Ben Cheever started selling books in addition to writing
them.
This is FRESH AIR.

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

Interview: Author Ben Cheever talks about working at several
low-paying service industry jobs while writing his new book
"Selling Ben Cheever"
TERRY GROSS, host:

Ben Cheever was used to being a customer, not a salesman, but for five years
he worked in various chain stores selling sandwiches, computers, cars and
books. Cheever is better known for writing books than selling them. He's
the
author of three books of fiction and the editor of a collection of letters
by
his father, the later writer John Cheever. Ben is married to New York Times
book critic and former film critic Janet Maslin. Before writing books, Ben
Cheever worked as an editor at Reader's Digest.

In 1995 he was having trouble getting his third novel published. He decided
to write another book on a problem a growing number of Americans were
dealing
with: trying to get and keep a job in the service economy. Although most
of
the jobs he landed were in sales, he worked briefly as a security guard. I
asked him about the training he was given.

Mr. BEN CHEEVER (Author): Well, we were told to do almost nothing. I mean,
a
lot of our training was not to do anything. We were told not to arrest
anyone. We were told--because if you make an arrest and the person is not
convicted of the crime you're arresting them for, then you can be sued for
false arrest. We were told not to think for ourselves. We were told, you
know, to wear our uniforms and be neat and write everything down we saw, but
not to interfere. And we were also told not to steal anything and that we'd
be watched very carefully and to make sure that no other employees stole
anything, because that was a big concern of the employers, I think.

GROSS: Was it a dangerous job? Did you ever feel at risk?

Mr. CHEEVER: Well, in fact, I ended up guarding a perfume plant for two
nights, and I was the only person there. And when I first arrived there, I
said to the people who were showing me around--I said, you know, `Perfume?
Who's gonna steal perfume?' And they said, `Well, we have another plant in
Canada that was held up by a bunch of guys with ski masks carrying
shotguns.'
And then they went home and left me in the car. And they told me no one was
going to come. They said, `Nobody else is gonna come on the campus
except--the vice president might show up,' they said. And I said, `Well,
how
will I know he's the vice president?' And they said, `You'll know. He
looks
like the vice president, but otherwise, no one's supposed to show up.'

And just before I went off duty, which was at 6 AM the next morning, a truck
showed up, and I was terrified. I thought--you know, I had no gun, I didn't
have a stick, I didn't have anything. And I was wearing this blue uniform
that said `security' all over it. And I was--you know, I was frightened.

GROSS: What happened?

Mr. CHEEVER: Well, I called 911, which is what I was told to do, and a
police
car came over and they were very--they came quickly and they were very
respectful and nice to me. And they went over and questioned this guy in
the
truck. And then they drove--then they came back and they said, `He has
authority.' And I didn't know what that meant. And then they left and I
drove over, and there's this guy and he was up on the top of this big truck.
And I looked up at him and I said, `I'm the guy who called the police.' And
he said, `What were you doing? There's no one ever--never anyone here.'
And
I said, `Well, I--you know, guarding the place.' And he said, `You thought
some'--he said, `You thought some knucklehead was trying to steal your
garbage? And then I realized that it was a truck picking up a Dumpster. It
had a Dumpster on the back of it, but I was terrified.

GROSS: You must have felt like you were taking a big risk, or at least you
were exposing yourself to the possibility of a big risk for pretty low pay.
How much did you get paid per hour?

Mr. CHEEVER: Well, I think it was--I was driving my own car. I'm paying
for
my own gas. And I think if you factor that out, I was probably making close
to minimum wage, maybe a little bit less than minimum wage. And the place
had
been--the reason they'd hired the security company is because the place had
been cased out by a couple of, you know, convicted felons, so--you know,
who'd
come in with a special thing to open the gate. So I had--there was reason
to
be concerned. Yes, I might have been killed for almost no money. And
during
the course, during the preparation, the one-day preparation, the instructor
had said, you know, `We're always'--he said, `You watch movies and we don't
come off very well.' He said, `We're always getting tied up. We're always
getting dead.' I mean, he was talking about the image, but it planted in my
mind a genuine fear.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Ben Cheever. His new book is
called "Selling Ben Cheever: Back to Square 1 In a Service Economy," and
it's
about a series of low-paying jobs that he took on.

Now one of the positions that you took on was selling cars at an auto mall.
And I think customers are probably more suspicious of car salesmen than any
other kind of salesmen probably because the price of a car is so expensive
and
there's so much play in that price, you know you have to negotiate, and you
know that probably the better the salesman is, the more trouble you might be
in, in terms of the price. What are some of the rules that you learned when
you were selling cars about how to play a customer?

