60 Minutes (1968) s46e09 Episode Script
Season 46, Episode 9
Charlie and Carol Gasko were an elderly couple who moved to Santa Monica, Calif.
, sometime in early 1997 to begin a new phase of their life.
For the next 14 years, they did almost nothing that was memorable.
And they would be of absolutely no interest, if it weren't for the fact that Charlie Gasko turned out to be James "Whitey" Bulger, the notorious Boston gangster, and longtime fugitive who is just beginning to serve two lifetime sentences.
Carol Gasko was actually Catherine Greig, Whitey's long time girlfriend and caregiver.
The story of how they managed to elude an international manhunt for so long while hiding in plain sight is interesting.
And tonight you'll hear it from the Gasko's neighbors and for the first time from the federal agents who finally unraveled the case, with the help of a boob job and an alley cat.
If you were forced into retirement, with a comfortable nest egg, and a desire to be left completely alone there is no place better place than Santa Monica, Calif.
This low key, seaside suburb of L.
A.
is shared by transients and tourists, hippies and hedonists, celebrities and lots of senior citizens attracted to the climate and an abundance of inexpensive rent-controlled apartments, just a few blocks from the ocean.
Places like the Princess Eugenia on Third St.
, which is where Charlie and Carol Gasko, a childless couple from Chicago, lived for from long time neighbors or landlords.
Josh Bond is the building manager.
Steve Kroft: What were they like? Josh Bond: They were-- like, the nice retired old couple that lived in the apartment next to me.
Steve Kroft: Good tenants? Josh Bond: Excellent tenants.
Never complained.
Always paid rent on time.
Steve Kroft: In cash.
Josh Bond: In cash.
Janus Goodwin lived down the hall.
Janus Goodwin: They had nothing.
And they never went out.
They never had food delivered.
She never dressed nicely.
Steve Kroft: You thought they were poor? Janus Goodwin: Yes, without a doubt.
The one thing everyone remembers about the Gaskos is that they loved animals and always made a fuss over the ones in the neighborhood.
Barbara Gluck remembers that Carol Gasko always fed a stray cat, after its owner had died.
Barbara Gluck: She would pet it, you know, and be sweet to it and she put a plate of food like out here.
Steve Kroft: She liked the cat? Barbara Gluck: Obviously.
She loved the cat.
We all liked the cat but she was taking care of the cat.
Steve Kroft: And what about Charlie Gasko? Barbara Gluck: You know, he always had a hat on and dark glasses.
I have to say it was mysterious to me why such a lovely woman like that was hanging out with that guy, that old grumpy man.
I could never figure that one out.
Until I heard they had 800,000 something dollars in the wall.
And then I went, "Oh, OK" you know? Money wasn't the only thing found in the Gaskos' apartment on June 22, 2011, when the FBI stopped by and ended what it called the most extensive manhunt in the bureau's history.
Scott Garriola: Weapons-- weapons all over the apartment.
I mean, weapons by his nightstand, weapons under the windowsill.
Shotguns, Mini-Rugers, rifles.
Steve Kroft: Loaded? Scott Garriola: Loaded, ready to go.
What had started out as a routine day for Special Agent Scott Garriola -- who was in charge of hunting fugitives in LA -- would turn into one of the most interesting days of his career.
After getting a call to stake out a building in Santa Monica, he notified his backup team with the LAPD.
Scott Garriola: I had four guys working that day and we got a tip on Whitey Bulger and "I'll see you there in about an hour.
" And invariably the--texts return, "Who's Whitey Bulger," so.
Steve Kroft: Really? Scott Garriola: Yeah, a few of 'em.
So I had to remind 'em-- gently remind 'em who Whitey Bulger was.
Steve Kroft: That he was No.
1 of the F.
B.
I.
's Most Wanted List-- Scott Garriola: No.
1, yeah.
Big ea-- big East Coast figure but-- so on the West Coast not so much.
The cops in LA were focused on gang bangers and cartel members, not some retired Irish mobster, who hadn't been spotted in 16 years, but then few mobsters have ever been as infamous in a city as Whitey Bulger was in Boston, and his reputation was for more than just being grumpy.
Besides extortion and flooding the city with cocaine, Bulger routinely performed or ordered executions, some at close range, some with a hail of bullets, and at least one by strangulation after which it's been said he took a nap.
Special Agent Rich Teahan who ran the FBI's Whitey Bulger fugitive task force had heard it all.
Rich Teahan: Bulger was charged with 19 counts of murder.
He was charged with other crimes.
He was a scorch to the society in South Boston, his own community.
He was also a scourge to the FBI, and a great source of embarrassment to Teahan, Special Agent Phil Torsney and others on the task force.
Years earlier, Whitey Bulger had infiltrated the Boston office of the FBI and bought off agents who protected him and plied him with information including the tip that allowed Bulger to flee just days before he was to be indicted.
Phil Torsney: We really had to catch this guy to establish credibility after all the other issues.
And it was just a matter of bringing this guy back to Boston to make sure this guy didn't die or get away with this thing.
When Torsney -- now retired -- and Agent Tommy MacDonald joined the Bulger task force in least wanted list.
There hadn't been a credible lead in more than a decade.
And their efforts in Bulger's old neighborhood of South Boston were met with mistrust and ridicule.
Phil Torsney: Some people, they told us right out front, "You guys aren't looking for that guy.
" People just made the assumption we had him stashed somewhere.
I mean, people really thought that kinda thing.
Tommy MacDonald: Despite that mindset that "we're not gonna help you? the FBI still got it done.
Steve Kroft: Took 16 years.
Tommy MacDonald: Took 16 years.
Yeah, this was not a typical fugitive.
The FBI says Bulger had planned his getaway years in advance, with money set aside and a fake identity for a Thomas Baxter.
During his first two years on the lam, Bulger was in touch with friends and family shuttling between New York, Chicago and the resort town of Grand Isle, La.
, where he rented a house until his identity was compromised.
After that it seemed as if Bulger had disappeared from the face of the Earth except for alleged sightings from all over the world.
Steve Kroft: How many of these tips do you think mighta been true? Phil Torsney: Boy there was thousands and thousands of tips.
And I think -- I don't think that any of ï¹em were true.
One of the obstacles were there were really no good photographs of Bulger or his longtime live-in girlfriend Catherine Greig, a former dental hygienist.
The FBI often noted the couple shared a love of animals, especially dogs and cats, and asked veterinarians to be on the lookout.
There were reports that Greig once had breast implants and other plastic surgery in Boston, so the task force reached out to physicians.
Eventually they got a call from a Dr.
Matthias Donelan, who had located her files in storage.
Tommy MacDonald: I was trying to leave the office a little early to catch one of my kids' ballgames.
And I said, "Well, listen-- I'm gonna swing by in the morning and pick those up.
" And they said to me-- "Do you want the photos too?" And I said, "You have photos?" And they said, "Yeah, we have photos.
" I said, "We'll be there in 15 minutes.
" The breast implant lead produced a treasure trove of high resolution Catherine Greig photographs that would help crack the case.
The FBI decided to switch strategies, going after the girlfriend in order to catch the gangster.
[PSA: This is an announcement by the FBIâ¥.]
The FBI on created this public service announcement.
[PSA: 60-year-old Greig is the girlfriend of 81-year-old Bulgerâ¥.]
It ran it in 14 markets on daytime talk shows--aimed at women.
[PSA: Call the tip line at 1-800-Call-FBI.
.]
And it didn't take long.
The very next morning the Bulger task force got three messages from someone that used to live in Santa Monica and was 100 percent certain that Charlie and Carol Gasko, apartment 303 at the Princess Eugenia apartments were the people they were looking for.
The descriptions and the age difference matched and Deputy U.
S.
Marshall Neil Sullivan who handled the lead said there was another piece of tantalizing information.
Neil Sullivan: The tipster specifically described that they were caring for this cat and their love for this cat.
So that was just one piece of the puzzle on the tip that added up to saying "if this isn't them it's something we better check out immediately because it sure sounds like them.
" A search of the FBI's computer database for the Gaskos raised another red flag, not for what it found, but for what it didn't.
Neil Sullivan: Basically like they were ghosts.
Steve Kroft: No driver's license-- Neil Sullivan: Exactly.
No driver's license, no California ID, like they didn't exist.
Steve Kroft: That's the apartment.
Scott Garriola: Right, that corner on the third floor.
Steve Kroft: On the right-hand side? Scott Garriola: Yup By early afternoon FBI Agent Scott Gariolla had set up a number of surveillance posts, and had already met with apartment manager Josh Bond to talk about his tenants.
Josh Bond: He closed the door, threw down a folder and opened it up and said, "Are these the people that live in Apartment 303?" Steve Kroft: Did you say anything when you saw the pictures? Josh Bond: Yeah.
