60 Minutes - 12/6/2015: Confidential Informants, Bonobos

Episode Date: December 7, 2015

Correspondent Lesley Stahl investigates the controversial use of young, small-time drug dealers as untrained undercover informants in the war on drugs. And correspondent Anderson Cooper reports on bonobos, a unique species of great apes that live in female-dominated groups. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There's a lot going on right now. Mounting economic inequality, threats to democracy, environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos in the air. I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC's On the Media. Want to understand the reasons and the meanings of the narratives that led us here? And maybe how to head them off at the pass? That's On the Media's specialty. Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts.

It felt like I had a gun to my head. Have you told them yet that you had nothing to do with this? They almost convince you that you're guilty. He's talking about police pressuring him into becoming a confidential informant. And he did. On his college campus, he went to work helping police catch drug dealers. It's a practice we discovered is going on

across the country involving young people, sometimes with tragic consequences. They shot her five times when they found the wire in her purse and dumped her body in a ditch 50 miles away. Bonobos are unique among great apes because they're not dominated by males. It's the females who run the show. Here, if you try to be an alpha male, you will be, as the Congolese say, corrected by the females. Not just by one female, but by a sort of alliance of females.

That's right. What's more, bonobos have never been observed to kill each other. The same can't be said of chimpanzees or of humans, for that matter. Those high-pitched screeches are a sophisticated form of communication, and their gestures are unmistakable. I'm Steve Kruft. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Anderson Cooper.

I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes. There's a lot going on right now. Mounting economic inequality, threats to democracy, environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos in the air. I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC's On the Media. Want to understand the reasons and the meanings of the narratives that led us here

and maybe how to head them off at the pass? That's on the media's specialty. Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts. When many of us hear the term confidential informants, or as law enforcement calls them, CIs, we think of mobsters wearing a wire to ensnare their bosses and get themselves a better deal. But there's another kind of confidential informant out there that doesn't quite fit the Hollywood image

and in reality may be far more common. Young people, many of them college students, caught selling small amounts of marijuana who are recruited by law enforcement to wear a wire and make undercover drug buys in exchange for having their charges reduced or dropped altogether. It's a practice we discovered that's going on across the country, largely under the radar, and in some cases with tragic consequences. How's it going today? All right. It's your birthday today. Probably not what you want to be doing on your birthday today. Yeah.

Probably not what you want to be doing on your birthday, huh? What you're looking at is police footage of the making of a confidential informant. Narcotics officer Jason Weber is recruiting a college student who'd been caught making too small marijuana sales to become a CI. All right, well, you expressed interest that you probably want to help yourself out. Yeah. We're always trying to go up the chain. And so what we want to go is have them buy from their supplier or suppliers.

Weber is the chief of a four-county drug task force in eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota. How important do you think confidential informants are to your task? Yeah, confidential informants are really important to law enforcement across the country. They make our jobs easier just because they are already the ones that are out there that know who the drug dealers are and rely on them. Are most of the kids that you're recruiting caught for marijuana sales? The big majority, yeah. Weber's jurisdiction includes the campus of the North Dakota State

College of Science with some 3,000 students. Marijuana is now legal in four states and the District of Columbia, but not in North Dakota, where selling even a small amount on a campus is a Class A felony with a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a fine of $20,000 or both. This young man, Andrew Sadek, was caught on tape by another confidential informant making two sales for a total of $80. Weber has called Sadek in before charging him to present a choice. Agree to work as a CI, wear a wire, and make undercover drug buys from three people twice each, or be charged with two Class A felonies.

Potentially, the max is 40 years in prison, $40,000 fine. Do you understand that? Yeah. Okay. Obviously, you're probably not going to get 40 years, but is it a good possibility that you're going to get some prison time? If you don't help yourself out, yeah, there it is. Okay?

That's probably not a way to start off your young adult life and your career, right? Sadek took the deal. Weber told us most students do. Part of the agreement he signed? Keep the whole thing strictly to himself. You can't tell anybody you're working for me, for obvious reasons. An award-winning student of electrical technology, Andrew Sadek did as he was told.

Never told any of his close friends about being an informant, never called a lawyer, and didn't breathe a word to his parents, Tammy and John Sadek. The Sadeks are a ranching family still struggling with the death of their older son in a train accident years earlier, leaving Andrew an only child.

