Interview – Brian Manning | WikiSecrets | FRONTLINE | PBS

In this exclusive interview, Bradley Manning's father tells FRONTLINE about his son's upbringing in small-town Oklahoma, Bradley's love of computers, the explosive altercation with his son that led to police being called to the family's home and why he convinced his son to join the Army. This transcript is drawn from two interviews, conducted on Feb. 28 and March 7, 2011.

Why have you decided, at this point, to speak?

The only reason I decided to come forward at this time is because there's so much misinformation out there about Bradley's early life, his later years as he progressed, and the basis of why he took the path of joining the Army. ... I wanted to straighten all that out. There's been so many things that have been misrepresented. Flat-out incorrect information has been put out there by people that I don't even know.

People need to understand that he's a young man that had a happy life growing up.

And I'm only speaking for myself. I'm not speaking for any other member of the family. I am not speaking for Bradley. These are my words, my truths. If I know something that's incorrect, I'll correct it. If I don't know something, I'll say, "I don't know that." And if there's some information that you don't have and I think is pertinent to Bradley's story, I'll supply that for you.

And I want to do this with public broadcasting because it's a media that I, all the time, listen to. I'm a supporter of PBS. I listen to Morning Edition and the afternoon show, All Things Considered, and have for many, many years.

To NPR?

Yep. NPR, National Public Radio. So I thought it would be a better platform to go forward on a media that I trust and that I've listened to for many years. ...

My son, unfortunately, he's in a brig. He's been accused of something, but hasn't been incriminated or judged in a court of law or anything. I have no power over that. But, you know, I have [to talk about] my son's reputation, because his childhood is being reflected, you know, that he had a negative childhood when he had a lovely childhood.

Crescent, [Okla.,] is just a lovely town to grow up in. The school was K-12, so if anything occurred at school or anything, I mean, the entire town knew. ... All the people were lovely. Everybody at school knew everybody. So if you look at it from that point of view, you can see if anything negative had been going on in his life, it would have been apparent to everyone. ...

People need to understand that he's a young man that had a happy life growing up. ...

He would create his own websites. His first website I think he did when he was, like, 10 years old, where I had to go out and actually buy an advanced HTML manual. ... The whole website was based on the movie Goldeneye.

The James Bond film?

Right. And he had links in the HTML where he would link to the lyrics or to the movie and things like that. It was kind of a neat little place to go. ...

He was really into computers?

Oh, yes. You could definitely say that was the focal point of his life.

He was smart about computers?

Very smart, and proactive. ... He taught himself Word and taught himself PowerPoint. And he was avid at the yearly science fairs where he would do a presentation. He was very skilled there. He taught himself PowerPoint to a very high level where he was able to develop all of his material for his presentation in PowerPoint. So when we put together his display, even just looking at it from a distance, it looked so professional. He won, I think three years running, grand prize. This is a K-12 project. And I think the fourth year, he basically qualified to win, but they said, you know, "We can't keep giving you this award." ...

He spent a lot of time on the computer. Is that correct?

If he did anything, that's all he did.

That's all he did?

Yeah. He never went outside there.

He didn't like to go outside?

No.

No sports?

Nope. I guess at some point, in Crescent, while he was still there, he was on their basketball team. I have a nice picture of him in his uniform.

What kind of friends did he have?

Very few friends. I think that he had two close friends that he kept in contact with and would visit them after he came back. I don't recall their names. But he never, to my knowledge, as long as I lived with him, it was never anybody came by the house. There wasn't any sleepover or anything else like that. So he kind of kept to himself, kind of.

He was a happy kid. He was happy with the things he had in his life. As long as anything didn't disrupt his activities, he was fine. As I said, he was basically on autopilot. You didn't have any chores; you didn't have anything else like that. There wasn't anything laid out, like, "Well, Bradley, you need to do this, or you need to do that." He never had anything like that.

What was his temperament like?

He was very calm, very quiet. ...

What kind of things did you like to do together?

Basically just talk about the computer things. When you do IT work all the time -- you know, it's like the old saying: Driving down the street, you know which house is where the painter lives. Well, it's the one that needs to be painted -- you know, so the last thing you want to do when you get home is to do something you've been doing all day. But most of the time he enjoyed figuring stuff out himself.