I mean, my (LAUGH) initial reaction was, "Holy shit.
" Steve Kroft: You're livin' next door to a gangster.
Josh Bond: Well I still didn't really know who he was But it didn't take him long to figure it out.
While the FBI was mulling its options, Bond logged on to Bulger's Wikipedia page.
Josh Bond: And I'm kinda scrolling down.
It's like, "Oh wow, this guy's serious.
" It's, like, murders and extortion.
And then I get to the bottom and there's this-- this thing.
It's like--from one of his old, you know, people saying, "Well, the last time I saw him, he said, you know, when he goes out he's gonna have guns and he's gonna be ready to take people with him.
" I was like, "Oooh, maybe I shouldn't be involved in this.
" Steve Kroft: I mean, we were sitting here laughing about it but he is a pretty serious guy.
Josh Bond: Yeah, yeah.
Steve Kroft: And he killed a lotta people--or had them killed.
Josh Bond: I didn't know that at the time.
Bond told the FBI he wasn't going to knock on the Gasko's door because there was a note posted expressly asking people not to bother them.
Carol had told the neighbors that Charlie was showing signs of dementia.
Scott Garriola: We were back there⥠So Garriola devised a ruse involving the Gaskos' storage locker in the garage.
Scott Garriola: It had the name Gasko across it and Apartment 303.
He had the manager call and tell them their locker had been broken into and that he needed someone to come down to see if anything was missing, Carol Gasko said her husband would be right down.
Scott Garriola: We just rushed him.
Steve Kroft: You mean, guns out? "FBI-- Scott Garriola: Sure.
Steve Kroft: --don't move.
" Scott Garriola: --gave the words, "Hey, FBI, you know, get your hands up.
" He turned around and hands went up right away.
And then at that moment we told him get down on his knees and he gave us-- (laugh) yeah, he gave us a, "I ain't gettin' down on my f'ing knees.
" Steve Kroft: Didn't wanna get his pants dirty.
Scott Garriola: Didn't wanna get his pants dirty.
You know, wearing white and seeing the oil on the ground I guess he didn't want get down in oil.
Even at 81, this was a man used to being in control.
Scott Garriola: I asked him to identify himself and that didn't go over well.
He asked me to f'ing identify myself and then he said, "Well, you know who I am.
" And I asked him, I said, "Are you Whitey Bulger?" He said, "Yes.
" Scott Garriola: Just about that moment, someone catches my attention from a few feet away by the elevator shaft.
It was Janus Goodwin from the third floor, going to do her laundry.
Janus Goodwin: And I said, "Excuse me.
I think I can help you.
This man has dementia, so if he's acting oddly, you know-- that could be why.
" Scott Garriola: Immediately what flashed through my mind is, "Oh, my God, I just arrested an he's Whitey Bulger.
What is he gonna tell me next, he's Elvis?" So I said, "Do me a favor, this woman over here says you have a touch of Alzheimer's" and he said, "Don't listen to her, she's f-ing nuts.
" He says--"I'm James Bulger.
" A few minutes later he affirmed it by signing a consent form allowing the FBI to search his apartment.
Scott Garriola: As he's signing he says, "That's the first time I've signed that name in a long time.
" Steve Kroft: There was a sense of resignation? Scott Garriola: I don't think he had it.
I did ask him, I said, "Hey, Whitey," I said, "Aren't you relieved that you don't have to look over your shoulder anymore and, you know, it's-- it's come to an end?" And he said, "Are you f****n' nuts?" But in some ways Whitey Bulger and Catherine Greig had already been prisoners in apartment murderous and the mundane.
Alongside the weapons and all the money, they had stockpiled a lifetime supply of cleansers, creams, and detergents.
The FBI took special interest a collection of 64-ounce bottles with white socks stretched over the top.
Scott Garriola: I said, "Hey Whitey, what are these? Are these some kind of Molotov cocktail you're making?" He goes, "No," he said, "I buy tube socks from the 99 Cents Store and they're too tight on my calves and that's the way I stretch 'em out.
" I said, "Why you shopping at the 99 Cents Store? You have-- half a million dollars under your bed.
" He goes, "I had to make the money last.
" Its been said that one of the reasons it took so long to catch Whitey Bulger, is that people were looking for a gangster, and Bulger, whether he liked it or not, had ceased to be one.
Phil Torsney: He said it was hard to keep up that mindset of a criminal.
And that's part of the reason he came down to that garage.
He said if he was on his game, you know, 15, something there.
Was-- it was hard to stay on that edge, that criminal edge, after being on the lam as a regular citizen for 15 years.
The master manipulator gave credit to Catherine Greig for keeping him crime-free, hoping it would mitigate her sentence.
She is now serving eight years for harboring a fugitive.
On the long plane ride back to Boston, Bulger told his captors he became obsessed with not getting caught, and would do anything to avoid it, even if it meant obeying the law.
Whitey Bulger's biggest fear, they said, was being discovered dead in his apartment - and he had a plan to avoid it.
Phil Torsney: If he became ill and knew he was on his deathbed.
He'd go down to Arizona, crawl down in the bottom of one of these mines, and die and decompose.
And hope that we would never find him and still be lookin'-- lookin' for him forever.
We've seen a lot of stories about veterans and post-traumatic stress disorder but tonight, for the first time, we're able to show you new therapies that are changing the lives of vets and their families.
Two million Americans have served in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Veterans Administration tells us that one out of five suffers from PTSD.
One reason we're seeing so much of it is because many of our troops have been ordered on combat tours three, four or even five times.
The VA overwhelmed by the need, decided to try new treatments that were originally designed for rape victims.
Over two months we were allowed to sit in and listen as our troubled veterans fought the war within.
[Gene Dowdy: How can you live a life when everyone is afraid of you? You go to town and people say "that's the crazy vet, don't mess with him.
" Rob Spraggs: My wife told me, "Something's gotta change or we gotta leave.
" Anthony Apellido: When you try to talk to somebody who hasn't been there, hasn't experienced it, they don't understand.
And so you just kind of get laughed at.
.]
The 16 men around this table arrived via Afghanistan, Iraq, or both.
Some are here from Vietnam.
[Terrence Stewart: I see that I do have the opportunity to pick myself up at 63 years old and start all over again.
.]
They've "started over again" many times but their path has led back to isolation, drugs, booze, and suicide attempts.
Now they're in the VA hospital in Little Rock, Ark.
They will live here eight weeks to break through emotions that have derailed their lives.
Eric Collins: Depression, anxiety, anger, worthlessness, guilt all those rolled up into one.
Scott Pelley: Guilt? Eric Collins: Survivors guilt, why me? Why am I alive? Why are they not? That's one of the hardest thoughts to deal with, you know? Eric Collins was wounded in a rocket attack in Afghanistan.
Over a year, 17 of his buddies died.
Scott Pelley: How did you cope with these feelings of anger and depression and guilt when you first got out? Eric Collins: Alcohol and lots of it, that's where it started off.
And the alcohol led to my depression worsening which led to more substance abused.
Crack cocaine is my drug of choice.
So my whole life spiraled downward out of control.
To take control, Collins volunteered for one of the new therapies called prolonged exposure.
It forces him to work at remembering every detail of what he's tried to forget.
[Eric Collins: Next thing you hear a loud boom, my ears start ringing.
And wake up, open my eyes and I'm on the groundâ¥.]
Doctor Kevin Reeder runs the program.
[Kevin Reeder: How are you feeling at this point? What were you, what were you feeling at that time? Eric Collins: Anger.
I'm scared.
I'm feeling pain, my leg, my back, my arm, my whole body.
Kevin Reeder: Ok, let's go from the beginning.
Gotta keep doing this.
Eric Collins: The next I know I hear a loud boomâ¥.]
They call it prolonged exposure because Collins will relive the story of the attack five times a session.
There's a tape running and he'll listen to the memory throughout the day to break its power.
Scott Pelley: Tell me about prolonged exposure therapy.
Kevin Reeder: They've done everything they can to push these memories away.
In the process, they haven't gained a full realization of the impact and the meaning that these stories have in their lives.
I like to use the term we're staring the dragon in the eye.
Scott Pelley: Where do these therapies come from? Kevin Reeder: A lot of these therapies came about with survivors of physical or sexual abuse.
Those types of traumas.
Scott Pelley: What are the similarities? Kevin Reeder: The symptoms.
The symptoms.
The avoidance, the isolation, the hyper vigilance, extreme anxiety, the irritability, inability to sleep, nightmares, same thing, different sources, but same thing.
Eric Collins: I can't move my legs, can't move my arms⥠Scott Pelley: What does that do for you? Eric Collins: It helps me to get past the guilt, survivor's guilt.