If Andrew had told you that he was thinking of becoming a confidential informant, what do you think your reaction would have been? Well, he'd have gotten him a lawyer and told him no. We've never heard of such a thing, you know, using college students for snitches or whatever you want to call them, stool pigeons or I don't know, what do you call them, you know? There's no parent that I know of who would allow their child or want their child to serve as a confidential informant. To set up a drug deal. Yeah, I mean, it's too dangerous. I wouldn't want my child to do it. Lance Block is

an attorney in Tallahassee, Florida, who opposes using young people caught for relatively minor offenses as confidential informants. These kids are being recruited to do the most dangerous type of police work. They're going undercover with no background, training, or experience. They haven't been to the police academy. So they are basically doing the same work as a trained undercover cop? Absolutely. Block says he was unaware police were using young people as confidential informants until he was hired seven years ago by the family of Rachel Hoffman, a recent college graduate who was caught with a large stash of marijuana and a few Valium and ecstasy pills. It was her second marijuana arrest. She was caught by the Tallahassee Police Department and told that if she didn't

become a confidential informant, she was looking at four years in prison. She signed up and a few weeks later was sent out to make her first undercover drug buy. It was to be one of the biggest in Tallahassee's recent history, 1,500 ecstasy pills, an ounce and a half of cocaine, and a gun. Had she ever dealt in any of those things? No. A gun? Had she ever fired a gun? No. Rachel was a pothead, and Rachel sold marijuana to her friends out of her home. But Rachel wasn't dealing in ecstasy or cocaine, much less, of course, not weapons. Rachel drove her car alone to meet the dealers in this park with $13,000 cash from the police and a wire in her purse.

She was to be monitored by some 20 officers. But then the dealers changed the location of the deal. So Rachel drove away from the police staging area. And that's when things went terribly wrong. The drug dealers have her out on this road. One drug dealer gets into the car with her. And the 20 cops who were nearby? They lost her. Hoffman is 5'7", 135 pounds. Hoffman was seen Wednesday night at about seven o'clock near Forest Meadows Park. They shot her five times

when they found the wire in her purse and dumped her body in a ditch 50 miles away. Rachel Hoffman's tragic death turned Block into an advocate. He sued the city of Tallahassee and won a $2.8 million settlement for Rachel's parents. And he has argued for more openness and greater protection for confidential informants ever since. Do you have any sense of how many confidential informants ever since. Do you have any sense of how many confidential informants there are? Law enforcement is loaded with statistics, but you cannot find out any information about the number of confidential informants that are being used across this country, much less the number of people who are being killed or injured.

No one's keeping statistics. No one. It's a shadowy underworld is what it is. We want to make more cases. We want to make better cases that can get prosecuted. Informants can do that. Brian Salee is a longtime undercover narcotics officer who believes a shadowy underworld is exactly what working with C.I. should be. Shadowy to protect informants' identities, and underworld because that's where cops like him want informants to take them. Who knows the most about the dope trade?

Is it us working narcotics? No. Who is it? The sellers, the dopers. Salih says he's worked with hundreds of informants and now trains police officers around the country on how best to use them. If you had not been able personally to use confidential informants, would you have been as effective? Nowhere near as effective. You really feel you need this?

Oh, I know I would not. I may have to watch a house for days or weeks to establish probable cause. My informant goes in and makes a buyout of it, and I have my probable cause in five minutes. You can get into cases quicker, easier, in some respects safer. I'm surprised you say safer, because we've heard about kids who've been killed doing these operations. It's a dangerous trade that they're involved in. Yeah. They are in that drug trade. They've always been facing that potential danger. Any informant. Salee estimates

there could be as many as 100,000 confidential informants working with police across the country. And he says with just a few tragic exceptions, it's a win-win. A win for society and a win for the CI. They have agreed to do what they are doing in exchange for something. That's the bottom line. When somebody comes to work for me as an informant, it's their decision. Police tell us that this is completely voluntary and they want to do this to get rid of the charges. It's not something that college kids are standing up saying, I want to be a CI. It's not voluntary.

They're being told they're looking at prison time unless they agree to do deals for the police department. And there are some important things they're not being told. So what if you catch me selling $60 worth of marijuana? What do you say to me to become an informant? I'll say, this is the charge. This is a felony. Do you want to help yourself out?

