♪♪ [ Clock ticking ] ♪♪ -Ow.

♪♪ -Tonight on "Retro Report," understanding the present by revealing the past.

First... -I'll do whatever is necessary to stop an invasion of our country.

That's what it is.

-...President Trump's rhetoric about immigration today... -Time to get out!

Stop... -...echoes a California campaign from the '90s... -The idea was, "Let's make California an unfriendly place."

♪♪ -...and... -Challenger, go at throttle up.

-...the way we think about risk was changed forever... by the space-shuttle disaster.

-I will regret, always, why I didn't break the door down.

-Then... -An 81-year-old woman sued McDonald's, claiming their coffee was too hot.

-This story is the most widely misunderstood story in America.

-...and how special forces transformed military strategy.

-It took seconds, and they were inside the building.

-Plus, Andy Borowitz, humorist for The New Yorker magazine.

-In celebration of LGBTQ History Month, we recognize the trailblazers who changed the future of gay rights.

-♪ Come to the Florida sunshine tree ♪ ♪♪ -I'm Celeste Headlee.

-And I'm Masud Olufani.

This is "Retro Report on PBS."

-They'll stun the world.

-More secrets exposed... ♪♪ -Perhaps no issue highlights the divisions of the Trump era more than immigration, whether it's the fight over building a border wall, policies that separate migrant children from their parents, or the harsh rhetoric coming from the President.

-But while it might seem new, that rhetoric contains echoes of another anti-immigration backlash from 25 years ago.

-[ Crowd chanting ] USA!

USA!

-Our country is out of control.

People are pouring across the southern border.

-Indiscriminate floods of illegals have crossed our borders.

-Day one of my presidency, they're getting out.

-Deport every illegal alien in the United States immediately.

-[ Chanting ] Build that wall!

Build that wall!

Build that wall!

Build that wall!

-I will build a security fence, and we will seal the border of this country!

-I was badly criticized for using the word "invasion."

It's an invasion.

-The 1990s were a time of building anger over immigration, and it started in a place that might surprise you -- California.

-USA!

-Illegal immigration is a serious problem in California.

-Undocumented immigrants coming across the border were concerning to Peter Nunez, a former federal prosecutor who lived in San Diego.

-Every night, the groups would gather on the Mexican side waiting for the sun to go down, and they would gather by the hundreds, if not the thousands, and, at a certain point, the groups would just sort of charge across the border.

-It's been dubbed the banzai dash.

Human waves overwhelm border guards and race into California.

-The number of Border Patrol agents was totally inadequate, so it was totally out of control.

-California was in the middle of a recession, and while the downturn was primarily from the loss of manufacturing jobs, immigrants quickly got the blame.

-Groups worried and angry about the impact of rampant immigration are multiplying.

-People are losing their jobs left and right, and they felt this is because of the influx of illegals coming and taking their jobs.

-Robert Kiley was a political consultant.

He and his wife started working with grassroots citizens' groups who were angry that undocumented immigrants were using taxpayer-funded social services.

-When you went to the hospital, to the emergency, they were full of people there that weren't from this country.

They were illegals.

They were getting medical services free.

Schools were being impacted.

Cities were being impacted.

-The Kileys helped come up with Proposition 187, a ballot initiative that would deny government benefits to undocumented immigrants.

Peter Nunez became an early supporter.

-The idea was, "Let's make California an unfriendly place for people who are here illegally," with hope that no more would come and that those that were here would leave.

-Their children would be kicked out of public schools.

Educators and healthcare workers would be required to report anyone they suspect of being illegal.

-It was considered an extreme idea by Democrats and some Republicans, who said it would unfairly target immigrants for the state's economic trouble.

-The immigrants that were coming here were doing jobs that nobody wanted to do.

They were farmworkers.

They were people who were janitors.

They were maids.

-Opponents label Proposition 187 immoral and racist.

-Taking innocent children and throwing them out on the streets -- that that somehow is going to solve our illegal-immigration problem is simply fallacious.

-People thought it wasn't really gonna have much of a chance, but it turned out it hit a nerve.

-More than 600,000 Californians have signed petitions calling for a halt to services illegal residents receive.

-And then it got picked up by the politicians.

-Republican governor Pete Wilson, who was in a tight race for re-election, threw his campaign behind Prop 187.

-Republican governor Pete Wilson asking the state with the highest unemployment to give him a second term.

Wilson says don't blame him.

Blame illegal immigrants.

-The federal government won't stop them at the border, yet requires us to pay billions to take care of them.

-Wilson's campaign ad felt like a personal attack to Kevin de León, even though he was a citizen.

His mother had come to California illegally before becoming a legal resident.

-It was something that was deeply personal because I witnessed my mother, I witnessed my aunts who worked their fingers to the bone, who helped build this economy.

-For Hispanics, the largest immigrant group in the state, it has become a highly emotional issue.

-The politicians were scapegoating, demonizing, looking for someone to blame.

