The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight our regional commentators examine public support for attacking Iraq; Charles Krause follows up on the Pope's visit to Cuba; and Elizabeth Farnsworth looks at the winter Olympic games past and present. It all follows our summary of the news this Monday. NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: Secretary of State Albright said today the Clinton administration opposed a ground war with Iraq but would attack forcefully if a diplomatic solution to the standoff could not be reached.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, Secretary of State: Unless Iraq's policies change, we will have no choice but to take strong measures, not pin pricks but substantial strikes to reduce significantly Saddam's capacity to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems and to diminish the threat he poses to Iraq's neighbors and the world. Do not doubt, we have the authority to do this, the responsibility to do this, and the means and the will.

JIM LEHRER: Iraq President Saddam Hussein sent diplomats to Arab capitals to try to win support for his position. U.S. Defense Secretary Cohen was in Kuwait as part of U.S. efforts to gain backing from the Persian Gulf states. Officials traveling with him said the U.S. will send some 3,000 troops to Kuwait to help bolster its defenses. In Washington Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said the U.S. should examine alternatives between pure diplomacy and a military option.

SEN. TRENT LOTT, Majority Leader: We could consider expanding the no-fly or the no-drive regions. I mean, there are some regions in Iraq where Saddam Hussein does not really have control of the situation in the North. I would like for us to try to find ways to limit his ability to spew his venom to the people and have a radio free Iraq, for instance. There's a whole list of ideas that have been suggested by various experts, and I hope that we will be considering those.

JIM LEHRER: We'll look at public support for an attack on Iraq right after this News Summary. President Clinton today renewed his State of the Union call to save Social Security first. He said any budget surpluses should help fund Social Security, not tax cuts or new spending. He called for a year of debate on reforming the system. The President spoke at his alma mater, Georgetown University in Washington.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: This fiscal crisis in Social Security affects every generation. We now know that the Social Security trust fund is fine for another few decades. But if it gets in trouble and we don't deal with it, then it not only affects the generation of the baby boomers and whether they'll have enough to live on when they retire, it raises the question of whether they will have enough to live on by unfairly burdening their children and, therefore, unfairly burden their children's ability to raise their grandchildren.

JIM LEHRER: He announced a series of four regional forums on the issue beginning in April in Kansas City. The President's lawyers prepared today to take independent counsel Kenneth Starr to court. They plan to seek contempt sanctions for leaks of grand jury testimony allegedly by lawyers in Starr's office. Starr said the charges were an attempt to distract and deflect his work. California residents were recovering from weekend storms today and preparing for more on the way. Spencer Michels reports from San Francisco.

SPENCER MICHELS: Dawn broke in Northern California with a hint of clearing skies over a flooded venue, a much needed break today after a week of intense rain and flooding. But hillsides weakened by the storm--like those in the Russian river hamlet of Rio Nido--continue to slide. Six homes have already been destroyed by the mud, and a huge crack has opened up, causing evacuation of 50 homes.

MARK LIBBY, Flood Victim: There's not a whole lot we can do. We've got sandbags around the house, but that almost just makes you feel like you're doing something because they're probably going to be completely unnecessary or completely futile, one or the other.

SPENCER MICHELS: The vast devastation has prompted California Governor Pete Wilson to declare a state of emergency in 27 counties, almost half the state. He asked the federal government to declare those counties disaster areas so they would qualify for federal funds. In Southern California heavy surf continues to pound the beach at San Clemente and elsewhere, destroying homes. All told, 1400 houses and buildings have been wrecked in the state. Twenty-one hundred Californians are in emergency shelters and nine people have died. In Santa Cruz this morning, one man clinging to branches was finally rescued after being thrown from his canoe in the middle of the raging San Lorenzo River. The ferocious storm attacked Baja, California, in Mexico, killing at least 14 people, most of them in the border town of Tijuana.

JIM LEHRER: Overseas today the first major emergency aid arrived in Afghanistan, following last week's devastating earthquake. The death toll from the quake was estimated by some as high as 5,000. It measured 6.1 on the Richter Scale. Homeless victims were housed in tents and having to endure below-freezing temperatures. Hundreds fled to neighboring Pakistan today. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to public support for hitting Iraq, a follow-up from Cuba, and the Winter Olympics. FOCUS - READY OR NOT?

JIM LEHRER: Is the public ready for another war with Iraq? We'll take that up with our regional commentators in a moment, but first how President Clinton and British Prime Minister Blair dealt with it at their news conference last week.

TONY BLAIR: We discussed obviously a range of different topics. At the top of the list of course was the situation in respect of Iraq, and what we agreed was that we had to do three things in particular. We had, first of all, to make sure that our own public opinion was properly educated as to why it was so essential that the UN inspectors are able to do their work. The amount of weapons that they have already uncovered in the six or seven years that they have been doing this task and why it is therefore absolutely essential that Saddam Hussein has brought back into line with UN Security Council resolutions, and the inspectors can go about their task uninhibited. We, ourselves, a couple of days ago in Britain published a document where we listed precisely all the various weapon finds the inspectors have made, and when you go through that list and see all the various attempts that have been to try and prevent the inspectors carrying out their functions, then I think people can understand why it is so necessary, so important for us to be prepared to take whatever action is necessary to ensure those inspectors can go back in and fulfill their task. We have of course to prepare in case diplomacy cannot work. In view of the situation we in Britain have been looking at our own military readiness, in case a diplomatic does not in the end prove possible. So all the way through, in respect of Iraq, we've agreed that we must educate, we must engage in diplomacy, but we also must prepare.