Do you tell me that I have a right to talk to a lawyer? No, I do not. I tell you you have a right to talk to a lawyer if I'm going to ask you incriminating questions. If we're talking about your becoming an informant, I don't have to tell you that you have the right to a lawyer. That's because since police often recruit confidential informants before charging them and without arresting them, they're not obligated by law to read them their rights. And Weber didn't with Andrew Sadek. He told us Sadek made three successful undercover drug buys as a CI, half the number he'd been told was required of him. But then he stopped. Weber says Sadek was warned he would soon be charged if he didn't continue. Then one night, a few weeks shy of

graduation, security cameras snapped these pictures of Sadek walking out of his dorm at 2 a.m. on a Thursday morning. A day and a half later, he had not come back. We got a call from the campus at about noon on Friday. Still completely unaware of their son's work as a confidential informant, Andrew's parents were soon on campus making a public plea for his return. We love you, and we want you. We need you to come home. Everything will be okay. There were searches, prayer vigils, and then, two months later, the worst news possible. Andrew's body was discovered in a river near the campus.

His backpack weighted down with rocks, its straps tied together across his chest. Did they tell you what the cause of death was? Gunshot to the head. A year and a half later, that's about all the Saddux have been told. No one has been charged in Andrew's death, and the gun that killed him has not been found. Police deny he was involved in any CI operation the night he disappeared and have suggested to his parents that he may have shot himself, a possibility they say is inconceivable. They're convinced their son was murdered as a result of his work

as an informant, and they want the confidential recruitment of young offenders as CIs to stop. It's ridiculous. Ridiculous. Stop doing it. Slap their hands, fine them, put them in jail, expel them. I don't care. Stop using our kids to do your jobs. Andrew Sadek's death is still an open investigation, so neither the state agencies in charge of the case nor Jason Weber would talk about it. But we did ask about putting these kids at risk. Andrew Sadek was caught selling $80 worth of marijuana. People have said to us it's just

not worth it and it's not worth putting the kid in any kind of risky situation for that little. You know a drug dealer is a drug dealer where you smell a big amount or a small amount whether you do it once or if you do it a hundred times. While it's still against the law part of our duties as law enforcement is to get the drugs off the streets and to get the drug dealers off the streets. So how successful is what you're doing? Well, I think it goes back to the point, if we don't try something or if we don't do that, then we're truly losing that war on drugs. Isn't it more important to go after heroin, meth, cocaine? Yeah, our agency goes after all of them. I'm still trying to get at the equation.

You know what I mean? Is it worth it for marijuana? Yeah, there again, I've got to go back to, as long as it's a crime, it is my duty as a police officer to enforce criminal law. We wanted to know what the law is across the country about the use of young people as confidential informants. And we were surprised to discover that in all but a handful of states, there is no law.

No age limits on who can become a CI. No rules about how or even whether informants must be trained. No guidelines on their protection. Policies are typically left up to the individual police departments that recruit and use the informants. And that, critics say, can and has resulted in overly aggressive recruitment tactics, traumatized and even suicidal CIs, and situations where kids are given incentives to entrap other kids. We looked at a case, a narcotics unit, where those charges have been leveled. It's in one of the country's best-known college towns,

with the university itself an involved partner and funder. The University of Mississippi in Oxford, famously called Old Miss, is known for its football, its school spirit, and its southern charm. But less than a mile from campus, housed in this municipal building,

is a drug task force focused on the darker side of life here. It's called Metro Narcotics, and one of its confidential informants was an Ole Miss student we'll call Greg, who agreed to speak with us in disguise. I was finishing up with school one day. His life as a CI began one day, coming home from class. I was met halfway there by men in bulletproof vests, guns, and badges around their necks.

My initial reaction was just keep going. This is no way involved with me. And then until they held up a piece of paper with my name on it saying I'd sold LSD, and I thought, what on earth? I had nothing to do with this. Greg, who had no criminal record, insists his only encounter with LSD was when a friend asked to leave some at his apartment.

Then he says another acquaintance stopped by, wearing a wire it turns out, and picked the LSD up. I was just on the couch watching TV and he was like, oh thanks, and I just said I have nothing to do with this, don't thank me. But at the Metro office, Greg says two agents threatened him with more than 20 years in prison and a felony on his record for life, unless he agreed to become an informant and make drug buys wearing a wire from 10 people who he had to find himself. It felt like I had a gun to my head. Have you told them yet that you had nothing to do with this? They almost convince you that you're guilty. I was just so scared.