That's not the America that I know.

-De León didn't have much experience in politics, but he helped organize anti-Prop 187 marches.

-And they all brought Mexican flags, and, boy, that ticked off a lot of people.

That polarized the issue.

Polarized it.

Are you for it or against it?

-The tensions just hit a fever pitch.

As a young Latino, I felt unease, I think, for the first time in my own city, my own country, my own state, where I had grown up.

-Yes on 187!

Time to get out!

Stop... -Prop 187 was an expression of unhappiness with a community that was rapidly becoming less and less white.

There was a kind of anxiety, anger, rejection out there in the country.

-Proposition 187 and Pete Wilson won in a landslide, but the courts ruled that only the federal government can regulate immigration, and Prop 187 never went into effect.

-What happened almost immediately after is a surge of citizenship applications and of people saying they were going to vote.

A million new registered voters who were Latino in California.

-I thought for the very first time, "Perhaps we have to run for office.

Enough with the demonization.

Enough with the scapegoating.

We want to be full-fledged Americans.

We want to have our voices heard.

We want to have a say."

-Kevin de León did run for office, and 20 years after Prop 187, he became the first Latino president of the state senate in more than a century.

-My story should not be the exception.

My story should be the rule.

-Before leaving office in 2018, he and other Latino politicians helped make California one of the most liberal and immigrant-friendly states in the country, a change fueled by a long-term demographic shift in the state.

-It's not just the rise of the Latino vote that has turned California so blue.

From the mid-1990s up until the early part of this decade, there's a mass exodus of white working-class voters.

They went to surrounding states.

They were being replaced by younger, poorer immigrant voters, and that combined, that mix, is what has made California the bluest state in the Union.

-But Proposition 187 had an impact beyond California.

Even though it never went into effect, it added fuel to an immigration crackdown that spread across the country in the mid-'90s.

-It was Prop 187 that began the anti-immigration fever, a fever which has now spread to Washington.

-Immigration went to the top of the agenda.

-In every place in this... -The Clinton administration started ratcheting up immigration-enforcement efforts because they were scared to death of what Prop 187 symbolized.

-Calls for additional border barriers, expedited deportations, and for local police to enforce immigration law started to grow, and it was a Democrat who signed those ideas into law.

-That's why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more, by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before.

-It was a really fundamental change in the way the federal government goes about enforcing immigration policy and created the basis for the large-scale removals that we've experienced in this country.

-Build that wall!

Build that wall!

-We'll build the wall, but who's going to pay for the wall?

-Mexico!

-Who?!

-Since the 2016 election, immigration has divided much of the country, and there were echoes of Proposition 187, from the anger... -Go back to Mexico!

-...to the rhetoric.

-They come over to the border.

They have the baby in the United States.

We now take care of that baby -- Social Security, Medicare, education.

Give me a break.

-It's this mix of economic insecurity combined with dramatic changes in our demography.

We're seeing the story replay itself.

-Today, the Trump administration is taking a harsher approach to immigration.

-President Trump has decided to slash the US refugee program almost in half New policies have expanded the categories for immigrants targeted for deportation.

They've also made it harder to apply for asylum and enacted aggressive family-detention policies at the border.

-Lawyers say hundreds of migrant children were forced to sleep on the floor for weeks without enough food.

-But California's experience in the years since Proposition 187 suggests that it's hard to predict what the current crackdown will lead to.

-You're not going to realize what seeds were being planted.

It's never a simple story of a melting pot, and it's not a simple story of, "They're taking over."

It's this constant struggle between feelings of being threatened and trying to create a larger community, and I think 187 was a signpost on that.

♪♪ ♪♪ -It's one of those verdicts that captures your attention -- a woman in Georgia walked into a ladder while looking at her phone, and then a jury decided that she deserved $160,000 for her injuries.

She ended up getting less than that, but her case stirred up the old debate over whether we need to rein in big jury awards in so-called frivolous lawsuits.

-The case that has perhaps most influenced people's opinions on the issue is from the 1990s, when a woman was burned by hot coffee and blamed McDonald's.

But the facts of that case are surprising.

One expert even called it the most misunderstood story in America.

-An 81-year-old woman has been awarded $2.9 million after she sued McDonald's, claiming their coffee was too hot.

-The public perception of it is Stella Liebeck won a lottery -- she bought the coffee, she spilled it on herself, and now look, she's a millionaire -- when, of course, the facts are much more complicated than that.

-Stella Liebeck was a 79-year-old widow sitting in the passenger seat of a parked car when she was burned on February 27, 1992.

She had recently quit her job as a department-store clerk and moved to Albuquerque to be near her daughter.

-The day that the burns happened, my mother and my nephew went through the drive-through at McDonald's and got breakfast and coffee, and they pulled into the parking lot.

And in the Ford Probe, there's slanted surfaces everywhere.

There's no place to put the coffee.