REPORTER: Now, the prime minister said that there was--you had to educate the public about Iraq. But I think the American public is largely in the dark about what to expect about a military attack on Iraq. Are you talking about something that lasts a day or two, or something that lasts for weeks or months?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: First of all, the most important thing, the best thing that could be done, what we hope we will happen is that there will be a diplomatic solution to this which will result in the inspection teams for the United Nations being able to return and have unfettered access to the appropriate sites because as the prime minister I think put out a paper just a couple of days ago pointing out the incredible work that's been done by the inspection teams. That's the best thing. Now, whether there is a diplomatic solution or not is entirely up to Saddam Hussein. If he decides that he wants to continue to have the freedom to rebuild his weapons program, then I believe that the clear mandate for the world community based on not only the resolutions of the United Nations but the danger this would present to the interests and values of the United States, to people of Great Britain, to people of the region, is to do what we can to weaken his ability to develop those weapons of mass destruction, and to visit them on his neighbors. You know, I never discuss operational plans; I wouldn't do that. I think the important thing is that you know that I don't want this--nobody wants this. We want a diplomatic solution. It's up to him.

JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner takes it from there.

MARGARET WARNER: Now we're joined by five NewsHour regulars: Lee Cullum of the Dallas Morning News; Mike Barnicle of the Boston Globe; Bob Kittle of the San Diego Union Tribune; Patrick McGuigan of the Daily Oklahoman; and Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Constitution.Bob Kittle, do you think the administration has prepared the American public for military action against Iraq?

ROBERT KITTLE, San Diego Union Tribune: I think the administration has made a respectable start, and the press conference on Friday with the strong assist from Tony Blair helped lay out the rationale for this. But, frankly, there's a lot more that needs to be done. We're not really clear, the American people are not, in terms of what our objectives really are here. And our objectives are fairly limited. They are to contain Saddam Hussein's aggression, and that's a very good policy. But I don't think most Americans even in a community such as San Diego, which has an awful lot of personnel on the front line in the Persian Gulf, I don't think the American people appreciate why we simply don't go in and, you know, take Saddam out. The reality of course is that that requires an invasion force, an occupation force, with potentially many casualties among Americans. So it's not an option that we ought to be pursuing. But I think the President needs to do more and Madeleine Albright helped today but needs to do more and Madeleine Albright helped today, but needs to do far more to explain exactly what our objectives are and how we intend to achieve them.

MARGARET WARNER: Pat McGuigan, what kind of a job do you think the administration has done in preparing the public, both the need for this and the objectives, and what it will entail?

PATRICK McGUIGAN, Daily Oklahoman: Well, I think it helps when someone like Madeleine Albright is talking about it, rather than the President, at least with me, because I respect her motivations, and I frankly have some concerns about some of the President's motivations in making this such a key issue now when it's frankly been going on for quite a while, Saddam's defiance of the UN inspectors. We also have to understand and we have to be candid about this, and Mr. Blair helped I think a little bit the other day on this. We are pretty much alone if we take this action. Now we keep saying we're doing it in the name of the United Nations, the potential action that the President and his people are outlined. But the truth is we're doing it in the name of the United States and Great Britain and a handful of others, because the United Nations has not expressed a willingness to back force and this continued reliance on diplomacy--while it makes for nice expressions of peaceful intention--may not be sending the right message. I believe we either ought to pretty much continue as we are, or as was indicated by Bob and some others, possibly go for it--seek to discredit, weaken, undermine Saddam Hussein through really aggressive action, or just continue doing the best we can with the current policy. Anything in-between I think is a formula for disappointment on the part of our people.

MARGARET WARNER: Cynthia, I want to get back to what we should be doing there, but I'm also interested in your thoughts about to what degree has the administration made the case for even the need to do anything militarily? I mean, do you think the public has really been brought into this sufficiently to understand why we may be getting very close to doing this?

CYNTHIA TUCKER, Atlanta Constitution: Margaret, I don't think the American public would be taken aback by any means by a limited military strike on Iraq. We've been hearing about it for months now. Most Americans were fully prepared to accept the proposition that Saddam Hussein is a very bad actor, and news accounts about his possibly having stockpiles of biological weapons have been running for months. So I believe that the American people have a very cursory knowledge, at least, of the need for some limited action against Iraq. And I don't think that they would be taken aback by limited military action. After all, we've done it before in 1993 and 1996. I don't think the Clinton administration, as some of my colleagues have already pointed out, has done an effective job first of all of preparing the American people for a more substantive military action if, in fact, that is necessary, but, more to the point, I don't think the Clinton administration has prepared the American people for the fact that we might have to go after Saddam Hussein again and again and again. They don't understand why, in fact, if this guy is such a bad actor, we don't just go in and take him out once and for all.