I was just putty in their hands. Did you think about the idea that you'd become a snitch? I mean, I knew what I was signing, and I hated it. Absolutely. It just made me sick. But what made me more sick was the thought of spending 20 years in prison. Did you know 10 people you could buy drugs from when you signed that paper? Absolutely not. But you don't care at the time. When you sign it, it's like,

sure, you know, please don't ruin my life. 10 buys. Sounds like a lot. It's virtually impossible. Ken Coughlin is a defense attorney in Oxford who has represented many Ole Miss students who became confidential informants. He says that because there are no standardized rules, cops can ask for any number of buys, like Metro's 10, which he says is so high it creates a perverse incentive for kids to entice other kids to break the law. He told us he has seen it again and again. They don't know 10 drug dealers, and they're so desperate. They will go to their friend

or their roommate or their frat brother, and they know this person smokes marijuana, and they'll say, I'm out of weed. Can I get $10 worth of weed from you? Your personal stuff. That's entrapment. And that's not allowed under the law. Entrapment because that frat brother with his own marijuana was only guilty of possession, a misdemeanor under Mississippi law. But if he says yes and sells a little to his buddy, he's now become a dealer,

a felon facing possible prison time. And at that point, we're not catching criminals, we're creating criminals. Did you ever get the feeling that you were asking someone else to commit a crime that they wouldn't otherwise have committed? Yes. I just knew somebody who would provide me with an amount who wasn't selling, but I just knew that they would because we knew each other. And you did that? Yes. So when you say they're creating felons, this is what you mean. I don't think the cops say go out and talk somebody into doing it that wouldn't otherwise do it.

It's just what the kids do. And look, there are some hard drugs around, but the vast, vast majority of cases are sale of two grams of marijuana, three grams of marijuana. But those small sales can add up to big numbers of arrests. And numbers, says Tallahassee attorney Lance Block, help drug task forces get grants. They want to drive up their arrest numbers. And it doesn't matter whether they're going after a college kid with a couple of joints in his pocket or whether they're going after a drug kingpin. And the more arrests, the more money? The arrest numbers, the higher they go, the better the funding. I mean, law enforcement is addicted to the drug war money as the crack addict is on the street to his drugs.

It's a strong charge. We put it to undercover narcotics agent and instructor Brian Salee. What they say is that police are in this to lift their arrest statistics to justify the grants and money that they're getting. I'm in it to do what is best for my community. And if having higher stats gets me more money and allows me to do more cases to then impact the drug trade in my community, then that's also of a benefit. Metro Narcotics got nearly $55,000 in federal grants last year. But most of their budget comes from the city police,

the county sheriff's department, and Ole Miss, $100,000 each. The head of Metro Narcotics for the last five years has been Keith Davis, seen here on an Ole Miss student newscast defending his unit's work with students as informants. These are adults. These are 18, 19, 20-year-olds. Yes, I get it. They have young minds, whatever. They're out here creating felonies and hurting our communities. We requested our own interview with Davis or any representative of Metro Narcotics, but they declined.

One thing we wanted to ask Davis about were charges that he and other agents in the unit were abusive to the CIs. They call you, and in these calls, they're very aggressive and threatening and saying, well, we're going to come pick you up, and you're going to go to prison. To the point where I was just terrified whenever my phone rang. We heard similar claims from another Ole Miss student who became a confidential informant after Metro Narcotics accused him of selling marijuana. They say your life is over, as you know it, if you tell anybody

if you don't help us. Did they specifically say you can't call your parents? They said if you call your parents, we'll take you to jail. Once he agreed, he says one of the first things the agent asked him was whether he could buy meth or heroin. He told him he couldn't. The first eight months or so, he called every single day around the same time. He called you every day for eight months? Every day. We had heard repeated accusations about the aggressive tone of the Metro agents

and then got to listen for ourselves when we obtained a tape recording of Keith Davis and another Metro agent yelling at a CI recruit they heard had made a threat to find out where they lived. The first voice is that of agent Tommy Knight. I don't give a **** where you at? Yes, sir. I'll turn this **** in and I'll come beat the **** out you. Yes, sir. Get that in your head. Whoa. The tape was made surreptitiously by the CI recruit who brought it to Ken Coghlan. We listened with him as Keith

Davis made his own threat if the kid ever went to his house. You'll be the last place you ever go in your life. Yes, sir. You feel me? 100%. It took all I had to come see you last night. Yes, sir. To hunt you down. But I'm trying to call him down. Keith Davis is the chief of this narcotics unit, and he is making a death threat. You know, I'm just going to let the tape speak for itself. Coghlan sent the tape and a letter to the chancellor and attorney of Ole Miss more than two years ago, thinking that as a funder of Metro Narcotics, they should know how the unit was treating its students. He got no reply, and we could find no evidence that changes were made to the program at that time.