She put it between her knees and lifted the lid off, and, in the process of doing that, spilled the coffee, and all of the hot liquid went into the sweat suit that she was wearing and pooled in the seat.

-All I remember is trying to get out of the car.

I screamed, not realizing I was burned that bad.

I knew I was in terrible pain.

-The severity of the burns caused Stella Liebeck to go into shock, and her grandson immediately took her to the emergency room.

-She was burned over 16% of her body.

6% of the burns were third-degree.

She was in the hospital for a week.

-Medical bills were $10,000, so Stella reached out to McDonald's and asked to be reimbursed.

-We couldn't believe that this could happen over spilling the coffee, so we wrote a letter to McDonald's, asking them to check the temperature of the coffee and to give recompense for the medical bills, and the response from McDonald's was an offer of $800.

-Stella Liebeck had never sued anyone before Albuquerque attorney Ken Wagner took her case.

Before they went to trial, they tried twice to settle out of court, but McDonald's refused.

-We bought a product.

It was used as intended.

It was unreasonably hot and therefore unreasonably dangerous, and those were the essential facts.

-I was not in it for the money.

I was in it because I want them to bring the temperature down so that other people will not go through the same thing I did.

-McDonald's policy was to serve coffee between 180 and 190 degrees.

A burn expert testified that liquid at 180 degrees could cause third-degree burns within 15 seconds.

Lawyers produced documents that showed that between 1983 and 1992, nearly 700 people claimed that they had been burned by hot coffee at McDonald's.

-McDonald's was on big-time notice that they had a product that was dangerous, and it was burning people.

We argued that to the jury, that they were callous and indifferent and simply not turning down the temperature.

-An expert for McDonald's testified that burns are exceedingly rare -- one for every 24 million cups of coffee served.

-They just said, "It's statistically insignificant, and we're not going to change what we do."

-People interact with hot beverages all the time in a fast-food restaurant, and that doesn't necessarily mean that the restaurant is doing something wrong.

-Attorney Tracy Jenks tried the case for McDonald's and argued that Liebeck bore personal responsibility because she spilled the coffee on herself, and McDonald's coffee wasn't any hotter than the coffee at other fast-food restaurants.

She said the reason the coffee was so hot was because that's what customers wanted.

-McDonald's had a really, really strong reason for why they brewed their coffee at the temperature they did.

It was an industrial standard based on the maximum extraction of the flavor and the maximum holding temperature.

-But the jury saw how liquid at that temperature can scald when they were shown graphic photos of Liebeck's legs and burned groin.

-The photos depicted where they had to graft the skin from the side of her legs to close the third-degree burn.

And I think if people would have seen the severity of the burns, they would have realized it was not a laughing matter.

-After seven days of testimony and four hours of deliberation, jurors unanimously agreed to award Stella $200,000 in compensatory damages, but because she caused the spill, they reduced that to $160,000.

Jurors then set punitive damages to send the message to McDonald's to turn down the temperature of the coffee.

-I remember I could see Judge Scott going like this with his pencil, and I thought, "Oh, I hope he's counting digits on the verdict form," and he was.

-They based the amount on the revenue from two days of coffee sales -- $2.7 million.

The size of the award got the media's attention, but it overshadowed the rest of the story.

Details of the case and the facts related to how the jury made its decision went mostly unreported.

-Several days after the verdict, I had news crews from France, Japan, Germany in my driveway wanting to interview me.

I mean, I was stunned.

-After the verdict came in Wednesday, August 17th, the Albuquerque Journal ran the first story.

The Associated Press and Reuters wire services then filed reports, and the story was picked up in dozens of newspapers worldwide.

It became an international news event.

But as the story's reach got bigger, the word count got smaller.

In some papers, it was not more than a blurb.

-697 words in the Albuquerque Journal became 349 words in the AP and became as few as 48 words in various renderings by major metropolitan newspapers.

48 words can't explain a lot, and then "woman, coffee, millions" sounds like a rip-off, not like a logical consequence of a thoughtful trial.

-The report aired on more than a dozen national broadcasts and twice as many local news shows.

The condensed telling of the story created its own version of the truth.

Instead of pointing out she spilled the coffee in the passenger seat of a parked car, this was the new narrative.

-It seems she was holding a cup between her legs while driving.

-Clamped it between her legs, drove down the street, spilled it, burned herself, sued McDonald's, and collected.

-Stella has received letters saying stuff like... -I was driving down the road.

I had no business driving down the road with the coffee between my legs and all that stuff.

See, that's just plain ignorant.

-My mother was made the villain in this story.

It's like bullying.

It feels like bullying.

-I mean, it's not like the McDonald's person leaned over the car and poured it.

It was an accident.

-Very much like urban legends, it is a very compelling story.

Once everybody decides what is true about something and the media has been sort of an echo chamber for it, then how do you deal with the fact that they might be wrong?

-Now she claims she broke her nose on the sneeze guard at the Sizzler, bending over looking at the chickpeas.

-"Ooh, my coffee was too hot!"

