A Plea for Daniel Pearl's Life

This is a partial transcript from The War on Terror: The Hunt for the Killers. For a complete transcript of the entire broadcast click here. Or watch the video of the interview with Helene Cooper: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: The demands that the kidnappers have placed are not demands that we can meet or deal with or get into a negotiation about. The detainees at Guantanamo are being treated humanely. People have been down there from various countries and various organizations to see them and can provide witness to this fact.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RITA COSBY, HOST: Secretary of State Colin Powell says the U.S. is doing everything possible to rescue an American reporter kidnapped in Pakistan. But Powell insists that the U.S. will not heed to kidnappers' demands and release Pakistani detainees in Cuba and Afghanistan. The captors say that the U.S. has 24 hours to meet their demands or American journalist Danny Pearl will be executed.

Joining us now is one of Pearl's co-workers at the Wall Street Journal, Helene Cooper. Thank you so much for joining us, Helene. We appreciate it.

HELENE COOPER, CO-WORKER OF DANIEL PEARL: Thank you.

COSBY: Thank you. I know it's a very difficult time for you and everybody there at the Wall Street Journal and also, of course, Danny Pearl's family. We are widely seen in Pakistan. If by some chance that we're hoping that the captors, those who took Danny Pearl are watching right now, what would you like to say to them?

COOPER: Oh, God. I'd say please don't hurt Danny. Just let him do his job. I mean, Danny is the perfect reporter for getting the message that these kidnappers are trying to get out and harming him isn't going to do that. I think letting him go would give these people the perfect opportunity who have somebody who has an open mind and is able to tell a story and represent their case.

I mean, Danny is a beautiful writer. He's an amazing reporter. And he's shown through six years of his work an enormous amount of respect for Islam and Pakistan and an enormous ability to convey the views and ideals of all these other cultures to the world. So, I think nothing would be served at all by harming him. An enormous amount of good could be done by letting him go.

But short of letting him go, I would hope that the people who are holding Danny would, at the very least, open up some sort of dialogue with us. I mean, we're the Wall Street Journal. We're a paper of up to 5 million circulation around the world and we should be talking. Let's talk.

COSBY: How do you think the dialogue would help by opening up such a conversation?

COOPER: I think before you even can begin to figure that out, you have to got start talking. The Journal hasn't heard anything yet directly from he people who are holding Danny and I think we just would really like to hear from them and we can start talking and move from there.

COSBY: Why do you think they haven't contacted you directly, because they've sort of send out these e-mails, or at least their intermediaries have to journalists around the world or media organizations. But why have they not contacted you, do you think?

COOPER: Rita, I have no idea.

COSBY: Tell us, you talked about Danny the reporter. Danny's also been a long-time friend to you. Let's talk about Danny the person. What type of individual is he and how good of a friend and a lot of wonderful things I've heard about him from other colleagues.

COOPER: Danny is great. He's one of the most scatter-brained, laid back, but really honest and good persons that I know. I've known Danny since 1992. We both started out at the same time in the Atlanta bureau and he's really cool. He's just very laid back.

He's very anti-authoritarian. He loves to play the fiddle and the violin. He walks around the office with his shoes off. He had, when we were in the London bureau together, he kept a beach chair by his desk.

COSBY: You also know his wife, who's pregnant, due to have their first baby, what, in three months. Have you had conversations with her? How is she doing?

COOPER: Marianne is holding up unbelievably well. Yesterday was a really bad day for her, but she she's very strong and she's very focused. They have a pretty amazing story, the two of them. They met back in 1998, and Danny fell for Marianne, who's a Dutch-Cuban-French citizen, like a house of cards.

They got married a year later at this beautiful ceremony in France. And they were supposed to get married in September, but they had to push the wedding date up by three weeks because Marianne's mother at the time was dying of cancer. She was unbelievably sick and still managed to hold herself upright to walk her daughter down the aisle. At the reception, though, she was too sick to come downstairs, so they had to listen from the upstairs window while Danny played Bach's double concerto for two violins for her from downstairs on his violin.