And that's a building block.
Every time I get through it I get stronger and it helps every time.
Scott Pelley: It's OK to be alive? Eric Collins: Yeah.
Scott Pelley: And you weren't sure that was true before? Eric Collins: No, I didn't wanna be alive.
I wanted to be right there with them.
My whole purpose of life was gone.
Anthony Apellido: To lose one of your buddies in a firefight you don't want to see that, you don't want to feel that again and so when you get back to the rear you're pissed off because you don't want to get close to anybody anymore.
Anthony Apellido experienced those multiple tours we talked about.
He fought for a year in Afghanistan, spent one month at home, then went to Iraq, and later, Afghanistan again.
Anthony Apellido: The more deployments you get, the more time you spend out there - it just keeps stacking.
I mean the first one, it hurts but you don't get really time to heal.
And then even another one happens and another one.
On his first tour, Apellido's patrol was ambushed.
Two buddies died.
Twenty were wounded.
[Anthony Apellido: I had no weapon, no one had my backâ¥.]
They write about days like that in the other key therapy called cognitive processing.
Kevin Reeder: After a trauma or multiple traumas, often a person can believe the world just is a dangerous place.
And so what we do with CPT, Cognitive Processing Therapy, is they write an impact statement at the beginning of therapy to show them the impact of the trauma on their lives and on their beliefs.
They read that statement, about the trauma, to the group then they discuss how their lives are still held in the grip of war.
[Gable Darbonne: I never had a fear of life.
I never had a fear of living.
I never had a fear of going to the gas station and getting shot while I'm pumping gas cause I needed gas in my car.
.]
They plow through a workbook that challenges their guilt with statements like, "I shot a woman in combat therefore I'm worthless" or "My friend was killed by the enemy--I'm responsible.
" Cognitive processing tries to put the war in the past and help them re-examine who they are today.
It's tough.
We noticed this on Apellido's workbook: [Kevin Reeder: How many of you would go back to a deployed environment with your branch of service right now if that opportunity was available? Lotta hands up.
Real quick why are your hands going up so much? Gable Darbonne: You miss it in a way.
You miss everything about how hard it wanna, how bitter you got, how angry and emotional, the things you saw and you missed that camaraderie, that brotherhood, sense of purpose, the struggling with things.
Man, you it's everything, but you miss it.
You mourn that, it's weird.
It's that intimacy.
It's, you don't, I will never get that back.
None of us will ever get that back.
.]
Gable Darbonne never planned to be part of that brotherhood he mentioned.
In 2001, he was out of high school, headed to college.
But then 9/11 pushed him to an Army recruiter instead.
Gable Darbonne: My mom, I remember she was crying in the kitchen.
She goes, "Gable, you don't know what it's like for boys coming back from Vietnam, how hard they had it and what they came back with.
" I said, "Mom, it's different, though.
We got attacked.
We got attacked.
" I said, "I'm volunteering.
" I said, "I'll take anything.
You know, I'm willing to give my life.
" That's how strongly I felt.
[Gable Darbonne: I joined to serve my country, I joined to protect my freedoms, my future kids freedoms.
.]
Darbonne was one of the most thoughtful people we met.
He served in Afghanistan and Iraq.
One day, his unit was clearing a house.
It exploded.
Two buddies were burned.
Gable Darbonne: You know we got angry, got mad.
Get very angry and we took it out on certain people.
You know and you enjoyed it at the time.
You did.
Scott Pelley: You did things to the Iraqis that you're not proud of.
Gable Darbonne: Of course, but that was surviving emotionally, mentally.
I was never a violent man.
But I became different slowly.
We all have that instinct, that survival instinct.
And that survival instinct is very real.
At home, the survival instinct didn't let go.
Darbonne was like most other vets here - certain triggers brought the instinct back - the smell of diesel returned him to his combat outpost - crowds made him fearful.
Gable Darbonne: I started isolating, and I couldn't do anything.
My dad had to come over and mow my lawn.
My mom had to come over and pay my bills.
I just-- I wouldn't leave my house for a day or two.
I didn't wanna make small talk.
I didn't want somebody to ask me, "Hey, how are you doing?" I didn't like those words, you know? I just, I got very secluded, like a recluse.
For nine years, Darbonne told himself he was OK or would be OK.
Then the folks at work urged him to get help.
This was Darbonne after seven weeks of self-examination--as they all prepared to go home.
[Gable Darbonne: When I went in, I had a heart.
I volunteered.
I don't blame nothing on anybody.
I don't blame nothing on myself, I don't blame nothing on my leaders, in fact I had good leader, I blame nothing on the Army I think it is just the way it is and it sucks, I hate it I hate itâ¥I don't want to go home.
.]
Gable Darbonne: People would always ask me when I came back, "So what do I tell my boyfriend when he comes back?" Or, "How do I approach this with my son?" I said, "When he starts talking, just listen.
" Yeah, don't judge it.
You know, just listen.
Scott Pelley: There is probably a soldier or a Marine sitting alone watching this on television right now.
Eric Collins: Thousands of ï¹em I'd imagine.
Scott Pelley: And to them you say what? Eric Collins: I hope you can find the courage to get help because all you're doing is killing yourself.
And you don't have to live like that.
There is good people in this world willing to help you and its been the hardest thing for me to do, but I wouldn't have changed coming here for the world.
In our two months here, 28 men sat round this table.
Three couldn't hack it and dropped out.
The VA finds about that: 77 percent graduate with a drop in their PTSD symptoms.
It's progress but they have a saying around here -- there is no cure.
Kevin Reeder: I don't think there is a cure for what we're talking about.
We're talking about living and putting people more in touch with their lives and emotions and good days and bad days.
This isn't cancer, we can't go get it.
We have to teach people that they can live with this and live a valued life - a life they want.
Scott Pelley: After eight weeks here, how are you doing? Gable Darbonne: How am I doing? I don't know yet.
That's an honest answer.
But I know deep down inside things will work themselves out.
Everyone loves an underdog - a tale about a little guy who takes on the establishment favorite.
But is our understanding of the underdog accurate - Can a disadvantage, a weakness, actually lead to a hidden strength? It's a question that's been asked ever since David took on Goliath, an almost 3,000-year-old story that writer Malcolm Gladwell believes we've been getting wrong all this time.
Malcolm Gladwell: When we look at battles between lopsided parties, we exaggerate the strength of the favorite and we underestimate the strength of the underdog.
Malcolm Gladwell believes underdogs win more often than we think because their limitations can force them to be creative.
David couldn't slay Goliath with a sword, but with his sling he could be deadly from a distance.
And Gladwell says, there's plenty of modern research to explain why.
Malcolm Gladwell: I had a conversation with this ballistics expert with the Israeli Defense Force who had done the math and pointed out that the projectile, the rock coming from David's sling, was moving at about 35 meters per second and would have hit Goliath with the stopping power equivalent to a bullet from a .
45 caliber handgun.
Anderson Cooper: How did you find an Israeli ballistics expert who had done this study on the throwing power of David? Malcolm Gladwell: Because there was a paper presented at the International Ballistics Conference, like, seven years ago, whatever, by-- Anderson Cooper: How did you even hear about the International Ballistics Conference? Malcolm Gladwell: If you're as much of a nerd as I am, this is the kind of stuff that you--you get interested in, you know.
Anderson Cooper: This is what you do.
Malcolm Gladwell: This is what I do.
Yeah.
What Gladwell does has made him hugely popularand very wealthy.
His new book David and Goliath - all about underdogs - has already topped the New York Times best-seller list.
Malcolm Gladwell: When you're an underdog, you're forced to try things you would never otherwise have attempted.
Because David--there was no way he could do a duel with swords, he feels emboldened to try something totally outside the box, right? And that's a pattern that you see again and again with underdogs that because they can't do the thing they are required to do, they look for alternate routes.
Gladwell began writing about the successful strategies of underdogs after meeting an Indian-born software mogul named Vivek Ranadivé.
What interested Gladwell wasn't software, but how Ranadivé coached his 12-year-old daughter's basketball team - seen here in white - even though Ranadivé knew nothing about the game.
Anderson Cooper: Growing up in India did you play basketball? Vivek Ranadivé: I never actually touched a basketball in my life.
Anderson Cooper: Never touched one? Vivek Ranadivé: Never touched one.
When I went to coach my daughter's team I had physically never touched a basketball.
His lack of knowledge about basketball, wasn't his only obstacle.
His daughter's team had absolutely no talent.
Anderson Cooper: The girls on your basketball team--they weren't tall Vivek Ranadivé: No.
Anderson Cooper: Could they dribble? Vivek Ranadivé: A couple of them.
Anderson Cooper: Could they shoot? Vivek Ranadivé: Not very well.