It's coffee!

-Republican lawmakers crafting the Contract with America seized the moment.

They tapped into public outrage over frivolous lawsuits to promote the Common Sense Legal Reform Act.

Liebeck's case became exhibit "A."

-If a lady goes to a fast-food restaurant, puts coffee in her lap, burns her legs, and sues and gets a big settlement, that in and of itself is enough to tell you why we need to have tort reform.

-She spilled hot coffee on her lap while sitting in her car and claimed it was too hot.

Every day, we hear about another outrageous lawsuit.

-Stella's portrayal as a scheming wannabe millionaire was based on the jury's award, but that amount was only a suggestion.

In reality, the judge significantly reduced the punitive damages.

-The judge reduced the award to about $650,000.

-According to a source familiar with the case, it was settled for less than $500,000.

Stella was not allowed to talk to the press, but over the last two decades, her lawsuit has become a part of the cultural discourse.

[ Laughter ] -Pardon me.

Excuse us.

-Ohh!

Aah!

Ohh!

Coffee!

Ohh!

We got a chance?

-Do we have a chance?

You get me one coffee drinker on that jury, you gonna walk out of there a rich man.

-[ Clicks tongue ] -Stella's daughter says that, although over the years some stories have given greater context and a new perspective, such as the documentary "Hot Coffee," her family is still haunted by a perception that doesn't seem to go away.

-♪ Plasma getting bigger, Jesus getting smaller ♪ ♪ Spill a cup of coffee, make a million dollars ♪ -I like Toby Keith, but he did the "American Ride."

-♪ The fit's gonna hit the shan ♪ -Do we have to keep living this over and over and over again?

-Popular misunderstanding of the case is so ingrained that even the legal system has had to learn to grapple with it.

In 2011, the Utah Supreme Court ordered a personal-injury case retried out of concern that the defense attorney might have tainted the jury's decision by comparing the case to Liebeck's.

Meanwhile, courtroom attorneys across the country now use the case to screen potential jurors.

-It's a wonderful litmus test.

If you're putting someone on a jury, you really have to know how they feel about this case to know whether they're open to the facts that you're going to present.

McDonald's has been, in the public mind, cast as the victim.

That Stella Liebeck needed to defend her reputation is the saddest piece of this whole story, to me.

-Stella Liebeck died in 2004 when she was 91.

-The emotion that she went through, she just felt like people were coming at her.

-McDonald's representatives didn't return e-mails or calls, but according to franchisee handbooks, coffee must now be held and served 10 degrees lower.

♪♪ Today, special-operations forces are playing a large and growing role in the U.S. military, transforming Defense Department strategy and spearheading hundreds of missions across the globe.

-Our reliance on special operations can be traced back to two missions going back more than 40 years.

One was a dramatic failure during the Iran hostage crisis, and the other one didn't involve the U.S. at all.

♪♪ President after president has expanded the footprint of U.S. special operations.

-No enemy stands a chance against our special forces.

-How did special ops become so central to America's war fighting?

-Can special ops keep up the pace?

-The story of how America became so dependent on these forces began with an unusual event almost five decades ago... when someone yelled, "Fire!"

on a crowded plane.

-Everybody turns around to look at what's happening there, and there are two people who each have a hand grenade in their hand and a gun.

-Suddenly we heard, on the intercom, a man speaking in English with a German accent who said that we've changed directions, but if we'll behave and follow instructions, nothing bad will happen to us.

-At the end, he said, "Thank you for flying Air France," and, you know, hung up.

-The plane had been hijacked by a group of German radicals and members of a Palestinean liberation organization.

-They want the freedom of 53 prisoners.

If Israel and the other countries accept to release those prisoners, no harm will be done to us, they'll release us, and if not, it'll be different.

-And they finished it with the words, "Now you know how the mind of a crazy German revolutionary works."

-2,800 miles later, the plane touched down in Entebbe, Uganda, where the hostages were greeted by its leader, Idi Amin.

-He says, "Look.

These terrorists have full support of the Ugandan people."

Now the building is surrounded with Ugandan soldiers armed with machine guns.

So, you know, I asked my father what's going to happen, and he told me, you know, we're probably dead meat because Israel never negotiates.

He even made the argument it's way too far for Israel to intervene.

♪♪ -Soon, 47 hostages were released in an attempt to entice the Israeli government to the table.

Olivier Cojot was among them.

-Israeli intelligence, secretly planning an operation, was waiting for them.

-They started asking me all kinds of questions like, "How high is the grass out there?

Can you see the lake from where you are?

Which way do the doors open?"

You know, "Is it wall, window?"

-We never, never had to plan an operation which is so far away with so many soldiers.

I was not afraid of being killed or being hurt.

I was afraid of failure.

-Three days later, lead pilot Joshua Shani guided a squadron of four Hercules C-130s through the darkness toward Entebbe Airport.

-We landed normal landing.

No big deal.

In the middle of the runway, paratroopers jumped from the door.