You know, go to the store. Greg told us that as he continued making undercover buys, he became anxious and paranoid. I would have to conceal that I was shaking because, first of all, I completely detested what I was doing. I didn't want to get anybody in trouble. Did you feel ashamed? Absolutely. Because of turning in other kids? Yes. But Keith Davis told the Ole Miss campus reporter that these kids don't deserve that much sympathy. Let's be clear here. These people are not these innocent little college kids, plain and simple.

The ones that are selling dope are not innocent people. They're selling poison. That may be true for many confidential informants, but it turns out not Greg. After a year and a half, and he says making six of the ten required buys, Greg was charged and arrested anyway. That's when his parents found out and hired Coghlan, who researched the original evidence against Greg and came to the conclusion that the friend who brought the LSD to Greg's house in the first place had been a CI.

So a CI brought the drugs and a CI bought the drugs. That's the way I understood it to be. Coghlan says after he brought the situation to the attention of the district attorney, the charges against Greg were dismissed. All the charges were just thrown out. Completely. And it's really important that the public have an understanding of what's going on because it's perverted justice. I've been told that a lot of these kids are not really looking at jail time. In the vast majority of cases, these kids would be diverted into a drug court program. They'd be on probation for six months to a year. And at the end, if they've done everything

successfully, then the cases are dismissed. Lance Block has been advocating for laws to regulate the recruitment and use of confidential informants across the country. But he says law enforcement lobbies have opposed the reforms. They want to keep the CI system as it is. Law enforcement people have told us we see it as a win-win. The kids get a reduced or charges completely expunged, and we get to arrest drug dealers. But they're kids that are being killed, and they're arresting small-time possessors. That's a lose-lose. We asked Ole Miss for an on-camera interview while we were reporting our story.

Our request was declined. We did get a letter months later saying, quote, thank you for your part in encouraging a deeper look at the Metro Narcotics Unit and telling us that because of increased attention, attention from 60 Minutes and the news organization BuzzFeed, changes were being made, including more direct oversight of the program, an audit of the program by a third-party organization, policies to ensure suspects fully understand they have a choice in whether to become a confidential informant, and a change in leadership.

At the end of September, Keith Davis resigned as head of the unit. Right now, I'm digging into the history of incredible infrastructure projects of the 1930s, including the Hoover Dam, the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, and more. The promise is in the title, History That Doesn't Suck, available on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Most people know that chimpanzees are our close cousin. They share over 98% of our DNA. But you may not know that we also have another primate cousin just as close. They're called bonobos.

They may look like chimpanzees, but they are an entirely separate species of ape, and their behavior couldn't be more different. Bonobos are the only great apes that live in female-dominated groups, and unlike chimps and humans, which are often violent and aggressive with each other, bonobos would rather make love than war. As Anderson Cooper discovered, they are an endangered species and only found in one place, the Democratic Republic of Congo in Central Africa. Congo's been torn apart by war for decades, keeping researchers away, which is why bonobos sits on the outskirts of Congo's capital, Kinshasa.

It's called Lola Ya Bonobo, Bonobo Paradise. And for these endangered apes, that's exactly what it is. This refuge was created by conservationist Claudine André. She's Belgian-born, but has lived in Congo most of her life. If you ask her why she cares so much about bonobos, she'll tell you, just look into their eyes. The way they look in your eyes, deeply in your... It's just like they look in your soul.

In your soul? Yeah. And it's rare that most primates don't maintain eye contact like that. Yeah, because don't try to do this with gorilla, you know. Right, it's a threatening gesture if you do it with a gorilla. But bonobos look right at you. Oh, yeah. Bonobos may have a brain that's a third the size of ours,

but they're remarkably intelligent. Those high-pitched screeches are a sophisticated form of communication, and their gestures are unmistakable. Like chimpanzees, bonobos use tools in a wide variety of ways and are capable of abstract problem solving. She have a baby, so she cannot go deeply. So she's breaking the stick, actually. Yeah, she show the stick is too short.