MARGARET WARNER: Mike Barnicle, where do you weigh in on this, how well the administration has prepared the public for what's coming.$ MIKE BARNICLE, Boston Globe: Well--

MARGARET WARNER: What's likely to come.

MIKE BARNICLE: Well, actually, Margaret, I think Saddam Hussein has done an incredibly great job of preparing the American public for what is likely to happen. I think there's an air of inevitability in this country with regard to our policy in Iraq that we will, indeed, end up bombing Iraq. I also think that if you walk around and listen to people, there is, as usual, a large area of ignorance about Iraq. This is not bombing Cambodia. This is not bombing some primitive society. This is a middle class country with some fairly noble people, I would expect, within that society. But we live today in a country where I think many many people under the age of 40 think any military contact whatsoever with Iraq or with any other country is tantamount to a Nintendo 64 Game on TV. It's antiseptic; it's quick; it's over with very few casualties. The most important thing a President of the United States can do is put people in harm's way. It's more important than balancing any budget because he's balancing our security interests with the lives of young Americans. And that is the part that I don't think enough people in this country have thought about.

MARGARET WARNER: Lee Cullum, do you think the Americans are prepared to see people in harm's way? Americans or Iraqis?

LEE CULLUM, Dallas Morning News: Margaret, I think that they are willing to have a strike against Saddam Hussein and after all they have understood the problems of Saddam since 1990 and 1991. I don't think they are necessarily aware that this strike is imminent. I think the public has been so distracted by the President's other problems and so caught up in that story that they don't realize how close they probably are to bombing Iraq. I would suggest that the President have a national televised address to the nation and explain what the objectives are. As I understand it, the objectives are to reduce the arsenal in Iraq to the extent possible, make it as difficult as possible to reconstitute those weapons and at least give Saddam Hussein to understand that we mean what we say. I think you should explain that Saddam will very likely still be there when this is over. It's not a permanent solution to the problem, but because there is no permanent solution doesn't mean that you don't plug away at it.

MARGARET WARNER: Pat McGuigan, let's go back to this--to a point you made earlier and you and Bob Kittle seem to have a difference on this--do you think the goal should be to get rid of Saddam's arsenal, or to get rid of Saddam?

PATRICK McGUIGAN: Well, I think Mike made a good point when he noted that the people of Iraq, you know, they're human beings; they're not cardboard cutouts or something, and therefore, a case can be made for sustaining where we are, a policy of deterrence, of containment, if you will, or, on the other hand, for bringing this finally to an end, charting a way that we get to an ending where this man is no longer there not only to rattle the cage in the region and cause problems for the United States and its friends, but, more importantly, for the people of Iraq to continue to oppress and destroy the people of that country. I think you can make the case for either of those two. I'm not sure you can make the case for another two or three or four years of this sort of up and down. Let's either go with containment as a policy, or let's go with getting Saddam's ability to oppress these people out of the way.

MARGARET WARNER: Bob Kittle, what about that point?

ROBERT KITTLE: Well, I think the problem is that what it would take to get Saddam out of power, that is, to go all of the way. The American people would love nothing more than to have Saddam out of the way; however, the hard reality is that to do that means you simply can't use air strikes. We saw in the Persian Gulf War--we've seen in many air strikes since--that air strikes alone, even a very robust and sustained aerial bombardment, will not bomb Saddam into submission and certainly will not force him from power, so the alternative them militarily is to invade Iraq and to occupy Iraq with hundreds of thousands of American troops and in the process to sustain considerable casualties among American service personnel. And the American people I don't think are at all ready for that. I don't think they would support that. I think the American people will support a much more limited policy of containing Saddam's aggression, but I simply don't think the American people are yet ready for the kind of military commitment, very serious military commitment that it would take to remove Saddam from power.

MARGARET WARNER: Pat McGuigan, quick reply on that point. Do you think the American public is ready to support the use of ground troops to get rid of Saddam Hussein?

PATRICK McGUIGAN: Probably not. I think the President would have to be very persuasive in making the case. I think a case can be made for it because the alternative to a clearly stated policy of containment, or what we've just been discussing is this in-between thing where there's no resolution, and meanwhile, he continues to move the material around from one so-called palace to the next, and continues to build an ability to go after countries like Israel and, for that matter, to go after Kuwait again.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Cynthia, where do you come down on this question of what the goal should be?

CYNTHIA TUCKER: Well, Margaret, I don't think that not only are the American people not prepared to see ground action--the kind of ground action that it would take to even think about realistically getting rid of Saddam Hussein; there's another very good reason that President Bush didn't order the troops into Baghdad in 1991. And that is all the experts on this subject think that the situation could be just as bad if Saddam Hussein is eliminated. Iraq could fall apart; you could have all kinds of irrational factions at work, and things could be--Israel could still be in jeopardy; Kuwait could still be in jeopardy; and things would be just as bad, if not worse. So I think this is a very, very complicated matter, and all that we can do at the moment is try to collect excellent intelligence that tells us where these stockpiles might be, and try to find them and get rid of them. But, no, I don't think it is a good idea at this point to dedicate ourselves to military action to get rid of Saddam.