The job was to conquer the control tower.

I made the turn.

I saw the terminal.

It was quiet.

The Entebbe situation was based on surprise.

-Out the back of the Israeli plane, heavily armed commandos quickly drove a convoy that included a Mercedes chosen to resemble Amin's.

-It took seconds, and they were inside the building.

-Our soldiers were beginning to come in.

Then I thought that there'd be bullets flying, and I covered myself with a mattress.

-Within 51 minutes, the commandos had killed all the terrorists and Ugandan soldiers guarding the building.

Then they rushed the 102 remaining hostages onto the awaiting planes.

-After we were satisfied, my instruction was, "Take off!

Don't wait!

Go, go!"

[ Cheers and applause ] -Four hostages were killed, as was the commandos' leader, Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu, but the world saw the bold operation as an extraordinary success.

-Immediately, you saw a trend.

We're talking about real countries, like the U.S., of course, U.K., Germany, Italian -- all came to learn.

It was like the whole world said, "Wow.

They have chutzpah, these guys.

They are damn good."

Entebbe gave a green light to governments that there is maybe another way, and not just to surrender.

[ Crowd chanting in native language ] -One of those governments was the United States.

-Look at this.

One American.

Blindfolded, handcuffed.

Today in the courtyard of the American embassy in Tehran, he and 60-some others still held hostage and threatened in a country gone out of control.

-Dozens of Americans had been taken hostage as the Islamic Revolution swept through Iran, and President Jimmy Carter's administration looked to Entebbe for a solution.

-Operation Eagle Claw attempted to project power and special-operations forces deep into enemy hostile territory, but while it was sort of in the same spirit as Entebbe, there were a lot of moving parts for Operation Eagle Claw.

-The daring plan called for U.S. Delta Force commandos to land in the Iranian desert, then sneak into the city of Tehran to free the hostages.

-I knew it was going to be complex and really, really high-risk, but, you know, if the president was going to order us to go, then you salute smartly and you go.

-But the mission lacked Entebbe's precision.

Planners hadn't accounted for the region's punishing dust storms.

Mission helicopters were crippled.

Then there was a crash.

-Good evening.

We tried, we failed, and we have paid a price.

-Left behind in the desert of Iran are the bodies of eight American servicemen, seven U.S. aircraft, and many questions.

-To the families of those who died and who were wounded, I want to express the admiration I feel for the courage of their loved ones and the sorrow that I feel personally for their sacrifice.

-In response to the failure, the U.S. made sweeping changes over the next decade to how these operations were conducted, increasing their funding, beefing up the forces, and putting them under a central command.

-In 1980, there were some 6,000 to 8,000 special-operations people.

Today's count is over 69,000.

Unbelievable growth.

Because of Eagle Claw, we find ourselves much better prepared today.

Many things would not have happened without that failure.

-The United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden.

-But as special operations have become crucial to U.S. military strategy, concerns have also emerged that the forces are being overused and sometimes put in harm's way without a clear, strategic goal.

-Special operations should not be the panacea for every kind of difficulty that we find ourselves around the world facing, to include terrorism.

We should not get to the point that we become the solution for the United States military.

♪♪ -The U.S. Navy has been criticized after a series of tragic accidents at sea.

Ships from the U.S. 7th Fleet were involved in four collisions in one year.

The incidents, which included colliding with a cargo ship and an oil tanker, caused the deaths of 17 sailors.

-The Navy found that the accidents resulted from overconfidence, complacency, and an accumulation of small errors over time, and they cited a theory that sheds light on how these kinds of disasters can happen.

It's called the normalization of deviance, and it's an understanding that came from one of this country's most tragic accidents -- the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.

-T-minus 10, 9, 8, 7, 6... We have main engine start.

4, 3, 2... -All right.

-And liftoff!

Liftoff of the 25th space shuttle mission, and it has cleared the tower.

-Whoa!

-Wow!

[ Radio chatter ] -Roger, roll, Challenger.

-Oh, wow.

-Good roll program confirmed.

Challenger now he ading downrange.

-Wow!

-Oh, wow.

-Ohh!

-Engines beginning throttling down now, at 94%.

Velocity, 2,257 feet per second.

Altitude, 4.3 nautical miles.

Downrange distance, 3 nautical miles.

-Challenger, go at throttle up.

-Roger.

Go at throttle up.

[ Chatter ] -Flight controllers here looking very carefully at the situation.

Obviously a major malfunction.

-A major malfunction?

-We have no downlink.

Reports from the flight dynamics officer indicate that the vehicle apparently exploded.

-What?!

What?!

-The vehicle has exploded!

-We are looking at checking with the recovery forces to see what can be done at this point.

-What?

-The vehicle had exploded!

-Oh, please, don't say that.

[ Indistinct conversations ] ♪♪ -Up until the Challenger accident, NASA was a very untypical government agency.

We were inventing as we went along, so you had a lot of freedom.

