tavis: first up tonight a conversation with john farrell. no senior reporting at the center for public integrity. he is out with a text about one of america's most famous legal minds, clarence darrow. also, gary sinise is here. continuing his efforts on behalf of the man and woman in the u.s. military. we are glad you have joined us. john farrell and gary sinise coming up now. >> all i know is his name is james, and he needs extra help with his reading. >> i am james. >> yes. >> to everyone making a difference -- >> thank you. >> you help us all live better. >> nationwide insurance supports

tavis smiley. with every question and every answer, nationwide insurance is proud to join tavis in working to improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment, one conversation at a time. nationwide is on your side. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] tavis: john farrell is an award winning journalist whose books include one about jameel. the book is called gary sini"cle darrow: attorney for the damned".

clarence darrow was who? >> he was probably america's greatest or grandest defense lawyer. he is familiar to most people as henry drummer. for lawyers, you do not graduate with out having someone sang we have our own little clarence darrow in the family. tavis: what made him such a famous defender of defendants? >> he groped in rural northeast ohio. the other thing is he had this amazing sense of empathy and compassion. when given the choice between taking one route and making a lot of money and joining corporate america or doing something like defending an indigent person who is really stuck, clarence darrow came on the side of the damned. tavis: i read a comment made to somebody that struck me. he made the point and i can

empathize. he made the point that you were reticent about even doing the research and a book about him because he was a hero of yours and there is always that danger. >> that is my job. tavis: there is always that danger in coming across stuff about your hero that you do not want to confront. >> when i was 12, someone gave me a copy of irving stone's biography, "clarence darrow for the defense." my name on the day i got it so he was a big influence. as with tip o'neill, you start to do the research on someone that you love and someone you think you can live with, it takes six years so you have to live with them for six years and you find they are human and you have to process this. i am sure i writ -- wrote the book it would be more positive or negative. what i ended up with this i call

loving revisionism. i try to tell the tale of him as a true person, an unvarnished look at the same time show my admiration. i think he was a hero. tavis: my sense is -- i regard dr. king is my hero. as time passes on, we learn more about king's humanness. it makes him greater in spite of this frailties combusting focused on the work he was doing on behalf of the people who were disenfranchised trade how do you process him now that you know his shortcomings? >> very much like king. very much the same shortcomings. clarence darrow had a meteoric rise and a complete crash in los angeles when he was caught driving a jury and put on trial. he went back to chicago and his career was in ruins and he had to take whatever casey could. that is the man that goes on to do leopold and loeb.

the scopes monkey trial. all because he had this drive, this in the the in him and that shows to me that the quality of the man all along, even more so. after the monkey trial, he was the most famous american lawyer. he was 68. he had very little money. he was worried about money. he could have picked any case in the world and could have gone to wall street and could have done a rich divorces in chicago. the naacp calls up and said we would like to have to defend the sweet family. they moved into a house in a white neighborhood. they fired out the window at the mob and they have been charged with murder. clarence darrow goes there for $5,000 for one year. he does to trials and gets his hung jury in one and the naacp had no expectations that would win. he wins the second one. again, for almost nothing

financially and goes home that summer and has a heart attack from the strain. that says to me about the quality of the man. tavis: his greatest work is after his fall. he falls and he rises again. is the rise only possible because of the fall? is the -- is he a better man for the resurrection? >> it was an act of redemption. he was definitely a better man. his friend said that the man that blasts now has seen his soul and is a different person. when he went back to chicago he was somewhat more hollow and some of more whole. want to bribe a jury? >> he hated to lose a defendant and they were facing the death penalty and he justified in his mind especially as he looked and saw all the tricks the prosecution was playing that he

could match them. and so to save their lives, desperate to help organized labor in america and help the movement and for hisadvertisemei he -- i make the argument that he did that. tavis: how did he become violent bleat opposed to the death penalty? -- so violently opposed to the death penalty? >> his father was the town furniture maker and that included the undertaker duties. he groped in the undertakers' house and at one corner of the machine shop work coffins and they did not do embalming in those days. life. he would clean up the body and put it in the parlor and his dad do that and arranged for the funeral to the graveyard and that left a searing impression on him. he was not a man of faith. he was at best you would call him an agnostic. so i think he was very afraid of what that meant and what would come after.