Okay, so she got a longer stick. That's amazing. So she's using the stick to see how deep the water is. Yeah. Bonobos are unique among great apes because they're not dominated by males. And according to Brian Hare, a Duke University evolutionary anthropologist who studies them at Lola, it's the females who run the show. Here, if you try to be an alpha male, you will be, as the Congolese say, corrected by the females. Not just by one female, but by sort of an alliance of females.

That's right. And bonobos really violate a rule of nature where usually if you're bigger, you're going to be dominant. But here, females are actually smaller. But they're still not dominated by males because they work together. What's more, bonobos have never been observed to kill each other. The same can't be said of chimpanzees or of humans, for that matter. Bonobos, on the other hand, they don't really have that darker side. So that's where they could really help us, is how could it be that a species that has a brain the third of the size of ours can do something that with all our technological prowess we can't accomplish, which is to not kill each other. The answer might be found in bonobos' favorite pastime.

These apes have more sex, more often, in more ways than any other primate on the planet. Their sexual contact is so frequent, Brian Hare refers to it as the bonobo handshake. It's not that they want to procreate or have kids. It's not that they even find each other attractive. No. It's just... No, it's a negotiation. And it's hardly surprising that many of these negotiations take place over food. Chimpanzees will fight each other over food.

That's right. Bonobos won't necessarily fight each other over food. That's right. So basically, chimpanzees get primed for competition, testosterone increases. Bonobos, they get really stressed out. And if they feel like they're not going to be able to share, they get really anxious, and then that drives them to want to be reassured, and they then happen to have a bonobo handshake to feel better.

And males will do that with females, males will do that with males, females will do that with females, doesn't matter, even the ages. Any combination, any age. It's an irony that this peace-loving primate is being hunted to extinction. Though it's illegal to kill or capture bonobos in Congo, that hasn't slowed their rapid decline. Forest animals are sold in bustling bushmeat markets for food. At the largest in Congo's capital, Kinshasa, you can buy monkeys, porcupines, even alligators, dead or alive. Bonobos aren't openly sold here anymore, but you can still buy them in many parts of Congo. Their orphaned babies often end

up in the only place that can care for them. Lola Yabanobo. The babies arrive traumatized, often injured. Each is assigned a surrogate human mother, and their job is to raise the babies as their own, showering them with the love and attention the orphan apes so desperately need. It's incredible to see them up close like this. I mean, they're so... Human. Yeah. Yeah, you know I say all the time that for sure they are great apes. They are not us, and we are not them. But we have a line in the middle of the two worlds that we cross all the time. Baby bonobos are as playful as any human toddler, and just as curious.

Susie Quetuenda would know. She's in charge of the bonobos' welfare at Lola and oversees their rehabilitation. You have a child of your own? Yes, I have. How are they different? I can say there is no more difference. There's no difference? I mean, you really have to be a mother to this baby.

Yes, and most of the time, you need experienced mothers. So they give love and affection, and this is the only way to save them. That's what saves these babies? Yes, and make them in life. They need love? Yeah, absolutely. Without that, they die.

Susie decided to study bonobos because she felt they could teach us a lot about human evolution. After five years at Lola, she realized that their behavior is closer to ours than she'd ever imagined. Is it hard not to think of them as human? Yes. Yes, because we share most of time with them. We share time with them.

Right. You spend all day with them. All day. And at the end of that day, Susie sees to it the babies are tucked into their hammocks for the night. At 6 p.m., it's lights out. Do you read them a story? No, they don't need it because they are tired. They spend all the time jumping in trees, playing so much as now. They're exhausted.

They are very exhausted. By age five, the orphaned apes move from Lola's nursery to the kindergarten, where their peers teach them something their human mothers never could. They teach them how to be bonobos. They still crave affection, but they're also more confident and have started developing their own distinct personalities. He's the one who would like to jump. You want to jump? I can't work under these conditions.