-It was viewed internationally as a fantastic place.

The Apollo missions gave it an aura of invincibility.

-4 minutes and 27 seconds to go before the start of this historic mission.

-The year was 1981, and NASA was about to amaze the world with Columbia, a new spacecraft that pushed the limits of imagination.

-They never before have sent a spacecraft into orbit that is going to come down as a plane.

-Instead of using a single rocket, like Apollo, the shuttle was attached to an external fuel tank and two solid rocket boosters.

Each of the boosters was constructed of joined metal tubes, and the field joints were sealed with two rubber gaskets called O-rings.

-Look at those huge engines getting ready to catapult this strange assemblage off the earth.

-But all this technology wasn't cheap, and NASA had to come up with a new funding model.

So Congress and NASA decided the shuttle program could pay its way by carrying payloads into orbit.

-The Department of Defense, private contractors that wanted experiments done in space would pay them to take them up on the shuttle.

-And unlike Apollo, the shuttle system was going to be almost entirely reusable.

-They had to return this hardware back into space as rapidly as they could.

It wasn't long into the program they realized that that process was far more difficult than they ever anticipated.

-They were under constant pressure to launch.

-T-minus 10, 9, 8... -I'm getting a few butterflies myself right now.

-We've gone for ma in engine start.

We have main engine start.

♪♪ [ Indistinct shouting ] -Go!

-Fly like an eagle.

♪♪ -Columbia was a fantastic success, but NASA had to figure out how to make these technological feats routine.

-They predicted, in the beginning, that they would be able to launch 60 shuttles a year, that NASA would, in fact, become self-paying or self-funded.

-We had two pads up and running, so you'd have two vehicles out on the pad, and they were going to launch, like, three days apart.

-But that really never happened.

It was an experimental technology, and they just couldn't manage that many, so they continually fell behind.

-The shuttle program never had more than nine launches in a single year.

-We have a beautiful picture no w. It's coming through.

-And to help meet their ambitious schedules, NASA worked with private contractors to build many of the shuttle's systems, while NASA engineers analyzed data to see how well everything performed.

-NASA kept very good records of anomalies.

The problem is, is that they ran into a lot of these.

-One thing engineers saw was the O-rings that sealed the booster joints weren't behaving according to design.

On several flights, especially those at cold temperatures, rocket propellant had blown by the primary O-ring.

-The first time it happened, they accepted it.

They tested it.

They thought they knew what had happened.

And then, the next launch, everything worked, and then a few more launches, and it happened again.

-But each time, the secondary O-ring prevented gases from escaping the side of the booster.

So rather than stalling the program to redesign the joint, NASA waived the requirements governing O-rings, which effectively made it acceptable to fly with minimal erosion.

-Even with the worst O-ring erosion they'd ever had, it hadn't failed, so they started to work on it, but they really weren't rushing.

It didn't seem so terrible, but they continually expanded the bounds of acceptable risk.

-And then came the 10th Challenger launch and a mission unlike any NASA had attempted before.

-They decided to make that the first flight that a ordinary citizen could fly, and that drew a tremendous interest from the public, plus the school systems were going to show this live on television.

-At this time, I'd like to introduce you to perhaps the person you came to see, and that's Christa McAuliffe, our payload specialist, teacher in space.

-My job at the time of the Challenger was the director of the space shuttle solid-rocket motor project for my company, Morton Thiokol.

-Morton Thiokol was an engineering firm out of Brigham City, Utah, and had the NASA contract to build the shuttle boosters.

-Well, I am so excited to be here, and I just hope everybody tunes in on day four, now, to watch the teacher teaching from space.

-On the day before Challenger, there was an overnight low that was record-breaking.

-Got a telephone call from one of the program managers back in Utah that worked for me.

And he said, "Al," he says, "We just heard that it might get down to as low as 18 degrees by tomorrow morning."

"Good grief," I said.

"I'm really worried about these O-ring seals being able to operate properly at those kind of temperatures."

-The mission had already been rescheduled after routine delays, so now Morton Thiokol and NASA scheduled an emergency teleconference the night before the launch.

-The engineers at Thiokol were very concerned, so they began scrambling to put together an analysis of temperature data.

-Larry Mulloy was NASA's project manager for the solid-rocket boosters.

-Then we went out to the teleconference, and Roger Boisjoly, who was kind of the O-ring czar at Morton Thiokol, did most of the talking.

The recommendation was that we wait until it's 54 degrees before we launch.

So I said something like, "54 degrees where?"

-They had never drawn a temperature line before, and it meant a tremendous change to the shuttle's schedule.

-It isn't what they wanted to hear.

In fact, Larry made a comment, "Thiokol, when the hell do you want me to launch, next April?"

-Thiokol's engineers in Utah were caught off guard by NASA's strong reaction to their recommendation, so they asked if they could have some time off the teleconference to review the data in private.

-After they went offline, Al McDonald was visibly upset, and he said, "I wouldn't want to be the guy that had to appear at a board of inquiry if this thing blows."

