Ben Chaplin credited as playing...
Marvin Bader
- Marianne Gebhardt: [translating] He's saying that the Games are an opportunity to welcome the world to a new Germany, to move on from the past.
- Marvin Bader: Yeah, sure.
- Marianne Gebhardt: I mean, it's what we all hope for. What else can we do but move on, try to be better?
- Marvin Bader: [stops the video] Are your parents still around?
- Marianne Gebhardt: Yes.
- Marvin Bader: Let me guess- they didn't know either, right?
- Marianne Gebhardt: [pause] Well, I'm not them.
- Marvin Bader: No. No, you're not. I'm sorry.
- Marvin Bader: [watching the German press secretary speaking with Jim McKay in the studio] As far as we can see?... What is that? As we hoped?... That doesn't sound right.
- Marvin Bader: Black September, they know the whole world is watching. If- I'm saying if- they kill a hostage on live television, whose story is it? Is it ours, or is it theirs?
- Geoffrey Mason: We never said it was a fact. We used, "As we are hearing".
- Marvin Bader: That's a fucking technicality, Geoff.
- Peter Jennings: [over the phone] Whatever conception you have of Arabia or Arabs, you need to understand how sensitive this situation is. This is no longer the Olympics.
- Marvin Bader: Thank you, Peter, for, uh, clarifying. It does bring up a good question. What should we call them on the air?
- Peter Jennings: In News, we would refer to them as commando guerrillas.
- Roone Arledge: Commando? That sounds like we're in Vietnam or something.
- Geoffrey Mason: What was it they called them in German radio?
- Marianne Gebhardt: "Terrorists."
- Roone Arledge: What was that?
- Marianne Gebhardt: They used "terrorists."
- Roone Arledge: Okay. Let's... let's go with that.
- Peter Jennings: That's a charged term. Terrorism is the organized and systematic use of violence against civilians to affect a political goal.
- Marvin Bader: Isn't that pretty much what's happening here?
- Peter Jennings: Nobody knows yet what is happening here. So we have to be very careful about everything we say on air.
- Marvin Bader: [about the terrorists having access to the ABC coverage] Then they should have cut the electricity to the apartment! It's not up to us to double-check on them.
- Geoffrey Mason: That... Marv, it's not okay if we made it worse. You know that.
- Marvin Bader: We don't even know why they called it off. The Germans seem generally pretty overwhelmed.
- Marianne Gebhardt: They are. I'm listening to the police radio; it's local cops doing things they have never done before. The German Army gave them sniper rifles and had to instruct them on how to use them.
- Geoffrey Mason: Why doesn't the German Army just do it itself?
- Marianne Gebhardt: They're not allowed to operate here. German Constitution.
- Geoffrey Mason: That's ridiculous!
- Marvin Bader: The rumor is Israel offered to send a special unit to help them out, and that Germany refused it.
- Marianne Gebhardt: They are just making one mistake after another and trying to act like they've got it all under control.
- Marianne Gebhardt: [translating interview on the radio] Someone's asking the chief of police if he thinks it was a mistake that the Olympic Village had no armed police.
- Jacques Lesgards: Of course it was!
- Marianne Gebhardt: [pause] I guess they didn't want the world to be reminded of the last time armed Germans patrolled fences.
- Jacques Lesgards: So, Germany's makeover is more important than people's safety?
- Marvin Bader: C'mon. This isn't our business.
- [points at TV screens]
- Marvin Bader: That is our business, and in less than an hour, we go live.
- Marvin Bader: You don't want anybody to see their kid executed on live television.
- Roone Arledge: Of course not, Marv...
- Marvin Bader: So I... I don't know about the Israelis, but David Berger's folks are in Ohio, so I'm pretty sure they'll watch.
- Roone Arledge: Well, someone should tell them not to watch it. But we have a bigger responsibility here.