It's very hard to conduct an interview like this. Yes. Claudine Andre came across her first bonobo 20 years ago. The country was wracked by violence and on the verge of a brutal civil war. She volunteered to help at a local zoo, and that's when she saw a baby bonobo. Though the zoo director warned her about getting too close. He said, don't put your heart in this animal. Yes, it's a bonobo, a bonobo. It was the first time for me I hear this word, and he say, they never survive in captivity. So he was warning you, don't fall in love with a bonobo because it's going to die. Yeah, but it was a sort of challenge.

There are now more than 70 bonobos at Lola. Many of the original orphans have children of their own. But to save these primates from extinction, their numbers in the wild will have to grow. Six years ago, the team from Lola decided to try to release some back into the forest. Nothing like it had ever been done with bonobos before. They handpicked nine apes who they thought would do well on their own. They have to be able to get along in a group as well as be strong themselves. It's just like you chose people to go in the moon.

It's not quite the moon, but the site they found to release the bonobos is about as remote a place as you can find on the planet. It's a three-hour flight deep into the wilderness of northern Congo, then a long, slow ride up the Lepori River in a dugout canoe. Life along the river hasn't changed much in centuries. Congo is one of the least developed countries in the world and has millions of acres of virtually untouched forest. It may look pristine, even peaceful, but many of the people who live in these parts have suffered from years of war. The wildlife here was decimated. So the bonobos

disappeared from this area because of hunting? Yes, yes. For bushmeat? Yeah. And also during the war, soldiers would hunt here? Yeah. We were taken to the spot where that first group of bonobos was released. For a while, we couldn't see anything, just dense forest spilling over the banks of the winding river. Then Claudine began calling out the names of the apes she herself once mothered all those years ago. They know. That's crazy. They're responding to you. They're responding to me. They know I'm here. We still couldn't see them, but they could hear Claudine. And suddenly the forest was alive with the sound of apes excited to hear her voice once again. Run by one, the bonobos came to the water's edge to see the people who'd saved their lives.

Claudine and her team weren't sure releasing bonobos back into the wild would work. And although some had trouble adapting, most now seem to be thriving. That's a tombe, the bonobo Claudine is perhaps most proud of. For 17 years, she was trapped in a tiny cage at a Kinshasa laboratory. Now she's the leader of the group. And she gave us a first baby born here. So it's my friend or my sister. Your family.

My family. This is as close as Claudine allows herself to get. Now that they're wild, she doesn't want the bonobos to get used to humans ever again. Do you still find it thrilling when you suddenly see them after all this time? Oh yes, it's so nice for me. It's so nice present to return to the wild and be free. This is what you dreamed of? Yes.

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Chances are most of you have never heard the name Harry Radliff. But if you're a regular viewer of 60 Minutes, you've seen it many, many times in the producer credits that appear over the correspondent's shoulder. For the past 26 years, he produced 100 or so stories for this broadcast, including some of the very best. We lost Harry this week to cancer. He was 66 years old. He was the ultimate world traveler on a broadcast of world travelers. He knew where to get the best bouillabaisse in Marseilles and the best barbecue in Tennessee. He knew where to go to find a great story and who to talk to when he got there. He was

kind and calm and a great journalist. He took us off the beaten path for a visit to the monasteries of Greece's holy mountain, Mount Athos, with Bob Simon. There's no electricity here, so the icons and mosaics are illuminated only by shafts of sunlight and a few candles. And on a search for the ivory-billed woodpecker in Arkansas's big woods, with Ed Bradley. The ivory-billed woodpecker in Arkansas' big woods with Ed Bradley. The ivory-billed woodpecker was presumed extinct.

At least that's what Gene Sparling thought. He showed us the plight of Christians of the Holy Land. And elephants in the Central African Republic. And the art of making whiskey on the island of Isla. Harry never lost his enthusiasm for exploring. I've just always been curious about the world. I mean, it's thrilling to get off an airplane and you're in India. It's thrilling to get off an airplane and you're in China. It's thrilling to get off an airplane, and you're in, you know, Korea. You know, to go off with a camera

and be able to come back with a story that you put together and show it to people, I mean, what's not cool about that? He made 60 Minutes and all of us here better just by having the privilege of working with him. I'm Steve Kroft. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes. There's a lot going on right now. Mounting economic inequality, threats to democracy,

environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos in the air. I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC's On the Media. Want to understand the reasons and the meanings of the narratives that led us here, and maybe how to head them off at the pass? That's On the Media's specialty. Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts.