Jewel

作者：csh

本文首发于《陀螺电影》

像《骡子》与《理查德·朱维尔的哀歌》这样的作品，在院线电影中实在太罕见了。

观众们或许很难辨明它们的独特之处，但它们确实能够给人一种极为流畅、舒适的观感。而这恰恰是因为，伊斯特伍德的这些作品，保持着某种惊人的古典性。如果说新浪潮的猛将、时年89岁的让-吕克·戈达尔，直至2018年的《影像之书》为止，都在试图创造更加新奇的影像；那么与戈达尔一同出生于1930年的伊斯特伍德，恰恰就是古典好莱坞风格的捍卫者。

在《理查德·朱维尔的哀歌》中，他仍旧在使用着这种锤炼了数十年的古典技艺。或许许多欧洲电影迷、尤其是新浪潮爱好者，会对这种传统抱持着某种轻蔑的态度。但是，古典之所以能够成为古典，其实也有它的道理——这种影像之所以能够给人带来最为流畅、舒适的观感，其实是经过时间检验的。

那么，什么是好莱坞的古典主义风格？它主要指涉的是好莱坞古典时期电影中，以连贯性剪辑系统为主体的影像风格。我们熟悉的过肩正反打、视线匹配等技巧，都是这种风格最重要的武器。它们会引导我们关注最重要的信息——发言人或是视线的落点等——以此来推动叙事的发展。但与此同时，它们还保持着一种惊人的透明性（“连贯性风格”之名恰恰来源于此），不会让我们意识到摄影机的存在，也让我们得以彻底浸没在影像中。

但是，存在这些既定的技巧，并不代表古典风格就是一成不变的套路。就像长镜头风格也能拍出杰作与废品一样，在大师手中，正反打也能展现出极尽细腻的用法——在《理查德·朱维尔的哀歌》中，伊斯特伍德就让我们见识了这一点。

在理查德·朱维尔、他的律师沃森·布莱恩特与两位警官对谈的那场至关重要的戏中，正反打的细腻性体现得淋漓尽致，在这场戏里，朱维尔第一次发自肺腑地对着FBI的警官进行了批判。很多观众一定觉得这场戏很能调动情绪、很“燃”，但他们很可能没有意识到，伊斯特伍德是通过恰到好处的正反打变体达成这一点的。因为，这种古典主义的风格图式实在是太“透明”了。

在刚开始的时候，朱维尔、律师和两位警官被分解成两个双人镜头，但它们其实都是“伪双人镜头”。在朱维尔和律师所处的镜头中，灯光主要关照的是密集地进行发言的朱维尔，而身形较暗、较为沉默的律师处于画面的次要地位；在两位警官的那个镜头中，发言人主要是乔恩·哈姆扮演的、咄咄逼人的汤姆·肖。

所以，这两组双人镜头之间的正反打，其实是朱维尔与肖之间一对一的交锋。随着这场戏的发展，这一点变得越来越明显。之所以正反打又名“过肩正反打”，就是因为在A听B说话的时候，我们常常会看到A模糊的肩部，这样我们就能同时体认谈话的双方。

而在这场戏中，当两位警官说话的时候，我们本来能够看到朱维尔和律师的肩部。但随着谈话的深入，我们就只能看到朱维尔的肩部了——伪双人镜头渐渐变成了真正的单人镜头。伊斯特伍德微微将镜头右移，同时调整景别，最后我们看到的，是朱维尔与肖的特写正反打。

伊斯特伍德通过这种方式，一方面让我们逐渐关注场景中最重要的焦点，一方面通过越来越近的景别，创造了一种循序渐进的紧张感。最有趣的是，当朱维尔在特写镜头中慷慨陈词、批判FBI之后，景别旋即变远，我们再次看到了两个松弛的双人镜头——这恰恰是让观众纾解情绪的过程。

在这场迷人的戏中，伊斯特伍德用这种最不易被觉察的、古典主义的手法，发挥了推动叙事进展的指示性效果，也达成了抒发情绪的表现性效果。在很多时候，即使是那些欧洲艺术电影的风格，也都在发挥着这两种效果。

当然，伊斯特伍德这部技艺精湛的古典之作，不仅仅使用了连贯性剪辑这套武器。其实，更为久远的好莱坞古典主义电影，是并不排斥较远景别的场面调度的，只不过这种调度也和剪辑一样，会被用来展现透明化的叙事——霍华德·霍克斯正是连贯性调度的大师。

在《理查德·朱维尔的哀歌》中，伊斯特伍德通过与剪辑同等细腻的调度，在中远景中展现了奥运会场地、报纸编辑部等一系列的空间，以及这些空间中的群像。我们看到的不只是朱维尔这个个体，还有一个范围广阔的社群。正因如此，这种风格也非常适合用来表述这种社会议题。

那种用超近景别构成的电影，其实是晚近好莱坞电影追求感官刺激的策略。所以，伊斯特伍德的古典性，不仅相对于那些追求电影语汇突破的欧洲电影，也相对于那些当代的好莱坞电影。看他的电影，我们感受到的不是刺激，而是流畅与舒适，我们真的在聆听一个好好被讲述的故事，真的在思考一个含义深远的历史悖论。

有趣的是，理查德·朱维尔也恰恰是这么一个“古典主义”的个体。他坚守着那种颇为古典的价值观，无限忠诚地履行着自己的职责，所以他不会“出错”。在这个万物失格的时代，像朱维尔这样的人早已成为了少数派。

年近九十岁的伊斯特伍德，坚守着这种古典主义风格，或许也正是因为，在向观众传达自己所思所想的时候，他希望自己的影像不要出一点差错。

年届九十的东木导演最近十年里的作品基本上都是人物传记题材，从总统到飞机师，从狙击手到毒贩，再到这部新作里的平民英雄。他总能在真实人物的生平故事里提炼出最震撼的闪光点，从而提升整部传记片的表现层次，以及凸显出发人深省的现实诉求，这部新作自然也不例外。一位平民英雄对抗政府与媒体的事件可以有不少表现角度，而导演采用最平铺直叙的方式依然散发出扣人心弦的魅力。滴水不漏的叙事手法令观众看得屏息静气，爆炸案发生的场景段落拍出了希区柯克式的胆战心惊气氛，群像速写与镜头捕捉，以及精准的场面调度让人惊叹。除了深厚的导演功力外，自然还少不了一众演技出色的演员支撑起这个剧本。尽管人物塑造局限于真实性而有脸谱化的嫌疑，比如像女记者和联邦探员，却仍能在某几场关键的段落中传达出发人深省的意味。奥斯卡女主角凯西·贝茨扮演的母亲角色最为真挚感人，她的绝望、愤怒、伤感情绪都表现得丝丝入扣，尤其是在记者会上的讲话令人忍不住泪流满面。

回到影片主题上，这部新片跟《萨利机长》有不少共通之处，借助这位平民英雄为自己平反冤屈的事件过程中不断质疑政府权力的正义与合理性。一个清白无辜的平民百姓可以被怀疑是十恶不赦的罪犯，还被用尽各种手段（诱骗、骚扰与监听）来套取证据以便定罪控告。与其说这是司法部门工作中的漏洞，倒不如说是公权力对人民的蔑视，用影片中角色的一句台词来概括：我害怕政府更甚于恐怖分子。主人公一直在为这种权力辩护，甚至主动配合，深信自身清白便能脱身，直至最后才明白要主动出击对抗蛮横的权力才能平反正名。

除了公权力之外，剧中主人公还要面对追求关注度的媒体，他和家人的生活逐渐陷于媒体曝光和骚扰的漩涡里。剧本透过刻画女记者这个具有反派意味的角色，导演不留情面地对编造不实消息新闻的媒体予以强力抨击。在互联网信息泛滥的时代，越来越多的媒体不惜编造新闻博取读者眼球和点击量，甚至虚构故事而对新闻当事人造成不可估量的打击和影响。发生在20多年前的这个事件却早已透露出如此远见，足可令人反思新闻媒体的本质。

看了电影后不是很能理解为什么这部电影在颁奖季没有什么水花，所以便在网上搜了搜评论。在烂番茄上，这部电影的媒体评分只有73%，远远不及《利剑出鞘》等电影。我更疑惑了，于是仔细看了看这些媒体的评价。最终引导我看到了一个来自亚特兰大宪章报对这部电影的批评。批评主要针对电影中女记者Kathy Scruggs的塑造。这位女记者不折手段的用性交易的方式从FBI探员那里获取了他们即将对理查德·朱维尔展开调查的消息，从而一手导致了朱维尔从“英雄”到“凶手”的噩梦之旅。实际上，大部分对电影的负面评价都针对于这个女记者的形象。我在看电影的时候已经预感到了，这个女记者的形象触犯到了不仅仅是媒体的职业道德问题，而是已经触犯了目前最敏感的性别政治问题。

这部电影像老爷子的绝大多数电影一样以展现事实真相为中心。所以批评者不可能不注意到这个女记者用性交易来获取信息这一细节是否是真的事实？毕竟人已经去世，之前也没有任何证据。所以很多批评者嘲讽这个电影是“太过戏剧化”的处理了真人真事。有的评论直接点出了“抹黑女性”。以至于饰演这个角色的演员奥利维亚·王尔德不得不站出来撇清：她作为一个演员无法决定和改变剧本的内容。个人觉得老爷子确实不应该在电影里包含这一幕。但同时也认为这可能就是老爷子的一种讽刺。毕竟当年FBI在撤销对朱维尔的调查后，朱维尔转头就控告了包括NBC在内的多家媒体，大部分媒体都和他庭外和解了，只有亚特兰大宪章报坚持认为他们的报道是基于客观事实的推论，并没有捏造和污蔑的地方。所以，一个FBI内部的消息，是怎么被一个女记者知道的呢？老爷子如此推理，恰如当年的记者们通过朱维尔这个笨拙肥胖还与妈妈合住的单身白人男子形象推论他是凶手一模一样。其实这个电影里处处都是这种嘲讽。因为朱维尔本身就是一个不完美的小人物，他除了被不公正的对待外，还有过激的历史，不交税和一屋子的枪。即便到了最后FBI找不出任何可以指控他是凶手的证据，那位FBI的探员还是铮铮有词的指责朱维尔：我知道你就是凶手，虽然我没有证据，但我知道你就是。那位FBI探员并不仇恨朱维尔，也没有理由仇恨朱维尔，他只是对自己深信不疑，这种态度其实是大多数人的写照。如果最后不是真凶浮出水面，多少人会一直怀疑朱维尔的清白？