Anderson Cooper: Did they have a long experience playing basketball? Vivek Ranadivé: For the most part, no.
So Ranadivé relied on his mathematics talent and devised a computer algorithm that turned out to be a winning formula for his girls.
The strategy: force the other team to turn over the ball.
Malcolm Gladwell: He says, "Look, I'm not--we're not gonna bother practicing shooting, it's pointless.
We're not gonna practice dribbling.
I'm gonna teach you to run around like this the entire game.
" We're gonna play the most maniacal defense known to man.
And we're gonna score by stealing the ball and shooting lay ups.
That's it.
Vivek Ranadivé: It didn't really matter that my girls couldn't shoot as well.
If I could get the ball under the basket and if I could win the turnover battle, then I could win the game.
Ranadivé's girls played a never-ending full court press.
They won every regular season game.
Anderson Cooper: Your daughter's opponents, they just weren't used to playing basketball like this.
Vivek Ranadivé:: No.
No, in fact--the coaches were not used to playing that way.
Anderson Cooper: They didn't like it.
Vivek Ranadivé: They didn't like it.
One guy, a big guy--was so upset that he said he wanted to meet me in the parking lot (laugh) after the game-- Anderson Cooper: He wanted to beat you up? Vivek Ranadivé: Well, he wanted to meet me in the parking lot.
Ranadivé's underdogs, made it all the way to the state championships.
Anderson Cooper: You clearly started to like basketball after that? Vivek Ranadivé: I did.
I did.
I ended up falling in love with the game.
Anderson Cooper: And you're still--a software CEO of a multibillion dollar company.
But I understand you recently made a big purchase? Vivek Ranadivé: Well, I did.
I bought the Sacramento Kings.
Anderson Cooper: You bought an NBA basketball team? Vivek Ranadivé: I did.
An underdog's disadvantages can be converted into advantages.
And Gladwell believes that's just as true apart from sports.
Gary Cohn is one of Gladwell's favorite examples.
Gary Cohn: I was a troubled student as a young child.
And at that period -- this is the early developed as it is today.
You know, I don't think anyone really knew how to diagnose the problem.
Malcolm Gladwell: He couldn't do school.
He was--he acted up in class.
He got kicked outta schools.
His mother never thought he would graduate from high school.
When he graduated from high school, his mother cried.
Why? Because sh--it--it was a day she thought would never come.
Cohn still has difficulty reading, but he's figured out ways to work around his disability, skills that have led him all the way to the president's office at Goldman Sachs.
Malcolm Gladwell: An incredibly high percentage of successful entrepreneurs are dyslexic.
That's one of the little-known facts.
So many of them, in fact, it's like a joke among dyslexic researchers that you go into a room of very successful businesspeople, and you--you have a show of hands on who has a learning disability, it's like half the hands in the room go up.
It's fascinating⥠Although dyslexia remains a challenge for many people, Cohn figured out a way to overcome it.
His disability forced him to become a good listener and made him unafraid to take chances.
Gary Cohn: People that can't read well, we tend to build a great sense of listening.
We also tend to build a great sense of being able to deal and cope with failure.
Anderson Cooper: This is not something though you would wish on anybody else though? Gary Cohn: No, I would not.
Gladwell is fascinated with people who achieve success by forging their own path, perhaps because that's what he has done.
He is a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine, but he doesn't actually have an office.
He writes in small cafes in New York, and does most of his research in a library where he hunts out obscure, often dull academic papers and mines them for interesting, counterintuitive ideas.
David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, calls him an original.
David Remnick: There are people that cover science.
There are people that cover business.
There are people that cover trends.
But this strange amalgam of reading academic journals, interviewing ordinary people, thinking, storytelling, this is something that Malcolm really--that was a territory that he carved out for himself.
Anderson Cooper: What do you think he's interested in achieving? Is it that he's got an opinion and he wants everybody else to agree with it? David Remnick: Absolutely just the opposite.
I think what he's interested in is testing and pressing against received wisdom, most of the time what we think of our ideas about the world, it's received wisdom.
We've read them.
We've assumed it's correct.
We don't have time to test everything.
Gladwell's testing of everything has made him a Goliath in the world of publishing but he began as an underdog.
Not a particularly strong student, his upbringing in rural Ontario, Canada was⥠wella bit odd.
Malcolm Gladwell: We had no TV.
We had no stereo.
We never went to the movies.
We never even went out to dinner.
Like--I think--we w--like we once went out to dinner in, like, in sort of the mid-70s.
Found the experience not to our liking and didn't go back.
Anderson Cooper: Not to your liking? I mean, what you're--(LAUGHS) what you're describing is a childhood---from the '30s.
Malcolm Gladwell: I thought I had--no I had--I read a lotta books--I thought I had a fabulous childhood⥠I mean--when I would sometimes get bored and my mother would say, "It's important to be bored.
You're giving your brain a rest.
" His Jamaican-born mother is a family therapist.
His English father a math professor.
Gladwell says being biracial and feeling like an outsider has given him a perspective that still informs his writing.
Malcolm Gladwell: We lived in England.
Then we moved to Canada where we were sort of outsiders.
And then I moved to America where I'm a kind of outsider.
So I feel like I've constantly been in this situation of shaking my head and thinking, "This is a strange place.
" Gladwell finds America's obsession with Ivy League colleges strange.
He argues the presumed advantages of Ivy League schools can actually be disadvantages.
Gladwell went to the University of Toronto and says he's better off for it.
Malcolm Gladwell: I have a massive chip on my shoulder.
I went to a state school in Canada.
You kidding me? I come to New York and all kinds of people who went to Harvard and Yale are mentioning that in every second sentence.
It drives me crazy, so -- so I have taken it upon myself.
Anderson Cooper: I went to Yale.
Malcolm Gladwell: I know that, but you haven't mentioned it until now, so I've-- Anderson Cooper: I never mentioned it.
I really don't.
He says the assumption in America that students should go to most prestigious school they get into is simply wrong.
Malcolm Gladwell: If you go to an elite school where the other students in your class are all really brilliant, you run the risk of mistakenly believing yourself to not be a good student.
Right? So you-- Anderson Cooper: Even if-- Malcolm Gladwell: Even if you are.
Right? It doesn't--if you're last in your class at Harvard, it doesn't feel like you're a good student, even though you really are.
It's not smart for everyone to want to go to a great school.
Anderson Cooper: So if you had a child, would you want them to go to Harvard? Malcolm Gladwell: No, of course not.
I'd want them to go to school in--to a state school in Canada where their tuition would be $4,000 a year.
Malcolm Gladwell: If Harvard is $60,000 and University of Toronto where I went to school is maybe six.
So you're really telling me that education is 10 times better at Harvard than it is at University of Toronto? That seems ridiculous to me.
He doesn't like to talk about money, but Gladwell earns millions from his books and lectures.
In person however, there is little sign of his wealth.
He lives alone in Greenwich Village on the top two floors of a walk-up brownstone.
A self-described hermit, he doesn't even have a doorbell.
Malcolm Gladwell:: I don't want a doorbell.
I don't want anyone ringing my doorbell.
Why-- why--seems to be so intrusive.
Anderson Cooper: So when people come visit what do they do? Malcolm Gladwell: They call me on their cell phone.
For all his success, on the streets of New York he's nearly invisible, save for his signature cloud of curls bobbing above the crowd.
Malcolm Gladwell: People assume when my hair is long that I'm a lot cooler than I actually am.
I'm not opposed to this misconception, by the way, but it is a misconception.
[Malcolm Gladwell: Thank you for buying six books--.]
At 50, Malcolm Gladwell has reached a level of success few writers ever will.
His previous four books have sold nearly 5 million copies.
His first one, "The Tipping Point, - was published 13 years ago, but remains on the New York Times best seller list.
His fans fill lecture halls and companies pay big money to hear about his latest observations.
[Malcolm Gladwell: How do you get to be that person who just is completely indifferent to what everyone around you is saying? And you get to be that person if you have been through the absolute worst the world can throw at you and come out fine, right?.]
While readers find his writing accessible and perceptive, his critics say his conclusions can be formulaic and obvious.
Malcolm Gladwell: I'm not afraid of the obvious.
I think the really obvious questions are the gre--are the great ones.
Anderson Cooper: You're a superstar in the world of publishing and you have a lot of people gunning for you.
A lot of people probably would like to see you fail with a book.
You don't feel like a goliath? Malcolm Gladwell: Well, I'm not lumbering and--am I? I try not to think too much about what has happened in my career and draw too many conclusions about it.
I think it's always best if you pretend that you're exactly the same as you always were.
And I'm perhaps as befuddled by my success as my critics are.
So in that sense, I see eye to eye with them.
When they say, "I can't believe Gladwell did this.
" I say, "I can't believe Gladwell did that either.
How on Earth did that happen?"
, sometime in early 1997 to begin a new phase of their life.
For the next 14 years, they did almost nothing that was memorable.
And they would be of absolutely no interest, if it weren't for the fact that Charlie Gasko turned out to be James "Whitey" Bulger, the notorious Boston gangster, and longtime fugitive who is just beginning to serve two lifetime sentences.
Carol Gasko was actually Catherine Greig, Whitey's long time girlfriend and caregiver.
The story of how they managed to elude an international manhunt for so long while hiding in plain sight is interesting.
And tonight you'll hear it from the Gasko's neighbors and for the first time from the federal agents who finally unraveled the case, with the help of a boob job and an alley cat.
If you were forced into retirement, with a comfortable nest egg, and a desire to be left completely alone there is no place better place than Santa Monica, Calif.
This low key, seaside suburb of L.
A.
is shared by transients and tourists, hippies and hedonists, celebrities and lots of senior citizens attracted to the climate and an abundance of inexpensive rent-controlled apartments, just a few blocks from the ocean.
Places like the Princess Eugenia on Third St.
, which is where Charlie and Carol Gasko, a childless couple from Chicago, lived for from long time neighbors or landlords.
Josh Bond is the building manager.
Steve Kroft: What were they like? Josh Bond: They were-- like, the nice retired old couple that lived in the apartment next to me.
Steve Kroft: Good tenants? Josh Bond: Excellent tenants.
Never complained.
Always paid rent on time.
Steve Kroft: In cash.
Josh Bond: In cash.
Janus Goodwin lived down the hall.
Janus Goodwin: They had nothing.
And they never went out.
They never had food delivered.
She never dressed nicely.
Steve Kroft: You thought they were poor? Janus Goodwin: Yes, without a doubt.
The one thing everyone remembers about the Gaskos is that they loved animals and always made a fuss over the ones in the neighborhood.
Barbara Gluck remembers that Carol Gasko always fed a stray cat, after its owner had died.
Barbara Gluck: She would pet it, you know, and be sweet to it and she put a plate of food like out here.
Steve Kroft: She liked the cat? Barbara Gluck: Obviously.
She loved the cat.
We all liked the cat but she was taking care of the cat.
Steve Kroft: And what about Charlie Gasko? Barbara Gluck: You know, he always had a hat on and dark glasses.
I have to say it was mysterious to me why such a lovely woman like that was hanging out with that guy, that old grumpy man.
I could never figure that one out.
Until I heard they had 800,000 something dollars in the wall.
And then I went, "Oh, OK" you know? Money wasn't the only thing found in the Gaskos' apartment on June 22, 2011, when the FBI stopped by and ended what it called the most extensive manhunt in the bureau's history.
Scott Garriola: Weapons-- weapons all over the apartment.
I mean, weapons by his nightstand, weapons under the windowsill.
Shotguns, Mini-Rugers, rifles.
Steve Kroft: Loaded? Scott Garriola: Loaded, ready to go.
What had started out as a routine day for Special Agent Scott Garriola -- who was in charge of hunting fugitives in LA -- would turn into one of the most interesting days of his career.
After getting a call to stake out a building in Santa Monica, he notified his backup team with the LAPD.
Scott Garriola: I had four guys working that day and we got a tip on Whitey Bulger and "I'll see you there in about an hour.
" And invariably the--texts return, "Who's Whitey Bulger," so.
Steve Kroft: Really? Scott Garriola: Yeah, a few of 'em.
So I had to remind 'em-- gently remind 'em who Whitey Bulger was.
Steve Kroft: That he was No.
1 of the F.
B.
I.
's Most Wanted List-- Scott Garriola: No.
1, yeah.
Big ea-- big East Coast figure but-- so on the West Coast not so much.
The cops in LA were focused on gang bangers and cartel members, not some retired Irish mobster, who hadn't been spotted in 16 years, but then few mobsters have ever been as infamous in a city as Whitey Bulger was in Boston, and his reputation was for more than just being grumpy.
Besides extortion and flooding the city with cocaine, Bulger routinely performed or ordered executions, some at close range, some with a hail of bullets, and at least one by strangulation after which it's been said he took a nap.
Special Agent Rich Teahan who ran the FBI's Whitey Bulger fugitive task force had heard it all.
Rich Teahan: Bulger was charged with 19 counts of murder.
He was charged with other crimes.
He was a scorch to the society in South Boston, his own community.
He was also a scourge to the FBI, and a great source of embarrassment to Teahan, Special Agent Phil Torsney and others on the task force.
Years earlier, Whitey Bulger had infiltrated the Boston office of the FBI and bought off agents who protected him and plied him with information including the tip that allowed Bulger to flee just days before he was to be indicted.
Phil Torsney: We really had to catch this guy to establish credibility after all the other issues.
And it was just a matter of bringing this guy back to Boston to make sure this guy didn't die or get away with this thing.
When Torsney -- now retired -- and Agent Tommy MacDonald joined the Bulger task force in least wanted list.
There hadn't been a credible lead in more than a decade.
And their efforts in Bulger's old neighborhood of South Boston were met with mistrust and ridicule.
Phil Torsney: Some people, they told us right out front, "You guys aren't looking for that guy.
" People just made the assumption we had him stashed somewhere.
I mean, people really thought that kinda thing.
Tommy MacDonald: Despite that mindset that "we're not gonna help you? the FBI still got it done.
Steve Kroft: Took 16 years.
Tommy MacDonald: Took 16 years.
Yeah, this was not a typical fugitive.
The FBI says Bulger had planned his getaway years in advance, with money set aside and a fake identity for a Thomas Baxter.
During his first two years on the lam, Bulger was in touch with friends and family shuttling between New York, Chicago and the resort town of Grand Isle, La.
, where he rented a house until his identity was compromised.
After that it seemed as if Bulger had disappeared from the face of the Earth except for alleged sightings from all over the world.
Steve Kroft: How many of these tips do you think mighta been true? Phil Torsney: Boy there was thousands and thousands of tips.
And I think -- I don't think that any of ï¹em were true.
One of the obstacles were there were really no good photographs of Bulger or his longtime live-in girlfriend Catherine Greig, a former dental hygienist.
The FBI often noted the couple shared a love of animals, especially dogs and cats, and asked veterinarians to be on the lookout.
There were reports that Greig once had breast implants and other plastic surgery in Boston, so the task force reached out to physicians.
Eventually they got a call from a Dr.
Matthias Donelan, who had located her files in storage.
Tommy MacDonald: I was trying to leave the office a little early to catch one of my kids' ballgames.
And I said, "Well, listen-- I'm gonna swing by in the morning and pick those up.
" And they said to me-- "Do you want the photos too?" And I said, "You have photos?" And they said, "Yeah, we have photos.
" I said, "We'll be there in 15 minutes.
" The breast implant lead produced a treasure trove of high resolution Catherine Greig photographs that would help crack the case.
The FBI decided to switch strategies, going after the girlfriend in order to catch the gangster.
[PSA: This is an announcement by the FBIâ¥.]
The FBI on created this public service announcement.
[PSA: 60-year-old Greig is the girlfriend of 81-year-old Bulgerâ¥.]
It ran it in 14 markets on daytime talk shows--aimed at women.
[PSA: Call the tip line at 1-800-Call-FBI.
.]
And it didn't take long.
The very next morning the Bulger task force got three messages from someone that used to live in Santa Monica and was 100 percent certain that Charlie and Carol Gasko, apartment 303 at the Princess Eugenia apartments were the people they were looking for.
The descriptions and the age difference matched and Deputy U.
S.
Marshall Neil Sullivan who handled the lead said there was another piece of tantalizing information.
Neil Sullivan: The tipster specifically described that they were caring for this cat and their love for this cat.
So that was just one piece of the puzzle on the tip that added up to saying "if this isn't them it's something we better check out immediately because it sure sounds like them.
" A search of the FBI's computer database for the Gaskos raised another red flag, not for what it found, but for what it didn't.
Neil Sullivan: Basically like they were ghosts.
Steve Kroft: No driver's license-- Neil Sullivan: Exactly.
No driver's license, no California ID, like they didn't exist.
Steve Kroft: That's the apartment.
Scott Garriola: Right, that corner on the third floor.
Steve Kroft: On the right-hand side? Scott Garriola: Yup By early afternoon FBI Agent Scott Gariolla had set up a number of surveillance posts, and had already met with apartment manager Josh Bond to talk about his tenants.
Josh Bond: He closed the door, threw down a folder and opened it up and said, "Are these the people that live in Apartment 303?" Steve Kroft: Did you say anything when you saw the pictures? Josh Bond: Yeah.