when he applied that, various impulses to his clients, the sense of compassion comes in and he was absolutely terrified of losing one of them to the hangman or electric chair. tavis: when clarence darrow is being taught are studied by students, what principally are the wrestling with the with regard to his legacy? >> the number one thing is the evolution case. the monkey trial was teaching evolution in the classroom and they had that great confrontation that we saw in the movie which was produced almost everywhere around the country. read in high school drama classes. that legacy is the one everybody remembers. to me, what struck me as there was this consistent push throughout his life to defend the rights of the individual liberty against being impersonal forces. the first part of his career was the industrial age. big corporations. later on it was against prohibition and especially against the state coming in and executing individuals.

of almost 100 cases he lost one to the hangman and that was the very first one when he was a young man. tavis: i am not asking this question looking for names. if you have them i am happy to take them. i am getting a sense on whether there are persons on the national stage who are reminiscent of the kind of bigger intellect and skill and charisma that clarence darrow had. >> there are people like john edwards who are great trial lawyers but they do not stick in the courtroom. i argued in a piece i wrote saying that if john edwards wants to follow the same path of retention the clarence darrow did, he should go back to the court room and find the kind of clients that clarence darrow did and fight for the causes. fight for the cause. tavis: that is great advice. i cannot get inside john edwards's had. i found it interesting that

rather than plea-bargain, he is going to trial. and the word is because he does not want to lose his right to practice law, he may very well be thinking and writing his book about his own redemption that way. >> would it be great if you went back and wins this case and devotes the rest of his life and those of men's skills he has in the courtroom towards people who stopped? with defense attorneys to win big is their get turned by the money and fame. maybe clarence darrow was lucky he had that great fall. otherwise he would have turned out the same way. tavis: what is it about him as a lawyer that made him such -- what made him such a darling of hollywood and screenwriters? very apt question. he was an actor in the courtroom. he would do things like, he would start out like this. and then he would lean over to the jury and he would talk in a low voice until the people in

the back row had to lean forward and all the said he would raise his hand and start thundering and bring his fist down and those dramatics impressed base succeeding generation of lawyers to try the same thing. you see this constantly. the sort of behavior by american attorneys. atticus finch, you can find it in novels. "native son". he became part of the culture of hollywood. tavis: i am not asking this to be silly. when you look at clarence darrow, he is not the most handsome. speaking of john edwards. he is not the easiest on the is that he wins time and time again. we live in an age where image is everything. i raise that to ask whether it was his intellect or charisma or both. it was not his good looks.

>> intellect and charisma is the answer. he was a great heart breaker. he had many affairs throughout his life. and one woman admirers said he had the french phrase called the beauty of the devil. someone who is not necessarily classically handsome but there was a presence about him. when he would walk into the courtroom, everything would get quiet and people would say there is clarence darrow. that is the presidency had. tavis: what is his enduring legacy? >> american defense attorneys will stick up for the little guy. i am touched because i get notes from defense lawyers to say, i cannot make your book party or economic the rating at the shop but i want to tell you if clarence darrow over my shoulder every day. i am inspired by him and he creates that, he is the patron saint of the defense lawyer fighting great odds on behalf

of the individual. tavis: there are great books but you had access to a cache of letters and there was new material. >> it is an amazing story. this fellow named randy in a letter collector. before she passed away in he went to his granddaughter's house and asked if she had any material. they found one box in the basement and uncovered it and inside were 1000 letters that have been written to or from clarence darrow and last summer, they were released, they are at tavis: john farrell, author of "clarence darrow: attorney for the damned". university of minnesota law library. banks were time. next, a conversation with actor gary sinise. stay with us. pleased to welcome gary sinise back to this program. you can catch a new documentary

on behalf of his efforts with soldiers named after lt. band. it is called "lt. dan band: for the common good". >> what you do is someone that is -- something greater than yourself. that is why i continue to got there and make sure that you folks know that you are supported and there is a great nation behind you. i am here to say thanks. >> thank you. i appreciate it. >> we are at some remote spot that normally would not get anyone out there. >> gary is the first person we made it -- who made it here. >> it is nice to see how. a famous actor on the movie screen, all the sudden there he is eating chat with you in iraq. that speaks for itself. tavis: you were on this program. you first get started some years