不过亚特兰大宪章报的那个批评最有意思的其实是后面的读者评论，多达四百多条。而这四百多条评论的焦点大部分转向了特朗普。电影里有一句台词提到了"quid pro quo"。这句话最近不要太火。其实这个电影的剧本早在几年前就完成了，电影的拍摄也是在特朗普被弹劾调查之前就已经完工了。但是谁让老爷子pro特朗普呢？！整个美国的媒体都在骂特朗普，老爷子却说在“希拉里和特朗普之间，他肯定要选特朗普”。这简直就是媒体公敌了。就算没有那个女记者，估计老爷子的这个电影也不会受到媒体的好评。但是有了这句台词，媒体又可以推论：老爷子在借电影讽刺民主党对特朗普的调查。其实个人认为老爷子并非真的支持特朗普，他明确表示过不会以资金或其它任何形式来支持特朗普，他只是表明在希拉里和特朗普之间，他觉得特朗普至少是比较诚实的。个人觉得美国媒体和“言论自由”简直就是矛盾的两级。鲜有媒体是没有自己的立场的，但是你不能有和他们对立的立场。我天天听崔娃的节目，这个节目的立场不要太鲜明，各种嘲讽丑化特朗普，采访希拉里各种夸奖赞美，还要多有倾向性呢？但是你不能批评媒体不客观，这是他们的“言论自由”和“政治正确”。

关于这个电影，它所产生的真实背景，以及现在的舆论背景，都让对它的讨论不可能再是对电影的讨论了。很有意思的是，在浏览这些评论的时候，我最大的感触是对同样的一个事物，人与人之间会有多么多的不同的感受与看法。而我们每一个人在言说自己的感受时就在改变事实的真相，也许下一次的世界大战真的就是“口水战”吧。

《理查德朱维尔的哀歌》由美国导演克林特.伊斯特伍德所执导，上映于2019年的改编电影。本片原型取自于1996年亚特兰大奥运爆炸案中发现炸弹装置的保安，他一直梦想着成为执法者。在这次事件中他先是被嘉奖为梦寐以求的角色：人民的英雄，而后却被媒体诬陷为炸弹凶手的事件。而在不断恶化的社会舆论中，他意识到自己所面对的不仅是公众的质疑，更是媒体和执法机构的联合阻力。在这样重重困境中，他该如何破局？

本片开头即精准地刻画了一位在保守州成长的右翼白人男性。从主角在一所学校中当保安，对学生进行训斥：告诫他们要遵守校园规定并对之保持敬意；到后来镜头一转，描绘了主角在南方广袤的靶场里练枪。再到此后因为学生的投诉，校长把他叫到办公室批评说：现在的学生非常懂得维护自己的权益，你还是尽量不要惹是生非。他答曰：我只知道应该遵守法律，遵守规则。我们不应该挑衅它。从这时刻即已经预示了后面的剧情的发展---这是一个哪怕受到执法机构不公正对待的，也会遵守其规定且对其保持敬意的秩序驯化者。

正是因为处于对秩序和规则的尊敬，才让理查德对于法律的执行者---警察，FBI保持憧憬。然而，由于自身的体型以及能力问题，他并没有成功成为执法者。在被学校解雇后，成为了亚特兰大奥运会的保安。而整个奥运爆炸案的实质性内容在本片并不是重点。在理查德发现炸弹后，他迅速被群众拥趸。在一场媒体疯狂寻找热点进而促进销量的体育赛事中，真正的体育竞技反而显得无足轻重。媒体要的只是热点，而不是实质性体育技巧的讨论。所以炸弹案一出，理查德迅速的登上了各大媒体的头版头条。此刻，风光无限，他终于成为了梦寐以求的人民英雄---“维护了秩序”。理查德母亲热泪盈眶地说道：我亲爱的理查德，我真为你骄傲，我一直知道你能成功。

此后警方的调查却陷入了困境，在全国所有媒体的聚焦下，凶手却一直无法归案。在不断的压力下，一名FBI探员肖恩开始对理查德起疑：是否整个爆炸案事件是他自己自导自演？ 警方转而对这位“人民英雄”展开调查。随着调查的深入，警方发现理查德的嫌疑越来越大：这是一位成年已久仍和母亲一起居住的男性---他可能有心理问题；他小时候为了炸鼹鼠制作过土制炸弹；理查德好几年没缴税了；理查德曾经假扮警察被逮捕；在学校当保安时经常被投诉；家里有手榴弹，哪怕它是空心的；他甚至保留了公园里的椅子碎片作为纪念。种种迹象显示理查德有可能就是凶手。

此后的剧情发展才真正开始进入本片的主线。亚特兰大宪章报的女记者凯西为了抢先在别的媒体前面获得独家信息，决定向FBI探员肖恩套话。通过情色手段，肖恩把他们现在的调查进度告诉了女记者，并嘱咐她不要对公众公布。可第二天亚特兰大宪章报的头版却是：英雄还是罪犯，爆炸案是理查德自导自演的？此时，全国舆论哗然。一夜之间，理查德从人民英雄变为众矢之的。无数媒体将他家门口围得水泄不通---他们等待着FBI什么时候对理查德进行传讯，理查德什么时候会“自曝”。而从未见过这种场面的“红脖”理查德顿时无法招架，只得打电话给曾经给他发广告的律师。律师赶紧前往理查德家中，和他对接下的行动进行法律的准备，教他如何应对FBI的问话。

此后，FBI对理查德的“传讯”开始。这其实并不是传讯，在实行普通法的美国，法治的重要基石之一即为无罪推定，只有在有决定性证据证明一个自然人是罪犯的情况下，才能对其进行逮捕。而以肖恩为代表的FBI以诱导的方式，利用理查德对于执法者的崇拜，在假装对理查德进行一般问话时，支开他的律师，诱导他说出“我（理查德），是放置炸弹的人“，并对其秘密录音。此后，利用这个“决定性证据”，对其发出逮捕令。而此时，FBI对他家进行的无意义的地毯式搜索---拿走理查德母亲的睡衣裤与私人用品，只是为了搜出真正的决定性证据。（因为他们自己心中知道自己的证据是假的，这是彻头彻尾的违法取证！完全违反程序正义）而在这番令人受尽屈辱的对待中，理查德竟然极力配合，理由是肖恩探员对他说：你也知道我们执法者的苦衷，理查德回答说：是的，FBI的命令我是一定会遵守的。他的律师对FBI这样的行为十分愤怒，对肖恩大吼到：你们可以对他进行调查，但是不可以侵犯他家庭的尊严！而对于理查德本身，律师更是问道：你为什么不生气？理查德答道：我只是一个法律的遵守者。

此后理查德被羁押，等待司法系统的正式起诉，而他的律师和律师助理想尽办法证明他是无罪的，而女记者凯西此时良心发现，计算了具体爆炸案的距离和时间，发现理查德根本不可能有机会作案。而理查德的母亲此时在律师的帮助下，召开了新闻发布会，声泪俱下地控诉媒体的偏向报道，不实地指控自己的儿子。令人动容。而律师利用自己收集的证据和新闻发布会推翻了FBI的检控，最终理查德被无罪释放。最后，在联邦调查局办公室里，肖恩对理查德说：“我知道是你干的，我一定会找到证据证明你是罪犯。”而在这场风波的末尾，理查德终于进行了绝地反击---在经历了系统性的不公正对待后，他说道：我确实不是罪犯，如果你找到证据证明我当然不会反抗，前提是，真的证据。

这部影片在当下的美国语境中所敲响的警钟是振聋发聩的，但却遭到了社会舆论的冷遇。单从所获得的奖项与评价就看的出来：烂番茄媒体评价73%，各大颁奖典礼也完全没有水花，美国把控着文化传播的左翼精英很明显地拒绝了这部电影。这部电影更是被部分媒体攻击：片中所刻画的女记者凯西表现了导演本人“鲜明”的厌女立场，从而引发了媒体对于片中所触犯的性别政治雷区进行口诛笔伐。

抛开记者的性别不谈，单是从记者是否有权力通过其他不法手段获取信息来进行报道谈起。奉行三权分立的美国，身为第四权的新闻权理应对司法，行政，立法进行制衡。而片中所表现的非但不是新闻权对于司法权的制衡，反而是和司法权进行媾和，进而对于一个他们自己所不喜的普通右翼男性进行绞杀。这是典型的精英话语权对于普通群众的压制。媒体对于销量和点击量近乎病态的追逐，代表着他们完全对于自己职业操守和做人良心的嗤之以鼻。而司法系统对于达成自己目的而完全不顾程序正义的行为，更是将美国宪法的基石视如粪土。

而在此时此刻的美国，这样一部影片更是警钟长鸣。深挖这些所谓的主流媒体背后的财团：CNN，纽约时报，华盛顿邮报，MSBCN，NPR，Newsweek,大西洋月刊…会意识到媒体不过是左翼政治集团的打手和傀儡，只是为了自己的得势而进行的政治宣传。而为达到目的无所不用其极：对右翼政治人物进行捏造攻击，诬陷。2020年美国大选期间，华盛顿邮报（Washington Post）试图再现第二次水门事件，针对特朗普关于佐治亚州的投票问题录音进行编辑，想要描绘出一个试图作假改变选票的候选人形象。对于特朗普本人更是直接写出一片特稿来对其进行许多不实的攻击，而在短短的一个月后，华盛顿邮报自己又悄无声息的刊登了一篇道歉文章：针对此前的一篇稿件针对特朗普先生的不实指控，以及“不小心”对录音文件进行编辑对民众进行了误导宣传表示歉意。而华盛顿邮报这样的道歉行为实际上算十分罕见，更多的主流媒体，例如CNN，在BLM期间，对非裔美国人的犯罪行为，通过图片编辑将其肤色调亮成为白人；或是纽约时报明显采用的错误的数据误导读者；在此后却继续装聋作哑，假装无事发生。

对于群体陷入狂热，美国的右翼如同片中的理查德一样，是秩序的遵守者，即使这个系统秩序有一定争议。当在媒体的煽动下，被迫卷进事件的主角，选择了法律的武器自证清白。这是在系统内捍卫正义。群体的狂热，激动是可以被理解的，因为绝大多数人没有选择权，是美国宣传机器下的产物。但不管愤怒的群体也好，理性的个体也好，都是生活在系统下。我们应该诉诸系统下的正当手段，这样才有助于一个良性的系统持续运转。一个良性的系统是有自我纠正能力的，他可以进行新陈代谢，通过立法的手段来割掉癌变部位。而通过激进左翼的街头手段，冲击的不仅是系统的病灶，更是将整个系统置于动荡之中。而一旦良性的系统失灵，社会就会陷入不稳中，犯罪率会激升，而此时的左翼却根本没有能力对于这个失控的社会进行管制，左翼的本质其实就是只有破坏，从不治理。对于一个满目疮痍的社会系统来说，这样做或许是最好的选择，而对于一个运转尚可的系统来讲，这样做只会给社会带来负面效应，进而导致众生的陨落，至于激进左翼背后的精英集团对摇摇欲坠的社会却毫不在意---激进集团只是他们夺权的手段。