And I said, "I understand that, Al.

And you won't have to.

That'll be me."

♪♪ -At Thiokol, the vice president was asking those engineers to stand up for what they said.

Roger Boisjoly took the lead in the objections.

He said, "I can't prove it to you.

All I know is that it's away from goodness in our experience base."

But the engineers at Thiokol didn't have the data, so the vice president took the decision-making away from the engineers and asked the managers to decide.

-And they did.

More than 30 minutes after the engineers had gone offline, Thiokol managers voted to reverse the recommendation and to launch the Challenger as planned.

The teleconference became a focal point for the White House-appointed Rogers Commission that investigated NASA after the disaster.

-There was not one positive statement for launch ever made in that room.

-What was driving you here?

What was to be achieved that caused you to go?

♪♪ -NASA pressured the folks at Thiokol to change their mind, and it was clear to me that we finally came back and gave them what they wanted to hear.

-You know, we'd been rationalizing this erosion since the second flight.

-None of the information the NASA managers were getting was new.

This was not individuals getting used to something.

This was organizationally supported.

-That's where... the accident was inevitable.

-Once Thiokol reversed their initial recommendation, someone needed to sign off on the launch rationale.

-I did the smartest thing I ever did in my lifetime.

I refused to sign it.

I just felt it was too much risk to take.

-So just before midnight, McDonald's boss, Joe Kilminster, signed off instead.

After the disaster, the commission concluded cold and joint design were major factors in Challenger's O-ring failure.

It also squarely pointed a finger at NASA managers like Mulloy.

-The commission did recognize that there was pressure to launch, but they saw it as enacted by amorally calculating managers who were in positions of responsibility.

I found something completely different.

-So Vaughan began her own investigation.

-No one wanted this to happen, but intuition, you know, "I don't feel good about this," should have been okay, and they applied all the usual rules in a situation where the usual rules didn't apply.

-4, 3, 2, 1.

♪♪ ♪♪ -We made a grievous error.

♪♪ -So the real crux of the matter is, how do you get people to recognize when you need to do something different than what you've been trained to do?

-After Challenger, the Rogers Commission prompted many changes at NASA, including an increase in the program's budget, adding a third O-ring to the booster joints, and moving some managers, including Mulloy, out of the shuttle program.

-But there was nothing really about how to change the organization that came out of the commission report.

-And then in 2003, after NASA had completed 15 years of successful missions, came the 28th launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia.

-It seemed like any other launch, but, on the second day, someone called me on the phone and said, "You've heard about the large piece of debris or foam that came off the tank and hit the left wing, caused a cloud, a poof?"

I said, "No, I didn't."

-Columbia made it into orbit safely, but the concern was that if debris had caused damage to the left wing, it could be vulnerable on re-entry, so just days after the launch, NASA formed a special team to assess the damage.

-The decision to ask for more data, the need for it, was unanimous.

-But management was worried about unnecessarily diverting Columbia from its mission.

Since foam damage had been generally considered to be nonthreatening, NASA manager Linda Ham denied three requests to get pictures of the shuttle's underside from a nearby satellite.

-And they were all put down for different reasons.

The similarity between Challenger and Columbia was the falling back on routine under uncertain circumstances.

-In the end, NASA sent just one communication to the astronauts about the debris strike, and on February 1, 2003, the crew began their return to Earth.

-Yeah.

[ Laughs ] -Part of our engineering culture is that you should work to your chain of command.

I will regret, always, why I didn't break the door down by myself.

-And we're ready, Wi llie, no deltas.

-Everything look good to you?

-I don't see anything out of the ordinary.

-This is amazing.

It's really getting fairly bright out there.

-They had just started the de-orbit burn.

They were coming down, and we started seeing temperatures change higher on the left side versus the right.

-FYI, I've just lost four separate temperature transducers on the left side of the vehicle.

-The anomalous data confirmed my worst fear.

[ Radio static ] -Columbia, Houston.

UHF comm check.

Columbia, Houston, UHF comm check.

-I looked up, and I saw one of our chief engineers in tears.

"We can't get the crew," she said.

"They've been incommunicado."

♪♪ "It happened.

It happened."

♪♪ -Columbia was destroyed on re-entry.

♪♪ After the disaster, Vaughan worked closely with the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, which concluded that NASA had ineffective leadership and a flawed safety culture.

-We are quite convinced that these organizational matters are just as important as the foam.

-Ham soon left the shuttle program, and NASA restructured its management team.

-This happens in many different kinds of organizations.

I don't think that the general public got the position of either Larry Mulloy or Linda Ham and that their behavior was, to a great deal, determined by working in a very rule-oriented organization.

[ Bell clanging ] -Using her insights from NASA, Vaughan developed a theory that went beyond the space agency, calling it "normalization of deviance."

She says it helps explain how, over time, organizations come to accept risky practices as normal.