I mean, my (LAUGH) initial reaction was, "Holy shit.
" Steve Kroft: You're livin' next door to a gangster.
Josh Bond: Well I still didn't really know who he was But it didn't take him long to figure it out.
While the FBI was mulling its options, Bond logged on to Bulger's Wikipedia page.
Josh Bond: And I'm kinda scrolling down.
It's like, "Oh wow, this guy's serious.
" It's, like, murders and extortion.
And then I get to the bottom and there's this-- this thing.
It's like--from one of his old, you know, people saying, "Well, the last time I saw him, he said, you know, when he goes out he's gonna have guns and he's gonna be ready to take people with him.
" I was like, "Oooh, maybe I shouldn't be involved in this.
" Steve Kroft: I mean, we were sitting here laughing about it but he is a pretty serious guy.
Josh Bond: Yeah, yeah.
Steve Kroft: And he killed a lotta people--or had them killed.
Josh Bond: I didn't know that at the time.
Bond told the FBI he wasn't going to knock on the Gasko's door because there was a note posted expressly asking people not to bother them.
Carol had told the neighbors that Charlie was showing signs of dementia.
Scott Garriola: We were back there⥠So Garriola devised a ruse involving the Gaskos' storage locker in the garage.
Scott Garriola: It had the name Gasko across it and Apartment 303.
He had the manager call and tell them their locker had been broken into and that he needed someone to come down to see if anything was missing, Carol Gasko said her husband would be right down.
Scott Garriola: We just rushed him.
Steve Kroft: You mean, guns out? "FBI-- Scott Garriola: Sure.
Steve Kroft: --don't move.
" Scott Garriola: --gave the words, "Hey, FBI, you know, get your hands up.
" He turned around and hands went up right away.
And then at that moment we told him get down on his knees and he gave us-- (laugh) yeah, he gave us a, "I ain't gettin' down on my f'ing knees.
" Steve Kroft: Didn't wanna get his pants dirty.
Scott Garriola: Didn't wanna get his pants dirty.
You know, wearing white and seeing the oil on the ground I guess he didn't want get down in oil.
Even at 81, this was a man used to being in control.
Scott Garriola: I asked him to identify himself and that didn't go over well.
He asked me to f'ing identify myself and then he said, "Well, you know who I am.
" And I asked him, I said, "Are you Whitey Bulger?" He said, "Yes.
" Scott Garriola: Just about that moment, someone catches my attention from a few feet away by the elevator shaft.
It was Janus Goodwin from the third floor, going to do her laundry.
Janus Goodwin: And I said, "Excuse me.
I think I can help you.
This man has dementia, so if he's acting oddly, you know-- that could be why.
" Scott Garriola: Immediately what flashed through my mind is, "Oh, my God, I just arrested an he's Whitey Bulger.
What is he gonna tell me next, he's Elvis?" So I said, "Do me a favor, this woman over here says you have a touch of Alzheimer's" and he said, "Don't listen to her, she's f-ing nuts.
" He says--"I'm James Bulger.
" A few minutes later he affirmed it by signing a consent form allowing the FBI to search his apartment.
Scott Garriola: As he's signing he says, "That's the first time I've signed that name in a long time.
" Steve Kroft: There was a sense of resignation? Scott Garriola: I don't think he had it.
I did ask him, I said, "Hey, Whitey," I said, "Aren't you relieved that you don't have to look over your shoulder anymore and, you know, it's-- it's come to an end?" And he said, "Are you f****n' nuts?" But in some ways Whitey Bulger and Catherine Greig had already been prisoners in apartment murderous and the mundane.
Alongside the weapons and all the money, they had stockpiled a lifetime supply of cleansers, creams, and detergents.
The FBI took special interest a collection of 64-ounce bottles with white socks stretched over the top.
Scott Garriola: I said, "Hey Whitey, what are these? Are these some kind of Molotov cocktail you're making?" He goes, "No," he said, "I buy tube socks from the 99 Cents Store and they're too tight on my calves and that's the way I stretch 'em out.
" I said, "Why you shopping at the 99 Cents Store? You have-- half a million dollars under your bed.
" He goes, "I had to make the money last.
" Its been said that one of the reasons it took so long to catch Whitey Bulger, is that people were looking for a gangster, and Bulger, whether he liked it or not, had ceased to be one.
Phil Torsney: He said it was hard to keep up that mindset of a criminal.
And that's part of the reason he came down to that garage.
He said if he was on his game, you know, 15, something there.
Was-- it was hard to stay on that edge, that criminal edge, after being on the lam as a regular citizen for 15 years.
The master manipulator gave credit to Catherine Greig for keeping him crime-free, hoping it would mitigate her sentence.
She is now serving eight years for harboring a fugitive.
On the long plane ride back to Boston, Bulger told his captors he became obsessed with not getting caught, and would do anything to avoid it, even if it meant obeying the law.
Whitey Bulger's biggest fear, they said, was being discovered dead in his apartment - and he had a plan to avoid it.
Phil Torsney: If he became ill and knew he was on his deathbed.
He'd go down to Arizona, crawl down in the bottom of one of these mines, and die and decompose.
And hope that we would never find him and still be lookin'-- lookin' for him forever.
We've seen a lot of stories about veterans and post-traumatic stress disorder but tonight, for the first time, we're able to show you new therapies that are changing the lives of vets and their families.
Two million Americans have served in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Veterans Administration tells us that one out of five suffers from PTSD.
One reason we're seeing so much of it is because many of our troops have been ordered on combat tours three, four or even five times.
The VA overwhelmed by the need, decided to try new treatments that were originally designed for rape victims.
Over two months we were allowed to sit in and listen as our troubled veterans fought the war within.
[Gene Dowdy: How can you live a life when everyone is afraid of you? You go to town and people say "that's the crazy vet, don't mess with him.
" Rob Spraggs: My wife told me, "Something's gotta change or we gotta leave.
" Anthony Apellido: When you try to talk to somebody who hasn't been there, hasn't experienced it, they don't understand.
And so you just kind of get laughed at.
.]
The 16 men around this table arrived via Afghanistan, Iraq, or both.
Some are here from Vietnam.
[Terrence Stewart: I see that I do have the opportunity to pick myself up at 63 years old and start all over again.
.]
They've "started over again" many times but their path has led back to isolation, drugs, booze, and suicide attempts.
Now they're in the VA hospital in Little Rock, Ark.
They will live here eight weeks to break through emotions that have derailed their lives.
Eric Collins: Depression, anxiety, anger, worthlessness, guilt all those rolled up into one.
Scott Pelley: Guilt? Eric Collins: Survivors guilt, why me? Why am I alive? Why are they not? That's one of the hardest thoughts to deal with, you know? Eric Collins was wounded in a rocket attack in Afghanistan.
Over a year, 17 of his buddies died.
Scott Pelley: How did you cope with these feelings of anger and depression and guilt when you first got out? Eric Collins: Alcohol and lots of it, that's where it started off.
And the alcohol led to my depression worsening which led to more substance abused.
Crack cocaine is my drug of choice.
So my whole life spiraled downward out of control.
To take control, Collins volunteered for one of the new therapies called prolonged exposure.
It forces him to work at remembering every detail of what he's tried to forget.
[Eric Collins: Next thing you hear a loud boom, my ears start ringing.
And wake up, open my eyes and I'm on the groundâ¥.]
Doctor Kevin Reeder runs the program.
[Kevin Reeder: How are you feeling at this point? What were you, what were you feeling at that time? Eric Collins: Anger.
I'm scared.
I'm feeling pain, my leg, my back, my arm, my whole body.
Kevin Reeder: Ok, let's go from the beginning.
Gotta keep doing this.
Eric Collins: The next I know I hear a loud boomâ¥.]
They call it prolonged exposure because Collins will relive the story of the attack five times a session.
There's a tape running and he'll listen to the memory throughout the day to break its power.
Scott Pelley: Tell me about prolonged exposure therapy.
Kevin Reeder: They've done everything they can to push these memories away.
In the process, they haven't gained a full realization of the impact and the meaning that these stories have in their lives.
I like to use the term we're staring the dragon in the eye.
Scott Pelley: Where do these therapies come from? Kevin Reeder: A lot of these therapies came about with survivors of physical or sexual abuse.
Those types of traumas.
Scott Pelley: What are the similarities? Kevin Reeder: The symptoms.
The symptoms.
The avoidance, the isolation, the hyper vigilance, extreme anxiety, the irritability, inability to sleep, nightmares, same thing, different sources, but same thing.
Eric Collins: I can't move my legs, can't move my arms⥠Scott Pelley: What does that do for you? Eric Collins: It helps me to get past the guilt, survivor's guilt.
And that's a building block.
Every time I get through it I get stronger and it helps every time.