而在当今的美国，由于左翼媒体占据舆论高地，天然地对于话语权进行垄断。而越来越式微的右翼逐渐被隐形，2016年特朗普的上台左翼媒体被“惊吓”，高呼民粹主义的回归，美国右转。而右转真正是从16年才开始的吗？右翼被隐形了太久，没有媒体，没有大学教授，没有跨国公司，没有好莱坞……这是左翼精英长年累月对于这个右翼群体的刻意忽视，视而不见所造成的。这部影片的主旨当然不是想还原当时爆炸案的完整细节，而是导演本人对于当下美国左翼的栽赃陷害进行反击：急速左转的好莱坞将政治正确奉为圭臬，打着人人都可以做自己的口号，在文化上越来越“多彩”的左倾主义宣传下，实际上是立场越发单一的政治审查。

克林特·伊斯特伍德拍电影的速度真的很快，而且质量也很高。

2018年圣诞档才上映了《骡子》，2019年圣诞档又有了新片《理查德·朱维尔的哀歌》上映。

影片改编自真实事件，1996年亚特兰大奥运会时，身为保安的理查德·朱维尔在公园发现了炸弹。

虽然炸弹还是爆炸了，但是由于理查德和警察们在此之前尽可能疏散了人群，从而减少了伤亡。

然而理查德还没当几天英雄，就被怀疑是爆炸案的主谋。

人们说他自导自演了这场拯救百姓的戏码，由罪犯摇身一变成了英雄。

“成为爆炸案的嫌疑人”是怎样一种体验，远远比我们想象中残酷得多。

因为你的一举一动都会被人们过度解读，在人们眼中你的一切正常的行为都是你的伪装，你的一切“不正常”的行为都是你的犯罪证据。

你和母亲一起住，那你一定心理不正常。

你不可能在报警后及时回到公园，所以你一定有同伙。

所以你和大卫是同性恋情侣，你和他一起策划了这场爆炸案。

还有大卫小时候为了炸鼹鼠制作过土制炸弹，理查德好几年没缴税了，理查德曾经假扮警察被逮捕，在学校当保安时经常被投诉，家里有手榴弹，哪怕它是空心的，甚至保留了公园里的椅子碎片作为纪念……种种迹象都被认为是理查德就是罪犯的证据。

理查德根本解释不清楚，因为FBI已经认定他是罪犯，无论他说什么FBI都不会相信。

或者说，无论理查德说什么都不是FBI想听的，FBI唯一想听的就是“是的，炸弹就是我做的”。

只要理查德不说这句话，FBI就绝不放过他。

FBI会翻出八百年前的陈年往事，会编造理查德根本没有做过的事，但事实上他们根本没有证据。一切都是他们的推测和猜想。

他们没有证据，也不是根据证据来查案，而是根据结论来反推证据。

比如现在的结论是理查德就是罪犯，而事实上理查德现在是一名保安，他很想做一名警察，所以他策划这起拯救百姓的英雄行为很符合逻辑。

但是这种“先假设他是罪犯，然后反推他的作案动机”是很不科学的，而且也是不符合规定的。

唯一符合规定的做法，就是讲证据。

如果你没有证据，就应该把他放了，没有权力叫他签一些对他不利的文件，也没有权力用各种各样的方式套路他。

其实FBI怀疑理查德是正常的流程，在案情水落石出之前，任何人都可能是爆炸案的主谋。

那么事情闹大的原因是什么呢？

FBI怀疑理查德后，也许会暗中调查理查德，最后发现罪犯不是理查德，就会排除理查德的嫌疑，将怀疑的对象转向其它人，直到抓到真凶为止。

但是这个时候出现了一个变数：肖探员违反规定泄露了机密，随后媒体又发布了FBI怀疑理查德是罪犯的文章。

这就让事情变得复杂了。

既然媒体已经大肆宣传FBI怀疑理查德是罪犯，假如最终结果理查德不是罪犯，就会显得FBI办案能力太差，所以FBI不愿向人们承认他们没有任何证据，也不肯宣布他们不会起诉理查德，一定要逼理查德承认他根本没做过的事。

所以这就是一个“执法人员违反规定，媒体人抛弃专业素养，结果无辜百姓为他们的错误买单”的故事。

FBI唯一考虑的事是假如理查德不是罪犯，人们会怎么看待FBI。

他们只在乎颜面，不在乎这么做会对理查德和他母亲产生怎样的影响。

而媒体根本不在乎真相，他们只在乎报纸的销量和热度。

之前他们跟风说理查德是英雄，现在又跟风说他是罪犯，甚至直接问他“你的同伙是谁”，仿佛理查德就是罪犯的事已经实锤了。

当肖探员把局里的机密泄露给凯西后，凯西立马就将它刊登在了报纸上。报纸的销量就是一切，至于理查德和母亲会面临什么关她屁事。

眼看报纸刊登这则新闻，她高兴得哈哈大笑，仿佛今天是她的生日一般。同事们也纷纷向她鼓掌，仿佛她做了一件很伟大的事。

这不是恐怖片，但是这一幕却比任何一部恐怖片更加恐怖。因为鬼不可怕，人比鬼可怕多了。

凯西在新闻中写道FBI“怀疑”理查德，如果下一家媒体再这么写就没有噱头了，所以之后的媒体为了博眼球不断造谣传谣、添油加醋，传到最后“怀疑”变为了“实锤”，人人都认定理查德就是罪犯。

包括理查德的母亲很喜欢的新闻节目主持人汤姆·布罗考也是如此，今天他可以跟风赞扬你，明天他也可以跟风诋毁你。

在收视率和金钱面前，真相和良心一文不值。

88天后，FBI写给理查德一封信，宣布不再怀疑理查德。

这个时候餐厅里只剩下理查德、布莱恩特、肖探员，媒体去哪儿了呢？

首先，这件事已经过了整整88天，早已没有了热度，媒体早就去追更新的新闻了。

这种现象在20年后的今天也没有任何改变。

那些轰动一时的热点事件，有哪一个是有后续进展的？

全都是不出三五天就会被新的热点事件覆盖，于是旧的那件就不了了之了。

其次，媒体知道“一个人成为英雄”远远没有“英雄就是罪犯”更具话题性。

用现在的话来说就是前者可能只有1万阅读量，后者则可能是10万+。

相比于英雄被捧上神坛，人们更喜欢看到英雄跌落神坛。

相比于英雄的诞生，人们更喜欢看到英雄的毁灭。

而且谣言永远比辟谣更具话题性。谣言往往有很高的阅读量，辟谣却没多少人看。

经常会遇到长辈被朋友圈的谣言文章所欺骗，花高价去买根本没有任何用的保健品。如果你去给他们科普，阻止他们购买，他们还觉得你在害他们。

所以当媒体宣布FBI怀疑理查德的时候，理查德家门口的记者比三天前他刚成为英雄的时候多了十倍。

而当FBI宣布不再怀疑理查德的时候，他和布莱恩特身边却没有记者了。

也许第89天，第90天，第91天……邻居、同事、好友还会对理查德进行指责、侮辱，因为没有几家媒体发布理查德洗清冤名的新闻，他们不知道自己错怪理查德了。

当理查德被冤枉的时候，当他最想清静的时候，无数记者在他家门前围得水泄不通。

而当他恢复声誉，重新由犯罪嫌疑人变为英雄的时候，当他最需要人们的道歉的时候，人们却消失了。

正如《让子弹飞》中，他剖开自己的肚子，证明自己只吃了一碗凉粉的时候，看热闹的人们却散了。

你挖开身体，把血淋淋的真相展示给大家，才发现人们并不在乎真相，都是看热闹的。

凯西被布莱恩特批评后，并没有坚信自己是对的，而是去走了那条公园到电话亭的路，发现自己错怪了理查德。

理查德的母亲开新闻发布会的时候，凯西也留下了悔恨的眼泪。

导演还是太善良了，他最后还是给凯西安排了一个良心发现的剧情。

但是我们都知道，当一名媒体人尝到人血馒头的甜头后，可能再也不愿回去吃粗茶淡饭了。

正如FBI已经宣布不再怀疑理查德，肖探员却说他仍然怀疑理查德，仍然觉得他有一个同伙……

FBI审问理查德的时候，肖探员提的问题让人后背发凉：

如果不是你放的炸弹，你怎么知道要到塔的另一层，从而躲过炸弹的袭击？

发生了爆炸案，所有人都对遇难者表示同情，也对幸存者感到幸运。

而肖探员竟然质问理查德为什么能够幸免于难。

正如前面所说，当你成为了爆炸案的嫌疑人，你的一举一动都会被人们过度解读。

理查德和母亲住在一起是错的，有一个小时候制作过土制炸弹的朋友是错的，收藏椅子碎片是错的……甚至连在爆炸案中活下来都是错的。

所以理查德才会做梦梦见自己当时没有离开炸弹，而是抱住炸弹，以生命为代价保护人们。

有时候他甚至会想，他不应该在爆炸案中活下来，他应该因公殉职，这样人们就不会怀疑他、质问他了。

理查德和母亲没有在爆炸案中受伤，却成为了第113个和第114个受害者。而事实上，他们本该是及时发现炸弹、减小伤亡的英雄。

“如果不是你放的炸弹，你怎么知道要到塔的另一层，从而躲过炸弹的袭击？”听起来是不是很耳熟？

13年前，也有一个法官用同样的问题，伤透了好人的心：如果不是你撞的她，你为什么要扶她？

正是这句话，从此让老人讹人有了理由，也让人们不敢去扶摔倒的老人，哪怕这次是真的。

因为他们不想成为第二个彭宇，不想做完好事后被人质问：如果不是你撞的她，你为什么要扶她？

理查德·朱维尔案之后，不难想象警察看见可疑背包都会不敢上报，会假装没看到。

因为他不想成为第二个理查德，不想被人质问“如果不是你放的炸弹，你怎么知道要到塔的另一层，从而躲过炸弹的袭击”，不想让自己做的一切都是错的，连活着都是错的。

On July 30, 1996, the media identified Richard Jewell as the F.B.I.'s prime suspect in the Olympic Park bombing. For the first time, the 34-year-old security guard tells his extraordinary story, to MARIE BRENNER: his brief moment as a national hero, his hounding by the Feds and the press, and his eccentric friendship with the unknown southern lawyer who helped him through his public torment.

FEBRUARY 1997 MARIE BRENNER DAN WINTERS The search warrant was short and succinct, dated August 3, 9:41 A.M. F.B.I. special agent Diader Rosario was instructed to produce "hair samples (twenty-five pulled and twenty-five combed hairs from the head)" of Richard Allensworth Jewell. That Saturday, Atlanta was humid; the temperature would rise to 85 degrees. There were 34 Olympic events scheduled, including women's team handball, but Richard Jewell was in his mother's apartment playing Defender on a computer set up in the spare bedroom. Jewell hadn't slept at all the night before, or the night before that. He could hear the noise from the throng of reporters massed on the hill outside the small apartment in the suburbs. All morning long, he had been focused on the screen, trying to score off "the little guy who goes back and forth shooting the aliens," but at 12:30 the sound of the telephone disturbed his concentration. Very few people had his new number, by necessity unlisted. Since the F.B.I. had singled him out as the Olympic Park bombing suspect three days earlier, Jewell had received approximately 1,000 calls a day—someone had posted his mother's home number on the Internet. "I'll be right over," his lawyer Watson Bryant told him. "They want your hair, they want your palm prints, and they want something called a voice exemplar—the goddamn bastards." The curtains were drawn in the pastel apartment filled with his mother's crafts and samplers; A HOME WITHOUT A DOG IS JUST A HOUSE, one read. By this time Bryant had a system. He would call Jewell from his car phone so that the door could be unlatched and Bryant could avoid the questions from the phalanx of reporters on the hill. Turning into the parking lot in a white Explorer, Bryant could see sound trucks parked up and down Buford Highway. The middle-class neighborhood of apartment complexes and shopping centers was near the DeKalb Peachtree Airport, where local millionaires kept their private planes. The moment Bryant got out of his car, the reporters began to shout: "Hey, Watson, do they have the murderer?" "Are they arresting Jewell?" Bryant moved quickly toward the staircase to the Jewells' apartment. He wore a baseball cap, khaki shorts, and a frayed Brooks Brothers polo shirt. He was 45 years old, with strong features and thinning hair, a southern preppy from a country-club family. Bryant had a stern demeanor lightened by a contrarian's sense of the absurd. He was often distracted—from time to time he would miss his exits on the highway—and he had the regional tendency of defining himself by explaining what he was not. "I am not a Democrat, because they want your money. I am not a Republican, because they take your rights away," he told me soon after I met him. Bryant can talk your ear off about the Bill of Rights, ending with a flourish: "I think everyone ought to have the right to be stupid. I am a Libertarian." At the time Richard Jewell was named as a suspect by the F.B.I., Watson Bryant made a modest living by doing real-estate closings in the suburbs, but Jewell and his lawyer had formed an unusual friendship a decade earlier, when Jewell worked as a mailroom clerk at a federal disaster-relief agency where Bryant practiced law. Jewell was then a stocky kid without a father, who had trained as an auto mechanic but dreamed of being a policeman; Bryant had always had a soft spot for oddballs and strays, a personality quirk which annoyed his then wife no end. The serendipity of this friendship, an alliance particularly southern in its eccentricity, would bring Watson Bryant to the immense task of attempting to save Richard Jewell from the murky quagmire of a national terrorism case. The simple fact was that Bryant had no qualifications for the job. He had no legal staff except for his assistant, Nadya Light, no contacts in the press, and no history in Washington. He was the opposite of media-savvy; he rarely read the papers and never watched the nightly news, preferring the Discovery Channel's shows on dog psychology. Now that Richard Jewell was his client, he had entered a zone of worldwide media hysteria fraught with potential peril. Jewell suspected that his pickup truck had been flown in a C-130 transport plane to the F.B.I. unit at Quantico in Virginia, and Bryant worried that his friend would be arrested any minute. Worse, Bryant knew that he had nothing going for him, no levers anywhere. His only asset was his personality; he had the bravado and profane hyperbole of a southern rich boy, but he was in way over his head. For hours that Saturday, Bryant and Jewell sat and waited for the F.B.I. From time to time Jewell would put binoculars under the drawn curtain in his mother's bedroom to peer at the reporters on the hill. Bryant was nervous that Jewell's mother, Bobi, would return from baby-sitting and see her son having hairs pulled out of his head. Bryant stalked around the apartment complaining about the F.B.I. "The sons of bitches did not show up until three P.M.," he later recalled, and when they did, there were five of them. The F.B.I. medic was tall and muscular and wore rubber gloves. He asked Jewell to sit at a small round table in the living room, where his mother puts her holiday-theme displays. Bryant stood by the sofa next to a portrait of Jewell in his Habersham County deputy's uniform. He watched the F.B.I. procedure carefully. The medic, who had huge hands, used tiny drugstore tweezers. "He eyeballed his scalp and took his hair in sections. First he ran a comb through it, and then he took these hairs and plucked them out one by one." Jewell "went stone-cold," but Bryant could not contain his temper. "I am his lawyer. I know you can have this, I know you have a search warrant, but I tell you this: If you were doing this to me, you would have to fight me. You would have to beat the shit out of me," Bryant recalled telling the case agent Ed Bazar. Bazar, Bryant later said, was apologetic. "He seemed almost embarrassed to be there." As he counted out the hairs, he placed them in an envelope. The irony of the situation was not lost on Bryant. He was a lawyer, an officer of the court, but he had a disdain for authority, and he was representing a former deputy who read the Georgia law code for fun in his spare time. It took 10 minutes to pluck Jewell's thick auburn hair. Then the F.B.I. agents led him into the kitchen and took his palm prints on the table. "That took 30 minutes, and they got ink all over the table," Bryant said. Then Bazar told Bryant they wanted Jewell to sit on the sofa and say into the telephone, "There is a bomb in Centennial Park. You have 30 minutes." That was the message given by the 911 caller on the night of the bombing. He was to repeat the message 12 times. Bryant saw the possibility of phony evidence and of his client's going to jail. "I said, 'I am not sure about this. Maybe you can do this, maybe you can't, but you are not doing this today.'" All afternoon, Jewell was strangely quiet. He had a sophisticated knowledge of police work and believed, he later said, "they must have had some evidence if they wanted my hair. ... I knew their game was intimidation. That is why they brought five agents instead of two." He felt "violated and humiliated," he told me, but he was passive, even docile, through Bryant's outburst. He thought of the bombing victims— Alice Hawthorne, the 44-year-old mother from Albany, Georgia, at the park with her stepdaughter; Melih Uzunyol, the Turkish cameraman who died of a heart attack; the more than 100 people taken to area hospitals, some of whom were his friends. "I kept thinking, These guys think I did this. These guys were accusing me of murder. This was the biggest case in the nation and the world. If they could pin it on me, they were going to put me in the electric chair." I met Richard Jewell three months later, on October 28, a few hours before a press conference called by his lawyers to allow Jewell to speak publicly for the first time since the F.B.I. had cleared him. Jewell's lawyers also intended to announce that they would file damage suits against NBC and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It was a Monday, and that weekend the local U.S. attorney had delivered a letter to one of the lawyers stating Jewell was no longer a suspect. "Goddamn it," Bryant had told me on the phone, "the sons of bitches did not even have the decency to address it to Richard Jewell." I had been instructed to come early to the offices of Wood & Grant, the flashy plaintiff lawyers Bryant had pulled in to help him with Jewell's civil suits. When I arrived, I was alone in the office with Sharon Anderson, the redheaded assistant answering the phones. "Wood & Grant . . . Wood & Grant . . . Wood & Grant"—the calls overwhelmed her. Lin Wood and Wayne Grant were rushing from CNN to the local NBC and ABC affiliates, working the shows. "Everyone has theories of who the real bomber is," Sharon said. "I just write it all down and give it to the boys." When Lin Wood arrived, he was still in full makeup. Movie-star handsome with green eyes and styled hair, Wood has the heated oratory of a trial lawyer. "It's a war! Why in this bevy of stories does not anyone point out the fact that Richard was a hero one day and a demon the next? They have destroyed this man's life!" Watson Bryant had worked with Wood and Grant years before in a local law firm. He admired Wayne Grant for his methodical sense of detail; Grant, a New Yorker, had once forced the city of Atlanta to pay large damages to a man injured while illegally digging for antique bottles in a park. But Lin Wood's suppressed rage was a marvel to Bryant. "He is so tough he could make people cry in depositions when we were kids," Bryant told me. Wood possessed the smooth style of a member of the Atlanta establishment, but he had a hardscrabble past. He was a boy from "the wrong side of the tracks" in Macon who at age 17 discovered his mother's body after his father had murdered her. His father went to jail, and Wood wound up as a lawyer. He went through college and law school on scholarships and with part-time jobs. I could hear Wood on Sharon's telephone: "He's more than innocent. He's a goddamn hero. . . . Everyone is going to pay who wronged Richard Jewell. Besides NBC and The A.J.C., we are going to look into suing CNN and Jay Leno." Through the large picture window, I had a clear view of the remains of the Centennial Olympic Park, where the bomb had exploded on the night of July 26. Where the sound-and-light tower had once been, there was now a flattened dirt field. It was possible to see the Greek commemorative sculpture that Richard Jewell used to describe for tourists at the AT&T pavilion, where he worked as a security guard. Suddenly, Jewell was in the room. "Hi. I'm Richard. I'm a little late. I don't want you to think I am rude. I am not like that." He had an open face, a bland pleasantness, an eagerness to please. "Can I get you a Coke?" he asked me. "How about some coffee?" Jewell wore a blue-and-white striped shirt and chinos. He occupied physical space like a teenager; he sprawled, he lumbered, he pawed through Sharon's candy bowl. On TV his face had a porcine blankness; he appeared suspicious. In person, Jewell has a hard time disguising his emotions. We were alone in the conference room; I noticed that Jewell avoided looking out the window toward the park. He shifted his glance nervously away from the view. He often awakens in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, thinking of the events in the park in the early morning hours of July 27. "It took me days before I could even come in here," he said anxiously. The newsroom atmosphere resembled that at F.B.I. headquarters; there was a frenzy to be first. When Jewell noticed a local ABC reporter outside near Sharon's desk, his face darkened. "I don't want to be around reporters right now. I guess I am a little nervous. What is he doing here?" The atmosphere was now filled with tension; the reporter was escorted out. Moments later, we gathered in the hallway. Wood was steely: "We are going in two cars. Richard, you drive with me. Your mother will go with Wayne. As we walk down the hall right now, if the ABC people are outside, I will tap you on the shoulder and I will say, 'How are you doing?' You will say, 'Fine.' Is that understood?" "O.K., Lin. I understand," Jewell