Mr. CHEEVER: We were told never, ever to mention the price. We memorized
four bypasses, which were things you said when they asked you, `But how much
is that car gonna cost me?' You'd say, `Well, I'm not sure that's exactly
the
car you want. Every car is a different price, but I'm sure we'll get you
just
the right price. But first, let's find exactly the car you want.' You
wanted
to get them in love with a car before you even talked about a price for two
reasons. One is that that moved them toward a sale. And the other was that
if you give them the price, they can stalk out and go to another dealership
and use that to lower a price somewhere else. So that was a lie you were
instructed to tell, that you didn't know the price of the car, when, in
fact,
you had some idea what the price was.

GROSS: And I know like when you're buying a car, once you do get to talking
about price, the salesman always says--when you say that you want a lower
price than the one you're being offered, the salesman always says, `Let me
check with the manager,' and he goes to the back office, or she goes to the
back office, comes back a few minutes later and gives you a new price. When
you did that, did you really meet with the manager or did you just spend a
couple of minutes in an empty room pretending like you were talking with the
manager?

Mr. CHEEVER: No, I met with the manager, but we had a couple of things we
did. One is you'd go--the manager had a lease-and-loan computer and he
would
be working out the monthly payments. Most of the people I sold cars to were
taking out a loan or leasing it, so it was a month--we were working on a
monthly payment. So that had to be recalculated, but what you did when you
got close is then you came--since I was new--and actually they did this with
people who'd been there for a while. You came out with the manager together
to the cubicle where the customers were. The manager sat in your chair
behind
the desk and you sat with the customer. This is a--you double team them
like
this. You--it's almost like a football play. It was also done in the
electronics stores. You'd get a couple of people on your side and that adds
the weight of more people, and they're more inclined to buy a car.

GROSS: And that way the person who's selling to you appears to actually be
on
your team...

Mr. CHEEVER: That's right.

GROSS: ...and appears to be helping you, but they're actually selling you.

Mr. CHEEVER: That's right. That's right. That's right.

GROSS: So how good were you at selling things because you were going to
make
a larger profit on it?

Mr. CHEEVER: Well, that's the game. You know, that's--you know, I had
a--and
I mention this in the book. I had sold an old man a car at a tremendous
markup--an old man I liked a car at a tremendous markup, which was the
equivalent of hitting a home run with four--you know, three people on base.
And I was very pleased with myself. And I went to a party at which there
were
people of my class. And I told this story expecting to be congratulated,
and
everyone was horrified because they sympathized with the old man. But if
you
don't--if you're a car salesman and you don't push the price up, you're
not--not only are you not going to make any money, but, you know, you're not
playing the game. That's the game. It's like playing baseball and saying,
`I
don't want to hit the ball with this bat because it's gonna hurt the ball.'
That's the game.

GROSS: How many jobs did you hold over the period that you were writing
this
book?

Mr. CHEEVER: Well, it depends on how you count. Somewhere between 12 and
15,
16, I guess.

GROSS: What's the longest you lasted at any one job?

Mr. CHEEVER: The longest was car sales, and that was the job I liked best,
and they were sorry to see me go. I love it when they're sorry to see me
go.
I said to my manager--I said, `Well, you spent a lot of time training me,'
and
he said--and I said, `I'm sorry to let you down.' And he said, `No.' He
said, `I think you could sell cars,' he said.

GROSS: Why did you like selling cars the best of everything that you tried?

Mr. CHEEVER: Well, we had a lot of--there was a lot of good feeling. There
was a lot of joking and back, you know, patting among the other salesmen. I
used to get up to leave at night and the man in the cubicle next to me used
to
say, `You say the dead won't rise again, but you haven't seen Ben Cheever at
quitting time,' because I used to rush out with such alacrity. And there
was
a lot of good feeling there. And you had a lot of freedom. If somebody was
really a stinker to you in a car store, you could turn on them and walk
away.
If somebody's really a stinker to you in an electronics store, you have to
put
up with it. And they--you know, sometimes someone will come in and take a
whole morning and spend that whole morning torturing you and buy nothing.
There are, you know, chain store sadists.

GROSS: What are you doing now with your days?

Mr. CHEEVER: Well, I'm writing a novel and--but I do miss this and I want
to
find--I need a place to be engaged, more engaged in the world than I am as a
full-time writer. These people that I worked with that were my friends for
that brief period of time--sometimes three months, sometimes two days--just
made me feel better about everything because they were in situations much

more
difficult than my own. And not only were they staying at work and doing
these
jobs for which they were disdained, in many cases, but they were also funny
and helpful and humorous. And they were always helping me out, you know.
At
the computer store I'd have trouble writing out my ticket because my
handwriting is so bad. And the woman at the register would not only fix it,
but she'd say, `Oh, it'll be all right, honey.' You know, they were nice.
They were--and you're around those people for 8, 12 hours in a day
sometimes.
And you go home and you just--you feel so good about people. You really
think, `Hey, you know, we're not such a bad group.'