Scott Pelley: It's OK to be alive? Eric Collins: Yeah.
Scott Pelley: And you weren't sure that was true before? Eric Collins: No, I didn't wanna be alive.
I wanted to be right there with them.
My whole purpose of life was gone.
Anthony Apellido: To lose one of your buddies in a firefight you don't want to see that, you don't want to feel that again and so when you get back to the rear you're pissed off because you don't want to get close to anybody anymore.
Anthony Apellido experienced those multiple tours we talked about.
He fought for a year in Afghanistan, spent one month at home, then went to Iraq, and later, Afghanistan again.
Anthony Apellido: The more deployments you get, the more time you spend out there - it just keeps stacking.
I mean the first one, it hurts but you don't get really time to heal.
And then even another one happens and another one.
On his first tour, Apellido's patrol was ambushed.
Two buddies died.
Twenty were wounded.
[Anthony Apellido: I had no weapon, no one had my backâ¥.]
They write about days like that in the other key therapy called cognitive processing.
Kevin Reeder: After a trauma or multiple traumas, often a person can believe the world just is a dangerous place.
And so what we do with CPT, Cognitive Processing Therapy, is they write an impact statement at the beginning of therapy to show them the impact of the trauma on their lives and on their beliefs.
They read that statement, about the trauma, to the group then they discuss how their lives are still held in the grip of war.
[Gable Darbonne: I never had a fear of life.
I never had a fear of living.
I never had a fear of going to the gas station and getting shot while I'm pumping gas cause I needed gas in my car.
.]
They plow through a workbook that challenges their guilt with statements like, "I shot a woman in combat therefore I'm worthless" or "My friend was killed by the enemy--I'm responsible.
" Cognitive processing tries to put the war in the past and help them re-examine who they are today.
It's tough.
We noticed this on Apellido's workbook: [Kevin Reeder: How many of you would go back to a deployed environment with your branch of service right now if that opportunity was available? Lotta hands up.
Real quick why are your hands going up so much? Gable Darbonne: You miss it in a way.
You miss everything about how hard it wanna, how bitter you got, how angry and emotional, the things you saw and you missed that camaraderie, that brotherhood, sense of purpose, the struggling with things.
Man, you it's everything, but you miss it.
You mourn that, it's weird.
It's that intimacy.
It's, you don't, I will never get that back.
None of us will ever get that back.
.]
Gable Darbonne never planned to be part of that brotherhood he mentioned.
In 2001, he was out of high school, headed to college.
But then 9/11 pushed him to an Army recruiter instead.
Gable Darbonne: My mom, I remember she was crying in the kitchen.
She goes, "Gable, you don't know what it's like for boys coming back from Vietnam, how hard they had it and what they came back with.
" I said, "Mom, it's different, though.
We got attacked.
We got attacked.
" I said, "I'm volunteering.
" I said, "I'll take anything.
You know, I'm willing to give my life.
" That's how strongly I felt.
[Gable Darbonne: I joined to serve my country, I joined to protect my freedoms, my future kids freedoms.
.]
Darbonne was one of the most thoughtful people we met.
He served in Afghanistan and Iraq.
One day, his unit was clearing a house.
It exploded.
Two buddies were burned.
Gable Darbonne: You know we got angry, got mad.
Get very angry and we took it out on certain people.
You know and you enjoyed it at the time.
You did.
Scott Pelley: You did things to the Iraqis that you're not proud of.
Gable Darbonne: Of course, but that was surviving emotionally, mentally.
I was never a violent man.
But I became different slowly.
We all have that instinct, that survival instinct.
And that survival instinct is very real.
At home, the survival instinct didn't let go.
Darbonne was like most other vets here - certain triggers brought the instinct back - the smell of diesel returned him to his combat outpost - crowds made him fearful.
Gable Darbonne: I started isolating, and I couldn't do anything.
My dad had to come over and mow my lawn.
My mom had to come over and pay my bills.
I just-- I wouldn't leave my house for a day or two.
I didn't wanna make small talk.
I didn't want somebody to ask me, "Hey, how are you doing?" I didn't like those words, you know? I just, I got very secluded, like a recluse.
For nine years, Darbonne told himself he was OK or would be OK.
Then the folks at work urged him to get help.
This was Darbonne after seven weeks of self-examination--as they all prepared to go home.
[Gable Darbonne: When I went in, I had a heart.
I volunteered.
I don't blame nothing on anybody.
I don't blame nothing on myself, I don't blame nothing on my leaders, in fact I had good leader, I blame nothing on the Army I think it is just the way it is and it sucks, I hate it I hate itâ¥I don't want to go home.
.]
Gable Darbonne: People would always ask me when I came back, "So what do I tell my boyfriend when he comes back?" Or, "How do I approach this with my son?" I said, "When he starts talking, just listen.
" Yeah, don't judge it.
You know, just listen.
Scott Pelley: There is probably a soldier or a Marine sitting alone watching this on television right now.
Eric Collins: Thousands of ï¹em I'd imagine.
Scott Pelley: And to them you say what? Eric Collins: I hope you can find the courage to get help because all you're doing is killing yourself.
And you don't have to live like that.
There is good people in this world willing to help you and its been the hardest thing for me to do, but I wouldn't have changed coming here for the world.
In our two months here, 28 men sat round this table.
Three couldn't hack it and dropped out.
The VA finds about that: 77 percent graduate with a drop in their PTSD symptoms.
It's progress but they have a saying around here -- there is no cure.
Kevin Reeder: I don't think there is a cure for what we're talking about.
We're talking about living and putting people more in touch with their lives and emotions and good days and bad days.
This isn't cancer, we can't go get it.
We have to teach people that they can live with this and live a valued life - a life they want.
Scott Pelley: After eight weeks here, how are you doing? Gable Darbonne: How am I doing? I don't know yet.
That's an honest answer.
But I know deep down inside things will work themselves out.
Everyone loves an underdog - a tale about a little guy who takes on the establishment favorite.
But is our understanding of the underdog accurate - Can a disadvantage, a weakness, actually lead to a hidden strength? It's a question that's been asked ever since David took on Goliath, an almost 3,000-year-old story that writer Malcolm Gladwell believes we've been getting wrong all this time.
Malcolm Gladwell: When we look at battles between lopsided parties, we exaggerate the strength of the favorite and we underestimate the strength of the underdog.
Malcolm Gladwell believes underdogs win more often than we think because their limitations can force them to be creative.
David couldn't slay Goliath with a sword, but with his sling he could be deadly from a distance.
And Gladwell says, there's plenty of modern research to explain why.
Malcolm Gladwell: I had a conversation with this ballistics expert with the Israeli Defense Force who had done the math and pointed out that the projectile, the rock coming from David's sling, was moving at about 35 meters per second and would have hit Goliath with the stopping power equivalent to a bullet from a .
45 caliber handgun.
Anderson Cooper: How did you find an Israeli ballistics expert who had done this study on the throwing power of David? Malcolm Gladwell: Because there was a paper presented at the International Ballistics Conference, like, seven years ago, whatever, by-- Anderson Cooper: How did you even hear about the International Ballistics Conference? Malcolm Gladwell: If you're as much of a nerd as I am, this is the kind of stuff that you--you get interested in, you know.
Anderson Cooper: This is what you do.
Malcolm Gladwell: This is what I do.
Yeah.
What Gladwell does has made him hugely popularand very wealthy.
His new book David and Goliath - all about underdogs - has already topped the New York Times best-seller list.
Malcolm Gladwell: When you're an underdog, you're forced to try things you would never otherwise have attempted.
Because David--there was no way he could do a duel with swords, he feels emboldened to try something totally outside the box, right? And that's a pattern that you see again and again with underdogs that because they can't do the thing they are required to do, they look for alternate routes.
Gladwell began writing about the successful strategies of underdogs after meeting an Indian-born software mogul named Vivek Ranadivé.
What interested Gladwell wasn't software, but how Ranadivé coached his 12-year-old daughter's basketball team - seen here in white - even though Ranadivé knew nothing about the game.
Anderson Cooper: Growing up in India did you play basketball? Vivek Ranadivé: I never actually touched a basketball in my life.
Anderson Cooper: Never touched one? Vivek Ranadivé: Never touched one.
When I went to coach my daughter's team I had physically never touched a basketball.
His lack of knowledge about basketball, wasn't his only obstacle.
His daughter's team had absolutely no talent.
Anderson Cooper: The girls on your basketball team--they weren't tall Vivek Ranadivé: No.
Anderson Cooper: Could they dribble? Vivek Ranadivé: A couple of them.
Anderson Cooper: Could they shoot? Vivek Ranadivé: Not very well.
Anderson Cooper: Did they have a long experience playing basketball? Vivek Ranadivé: For the most part, no.