I had seen a statement on the Internet that I was strict or whatever. ... We never had to tell him to get up. I never had to tell Bradley to go to bed. You know, same with his older sister. They just were very well-behaved kids. And I mean, it was a very happy household.

You say it was a happy household, but you did go through some tough times.

At the very end. ...

You worked for the Navy?

Worked for the Navy, but in the entire time I was in the Navy, I never physically saw a naval ship. Our base was just off of a Royal Air Force base down there. It was called Brawdy Wales, was the name of the Royal Air Force base. ...

Can you describe what you were doing?

No.

In general terms?

No. Not at all.

You were doing classified work?

I can say I was an ocean systems technician, second class. But after second class, and the work I did was classified. It was covert. That's all I can say about it.

So Bradley is born in '87?

[Yes.] ... Bradley was born, and before he was 1 is when we relocated to Phoenix. We had a great time then. Every day after work, I would take him out, and we had a little train, and I'd kind of push-pull him on this little train. We'd go around the block every day. ...

It's reported in the press -- and I'm here to give you every opportunity to correct what's inaccurate -- that it was a sudden breakup. Is that a fair statement? ...

... My ex-wife and I started out on a level plane. ... I was progressively, throughout the military, training all the time, you know, on electronics and other things I needed to learn for my job. But my wife, you know, basically always stayed stagnant as far as learning more things.

And when I got out and I worked full-time and went to college full-time, ... I was always on the learning. And my career advanced from a programmer, senior programmer, to a project leader and then as a manager. And again, you know, she stayed at the same point. ...

In 1994, I basically took a project where ... I'd be in Paris for three weeks and back in the U.S. about five to six days a month.

[My ex-wife] never learned how to drive. She lived four miles outside of town, so I basically had to stock her up with food and supplies and stuff for the three-week period that I'd be gone. And that was kind of a strain for her, because she was basically stranded. Our neighbors weren't real close to us. ...

Did Bradley complain about you being absent a lot? How did it affect your relationship with him?

When I would come back after three weeks, you know, sometimes he wouldn't even recognize me. It was kind of like, reacquaint myself. So that was a little bit rough on him. But, I mean, after a couple hours, it was, "Dad's home," and things were OK. ...

The straw that broke the camel's back was when the opportunity came up to go to Germany for a year. And I really looked forward to the traveling and the opportunity, both for myself and for my career. ... I could go back on, you know, the three-week, one-week, three-week, one-week. And she basically said, "No, there's no way we're going to go back in that mode." She said: "I can't handle that. This is too much load."

And [so] there was just kind of a best friend-type relationship at that time. I guess it was kind of selfish, but I said, "Well, you know, this opportunity's being put in front of me," and I took it. And that basically ended that relationship. ...

And what effect did that have on Bradley, do you think?

I think that the biggest effect on Bradley was that he had -- and again, you know, to be fair, I never prepared my ex-wife for life on her own. She never wrote a check, never handled any bills, never did anything but the checking account.

Didn't drive a car?

Didn't drive a car or anything. So when I went to Germany and kind of moved out of Bradley's life and out of her circle, a lot of the things that I had taken care of, all of a sudden, she had to rely on Bradley. So he had to kind of grow up kind of quick, you know, to handle things, basically, for me.

And he was a young kid?

Yeah. He was about 12, yeah. ...

What kind of contact did you have during that period that [Bradley was living in Wales]?

The only time I had contact is if they thought that alimony check or child support check was late, and then Bradley would call me. ...

So when he comes back, describe what happens. He decides -- he calls you up and says, "I'm going to come back and live with you"?

Basically, yes. He connected with me and said that he'd reached the decision that he wanted to come back and live in the U.S., and pretty much could we make the arrangements. And that was fine. We had a room for him set up and everything.

But that must have been a surprise for you?

It was very much a surprise. ...

How does it go?

It went fine. He didn't drive at that point. I got him enrolled at a driving school that was a mile or so away. ...

Besides taking driving tests, what was he doing?