GROSS: Well, Ben Cheever, I thank you very much for talking with us.

Mr. CHEEVER: Well, thanks very, very much for having me.

GROSS: Ben Cheever's new book is called "Selling Ben Cheever."

Coming up, TV critic David Bianculli reviews the new series "24." This is
FRESH AIR.

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

Review: Fox Network premieres its new fall TV series "24"
TERRY GROSS, host:

Tonight the Fox network presents the premiere of a weekly dramatic series
called "24." It's gotten the best advanced reviews of any new TV series
this
season. TV critic David Bianculli says the buzz is justified.

DAVID BIANCULLI:

The title "24" in this new Fox series refers to both the time frame of the
story and the number of episodes intended to tell it. The gimmick behind
the
show--and it's a simple yet brilliant one--is that we watch a federal agent
named Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland, going through the most
intense
day of his life. It's literally a day, 24 hours beginning at midnight, and
each one-hour episode of the series plays out in real time. Between now and
the end of the season, 24 episodes of "24."

What makes Jack's day so intense that he won't even stop to sleep? At home
his teen daughter sneaks out and disappears. At work at his Los Angeles
anti-terrorist unit, he's called in and given orders to stop a planned
assassination of an African-American senator from California, a prominent
presidential candidate. Jack also is told in the justifiably paranoid
language of "The X-Files" to trust no one.

That's what make the day so intense. Jack is tracking a terrorist killer at
work and a wayward daughter at home. What makes the show so intense is that
"24" uses split-screen visuals, a relentlessly clicking digital clock, and
an
amazingly breathless pace to launch the story and the show. "24" isn't a TV
series. It's a thrill ride.

And it's a ride that's already running at full speed as you're asked to hop
aboard. It starts in the middle of the night, in the middle of the story
and
asks you--dares you--to hang on and keep up. What you get, very quickly, is
that Jack is trying to repair a broken marriage and has just moved back in
with his wife and daughter; that at work he's either had an affair or
contemplated one with an attractive co-worker; and that when his boss gives
Jack the assignment to head the anti-assassination task force, it's because
Jack already has made waves and enemies within his own shop.

(Soundbite of "24")

Unidentified Man: There might be an element inside the agency involved with
the hit on Palmer.

Mr. KIEFER SUTHERLAND: What?

Unidentified Man: For the next 24 hours, I want you all over this. You're
going to be interfacing with every division in the region.

Mr. SUTHERLAND: I am the last person on the face of this planet that you
want
to bring something like this to.

Unidentified Man: I don't agree.

Mr. SUTHERLAND: Richard, I built a case against three of our own agents and
busted them for taking bribes. If there's a conspiracy in the agency to
kill
David Palmer, I'll never get anywhere near it.

Unidentified Man: Well, you'll have to, Jack, because you're the only guy
that I can trust.

BIANCULLI: Sutherland is terrific in the leading role, and the cast around
him shows plenty of fire: Leslie Hope as the wounded wife, Elisha Cuthbert
as
the rebel daughter, Sarah Clarke as the sexy co-worker, and Dennis Haysbert
and Penny Johnson Jerald as the black senator and his wife. Off camera, the
creators of "24" are Joel Surnow, whose credits include "Wiseguy," and
Robert
Cochran, whose credits include TV's "La Femme Nikita." These are guys who
know long story arcs and subtle intrigue inside and out.

After the first hour of "24," you're desperate to see more, which is a very
good sign. The only concern about the first hour is whether the show can
keep
up the pace and the quality in subsequent episodes. If it can, and if
viewers
keep watching, "24" stands to become a truly remarkable television series.

GROSS: David Bianculli is TV critic for the New York Daily News.

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross. We'll close with a track from a new CD featuring
Rebecca Kilgore accompanied by pianist and songwriter Dave Frishberg.
They've
performed several times on FRESH AIR, including on a couple of the programs
in
our American Popular Songs series. Their new CD is called "The Starlit
Hour."

(Soundbite of applause, piano music)

Ms. REBECCA KILGORE: (Singing) Thanks for the memory of rainy afternoons,
swingy Harlem tunes, motor trips and burning lips, and burning toast and
prunes. How lovely it was. Thanks for the memory of candlelight and wine,
castles on the Rhine, your cozy chair and parties where we sang "Sweet
Adeline." How lovely it was. Many's the time that we feasted, and many is
the time that we fasted. Oh, well, it was swell while it lasted. We did
have
fun and no harm done. And thanks for the memory of sunburns at the shore,
nights in Singapore. You might have been a bring-down, but you never were a
bore. So thank you so much.

(Soundbite of piano music)
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.