MARGARET WARNER: Mike.

MIKE BARNICLE: Well, I think the op ed page goal is, you know, to contain Saddam and reduce his ability to wage war with anthrax on his neighbors. The realistic goal probably is to get the Iranians to kill him.

MARGARET WARNER: Explain.

MIKE BARNICLE: Well, I mean, you have a country in play right alongside Iraq. I mean, there's great potential there for warfare between the two of them. They've gone through war before. In this country we talk about limited warfare as if it's a 13-week TV sitcom on ABC. Limited war sounds terrific for us sitting here. It's not very terrific if you happen to be in it for a limited period of time, an hour, a day or a year, so it's in our best interests to get another country, a potential ally, I would think, Iran, oddly enough, to do something about their neighbor.

MARGARET WARNER: So you're saying, in other words, you could have a U.S. attack which weakens Saddam Hussein's aggressive military capability, but it's kind of a bank shot because it invites Iran to come in and take him out?

MIKE BARNICLE: Yes. I mean, as I understand it under present law, as our law is currently written, it is possible for us to legally kill every person in Iraq and not target Saddam Hussein for assassination. Well, that's kind of bizarre, so why don't we turn the tables and do with Iran what Germany, France, and everyone else in the world asks us to do with a wink of the eye? You go do it and we'll nod approvingly behind closed doors. Let's do that with Iran.

MARGARET WARNER: Lee.

LEE CULLUM: Well, Margaret, I think that's a very interesting idea. I don't really anticipate further conflict between Iran and Iraq anytime soon, though I may be wrong about that, though I certainly think Mike's proposal is an attractive one--if somebody would rid us of Saddam Hussein, it would be a good idea. But probably we are in for a longer haul than that. We have to realize that we simply cannot send our top diplomats to half the world--threatening threats for two or three weeks--and then not follow through on those threats--we would never be believed again, and Saddam Hussein is not a subtle man. So we really have no choice now, but to follow through with these strikes if there is no diplomatic solution, or at least a diplomatic reprieve. That, of course, is fervently to be hoped for.

MARGARET WARNER: Mike, just back to you quickly, if the bank shot idea doesn't work, do you think the public--going back to something Pat McGuigan and others said earlier--will accept just kind of an ongoing "we strike Saddam every couple of years" sort of a containment policy but nothing is resolved anytime in the near future?

MIKE BARNICLE: No. I think there's going to have to be resolution of this within the short term. I would think--I mean, just--America's need can feel it bouncing impatiently every time Saddam Hussein comes on the TV screen and clearly huge numbers of Americans don't understand why we didn't wack him out seven years ago, and so I don't think we can go for limited air strikes every 90 days.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, thanks very much, all five of you.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight a follow-up from Cuba and the Winter Olympics. FOCUS - CUBA REVISITED

JIM LEHRER: Charles Krause has our post Pope's visit report from Cuba.

CHARLES KRAUSE: When Pope John Paul II arrived in Cuba, the air was heavy with expectation. Many Cubans and many Cuban exiles in Miami had high hopes the visit would mark the beginning of the end of Cuba's Communist government. Some even predicted a popular uprising. That didn't happen. Indeed, on a personal level, the aging Pontiff and his host, Cuba's aging revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, seemed to get on remarkably well. But still the Pope delivered a tough political message. Cautiously, but firmly, he attacked what he called the lack of freedom that characterizes Cuba today. Perhaps his most direct criticism came on the last day of the visit during a mass in Havana's Revolution Square. There, before a crowd of several hundred thousand people, the Pope called for national reconciliation, for religious freedom, and most pointedly for Cuba's Marxist government to respect what the Pope called the inalienable rights of the individual. The response was immediate and overwhelming. Anti-government cries of Libertad, Libertad--Liberty--rang out publicly for the first time in Cuba since the Cuban Revolution nearly 40 years ago. Hundreds of thousands of Catholics and non-Catholics alike heard and approved of the Pope's political message. But what did it all mean? Within hours Revolution Square was empty and within days the Cuban Government had removed the last vestiges of the Pope's presence in Cuba. On the surface it seemed as if nothing had changed. Yet, in the days after the Pope's visit, Havana's churches were filled as never before. There were also notably more police patrolling Havana's streets. It was a single widely interpreted as a warning to those who might be inclined to act on the Pope's call for greater freedom. For nearly a week after the Pope left we remained in Havana, probing where we could, trying to determine the political impact of the Pope's visit. Admittedly, this is a country where government opponents are quickly put in jail, and most people are afraid to speak freely. Still, no matter how hard we looked, we could find no evidence that Castro's government is in any immediate danger. One of the first places we looked was UNEAC, Cuba's union of artists and writers. During the Cold War in Russia and Eastern Europe anti-government sentiment was often most clearly and strongly expressed by dissident intellectuals, but in Cuba, most of the intellectuals who dared to criticize the revolution or challenge Castro directly have been forced into exile, put in jail, or are now simply afraid to speak out. (Singing) So during the week afer the Pope left Havana, Cuba's union of artists and writers remained an oasis of cultural activity and a strong bastion of government support. Ramon Font is a poet who also writes and produces a weekly program for Cuba's government-controlled television network. Even after 40 years and the Pope's implied criticism, he insists it's necessary for Cuba to remain a Marxist one-party state.