said quietly, head bowed. As Jewell walked down the hall, an ABC cameraman photographed him looking grim. Seconds after the elevator doors closed, Jewell exploded: "What are they doing here, Lin? Did you invite them? They are animals. Why didn't you get them out of here?" "ABC has been good to you. How do I get them out of the office on the day of your press conference?" "That is what security is for!" Jewell said, quivering with rage. "Where is Watson?" he asked in the garage. "I told you: he's at a real-estate closing. He will meet you at the press conference," Wood said. Jewell moved to his mother's side, as solicitous as a child. "Are you all right, Mother?" he asked. "It is all I am going to be able to do not to do something!" she said angrily. When we arrived at the Marriott hotel on 1-75, there was another discussion in the parking lot, about who would walk with whom in front of the cameras. Jewell turned to his close friend Dave Dutchess: "Are you all right, man?" Dutchess, a truckdriver who worked with Jewell years ago, has long hair and a tattoo of a panther on his forearm. "Richard and I are like brothers," he told me. "I would die for him." As the cameras closed in on them, the group fled to a private room in the Marriott. The auditorium was filled with reporters. "Showtime! Showtime!" the cameramen yelled when Jewell, his mother, and all the lawyers took the stage. "I hope and pray that no one else is ever subjected to the pain and the ordeal that I have gone through," Jewell said, his voice breaking. "The authorities should keep in mind the rights of the citizens. I thank God it is ended and that you now know what I have known all along: I am an innocent man." After the press conference, Bobi and Richard Jewell remained in a private room. The bookers from Good Morning America and the Today show pressed Jewell to step before their cameras, and when Watson Bryant told them no, Monica, the G.M.A. booker, began to cry, "I'll lose my job." Then Yael, the Today-show booker, cornered Nadya Light: "Is Richard doing something with G.M.A.?' Upstairs, Jewell and his mother were being filmed by a CBS camera crew for a 60 Minutes news update. "Well, Bobi, did you get your Tupperware back?" Mike Wallace asked by phone from New York. "Richard, you need to lose some more weight." Despite Wallace's festive spirit, the atmosphere was curiously flat. Bryant urged Jewell to talk to a USA Today reporter. Jewell balked: "They can all go suck wind." In the car on the way back to Wood & Grant, Bobi was angry. All of her possessions had come back from the F.B.I. marked up with ink. "Every piece of Tupperware I own is ruined, thank you very much. They wrote numbers all over it, and I have tried everything to clean it—Comet and Brillo—but nothing works." Back at the office, she sat on the sofa and listened as Bryant negotiated with Yael for a flight to New York— Delta, first-class, 9:30 P.M. Jewell was scheduled to appear on three shows in New York, visit the American Museum of Natural History, and then fly to Washington, D.C., for Larry King Live. "I would like to go home, put on my outfit, and walk in the woods," Bobi said. "Richard, we are leaving." "Yes, ma'am," Richard said. One hour later, a telephone call came in to the offices of Wood & Grant. The lawyers had the call on speaker, and it blared through the room. "Goddamn it, Lin. When will this be over?" In the background, you could hear Bobi sobbing. "What in the world?" Wood asked. Jewell explained that a sound truck from ABC had been waiting in the parking lot when the Jewells got home. There had been words and threats, and Dave Dutchess had taken his stun gun off his motorcycle and waved it at the ABC van. The cameraman yelled: Stop harassing us! Dave yelled back: You are harassing us! Now get your ass out of here! Wood shouted into the speakerphone: "Do not meddle! You cannot jeopardize where you have gotten to and what you want to do! All you have to do is put up with this for one more day and the damn thing is over. Bobi, there is nothing you can do about it; you have to stay cool." Bobi cried back, "They are going to destroy me!" The moment they hung up, Wood turned to Bryant. "New York is canceled. No Katie Couric. No Good Morning America. They are losing it. You better call Yael." "No," Bryant said, "they have lost it. All of the above: their patience, their temper and heart." That evening a very testy Katie Couric tracked Bryant down at Nadya Light's apartment, where we had gone to watch the news. "I want you to know that I canceled interviewing Barbra Streisand in L.A. for Richard Jewell. Don't think he is always going to be a news story. No one will care about him in three days," she said, according to Bryant. "Look, Katie, I am sorry. But Richard is in no condition to talk to the press. He is worn out," Bryant told her. Later, Jewell would tell me that that day, which should have been one of his most satisfying, was actually his worst. His notoriety had tainted the triumph; everything positive had become negative. "I was in despair," he said. As he had for most of the previous 88 days, he spent the night confined in the Buford Highway apartment, a prisoner of his circumstances, with his mother, Dave Dutchess, and Dave's fiancee, Beatty, eating Domino's Pizza and watching himself lead the newscasts on NBC, CBS, and ABC. "This case has everything—the F.B.I., the press, the violation of the Bill of Rights from the First to the Sixth Amendment." 'This case has everything— the F.B.I., the press, the violation of the Bill of Rights, from the First to the Sixth Amendment," Watson Bryant told me in one of our first conversations. It has become common to characterize the F.B.I.'s investigation of Richard Jewell as the epitome of false accusation. The phrase "the Jewell syndrome," a rush to judgment, has entered the language of newsrooms and First Amendment forums. On the night of Jewell's press conference, a commentator on CNN's Crossfire compared Jewell's situation to "Kafka in Prague." The case became an investigative catastrophe, which laid bare long-simmering resentments of many F.B.I. career professionals regarding the micromanagement style and imperious attitude of Louis Freeh and his inner circle of former New York prosecutors, who have worked together since their days at the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District. Within the bureau, the beleaguered director now has a new nickname: J. Edgar Hoover with children. Like Freeh, those near him have also acquired a nickname: Louie's yes-men. Two of Freeh's closest associates, F.B.I. general counsel Howard Shapiro and former deputy director Larry Potts, have been severely criticized, respectively, for advising the White House of confidential F.B.I. material and for an alleged cover-up of the mishandling of the 1992 standoff at Ruby Ridge, where F.B.I. agents killed the wife and son of Randy Weaver, a white supremacist. In November and December, the Office of Professional Responsibility conducted an exhaustive investigation into the Jewell affair. Responding to an attempt by headquarters and certain officials to distance themselves, according to F.B.I. sources, several agents, including a senior F.B.I. supervisor in Atlanta, have provided the O.P.R. with signed statements insisting that Freeh himself was responsible for "oversight" during the crisis. These agents "shocked the investigators" because they reiterated, when asked who was in charge of the overall command of the investigation, that it was the director himself. What happened to Richard Jewell raises an important question central to Freeh's future tenure: in the midst of a media frenzy, does the F.B.I. have any responsibility to protect the privacy of an innocent man? Over the last year, this concept was broached with Bob Bucknam, Louis Freeh's chief of staff. During the long Pizza Connection trial in the 1980s, it was Bucknam who handed Freeh files at the prosecutor's table. According to highly placed sources in the bureau, Bucknam's answer was immediate: the F.B.I. has no responsibility to correct information in the public domain. Richard Jewell had a reverence for authority that blinded him to the paradox of his situation. He idealized the investigative skills of the F.B.I. and could not understand that he had become ensnared in a web fraught with the weaknesses of a self-protective bureaucracy. Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter has invited Jewell to Washington to testify at congressional hearings on the F.B.I.'s conduct in the Atlanta bombing. Ironically, the bungling of the investigation might lead to the reshuffling of personalities at the top of the bureau and threaten Freeh's reputation. In October, according to The Washington Post, Freeh sent an unusual memo to all 25,000 F.B.I. personnel: He would not be abandoning his post amid reports of problems with the Jewell case and Filegate, and of a growing dissatisfaction inside the bureau. "I am proud to be the F.B.I. director," Freeh wrote. From the beginning, Jewell was perceived in the public imagination as a hapless dummy, a plodding misfit, a Forrest Gump. On one of the first days he worked as a security guard at the AT&T pavilion, he noticed that his co-workers were covering the steps inside the sound tower with graffiti. On one step Jewell scrawled with a flourish two bromides: IF YOU DIDN'T GO PAST ME, YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE and LIFE IS TOUGH. TOUGHER WHEN YOU ARE STUPID. Soon after he was targeted as a suspect in the Olympics bombing, the F.B.I. confiscated the step. Analysts appeared to believe that the graffiti contained a clue to his character. "They told the lawyers the statement was an obvious taunt," Jewell said. In fact, the second line was an expression he had cribbed from one of his favorite actors, John Wayne. Within the F.B.I., the beleaguered director has a new nickname: J. Edgar Hoover with children. "To understand Richard Jewell, you have to be aware that he is a cop. He talks like a cop and thinks like a cop," his criminal lawyer, Jack Martin, told me. The tone of Jewell's voice drops noticeably when he says the word "officer," and his conversation is filled with observations about traffic patterns, security devices, and car wrecks. Even the vocabulary he uses to describe the 88 days he was a suspect is out of the lexicon of police work, and he continues to talk about his situation then in the present tense: "This is an out-and-out ambush, and I am a hostage." Jewell has a need to accommodate. He can be startlingly opaque. On the afternoon of July 30, Jewell answered the door of his mother's apartment to Don Johnson and Diader Rosario from the F.B.I. "We need your help making a training film," they told him. "I never questioned it," he told me. The next day Rosario appeared again with a search warrant. "The weird thing was that when they were searching my apartment I was, like, 'Take everything. Take the carpet. I am law enforcement. I am just like you. Guys, take whatever you are going to take, because it is going to prove that I didn't do anything.' And a couple of them were looking at me like I was crazy." Leaving the apartment on one occasion, he told the agents, "I am wearing a bright shirt so y'all can see me easier." He recalled feeling anger when he read descriptions of himself as a child-man, a mama's boy, and "a wannabe policeman," but he said, "If I was in the place of everybody else and I saw a 34-year-old guy living with his mother, I would have reservations about that, too. I would think, Why is he doing that?" The December issue of Atlanta magazine reported that there was no record of a Jewell family in Danville, Virginia, where Richard Jewell was born. Atlanta referred to an article in the Danville Register & Bee which asked, "Did Richard Jewell ever sleep here?" "This is a part of my life Richard and I do not like to speak about," Bobi Jewell told me one night at dinner. Richard was born in Danville, but his name was Richard White; his father was Bobi's first husband, Robert Earl White, who worked for Chevrolet. According to Bobi, Richard's father, who died recently, was "irresponsible and a ladies' man." When Richard was four, the marriage broke up. Bobi found work as an insurance-agency claims coordinator and soon met John Jewell, an executive in the same business. Shortly