He had found this job at Zoto, Zoto.com. Kord Campbell I believe was the owner's name. Bradley still wasn't driving at that point. I drove him down for the interview. Bradley came out, and Kord actually came out with him and came down to my car, where I was sitting.

This is right after his job interview?

Right. He was leaving the job interview, and he said, "You know, Mr. Manning, I just want to tell you, you have an extremely intelligent son," and basically, "I want to hire him on the spot. He can start whenever he possibly can." And then we made some arrangements until he got a driver's license on how we would get him to and from work. And this is, you know, very, very early on him being back in the U.S.

On my way to work, I would go down to a Starbucks, drop him off. And Kord would come from Edmond, go to that Starbucks, pick up coffee, pick up Bradley, go into the office. And then at the end of the day, he would bring Bradley back to that Starbucks, and I would pick him up and take him back to the house. So we did kind of an exchange.

And then once Bradley got his driver's license, I gave him the use of my Nissan pickup, 100 percent for his use. So therefore he was able to drive to and from work.

This is a period where there's been a lot of reporting on what was going on between you and Bradley in the household and [on] Bradley's life, his personal life. Give me your take on all of this.

When he came back, it was like a different person had come back, because his mother had put him in the position that he basically ran the household. And I hear this from her sisters that I've talked to. So it's basically, you know, that sometimes he'd be upstairs. If he wanted something, he'd just beat on the floor and yell down to his mother for a cup of tea or something, and she'd basically bring it up to him.

So he was king of the castle?

He was king of the castle. He handled all the finances and everything else like that, so when he came back to the U.S., he had a certain amount of money that she had given him to get himself established. And he didn't have to pay rent. I had supplied him with a vehicle and got him through the driving class and helped him [with] transportation to and from work.

But he had this total irresponsibility for finances. ... That was causing some real strife, because we were basically bailing him out right and left.

So that caused some tension?

It caused a lot of tension. We picked him up for everything he needed in his life, including car insurance, everything else like that, AAA coverage. All the little sundry things that come along with life, my wife and I are now picking up.

And when he'd have these overdrafts -- I mean, that caused a lot of problems, I'm telling you. You'd go to talk with him, and then he had total disregard for it. [You] just couldn't get through to him that sooner or later, the well was going to run dry.

Were there any other issues?

The other issue -- for several reasons that are personal, we had very strict rules at the house about food and drink. And that is, we had a dining area in the kitchen, and if you wanted to drink or eat something, that's where you went. I followed the rules. Everybody else in the household followed the rules.

And you go back to where Bradley's room [is], and you'd find eight or nine Dr. Pepper cans shoved under the bed. So he was blatantly disregarding that. And you tried to talk to him about it, and it's like talking to a brick wall.

And unfortunately, my current wife's father died of emphysema, so she had a real issue with smoking. And I know for a fact that he had taken to sneaking outside and smoking cigarettes in the garage. And that caused some conflict. ...

And what was he doing, most of the time, when he was in the house?

He would either be at work or be in his bedroom with the door shut.

And what was he doing with the door shut?

I don't know. The door was shut.

But he was on the computer most of the time?

Yeah. A bit, yeah, computer.

Did he have friends?

He occasionally had a friend come by that he would meet somewhere.

At what point does he tell you about his homosexuality? How does that go down?

Not long after he came back from the U.K. I can remember the conversation like we're just sitting here having it today. And he said, "You know, Dad, I just want to let you know, I'm gay." And I said, "Well, you know, I mean, that's a life choice." I said: "I don't have a problem with that. You know, it's not going to affect any relationship that you have with me or anything. And, you know, if that's your choice and what's going to make you happy, then we're fine." ...

It was just supportive. I said: "That's your decision. You know, I don't -- it's fine." ...

So it surprised you when he told you?

Well, yes. It definitely surprised -- I would say I was surprised. But just from a fact of someone, you know, throwing a bucket of water over your head, it's like: "Oh, OK. Well, I didn't know that." (Laughs.) You know, it's not something that you are involved enough where you would start seeing or having suspicions of. He had been at the household long enough that had he, you know, distributed [sic] any traits, I would have had suspicion. But there wasn't. This was just a flat-out statement that "You should know." ...

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Interview - Brian Manning | WikiSecrets | FRONTLINE | PBS