RAMON FONT, Cuban Writer: Why shouldn't we? That's what we want to be. Maybe 200 years from now, maybe we can have two parties, but does the existence of two parties guarantee democracy? I cannot judge historically; I'm not a historian. But I think if that's the way we have done it, and if that's the way it solves our problems, why don't the world--it's not the world, but anyway--why don't the United States let us do it?

CHARLES KRAUSE: We also spent some time taking Cuba's political temperature in Central Havana, returning to a part of the city we visited four years ago. Then Cuba's economy was near collapse; food was in extremely short supply; and many Cubans were openly critical of the government. Today there are still shortages of water and electricity. And much of Havana is still crumbling. But at the free market, known as Cuatro Caminos, food is much more plentiful and whether because of increased police surveillance or because the economy is better, fewer people were willing to criticize the government. Certainly there was no evidence that anything the Pope had said was about to have an immediate political impact. Eduardo Guerra lived in the United States for 10 years before returning to Cuba in 1979. We asked him if he thinks the Pope's visit will lead to change.

EDUARDO GUERRA, Cuban Worker: I don't think in a political system but I think it's in the better relation between believers and non- believers.

CHARLES KRAUSE: But not political?

EDUARDO GUERRA: I don't think politically, not a big change.

CHARLES KRAUSE: And finally we went to the University of Havana. Traditionally throughout Latin America large, state-run universities have been breeding grounds for political dissent, yet just days after the Pope left Cuba here at the University of Havana there was a massive display of nationalist sentiment and what seemed to be genuine support for the government. Thousands of students, faculty, and other young people were marching from the university through Havana's streets, celebrating the 145thanniversary of the birth of Jose Marti, Cuba's national hero. There was no sign of discontent. Instead, what the marchers said was they still believed in Fidel and support the revolution. It was demonstrations like these that allowed government officials from Castro on down to pronounce the Pope's visit an unqualified success. Ricardo Alarcon is president of Cuba's National Assembly.

RICARDO ALARCON, President, Cuban National Assembly: I think that our society today is stronger than a week before; that Cubans are more united, that the Pope's visit has served as a rallying point for Christians, for believers and non-believers alike.

CHARLES KRAUSE: It's an assessment with which Elizardo Sanchez essentially agrees. Perhaps Cuba's best-known dissident, Sanchez broke with the revolution in 1967 and was jailed for more than eight years. Today, he says the number of political prisoners has been reduced, but there's still more police repression than there was just a few years ago. The Pope's visit, as important as it was, he said, will not change Cuba in the short-term.

ELIZARDO SANCHEZ, Cuban Dissident: (speaking through interpreter) I am certain that the Pope's visit will have a real impact on Cuban society, a positive impact. I am also sure that we'll be speaking of a Cuba before the visit and a Cuba after the visit. But I really don't expect a miracle, a miracle in terms of spectacular changes overnight, because Cuba needs much more than a miracle for this country to be saved from the present crisis, the very profound crisis that it is suffering.

CHARLES KRAUSE: So, short-term it's very unlikely that the Pope's visit will result in a spontaneous uprising, or even a significant increase in opposition political activity aimed at the Castro government. But over the longer-term, the Catholic Church is likely to be able to increase its activity and its influence, a process that has already begun. Young Cuban priests like Father Fidel Rodriguez are leading the Church toward a more defined and aggressive role within the confines of Cuba's political system. Father Fidel's parents fought in the revolution, yet, he rejected Marxism to become a priest. Now he's assigned to the El Carmelo Church in Havana.

THE REV. FIDEL RODRIGUEZ: (speaking through interpreter) In a political system that's characterized by Marxist-Leninist one-party ideology in which neither God nor religion has a place, it's evident there's disregard for the rights of man referred to in the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, of which Cuba is a signatory. We know about each one of those rights, but a country where the press speaks only about the problems in the world and the wonders of this country as if it were paradise, then obviously some people who aren't so smart will believe it and do nothing to change the society.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Father Fidel and other religious workers in Cuba see their role not so much as dissidents but as teachers, teachers of values antithetical to Marxism. At El Carmelo, that means teaching religious songs to the young and catechism class for those a bit older. But beyond this kind of basic religious education, so far the Church is prohibited from reopening the schools and hospitals it operated in Cuba before the revolution. It's also prohibited from having a printing press. So the archdiocese of Havana is forced to xerox its monthly magazine called "Palabra Nueva." Its circulation is less than 9,000. Still, there is hope that as a result of the Pope's visit the Catholic Church in Cuba will be allowed to operate more freely. Opposition Leader Elizardo Sanchez says he's cautiously optimistic.