after John Jewell married Bobi, he adopted Richard. From the time Richard was a child, he and his mother were a unit. Bobi, a woman of intelligence and disciplined work habits, is both tender and tough on the subject of her son. She still calls Richard "my boy," but she has a peppery disposition. Richard was brought up in a strict Baptist home. "If I didn't say 'Yes, ma'am' or 'No, ma'am' and get it out quick enough, I would be on the ground," he said. When he was six, the family moved to Atlanta. Richard was the boy who helped the teachers and worked as a school crossing guard, but he had few friends in high school. "I was a wannabe athlete, but I wasn't good enough," he said. He ran the movie projector in the library. A military-history buff, he liked to talk about Napoleon and the Vietnam War and read books on both World Wars. Jewell's ambition was to work on cars, so he enrolled in a technical school in southern Georgia. On his third day there, Bobi discovered that her husband had packed a suitcase. "He left a note saying that he was a failure and no good for us," Jewell said. Almost immediately, Richard moved back home and took a job repairing cars. "My mom and I tried to take care of each other," he said. "I think I handled it pretty much better than she did." Richard took the brunt of his father's abandonment; Bobi pulled even closer to her son. "She hated all men for about three years after that, and she became overly protective of me. She looked at it that I was going to do the same thing that my dad did. I was 18 or 19. I was working. She never liked my dates, but I never held that against her. We have always been able to lean on each other." Richard managed a local TCBY yogurt shop and once stopped a burglary in progress. At the age of 22, he was hired as a clerk at the Small Business Administration, and he impressed Watson Bryant and the other lawyers in the office with his personable nature. They called him Radar because of his efficiency. "You could say, 'I'm hungry,' and suddenly this kid would be by your side with a Snickers bar," Bryant recalled. When Jewell's contract with the S.B.A. ran out, he moved on to be a Marriott house detective. In 1990 he was hired as a jailer in the Habersham County Sheriff's Office, and in 1991 he became a deputy. As part of his training, he was sent to the Northeast Georgia Police Academy, where he finished in the upper 25 percent of his class. He finally had an identity; he was a law-enforcement officer. Jewell was unlucky in love. He presented one woman with an engagement ring, and later, in Habersham County, he would give another a large wooden key with a sign that read, THIS IS THE KEY TO UNLOCK YOUR HEART, but both relationships came apart. In northern Georgia, Jewell worked nights and became wedded to his job. By his own description, he was methodical. "I am the kind of person who plans everything. I like to go from A to B to C to D. This going from A to D and arguing over everything—I say no." Habersham County, a scenic part of the piney woods in Georgia's Bible Belt, was for Jewell like "leaving the 1990s and going into the 1970s in terms of law enforcement." Many rich Atlantans have country houses in the mountains, but the small towns of Demorest and Charlottesville are relatively undeveloped, reminding one of Jewell's lawyers of the scenery in the movie Deliverance. "If you get lost up there, you might find a guy with a bow and arrow," the lawyer said. Recently, Jewell and I took the 90-minute drive from Atlanta to Habersham County, which has acres of apple orchards. The leaves were turning, and the roads were mostly deserted. In the towns, however, were stores, apple stands, and even a good Chinese restaurant. As Jewell's blue pickup truck turned into the parking lot of a shopping center, several people came out to greet him. Jewell had lived in a small yellow house up a steep rocky driveway. On the day we visited, the current resident's Halloween decorations were still up, as were faded white satin ribbons hanging from many trees, remnants of a campaign to clear Richard Jewell organized by area friends. Jewell had lived 50 yards from the Chattahoochee River near a kayak-and-canoe tourist concession on a main road—not in a "cabin in the woods," as several reports stated after the bombing. He worked the night shift, and when he would arrive home at dawn, he told me, he could look up and "see a sky filled with stars." He was not a loner; he made friends with several local families. He would often leave a box of Dunkin' Donuts on friends' porches at four A.M. During the O. J. Simpson trial, he and the other deputies would meet in the turnaround on Highway 985 in the middle of the night and review the day's events and the bungling by the Los Angeles Police Department. Jewell would later be annoyed that the F.B.I. confiscated his copy of former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's account of the trial. Jewell dated a local girl, Sheree Chastain, and had a close relationship with her family. Jewell had a complex history working at the Habersham County Sheriff's Office. When he was still a jailer, he arrested a couple making too much noise in a hot tub at an apartment building where he did part-time security work. He was arrested for impersonating an officer and, after pleading guilty to a lesser charge, was placed on probation on the condition that he seek psychological counseling. By his own estimation, Jewell's strength as a cop was "working car wrecks." He had his mother's diligence; he worked 14 hours a day and organized a safety fair. Later in 1995 he wrecked his patrol car and was demoted to working in the jail. Rick Moore, a local deputy, advised him to accept the job, but Jewell despised the jailhouse atmosphere. He told me, "It was a small room filled with cigarette smoke. I couldn't take it." He resigned, and in a short time he moved to a police job at Piedmont College, a liberal-arts school with approximately 1,000 students on the main road in Demorest. The college police had jurisdiction only on campus and in an area extending out 500 feet. Jewell chased cars speeding down the highway and had arguments over turf with other officers. He was instrumental in several arrests, including that of a suspected burglar he discovered hiding at the top of a tree. For his work on a volunteer rescue squad, he was named a citizen of the year. According to Brad Mattear, a former resident director, Piedmont was a school of "P.K.'s"—preachers' kids. It was 80 percent Baptist with a strict no-drinking rule. The college had many rebellious students, according to Mattear, kids who were "away from home for the first time and wanted to party and drink." Mattear knew Jewell well and recalled his good manners and playful nature. "It was always 'Yes, sir' and 'Yes, ma'am.'" Jewell would tell students, "I know y'all are going to drink. Don't do it on campus." Jewell felt confined by his boundaries and could be heavy-handed when it came to writing out reports on minor infractions. Once when we were driving by the campus, he pointed to a small brick dormitory. "That was where all the partying would go on," he told me. Jewell would raid dorm rooms and report drinking violations. "I did not hesitate to tell the parents—in no uncertain terms—what their kids were up to," he said. He soon made enemies at the school. "Three or four times a week," Mattear said, Piedmont students were in the office of Ray Cleere, the president of the college, complaining about Jewell and other Piedmont police. After Jewell was admonished for a number of controversial arrests, he resigned. Jewell had an out: his mother was going to have an operation on her foot. He would go home to Atlanta for the Olympics and look for a new job. He called his mother: "Is it all right with you if I stay with you while you have your surgery?" He hoped he might get a job with the Atlanta police or, failing that, work security at the Olympics. "I thought, Working at the Centennial Olympic Park will look really good on my resume." At the age of 33, back in his mother's apartment, he was at first treated like a wayward teenager. Bobi was sharp with him about his slovenly habits, his weight, and his driving. Bobi had carved out a life for herself; she arrived at work by eight A.M. each morning and had many friends. Trim, with short-cropped hair, Bobi Jewell is the kind of woman who labels her clothes and spices and spends much of her spare time baking cakes and babysitting for extra money. She carries on telephone friendships with claim adjusters at other companies. It was somewhat unsettling for her, she told me, to have Richard at home after she had grown used to living with only her dog, Brandi, and her cat, Boots. Bobi was annoyed that he had wrecked a patrol car, and worried about his safety. "Every time he leaves the apartment, I'll say, 'Richard . . . ' And he'll say, 'Yes, ma'am. I know. The person that I am going to see will be there when I get there,'" she said. On one occasion Bobi talked about Richard's return to Atlanta. "What is wrong with trying to revamp your life?" she asked me. Her eyes filled with tears. "Why does everyone in the media think it is so strange?" On Friday, July 26, Bobi Jewell was home waiting for her niece to arrive from Virginia for the Olympic softball competition the following week. In preparation, she had stocked her apartment with food. It was a clear Georgia evening, not as hot as had been expected. As usual, Richard left for the park at 4:45 P.M. and arrived at the AT&T pavilion about 5:30. His stomach was bothering him; he was convinced that he had eaten a bad hamburger the day before. Lin Wood and Wayne Grant had arranged to take their children to Centennial Park that night. The park, in downtown Atlanta, stretches over 21 acres. There were air-conditioned tents, concerts on the stage, and hot-dog and souvenir stands. Downtown Atlanta was usually deserted in the oppressively hot, humid summer, but this year thousands of tourists filled the sidewalks, or sat on benches in the shade of some crape-myrtle trees, or cooled off by a fountain. Tour buses clogged the main arteries, and everyone complained that it took hours to get anywhere; stories were traded about athletes' getting to their competitions late because of the poor planning of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games. As always, Jewell was working the 12-hour night shift near the sound-and-light tower by the stage. He was pleased because one of his favorite groups—Jack Mack and the Heart Attack—was going to perform at 12:45. Jewell had a routine: he would check in and fill the ice chest he kept by a bench at his station. Jewell liked to offer water and Cokes to pregnant women or policemen who stopped to rest. After he arrived at the park, his stomach cramps grew worse and he had a bout of diarrhea. At approximately 10 P.M. he took a break to go to the bathroom. The closest one was by the stage, but the security staff was not allowed to use it. "I really have to go," Jewell says he told the stage manager. "And he said, 'Well, O.K. this time.'" When Jewell came out, he noticed that it was "real calm" and there wasn't much wind blowing. At that time of night, the crowd from Bud World became a little more raucous. Jewell was annoyed when he saw a group of drunks near his bench and beer cans littering the area beside the fence nearby. As he went to report the trash and the group that was carousing, he spotted a large olive-green military-style backpack, known as an Alice pack, under the bench. There had been a similar bag found the week before. Jewell later told an F.B.I. agent that he was annoyed that one of the drunks had tried to get into the lens of a camera crew. Jewell had told them to cut it out. "They were running off at the mouth," Jewell would later tell Larry Landers of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (G.B.I.). "I was light about the package at first," he told me, "kidding around with Tom Davis from the G.B.I.: 'Well, are you going to open it?' At that point, it was not a concern. I was thinking to myself, Well, I am sure one of these people left it on the ground. When Davis came back and said, 'Nobody said it was theirs,' that is when the little hairs on the back of my head began to stand up. I thought, Uh-oh. This is not good. "I never really had