-It's widespread... with Katrina, where the engineers were saying, "These structures are not going to hold.

We need to do something more here," with British Petroleum, early warning signs ignored.

-The cement used in the Gulf oil rig was flawed.

[ Indistinct shouting ] -The 2008 financial failure.

-The federal commission concluded it could have been avoided.

-You had a lot of the heavy technology derivatives and formulas, and there is a fine line between what is devious and what's a good business decision.

-And in 2017... -Two deadly accidents involving U.S. Navy ships.

-...the U.S. Navy cited Vaughan's theory to help explain accidents that killed 17 sailors.

-We accepted this, what was termed, the normalization of deviance.

In other words, we allowed our standards to drop, thinking we were still okay.

♪♪ -We can never resolve the problem of complexity, but you have to be sensitive to your organization and how it works.

While a lot of us work in complex organizations, we don't really realize the way the organizations that we inhabit completely inhabit us.

♪♪ -When celebrities support a cause, do they really help?

-New Yorker humorist Andy Borowitz investigates.

-Mass destruction.

-Sexual relations... -Potato.

-I'll write it!

-Byah!

-Hello.

Aw, damn it.

-None of it makes sense.

-Maybe you guys should, uh, get a sense of humor.

[ Laughter ] [ Explosion ] -In celebration of LGBTQ History Month, we recognize the trailblazers who changed the future of gay rights.

-Hola.

I'm Mike Pence.

-Hola to this little-known Indiana politician who clearly embraces diversity in all its forms.

-Marriage is recognized as between a man and a woman, and I think that's how it should remain.

-But some can't seem to stay out of what Mike Pence and his wife do with their lives.

-The liberal news media have made an issue of the fact that your wife is going back to work.

-♪ Let the river run ♪ -That's just like the media -- making a huge deal out of the fact Pence's wife is a working woman.

-Mike Pence's wife, Karen, has returned to teaching at a Christian school where gay students and teachers are not welcome.

-An opportunity for... -Mike Pence wanted the best for Indiana, which for him included signing a bill allowing businesses to turn away gay customers.

But this turned out to be a tactical error.

-Thousands rallied to express their displeasure with the governor.

-CEOs from Apple to Yelp lashing out.

-"Canceling all programs requiring our customers and employees to travel to Indiana."

-After repeatedly defending the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Governor Mike Pence conceded the law should be changed.

-He accidentally mobilized advocates for equality, who managed to get the law amended.

If only there was some way Pence could have known this might happen.

♪♪ Way back when Mike Pence was still saying "hola" in his baby voice, Anita Bryant became the ubiquitous face of Florida orange juice.

-♪ Come to the Florida sunshine tree ♪ ♪ For fresh-tasting orange juice naturally ♪ -But orange juice wasn't the only thing on which Anita could concentrate.

-The opposition to the gays is being led by the singer Anita Bryant.

-There are evil forces disguised as something good.

-Oh-ho!

-Watch it!

-Oh!

-♪ Yeah ♪ -Anita started dropping hints of activism in her commercials... -It's always 100% pure.

-...using subliminal messaging to promote heterosexuality.

-It's an abomination to practice homosexuality.

-A clear authority on appropriate sexual relationships, Anita was the perfect person to lead a campaign against an ordinance that would allow gay people equal rights in housing and hiring.

As Anita was minding her own business, simply making orange-juice ads -- and telling gay people how to live their lives -- demonstrators began voicing objections.

-We're met with protest and all kinds of problems, and every... -Ohh!

-Ohh!

-It suddenly became clear.

Anita's activism had an unexpected consequence.

-The nation has not heard the last of Anita Bryant, and the national gay community seems to want it that way.

-I think that she's doing more for the gay community than anybody else on this planet.

-Though Anita meant to advocate for heterosexuals... -This is what heterosexuals do, fellas!

-...she inadvertently helped people to see that LGBTQ equality was good for America.

-It's not bad.

-The stories of Anita Bryant and Mike Pence are cautionary tales for public figures, proving that drawing attention to a cause may actually inspire the opposite if people think you're on the wrong side of history.

Though Mike Pence may never support LGBTQ rights, the more he opposes them, the more popular they get.

♪♪ As for Anita Bryant, fighting gay rights cost her her job, and by 1980, orange-juice commercials featured a far less controversial spokesperson.

-This is TreeSweet, the orange juice I grew up on.

♪♪ -History is full of surprises, if you know where to look.

-"Retro Report on PBS."

Thanks for watching.

-Next time, sex education in schools has a long and controversial past.

-What if I want to have sex before I get married?

-Well, I guess you just have to be prepared to die.

-And the start-up from the '90s that changed the way we consumed media.

-I had a moment there where I asked myself, "Is it morally correct?"

-Plus, humorist Andy Borowitz.

-Today, we take a close look at a vibrant industry... -What are you looking at, butthead?

-...bullying!

-Next time on "Retro Report."

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -This program is available on Amazon Prime Video.

♪♪