ago. in our eighth season. you were -- are still on television. >> locally. we're starting the eighth season. tavis: nouri still having fun? >> i am. it has been the perfect thing at the right time and i have a lot of friends who are wonderful actors who would like to be in my shoes so i will enjoy it while i got it. it has been a good ride so far. tavis: you cannot talk about gary sinise and characters and not talk about lt. dan. what did that world do for you for your career? >> oh, gosh. a few things. on the career side, when you are in a movie that is seen by about everybody multiple times like that, it gets all the awards and goes through that and you are playing a prominent role. you cannot help it in flight

and in bigger your career which it did. it introduced me to some wonderful organizations because i played a disabled veteran. i was approached by the disabled american veterans organization one month after the movie opened. they invited me to their international convention and i did not know anything about the disabled american veterans. that was 1994 and a person so went to the convention, i have been actively involved in disabled american veterans and our wounded service veterans and we have more coming home every day thateed our help. so to be part of that organization and to support them and trying to draw attention to what is going on with our disabled veterans is something that is kind of a privilege and an honor for me to do that. that was 1994. i have been involved ever since. we just broke ground on veterans day. about six months ago on the american veterans disabled for life memorial which will be

opened permanently, a permanent tribute to over 3 million disabled veterans. we have to honor their sacrifices and that will open on veterans day 2012. i have been privileged to be national spokesperson for that effort. tavis: it is one thing to play the character and another to be invited. something must happen that pulled you into a lifelong service and commitment to the issue. what happened that made you stick with it? what happened that got you? >> it was very moving, tavis. just to go there, first of all. i did not know anything about the organization. i had been involved with vietnam veterans groups prior to that in the chicago area. i have veterans in my family. i did not know anything dav.ingthabout the they wanted to honor me in chicago which happens to be where i'm from. i said i would love to come and

i flew out there. they had me in a hotel room. the hotel that the event was that and they brought me down to the kitchen and took me around and brought me to this door. i heard my voice on the speakers out there and -- in the ballroom. i could not sit out there and there were about to introduce me. when you hear your name, go through the doors, they told me. i went to the door and onto the stage and i looked out and there was 3000, 3500 people there. probably 2500 were disabled veterans. from world war ii to the present day. the ones that could stand on one leg or whatever were standing up. guys in wheelchairs' everywhere. everybody is giving me an ovation for playing a disabled veteran in a way that i guess they thought was honorable. looking out there, having been

so close to that film and to that particular character, i was very moved. from that point, i stayed very active with the dav. tavis: i want to talk about the documentary. you have been to iraq and afghanistan for five times. we saw some scenes in the documentary and i will come back to it in a second. i am curious as to your thoughts about the drawdown. the president obama just announced. the troops that represented the search that he endorsed some time ago. they are the same number being drawn down. what do you think about this drawdown in afghanistan? you have been there a couple times. >> when i go there in with a service members and i go to the bases and i try to get around and see as many people as i can. they are doing their jobs and try to get through tough situation. they are serving honorably. with regards to that, afghanistan is a very difficult environment.

from the little i know and i have been there and i have flown over it. andis rugged and in hospita inhospitable place. it is difficult there. i do not know what the end game will be. if the president is listening to his generals and they are recommending it is time to go, who my to say anything? there are a lot of other people who have been involved in that fight and know the terrain and know that environment and know the enemy. far better than i do. my mission is to support our service members. there volunteers and if they're going to go to a hostile place like afghanistan, we owe it to them to back it up and try to help them go through. tavis: you mentioned vietnam during this conversation. i wondered whether or not it is your opinion that we are doing better as a nation in how we

treat veterans when they come home. iraq,am to afghanistan to roc and so on. >> there is no question. having vietnam veterans, many vietnam veteran pals, there is the focus now and some hard lessons learned from vietnam that i think we're trying to improve upon. with regards to our service members today. i remember all too well what it was like for vietnam veterans and i got very involved with the and, veterans groups back when in the early 1980's before the wall was built. before it was sort of ok to pat a vietnam veteran on the back and say, thanks for serving. there were in hiding at that point and it was difficult for them. i know a lot of veterans that have applied themselves vigorously to making sure that what happened to them does not happen to our service members today. that is what i have done, having known so many vietnam