time to be frightened. My law-enforcement background paid off here. What went through my head was like a computer screen of this list I had to do. I had to call my supervisor. I have to tell people in the tower that something was going on. I have to be firm with them, stay calm, and be professional." Almost immediately, Jewell and Tom Davis cleared a 25-foot-square area around the backpack; Jewell made two trips into the tower to warn the technicians. "I want y'all out now. This is serious." Two blocks away on Marietta Street, approximately 300 editors, copywriters, and reporters from Cox newspapers around the country had taken over the extra desks in the new eighth-floor newsroom at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to prepare the special Olympics edition they put out each afternoon. The paper had gone "Olympics-crazy," according to one reporter. The editor, Ron Martin, and the managing editor, John Walter—"WalMart," as they were called—had let it be known that no expense would be spared. Ann Hardie, who normally covers science, had been sent around the world to master the fine points of beach volleyball; Bill Rankin, officially on the federal-court beat, was assigned table tennis. The paper intended to set new standards in its hometown during the games, but in addition there was a hint of redemption in the air. Since Cox newspaper executives had forced the resignation of the distinguished editor Bill Kovach in 1988, the paper had suffered a severe loss of reputation. "We all felt just kind of beaten down," one reporter said. Kovach had been brought to Atlanta from The New York Times to elevate The A.J.C. into being the definitive paper of the New South, but eventually he irritated the local powers. Atlanta was inbred, a city of deals, and he resigned in a blaze of press outrage. Kovach now ran the Nieman journalism-fellowship program at Harvard, and the movie rights to his turbulent years in Atlanta—reported in these pages by Peter J. Boyer—had been sold to Warner Bros. Within the profession, The A.J.C. had become something of a joke. More and more, its emphasis was on what John Walter called "chunklets"—short bits in a soft-news style known as eye-candy. The paper published features on couples massage and how mushrooms grow in the rain. Walter had fired off several terse memos to ensure that there would be no more jumps of news stories to back pages and no more unsourced news stories, except on rare occasions. "I don't see any reason why you can't report hard news in a short form," one editor told me. The A.J. C. style of reporting in declarative sentences had a name, too: the voice of God. It was omniscient, because it allowed no references to unattributed sources. Subjects such as AIDS, which often required confidentiality, could not be covered properly in the paper, in the opinion of several reporters. The A.J.C. picked up news stories with unnamed sources from The New York Times, however, and reporters groused about the hypocrisy of the double standard. On Saturday morning, July 27, Bob Johnson, the night metro editor, left the newsroom at one A.M. The sidewalks were still crowded; Johnson sat on a wall outside waiting for an A.J.C. shuttle bus to pick him up. About 1:25 he heard a strange noise. "It sounded like an aerial bomb at a fireworks show," he said. He recalled thinking, Damn, that is sort of foolish. Then he heard screams and saw people running. Johnson rushed back upstairs to the almost deserted sixth-floor newsroom. Lyda Longa, a night police reporter, was still there. Johnson sent her down to the park and turned on the news, but nothing had moved across the wires. Just after two A.M., Longa called from the park. She told Johnson that one person had been killed and dozens were down—it was absolute chaos. Johnson could hear the sirens and the screams through the telephone; he began to type into his computer. "We were trying to get a bullet into the street edition," Johnson recalled. In the crisis, it took only minutes for reporters to return to the newsroom; several had been at the park when the bomb went off. Rochelle Bozman, an Olympics editor, appeared and took over for Johnson. Soon John Walter was there, as was Bert Roughton, who would assist him in supervising the A.J.C. coverage of the bombing. At the park, Jewell spoke with the first F.B.I. agents to arrive on the scene. The smell and the noise, he remembered, were overwhelming, and sensations blurred together. "It was hard to describe the sound," he said. "It was like what you hear in the movies. It was, like, KABOOM. I had seen an explosion in police training. We had ear protection when it went off. It smelled like a flash-bang grenade. The sky was not filled with black smoke, but grayish-white. All the shrapnel that was inside the package kept flying around, and some of the people got hit from the bench and some with metal." Bobi Jewell had just gone to sleep when the telephone rang. It was Richard. "Mom, they had a bomb go off down here, but I am O.K. regardless of what the TV says." He could hardly speak; he seemed paralyzed. Jewell did not mention to his mother that he had found the backpack and alerted Tom Davis. Bobi was perplexed. "I thought, What does he mean?" All night long she stayed on the foldout sofa watching the news reports. She was frightened by the ambulances, the noise, the bodies in the park. Soon veteran homicide detectives in the Atlanta police arrived at the bomb site. One sergeant was trying to make his way through the crowd when an Olympics official stopped him. "Tell these cops to get the hell out of here," he said, according to a captain in the homicide division. "Well, you get the fuck out of here. Who are you?" the sergeant demanded. Agents from the Atlanta F.B.I. office and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were in a shouting match over jurisdiction. "We are handling this!" one said. "No, this is ours!" an F.B.I. agent snapped. In the command center at F.B.I. headquarters in northeastern Atlanta, there was complete pandemonium. The Olympics were a national convention for law enforcement. Some 30,000 security personnel were on hand. Over the next few days, there would be an internal debate: Who was going to be in charge of the bombing investigation? In Atlanta at that time were three veteran investigators with executive experience: Tom Fuentes, who is credited with helping to bring John Gotti to heel; Barry Mawn, who has worked extensively in organized-crime probes; and Robin Montgomery, the head of the critical-incident unit at Quantico, who at Ruby Ridge in 1992 questioned the disastrous "rules of engagement" which led to tragedy. In the early-morning hours, F.B.I. agents picked up several suspects, including one referred to as "the drunk in the bar." According to F.B.I. sources, Louis Freeh himself got on the telephone to Barry Mawn. Freeh, a former F.B.I. agent, was personally monitoring the initial investigation by means of a series of conference calls from the command post at F.B.I. headquarters. He focused on "the drunk in the bar," who had been making threats the night before, and within hours the information was leaked that the F.B.I. had a suspect. From Atlanta, Barry Mawn contacted his superiors in Washington. "This suspect is not the bomber," he reportedly said, according to a former highlevel F.B.I. executive. Freeh allegedly lost his temper and belittled Mawn's professional abilities. He is said to have told Mawn that he "had handled this all wrong." The words one hears characterizing Freeh's telephone calls to the agents on duty in Atlanta are "abusive," "condescending," and "dismissive." A story went around the command center that Freeh was already saying, "We have our man," according to a source in the bureau. Watson Bryant was thinking, I cannot believe that I know anyone who throws pipe bombs into gopher holes. Freeh made a decision: however experienced Montgomery, Fuentes, and Mawn were, this investigation would be run by Division 5 of the F.B.I., the National Security Division, a former counterintelligence unit that has been looking for a purpose since the Cold War ended. Trained in observation, division members rarely made a criminal case—their strength was intimidation and manipulation rather than the deliberate gathering of evidence to be presented in court. The F.B.I. promptly declared the bombing a terrorism case and placed it under the authority of Bob Bryant, head of the division. David Tubbs of Division 5 was sent to Atlanta to be the spokesman and to augment Woody Johnson, the Atlanta special agent in charge (S.A.C.), who had been trained in hostage rescue and who was awkward in press briefings. Tubbs was not as experienced in criminal cases as Mawn or Montgomery, who returned to Newark and Quantico, respectively, "to get out of the line of fire," according to numerous F.B.I. sources. But Bryant and Freeh were reportedly micromanaging the S.A.C.'s and, later, the case agents Don Johnson and Diader Rosario. 106107 VIEW ARTICLE PAGES On the morning of the bombing, Watson Bryant's alarm went off at six A.M. He was going to the Olympic kayak competition on the Ocoee River with Andy Currie, a friend from his Vanderbilt University days. He learned of the bombing on the radio as he was getting ready to go to Currie's house. "Whoever has done this should be skinned alive," he told Currie. He spent the day in the country, and on Sunday he went out to run errands. When he got home, there was a message on his answering machine: "Watson, this is Richard Jewell. You may have heard that I found the bomb and people are calling me a hero. Somebody told me I might get a book contract." It had been years since Bryant had spoken to Jewell, but he did not immediately return the call; he was busy finishing up some contracts so that he could take a few days off to enjoy the Olympics. In addition, Bryant was annoyed with Jewell. After Bryant had befriended him in their days at the Small Business Administration, Jewell had borrowed his new, $250 radar detector and never returned it. He had promised to pay him $100 for it, but he never had. In the meantime, Bryant's life had changed; he had set up an office as a solo practitioner. Bryant despised corporate politics and had no gift for them. His penchant for taking on pro-bono work for friends annoyed his wife, however. Bryant believed that Richard Jewell had attached himself to him years earlier because he lacked a father, but nevertheless Jewell could get on his nerves. By the summer of 1996, Bryant was preoccupied; his marriage had come apart two years earlier, and he was trying to sort out his life. When he finally returned Jewell's phone call, he said, "Well, damn it, where's my $100?" Jewell laughed uneasily and told him about discovering the green backpack that contained the bomb. "Didn't you see me on the news?" Bryant reminded him that he rarely watched TV. "I am proud of you, Richard," he said. "About this book contract, I think it's far-fetched, but don't sign anything unless I see it first." In the Newsweek cover story detailing the bombing, published Monday, July 29, there was no mention of Richard Jewell. It said only that "a security guard" had alerted Tom Davis of the G.B.I. that no one had claimed the backpack under his bench. By the time Newsweek was on the stands, however, Jewell had been interviewed on CNN. The AT&T publicity department had booked him on TV and told him to wear the shirt with the AT&T logo. Jewell reluctantly agreed. "The idea of going on TV made me nervous," he told me. "I was not the hero. There were so many others who saved lives." In Demorest, Ray Cleere, the president of Piedmont College, was home on Saturday, July 27, watching CNN. Cleere had at one time been Mississippi's commissioner of higher education, but he was now posted at the rural Baptist mountain school. He was said to feel that he had suffered a loss of status in the boondocks, where he was out of the academic mainstream. He called Dick Martin, his chief of campus police. Shouldn't they call the F.B.I. and tell them about Richard Jewell? he asked. Cleere had had a strong disagreement with Jewell when one of the students was caught smoking pot. Jewell wanted to arrest him; Cleere said no. Cleere, Brad Mattear recalled, "worried constantly about the image of the college." According to Mattear, "Cleere