ELIZARDO SANCHEZ: (speaking through interpreter) Because of its profoundly religious nature, the Church cannot have an opposition role in political terms, but at the same time, for the moment, it's the only force in Cuba which the government has to listen to and to some degree respect. Yes, I think the Church is going to open up space for itself, for other denominations and for civil society. This is similar to what happened in Eastern Europe, but to a lesser degree.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Four days a week, there are lines outside Nuestra Senora De Rosario Church in Vedado, once one of Havana's most exclusive neighborhoods. During the early years of the revolution many of these people would have been too fearful or would not have had a reason to go to a church. Now they have little choice; they're desperate. There's almost no medicine in Cuba, except for what Catholic Relief Services in the United States sends through Caritas, the Catholic relief organization in Cuba. Some of that medicine is distributed through local churches, which explains the long lines. And it's here in these lines that the contradictions and complexities that characterize today's Cuba become so starkly evident. Lidice Verdecia is a physician at a government hospital. She says she believes in God but supports the revolution in Cuba's socialist system. Yet, here she was in a Church because not even a doctor in a government hospital like herself can get medicine when even her own child becomes sick. In charge of the dispensary is Margarita De Cardenas, who left her government job to serve as the coordinator of the Social Action Program here at her local church. Senora De Cardenas receives no salary for her work, so she bakes cakes to support her family. In many ways it's men and women like Margarita De Cardenas whose dedication will determine whether the Catholic Church in Cuba becomes stronger and more influential. The Pope's visit, she said, reaffirmed her convictions.

MARGARITA DE CARDENAS, Caritas Cuba: (speaking through interpreter) He's given us hope of a better future, and he's also given us hope well of the possibility of more action by Catholics, to have a bit more space in society, and educate our children, and to carry out more of our own activities that you've seen here in our Church and that are also carried out in almost all of the other churches in Cuba.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Before leaving Cuba, the Pope asked Fidel Castro to release political prisoners and to allow the Church to expand its charitable, educational, and religious activities. The Pope would also like Castro to demonstrate in other ways that Cuba is beginning to change. So far, there has been no clear indication of whether or how Castro plans to respond. FOCUS - OLYMPIC EFFORTS

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight Elizabeth Farnsworth looks at the Winter Olympics, past and present.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The great bell at Zenkoji Temple in Nagano opened this year's Winter Olympics. The temple is more than 1300 years old. According to legend, it was built to house the first image of Buddha brought to Japan. This town and its jagged mountain peaks form one of the largest ski areas in Japan. Close to 3,000 athletes from 72 countries are here for this year's games. The Winter Olympics have brought together some of the world's finest athletes since 1924, when the first official games were held in Chamonix, France. The games have survived two world wars, terrorism, and political boycotts. The triumphs and losses have become part of each participating nation's collective history. One of America's most memorable moments came in 1980 when a young and relatively inexperienced American hockey team beat the mighty Soviets and then went on to win the Gold. That same year Eric Heiden won all five men's speed skating events, an achievement yet to be matched. In 1994, Dan Jansen won Gold in a world record-setting 1,000 meter victory. It was an especially sweet moment for him because he had lost in three prior winter games. SPORTS

ANNOUNCER: And Dan Jansen's Olympic ordeal may finally be over!

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: That same year Bonnie Blair became the first speed skater, male or female, to win three successive Gold medals in the same event. And 1994 was also the year that Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan took to their battle, which got personal and ugly, to the ice. Americans seem to cherish their skating queens: Carol Heiss, Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hamill, Kristi Yamaguchi. But the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan confrontation showed that even an ice queen can fall from grace. In the end, Kerrigan took the Silver medal, missing the Gold by 1/10 of a point. Harding was left a distant eighth, and their dual was sixth highest rated TV program in history. Now, there's a new generation of American athletes. Last month, 17-year-old Michelle Kwan gave a perfect performance to win the U.S. figure skating championships and a spot on the Olympic team. She did it even with a stress fracture in her left foot. She had been sidelined as the alternate skater during the Lillihammer Games. This year, she goes for the Gold, and so does her teammate, 15-year-old Tara Lapinski, the first woman to do a triple-loop triple-loop combination in competition.

ANNOUNCER: Watch the landing right there. And the step up--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Lapinski could become the youngest Gold medalist in woman's figure skating. In women's downhill, Picabo Street is America's best medal hope, even though in a recent pre-Olympic run she crashed at 75 miles per hour, leaving her with a concussion. She says it won't keep her from competing, though. This year, ice hockey officially includes a woman's event.