So Ranadivé relied on his mathematics talent and devised a computer algorithm that turned out to be a winning formula for his girls.
The strategy: force the other team to turn over the ball.
Malcolm Gladwell: He says, "Look, I'm not--we're not gonna bother practicing shooting, it's pointless.
We're not gonna practice dribbling.
I'm gonna teach you to run around like this the entire game.
" We're gonna play the most maniacal defense known to man.
And we're gonna score by stealing the ball and shooting lay ups.
That's it.
Vivek Ranadivé: It didn't really matter that my girls couldn't shoot as well.
If I could get the ball under the basket and if I could win the turnover battle, then I could win the game.
Ranadivé's girls played a never-ending full court press.
They won every regular season game.
Anderson Cooper: Your daughter's opponents, they just weren't used to playing basketball like this.
Vivek Ranadivé:: No.
No, in fact--the coaches were not used to playing that way.
Anderson Cooper: They didn't like it.
Vivek Ranadivé: They didn't like it.
One guy, a big guy--was so upset that he said he wanted to meet me in the parking lot (laugh) after the game-- Anderson Cooper: He wanted to beat you up? Vivek Ranadivé: Well, he wanted to meet me in the parking lot.
Ranadivé's underdogs, made it all the way to the state championships.
Anderson Cooper: You clearly started to like basketball after that? Vivek Ranadivé: I did.
I did.
I ended up falling in love with the game.
Anderson Cooper: And you're still--a software CEO of a multibillion dollar company.
But I understand you recently made a big purchase? Vivek Ranadivé: Well, I did.
I bought the Sacramento Kings.
Anderson Cooper: You bought an NBA basketball team? Vivek Ranadivé: I did.
An underdog's disadvantages can be converted into advantages.
And Gladwell believes that's just as true apart from sports.
Gary Cohn is one of Gladwell's favorite examples.
Gary Cohn: I was a troubled student as a young child.
And at that period -- this is the early developed as it is today.
You know, I don't think anyone really knew how to diagnose the problem.
Malcolm Gladwell: He couldn't do school.
He was--he acted up in class.
He got kicked outta schools.
His mother never thought he would graduate from high school.
When he graduated from high school, his mother cried.
Why? Because sh--it--it was a day she thought would never come.
Cohn still has difficulty reading, but he's figured out ways to work around his disability, skills that have led him all the way to the president's office at Goldman Sachs.
Malcolm Gladwell: An incredibly high percentage of successful entrepreneurs are dyslexic.
That's one of the little-known facts.
So many of them, in fact, it's like a joke among dyslexic researchers that you go into a room of very successful businesspeople, and you--you have a show of hands on who has a learning disability, it's like half the hands in the room go up.
It's fascinating⥠Although dyslexia remains a challenge for many people, Cohn figured out a way to overcome it.
His disability forced him to become a good listener and made him unafraid to take chances.
Gary Cohn: People that can't read well, we tend to build a great sense of listening.
We also tend to build a great sense of being able to deal and cope with failure.
Anderson Cooper: This is not something though you would wish on anybody else though? Gary Cohn: No, I would not.
Gladwell is fascinated with people who achieve success by forging their own path, perhaps because that's what he has done.
He is a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine, but he doesn't actually have an office.
He writes in small cafes in New York, and does most of his research in a library where he hunts out obscure, often dull academic papers and mines them for interesting, counterintuitive ideas.
David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, calls him an original.
David Remnick: There are people that cover science.
There are people that cover business.
There are people that cover trends.
But this strange amalgam of reading academic journals, interviewing ordinary people, thinking, storytelling, this is something that Malcolm really--that was a territory that he carved out for himself.
Anderson Cooper: What do you think he's interested in achieving? Is it that he's got an opinion and he wants everybody else to agree with it? David Remnick: Absolutely just the opposite.
I think what he's interested in is testing and pressing against received wisdom, most of the time what we think of our ideas about the world, it's received wisdom.
We've read them.
We've assumed it's correct.
We don't have time to test everything.
Gladwell's testing of everything has made him a Goliath in the world of publishing but he began as an underdog.
Not a particularly strong student, his upbringing in rural Ontario, Canada was⥠wella bit odd.
Malcolm Gladwell: We had no TV.
We had no stereo.
We never went to the movies.
We never even went out to dinner.
Like--I think--we w--like we once went out to dinner in, like, in sort of the mid-70s.
Found the experience not to our liking and didn't go back.
Anderson Cooper: Not to your liking? I mean, what you're--(LAUGHS) what you're describing is a childhood---from the '30s.
Malcolm Gladwell: I thought I had--no I had--I read a lotta books--I thought I had a fabulous childhood⥠I mean--when I would sometimes get bored and my mother would say, "It's important to be bored.
You're giving your brain a rest.
" His Jamaican-born mother is a family therapist.
His English father a math professor.
Gladwell says being biracial and feeling like an outsider has given him a perspective that still informs his writing.
Malcolm Gladwell: We lived in England.
Then we moved to Canada where we were sort of outsiders.
And then I moved to America where I'm a kind of outsider.
So I feel like I've constantly been in this situation of shaking my head and thinking, "This is a strange place.
" Gladwell finds America's obsession with Ivy League colleges strange.
He argues the presumed advantages of Ivy League schools can actually be disadvantages.
Gladwell went to the University of Toronto and says he's better off for it.
Malcolm Gladwell: I have a massive chip on my shoulder.
I went to a state school in Canada.
You kidding me? I come to New York and all kinds of people who went to Harvard and Yale are mentioning that in every second sentence.
It drives me crazy, so -- so I have taken it upon myself.
Anderson Cooper: I went to Yale.
Malcolm Gladwell: I know that, but you haven't mentioned it until now, so I've-- Anderson Cooper: I never mentioned it.
I really don't.
He says the assumption in America that students should go to most prestigious school they get into is simply wrong.
Malcolm Gladwell: If you go to an elite school where the other students in your class are all really brilliant, you run the risk of mistakenly believing yourself to not be a good student.
Right? So you-- Anderson Cooper: Even if-- Malcolm Gladwell: Even if you are.
Right? It doesn't--if you're last in your class at Harvard, it doesn't feel like you're a good student, even though you really are.
It's not smart for everyone to want to go to a great school.
Anderson Cooper: So if you had a child, would you want them to go to Harvard? Malcolm Gladwell: No, of course not.
I'd want them to go to school in--to a state school in Canada where their tuition would be $4,000 a year.
Malcolm Gladwell: If Harvard is $60,000 and University of Toronto where I went to school is maybe six.
So you're really telling me that education is 10 times better at Harvard than it is at University of Toronto? That seems ridiculous to me.
He doesn't like to talk about money, but Gladwell earns millions from his books and lectures.
In person however, there is little sign of his wealth.
He lives alone in Greenwich Village on the top two floors of a walk-up brownstone.
A self-described hermit, he doesn't even have a doorbell.
Malcolm Gladwell:: I don't want a doorbell.
I don't want anyone ringing my doorbell.
Why-- why--seems to be so intrusive.
Anderson Cooper: So when people come visit what do they do? Malcolm Gladwell: They call me on their cell phone.
For all his success, on the streets of New York he's nearly invisible, save for his signature cloud of curls bobbing above the crowd.
Malcolm Gladwell: People assume when my hair is long that I'm a lot cooler than I actually am.
I'm not opposed to this misconception, by the way, but it is a misconception.
[Malcolm Gladwell: Thank you for buying six books--.]
At 50, Malcolm Gladwell has reached a level of success few writers ever will.
His previous four books have sold nearly 5 million copies.
His first one, "The Tipping Point, - was published 13 years ago, but remains on the New York Times best seller list.
His fans fill lecture halls and companies pay big money to hear about his latest observations.
[Malcolm Gladwell: How do you get to be that person who just is completely indifferent to what everyone around you is saying? And you get to be that person if you have been through the absolute worst the world can throw at you and come out fine, right?.]
While readers find his writing accessible and perceptive, his critics say his conclusions can be formulaic and obvious.
Malcolm Gladwell: I'm not afraid of the obvious.
I think the really obvious questions are the gre--are the great ones.
Anderson Cooper: You're a superstar in the world of publishing and you have a lot of people gunning for you.
A lot of people probably would like to see you fail with a book.
You don't feel like a goliath? Malcolm Gladwell: Well, I'm not lumbering and--am I? I try not to think too much about what has happened in my career and draw too many conclusions about it.
I think it's always best if you pretend that you're exactly the same as you always were.
And I'm perhaps as befuddled by my success as my critics are.
So in that sense, I see eye to eye with them.
When they say, "I can't believe Gladwell did this.
" I say, "I can't believe Gladwell did that either.
How on Earth did that happen?"