COSBY: So a very strong...

COOPER: They have pretty amazing story.

COSBY: ... romance.

COOPER: Yeah, it is. Marianne travels with Danny on assignments and that sort of thing. And so she's obviously really worried about Danny, as are all of us.

COSBY: We certainly are. And Helene, please stand by, because we now want to show our viewers a conversation that I had a short time ago with Terry Andersen, who was held hostage in Lebanon for seven years. I asked him how his captors treated him. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TERRY ANDERSON, FORMER HOSTAGE: It varied. It was a long time. Sometimes we were treated badly. Sometimes we were treated better. There didn't seem to be any policy, simply the reactions of young guards. I hope Danny Pearl is being treated decently. They have no reason not to treat him well.

COSBY: What was your reaction when you heard about what happened to Danny Pearl, that he was captured?

ANDERSON: Well, I've been working with the Committee to Protect Journalists for quite a while, so we've been involved and attentive to the case from the moment we heard about it. And personally, of course, I have enormous sympathy for him and for his family.

COSBY: What do you think is going on through his mind right now?

ANDERSON: Don't know. I can't tell you that. We don't know the conditions under which he's being held. We have every reason to believe that he's handling it as well as anybody could. I mean, he's an intelligent, professional journalist. He has been aware of this possibility, as all foreign correspondents are these days. You have to think about it. And I'm sure he's doing the best he can, the way anybody would.

COSBY: You were held for seven years, the longest-held American captive. What gave you strength during that time?

ANDERSON: Well, you get through it. You do the best that you can. Everybody has to find what they need to get through, and they do, mostly. People are pretty strong.

COSBY: What advice do you have for Danny Pearl right now and also for his family and his friends?

ANDERSON: Oh, I wouldn't give them advice. I know Daniel is going to do what he has to do to get through. He is going to cope with it. I've talked with his family. We are all doing everything we can to help the situation, to convince Daniel's captors that they have made a mistake. They're not going to get anything from this situation. The U.S. government is not going to negotiate. No Western government will negotiate with kidnappers anymore. Wouldn't for the last 10 years.

And if they're looking for publicity, they're getting the wrong kind. They're getting nothing but negative publicity, and that's all they will get. Nobody will consider for a moment whether or not there's any justice or truth in the things that they're saying as long as they're holding a hostage. It's just not going to happen. It's wrong. It's cruel. It's a mistake. And what we have to do is convince them of that, that the only way out of this is to let him go, to just end it. Let him go free.

COSBY: Now, in your case, you sort of debated and talked quite a bit with your captors. Do you think that helped? And is that something that could that be helpful for him, to have a conversation, to have a link with them?

ANDERSON: Sure. I mean, any hostage negotiator or hostage expert will tell you that it's a good thing to talk with your captors. You want to establish a recognition by them that you're a human being, that you're an individual, that you're a person. You're not some kind of symbol of a hated country. And if, you know, they get to understand who Daniel is, they will see an individual who is a decent man and a professional who has a wife who's six months pregnant, who they have no reason to harm because he's done nothing to them. If that happens, then he has a better chance.

COSBY: Now, this group has claimed that Daniel at one point worked for the CIA. Now the latest claim is he works for the Israeli Mossad, the Israeli intelligence. Do they believe that? Because he certainly isn't. He's a journalist.

ANDERSON: I hope they don't believe that. I mean, this is almost pro forma accusations. They accused all of us of being spies. I don't know whether it is simply another way of putting pressure on everyone, or whether that it is a result of a not uncommon total misunderstanding of how the Western press works, of how journalism works in America and Europe and other places like that.