loved the limelight. He wanted public attention"—the very trait he reportedly ascribed to Richard Jewell. Dick Martin, who was fond of Jewell, suggested a compromise, according to Lin Wood: he would call a friend in the G.B.I. Cleere then called the F.B.I. hot line in Washington himself. Wood says Cleere later complained that no one had seemed to want to listen to what he had to say about Richard Jewell. But his telephone call would trigger a complex set of circumstances in Habersham County, where F.B.I. investigators fanned out over the hills, attempting to uncover evidence that could lead to Jewell's arrest. "The F.B.I. took his word, and what it actually did was get them both in a bunch of trouble," Mattear said. (Cleere has declined to comment.) For Richard Jewell, Tuesday, July 30, would become a haze in which his life was turned upside down. "The hours of the day ran so fast it is hard to remember what all happened," he told me. He started the day early at the Atlanta studio of the Today show. He was tired; the evening before he had had his friend Tim Attaway, a G.B.I. agent, for dinner. He had made lasagna and had drawn Attaway a diagram of the sound-and-light tower. Jewell had talked into the night about the bombing; only later would he learn that Attaway was wearing a wire. Despite the late evening, Jewell was excited at the thought of meeting Katie Couric and being interviewed about finding the Alice pack in the park. His mother asked him to try to get Tom Brokaw's autograph. "He was a man my mom respected a great deal," he said. When he got back to the apartment, he was surprised to see a cluster of reporters in the parking lot. "Do you think you are a suspect?" one asked. Jewell laughed. "I know they'll investigate anyone who was at the park that night," he said. "That includes you-all too." Jewell did not turn on the TV, but he noticed that the group outside the door continued to grow. At four that afternoon, Jewell received a phone call from Anthony Davis, the head of the security company Jewell worked for at AT&T. "Have you seen the news?" Davis asked. "They are saying you are a suspect." Jewell said, "They are talking to everybody." According to Jewell, Davis said, "They are zeroing in on you. To keep the publicity down, don't go to work." Within minutes, Don Johnson and Diader Rosario knocked on Jewell's door. They exuded sincerity, Jewell recalled. "They told me they wanted me to come with them to headquarters to help them make a training film to be used at Quantico," he said. Johnson played to Jewell's pride. Despite the reporters in the parking lot and the call from Anthony Davis, Jewell had no doubt that they were telling the truth. He drove the short distance to F.B.I. headquarters in Buckhead in his own truck, but he noticed that four cars were following him. "The press is on us," Jewell told Johnson when they arrived. "No, those are our guys," Johnson told him. This tactic would continue through the next 88 days and be severely criticized: Why would you have an armada of surveillance vehicles stacked up on a suspected bomber? It was then that Jewell started to wonder why he was at the F.B.I., but he followed Johnson and Rosario inside. Rosario was known for his skills as a negotiator; he had once helped calm a riot of Cuban prisoners in Atlanta. Johnson, however, had a reputation for overreaching. In Albany, New York, in 1987, he had pursued an investigation of then mayor Thomas Whalen. According to Whalen, the local U.S. attorney found no evidence to support Johnson's assertions and issued a letter to Whalen exonerating him completely, but Whalen believed it cost him an appointment as a federal judge. As Jewell sat in a small office, he wondered why the cameraman recording the interview was staring at him so intently. After an hour, Johnson was called out of the room. When he returned, he said to Jewell, "Let's pretend that none of this happened. You are going to come in and start over, and by the way, we want you to fill out this waiver of rights." "At that moment a million things were going through my head," Jewell told me. "You don't give anyone a waiver of rights unless they are being investigated. I said, 'I need to contact my attorney,' and then all of a sudden it was an instant change. 'What do you need to contact your attorney for? You didn't do anything. We thought you were a hero. Is there something you want to tell us about?'" Jewell grew increasingly apprehensive and later recalled thinking, These guys think I did this. When the agents took a break, Jewell asked to use the phone. "I called Watson four times. I called his brother. I told his parents that I had to get hold of Watson—it was urgent. I was, like, 'I have to speak to him right now.' What was going on was that Washington was on the phone with Atlanta. The people in Washington were giving them questions." Jewell said he knew this because the videotapes in the cameras were two hours long and "Johnson and Rosario would leave every 30 minutes, like they had to speak on the phone." The O.RR. report, however, would assert that no one at headquarters knew about the videotaping or the training-film ruse. Lying to get a statement out of a suspect is, in fact, not illegal, but clearly Johnson and Rosario were not making decisions on their own. Even the procedure of having a fleet of cars follow a suspect was an intimidation tactic used by the F.B.I. Later, according to Jewell, Johnson and Rosario would both tell him privately that they believed he was innocent, but that the investigation was being run by the "highest levels in Washington." Within the bureau, the belief is that during one of the telephone calls Freeh instructed Johnson and Rosario to read Jewell his Miranda rights. Freeh is said to have learned of Johnson's history from a member of his security detail, who had worked in Atlanta. He told Freeh that "Johnson had a reputation for being obnoxious and a problem." In addition, a week after Jewell's interview, Freeh reportedly received a call from Janet Reno, who had learned about the ruse from Kent Alexander, the local U.S. attorney, and Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick. Freeh wondered aloud how it was that, of all the agents in Atlanta, Johnson had been selected to work on the Jewell case. Like Jewell, Johnson had wound up in Atlanta because of his overzealous behavior—according to an F.B.I. source, the Whalen episode had resulted in a "loss-of-effectiveness transfer," an F.B.I. euphemism. (Johnson declined to respond.) On that same Tuesday, Watson Bryant and Nadya Light closed the office early and went to Centennial Park. Light, 35, a pretty Russian immigrant, had never met Radar, Bryant's old friend, and wanted to buy him a celebratory meal. Killing time until Jewell came on duty, they went into the House of Blues and then bought some hot sauce. Walking toward his car, Bryant saw newsboys hawking the afternoon edition of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "It was like out of a cartoon. They were all yelling!" he recalled. "I caught the headline out of the corner of my eye." The headline read: FBI SUSPECTS 'HERO' GUARD MAY HAVE PLANTED BOMB. Bryant borrowed 50 cents from Light to buy the paper and began to read: '"Richard Jewell, 33 . . . fits the profile of the lone bomber.' I could not believe it." At that moment, Bryant's brother, Bruce, who was on his way to the diving competition, got a call from Jewell. "Where is Watson?" As Bruce Bryant walked past a Speedo billboard with a TV screen, he saw Richard Jewell's face filling the screen. "Oh, my God," he said to his wife. At the same moment, Watson was in his car a block away on Northside Drive when he too noticed the Speedo screen. He could not get back to his house—the streets were blocked off for the cycling competition. From his car he called F.B.I. headquarters and demanded to speak to Jewell. "He is not here," the operator said. From his home phone, he picked up his messages and heard Jewell's low, urgent tones. "He didn't leave a number," Bryant told Light. "Call Star 69," she said. The number came back: 679-9000, the number for F.B.I. headquarters, which he had just dialed. Within minutes, Bryant had Jewell on the phone. Jewell told him he was making a training film. "You idiot! You are a suspect. Get your ass out of there now!" Bryant told him. Before The Atlanta Journal-Constitution broke the story of Richard Jewell, there had been a debate in the newsroom over whether or not to name him. One block away, CNN's Art Harris and Henry Schuster had alerted the network's president that Jewell was targeted, but they held the story, because they understood its potential magnitude. At The A.J.C., Kathy Scruggs, a police reporter, who had allegedly gotten a tip from a close friend in the F.B.I., got a confirmation from someone in the Atlanta police. According to the managing editor, John Walter, the first edition of the paper that Tuesday had a brief profile of Jewell. It was dropped in later editions as Walter questioned whether the paper had enough facts to support the scoop. Because of the voice-of-God style, the paper ended up making a flat-out statement: "Richard Jewell . . . fits the profile of the lone bomber." When I asked John Walter about the lone-bomber sentence, he said, "I ultimately edited it. . . . One of the tests we put to the material is, is it a verifiable fact?" One editor added, "The whole story is voice-of-God. . . . Because we see this event taking place, the need to attribute it to sources—F.B.I. or law enforcement—is less than if there is no public acknowledgment." John Walter indicated that he had not seen a lone-bomber profile. I asked him, "Whose profile of a lone bomber does Richard Jewell fit? Where is the 'says who' in this sentence?" Walter said that he felt comfortable with the assertion. The page-one story had a double byline: Kathy Scruggs and Ron Martz. Walter had told these two early on that they would be the reporters assigned to any Olympic catastrophe. Martz, who had covered the Gulf War, had been assigned the security beat for the Olympics; Scruggs routinely covered local crime. Scruggs had good contacts in the Atlanta police, and she was tough. She was characterized as "a police groupie" by one former staff member. "Kathy has a hard edge that some people find offensive," one of her editors told me, but he praised her skills. Police reporters are often "dictation pads" for local law enforcement; recently the American Journalism Review sharply criticized The A.J. C. for the scanty confirmation and lack of skepticism in its coverage of Jewell. The newsroom atmosphere resembled that at F.B.I. headquarters; there was a frenzy to be first. Kent Walker, a newsroom intern, published a story in the same edition, with a glaring mistake in the headline: BOMB SUSPECT HAD SOUGHT LIMELIGHT, PRESS INTERVIEWS. Since Ray Cleere's tip to the F.B.I., the "hero bomber" theory had been circulating among Atlanta law enforcement officers. Maria Elena Fernandez, a reporter, was sent to Habersham County on July 29. By coincidence, William Rathburn, the head of security for the Olympics, had been at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 when a fake bomb was found on a bus—left by a policeman who sought attention. On the surface, the story had an irresistible newsroom logic: Jewell was clearly looking for recognition. Bert Roughton, the city editor, had answered the telephone when a representative from AT&T called to ask if the paper would like a Jewell interview. According to Walter, Roughton himself typed a sentence in the Scruggs-and-Martz piece: "He [Jewell] also has approached newspapers, including The Atlanta JournalConstitution, seeking publicity for his actions." But he hadn't. Walter explained, "There was nothing wrong with that sentence. That's journalistically proper. It is not common practice, to my knowledge, to ask someone you are interviewing . . . 'Are you here of your own free will?'" Jewell had not contacted the paper—a fact which would have been easy enough to check. Walter became snappish when I described the sentence as "a mistake." "It was not a mistake," he said angrily. Scruggs and Martz quoted Piedmont College president Ray Cleere as backup. According to Cleere, Jewell had been "a little erratic" and "almost too excitable." There was no doubt raised by The A.J.