veterans. one of the primary things that has driven me so completely in the last 10 years of this fight is to try to prevent that from happening again. if we're going to send a service member somewhere and they serve at the pleasure of the president and they serve congress and they do what they are told and they cannot debate that. every single president, democrat or republican or whoever will send the service members somewhere. we're lucky to have an all volunteer service for over 35 years. that is an important thing. that is a good thing for our country. the way to keep that and to keep this service members strong is to make sure they know they are appreciated for what they do for us and that is where i can help, i think. tavis: you are doing that with this documentary. tell me about it. >> i have been doing a lot of tours for the uso, going out visiting our troops around the world. i have a band that i started

with a buddy of mine, kimo williams. we were playing music together. when i started visiting the troops and shaking hands and taking pictures with them, i kept urging the u.s. so to let me take musicians alike could entertain them -- the uso to let me take musicians to entertain them. i called kimo up and said get the guys, we are going on tour. we are supporting them wherever they are. i spend a lot of time and a lot of hours and his buddy of mine heard about that. he asked if he could document some of that. i let them come with camera crews and follow me around for a year and half for two years and he put this beautiful

documentary together. what they're going to do, they will launch an online where you can go to ltdanbandmovie.com and put in $4 and do the movie. it is like a pay-per-view online. that way, service members all the world, people all over the world can go online and watch this movie in their bedroom or their living room and have parties, where they want. service members can put in $4 and watch. tavis: that is raising money for your work. >> one out of $4 will go to this newly created gary sinise foundation which is a military and forfirst responder organization i have created. i have done so much of this i wanted to find a way that i could increase that level of activity and starting a foundation is one way to do

that. tavis: you can support gary's work on july 4 when "lt. dan band: for the common good" hits the internet. part of the proceeds support the work he is doing with veterans. always good to have you on the program. your eighth season about to begin. happy to get back to work? >> pretty soon. tavis: that is our show for tonight. thanks for watching and as always, keep the faith. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org tavis: join me next time for conversation with kat williams on his decision to return to comedy after a long layoff. that is next time. >> all i know is his name is

james, and he needs extra help with his reading. >> i am james. >> yes. >> to everyone making a difference -- >> thank you. >> you help us all live better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and every answer, nationwide insurance is proud to join tavis in working to improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment, one conversation at a time. nationwide is on your side. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. >> be more.

steves: like so much of budapest, hungary's parliament was built for the big 1896 party. its elegant neo-gothic design and riverside location were inspired by its counterpart in london. it's enormous, with literally miles of grand halls, designed to help administer that sprawling, multinational hapsburg empire. by the end of world war i, the hapsburgs were gone, and hungary, while much smaller, was fully independent. but then came the nazis, followed by the communists. that illusive freedom was finally won after the fall of the soviet union in 1989, and since then, the city has blossomed. today, hungary rules only hungary, and it's ruled not by an emperor,

but by democratically elected representatives who legislate from what's now a palace of democracy. like vienna, budapest feels more grandiose than the capital of a relatively small country, but the city remains the cultural capital of eastern europe, with a keenly developed knack for good living. you can enjoy that hungarian joy of life at the széchenyi baths. soak with the locals. of the city's two dozen or so traditional mineral baths, this is the most accessible and fun. budapest is hot, literally. it sits on a thin crust over thermal springs, which power all these baths. both the ancient romans and ottoman turks enjoyed these same mineral springs. they still say, "poke a hole in the ground anywhere in hungary, and you'll find hot water." magyars of all shapes and sizes squeeze themselves into tiny swimsuits and strut their stuff. babushkas float blissfully in the warm water.

the speedo-clad old boys club gathers pensively around soggy chessboards. and the circle of rapids brings out the kid in people of all ages. after 2,000 years of experience and innovation, locals have honed the art of enjoying their thermal hot springs. budapest straddles the danube river. on the west side is hilly buda, dominated by castle hill. the royal palace marks the place where one of europe's mightiest castles once stood. since the 14th century, hungary has been ruled from this spot.