It is a common accusation. Journalists go ask questions in awkward places, and they show up where you wouldn't expect them to show up. And people who don't understand what they're doing are going to say, "Oh, look, he's a spy." Well, it's nonsense. Well all know that's nonsense. And I'm sure if they've thought about it at all, they know that Daniel Pearl is just what he says he is, a journalist.

COSBY: What do you make of the fact they've delayed the deadline 24 hours? Is there anything to read into that?

ANDERSON: Well, I hope it means they realize that they have nothing to gain by harming him, that, you know, it's not useful. It's not anything that will help them, and it is certainly wrong and unjust.

COSBY: Terry, we just have a few seconds left. If the captors are watching right now — we are broadcast in Pakistan — what message would you like to send to them, real briefly?

ANDERSON: The message everybody is trying to give to them — you have made a mistake. This is not going to work. Everybody knows that. They've known that for 10 years. The reason that few Americans have been kidnapped for political purposes over the past decade is that everyone who might contemplate such an action realizes it wouldn't work. It is wrong. It is cruel. And it is pointless. And the best thing that you can do now is realize you've made a mistake and let him go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSBY: Helene Cooper, you know Danny. You've known him for years. Does he have any government ties to the U.s. Government or the Israeli government, any of these allegations?

COOPER: No.

COSBY: Are these preposterous? Why do you think they're making these claims?

COOPER: I have no idea why they're making these claims, but Danny could no more be a CIA or Israeli agent than I could be white. I mean, that's impossible. Danny spent the last six years of his journalistic life, you know, writing about, presenting the views of Islam and the Islamic world to our readers. He was one of the first people to write a story a few years ago that brought into question whether the U.S. bombed the wrong factory, the wrong pharmaceutical plant in Sudan back in 1998. If you just look at Danny's body of work, you will see that he is a completely open-minded, fair, fabulous journalist. He's not a spy.

COSBY: Will the terrorists gain anything by killing him?

COOPER: Of course not. Harming Danny is only going to turn public opinion further against them. I think letting him go would be an enormous first step to getting their message out because, right now, they've got one of the best reporters there is. And he could be the perfect vehicle to convey their message to the world, if he's let go.

COSBY: How do you think Danny is getting through this? This just must be horrendous and so difficult and grueling for him. You've known him. Where is he getting his strength now?

COOPER: He's thinking about his baby. He's thinking about Marianne. He's thinking about how much she loves him. He's got an enormous amount of strength, and I'm sure that he's tapping it right now to get through this.

COSBY: If Danny is listening right now — you know we're broadcast in Pakistan — what would you like to say to him?

COOPER: That we all love you and that we really want you back.

COSBY: You miss him a lot.

COOPER: Yeah.

COSBY: These captors have someone very special. What makes him such a special individual?

COOPER: Danny is just like all of us. He's just one of the guys. He's funny, but he's also really kind. He's honest. He's somebody who writes songs for his friends. He plays in a band. He wants to hang out. He wants to like, you know, to see and be with his friends.

I was talking to a friend of his, Becky Pearl, who the day before she went into labor, Danny wrote a song for her unborn child. I mean, Danny's an amazing guy. He's somebody I've known since 1992, who was really immediately interested in the fact that I was from Liberia and very interested in West Africa. And I remember when we had a going-away party for him when he was leaving the London bureau, Danny, like, asked if we would, like, make West African food because he started getting into it. He'd been taking, you know, all these salsa and funky dance lessons for years, even though he still can't really keep much of a beat. I mean, Danny's one of the guys. He's great.

COSBY: Well, Helene Cooper, we thank you very much for being here. Our thoughts and prayers are with you and, of course, everyone else at The Wall Street Journal, and of course, with Danny Pearl's family tonight. And we hope and pray that his captors in Pakistan are watching this report this evening and allow him to be free. Thank you for being with us.

COOPER: Thank you.

Be sure to watch The War on Terror: The Hunt for the Killers every weeknight live at 10 p.m. ET on the Fox News Channel for all the very latest news on America at War.