ANNOUNCER: Rebounding the goal--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And thus far the American team has met expectations with victories over both China and Sweden. Checking is not allowed in women's hockey, but the hitting will be hard as professional players from the National Hockey League make their debut in the winter games. The NHL is shutting down for 17 days, while its players compete in Nagano. And for the first time in the history of the Olympic games snow boarding is an official event, with giant slalom and half pipe competitions. Curling, originally an Olympic demonstration sport, also makes its debut. And another first this year, the introduction of the clap skate--these hinge and spring blades have triggered a technological revolution in speed skating. Yesterday Gianni Romme of the Netherlands, using the new blades, captured a new world and a Gold medal in the men's 5000 meters.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: With us now are four athletes who competed and won in former Olympic games. Dick Button won two Olympic gold medals for figure skating in 1948 and 1952-- the first American to capture figure skating gold. He's been a commentator with ABC Sports for more than 30 years. Cindy Nelson was on the U.S. ski team in four Olympics, beginning in 1972. She took home a Bronze from Innsbruck in 1976 and a Silver from Lake Placid in 1980. Figure skater Paul Wylie won a silver medal in Albertville in 1992 and was also the team captain for the U.S. Olympics skating team that year. Michael Eruzione was captain of the 1980 Gold Medal winning hockey team. Cindy Nelson, is the feeling different somehow? Are the pressures different on you in the Olympics?

CINDY NELSON, 1980 Silver Medalist, Skiing: I think that they very much are in Alpine skiing. We have a tour called the World Cup tour, where you ski against all of the same skiers that these skiers will meet at the Olympic games. But the Olympic games are the biggest competition a competitor will face in their entire career. And when they go to the games, it's let all stops out and give it the performance of a lifetime. So it does differ a great deal from the normal competition tour that these skiers will be on.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Paul Wylie, how did you deal with your nervousness before the Olympics if it feels so different from other competition?

PAUL WYLIE, 1992 Silver Medalist, Skating: Well, I think mostly I just worked on my preparation before the games and the five weeks leading up to the Olympics I did back to back run-throughs. I did a lot of mental preparation, more than I would normally. And I tried to imagine that when I was doing my performances in the practice that I was actually at the Olympics. And once I got to the Olympics I reversed it and imagined that I was at home. So I had a lot of strategies, but literally when they close that door, there's no greater feeling, no greater exhilaration because you know that that one particular performance will impact the rest of your life, will impact your professional career, and also the way people see you forever.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Michael Eruzione, did you have different strategies too for training and thinking about it?

MICHAEL ERUZIONE: Well, I think so. I think different than Paul and Dick and Cindy--they're more of an individual sport--in hockey, you know, you have yourself plus 19 teammates. And you really can kind of depend on each other a lot more than I think the individual athlete can. So you go to the arena, and you are preparing one way and your teammates are preparing another, but yet as a group you're all still preparing to go out and perform, so, you know, I think the great thing about, you know, being an Olympic athlete and competing with the teams is the opportunity you have to depend not only on yourself but to depend on your teammates as well.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Mr. Eruzione, what did you think before that game against the Soviets? Did you have any sense that you might actually win it?

MICHAEL ERUZIONE: Oh, I think so. You know, if you don't believe you can win, there's no reason to be there. You know, I think we felt going into the Soviet game that we had a chance to win and we were playing very well. Jim Craig was absolutely on top of his game. And I think the fact that we were playing the games in Lake Placid had a great deal of effect on us. It helped us a great deal with the home crowd, and, you know, we were playing the best hockey of the year at that point, and no reason why we didn't think we could go in and win.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Were you surprised by the reaction? It was almost taken as a political and moral victory.

MICHAEL ERUZIONE, 1980 Gold Medalist, Hockey: Absolutely shocked. We did not know what was going on around us. It wasn't until after the Olympic games that were over, when we went to the White House that we really got a sense or feel for what the country was witnessing. You know, in Lake Placid, it was a small, little place, and we knew the people in Lake Placid were happy and having fun, but had no clue the country was as in tuned and as excited as they were.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Paul Wylie, what about you, you'd come in 10th in the '88 Olympics and then you had this great performance in '92--were you surprised by how you really rose to the occasion?

PAUL WYLIE: I was actually. I think everything about the week was a surprise. I got into Albertville, and I noticed that I was skating the best of the Americans, and that was the first surprise I got. But then in the short program I really was able to conquer all of the previous performances that I had that were not that great and skate a clean program. All of a sudden I was in third place, and then that night when it all came down to the long program, I was able to rest on the fact that my long program performances have been pretty good. So it's--it still surprises me that I won the Silver, and it was a wonderful victory for me, and when I got off the plane in Douglas Airport, I was surprised when people applauded and knew who I was. And that's the power of television. You are instantly sort of transformed into a national hero. And it's a great thing.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Cindy Nelson, all great athletes can have great and bad days, just like everybody. How do you try to make the great day coincide with the day you're at the Olympics?

CINDY NELSON: That's the challenge for a true champion. You know, I've been listening to the answers to all of your questions from the various Olympians with us here today, and the thing that comes out to me is that the Olympics is so big. You can't imagine how big a competition this is and what happens is the competitors come into it and they either have to put their blinders on, in order to focus on their performance, what they can do to bring themselves to their highest level, at that particular moment, when that downhill racer goes out of that starting gate, they're going to have the run of a lifetime, the same thing with the skater when they go out onto that ice for their final performance. It's so big, and all that intensity comes into it, and you feel it, so for the athletes that are true race horses, they are able to raise their level of competition. There are the dark horse you probably haven't heard of all season long, and all of a sudden in Olympic competition they're there, and that's what I think is so great about the Olympics. And it is truly, truly the biggest competition of any of these athletes' lives, but they're going to be facing these next two weeks--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Dick Button, is that the way it was for you, that you almost had to put on blinders to avoid being--having it all too-- distract you too much?

DICK BUTTON, 1948 and 1952 Gold Medal, Skating: Well, Anything can distract you. I mean, a bird going by you can distract you. And that pressure, that enormous amount of concentration that is necessary, is exactly what I mean--the Olympics have changed--I don't care how much commercialization there is, or how many millions of people are watching, you still feel in your stomach that same feeling, that it's almost like a knife turning; that you cannot get away from that until you actually start. Once that happens, then you're on your way.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Dick Button, you won the Gold in '48 and then you came back and won it again in '52. What was--was it harder to come back the second time and win it?DICK BUTTON: I think so. You know, you recognize that with Bryan Boytano in 1994. It was much harder for him to do it. It wasn't harder for me, but it had a whole different atmosphere. I knew now what the story was. I knew that it was a different world, and I wasn't striving to reach for something. I was striving to kind of hold everything together and to do new things and to pull it together. It was a totally different pressure, and but still one that was absolutely wonderful.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mike Eruzione, how did your life change after the Olympics?

MICHAEL ERUZIONE: Well, you're talking to me. If we didn't win, I wouldn't be here. You know, I think I was given some opportunities that I probably would not have been given--you know, corporate involvement that I have now as a speaker doing a lot of motivational speaking, some of the television work that I've done over the years. And, you know, I think Dick was talking about it a little and Paul even mentioned it--the media attention and the television coverage now that the Olympic games received I think instantly any athlete--not only me--that achieves a Gold medal will be given some opportunities to pursue some things that they never really would have a chance to pursue again.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Paul Wylie, how did your life change?

PAUL WYLIE: Well, I think for me the victory foremost, first and foremost, was a personal victory, and it really rewrote my whole skating career and had a happy ending for the amateur part of it, but also it set up a wonderful professional career. I've had great opportunities there. I've been touring for six years now at Discover Stars on Ice, so I was able to compete in many of Mr. Button's events, including the World Professional championships, which were won in 1993, and figure skating has undergone an incredible explosion in the past six years, and I think that there are a lot of factors that have influenced that, but the fact that I was part of the A list of skaters is directly related to my Silver medal win in Albertville.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Cindy Nelson, how did your life change?

CINDY NELSON: Well, my life has changed a great deal. I grew up in Northern Minnesota, and I would not have been exposed to the different parts of the world and the cultures and different walks of life if it hadn't been for my success in ski racing. Since retiring from ski racing, I like the others have had an opportunity--opportunities that would normally not have to me with television and with corporations and sports marketing. It is now a profession and a career after a skiing career, so that itself is what has changed for me. I think in talking to all of us tonight there's one thing to remember for all the Americans that are watching this: These sports that we were all part of and we all competed in are not major sports for this country. It's not football; it's not basketball; it's not baseball. And for us, the Olympic games are our equivalent of the Super Bowl. And that's what it feels like when you succeed. And so that changes those football players' lives as well as it changes ours, and it's--you know, I feel very fortunate to have had the great successes that I did have in skiing, and also I'm grateful for all the opportunities that have come my way since then.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Dick Button, how did your life change?

DICK BUTTON: Well, totally, because I mean, I was always in love with figure skating, and I continued it with it afterwards, but it gave me the access to enter places and enter worlds that I have never known before. But I think there's one point I would like to make about what has changed in the sport of figure skating and the Olympic games. The commercialization of it, which everybody is talking about, is only one aspect of it. The other aspect is what that has done to the sport of figure skating. It has been so great that it has eliminated one half of what figure skating is all about, and that is the skating of figures--the name, figure skating, is no longer an accurate one because figures have gone away. They were too boring; they took too long; too many people weren't interested. As a result, television simply couldn't handle it and the governing bodies eliminated what was the oldest and strongest and longest tradition of what the sport of figure skating was all about.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, thank you all very much for being with us. RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday, Secretary of State Albright said the Clinton administration opposed a ground war with Iraq but would attack forcefully if diplomacy failed. Iraq President Saddam Hussein sent envoys to Arab capitals to try to gain support for his position. Officials traveling with Secretary of Defense Cohen said the U.S. will send 3,000 troops to bolster Kuwait, and late today President Clinton's lawyers filed a moment in federal court. It's to stop alleged leaks in the grand jury investigation of the Monica Lewinsky case. The contents of the motion were sealed. In Los Angeles, Lewinsky's lawyer said he would ask a court tomorrow to quash a summons for her to testify before the grand jury this week. We'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.