The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight a look at where Hurricane Georges is headed; comments from the Republican and Democratic leadership on an impeachment timetable; part three of our reports from Omaha: tonight, how young women view Monica Lewinsky; a foreign correspondence about Hong Kong and Indonesia; and a profile of Michael Tilson Thomas, the San Francisco symphony conductor with a passion for Gershwin. It all follows our summary of the news this Thursday.% ? NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: Hurricane Georges was regaining strength as it spun today between Cuba and the Florida Keys. The National Hurricane Center said the storm was likely to move into the Gulf of Mexico after hitting the Keys late tonight. Winds were clocked at 80 miles an hour. Mandatory evacuation orders were imposed in the barrier islands. More than 750,000 Floridians were advised to move out of coastal areas and mobile homes as far North as Sarasota. The hurricane left at least 110 people dead in its path across the Northern Caribbean. We'll have more on the story right after this News Summary. The House Judiciary Committee will vote October 5th or 6th on whether to launch an impeachment inquiry against President Clinton. Republican Chairman Henry Hyde made that announcement today. If it passes, he said the full House will vote on it two or three days later. Hyde said he did not anticipate broadening it to include matters other than the Monica Lewinsky investigation. He was asked whether scheduling the vote meant the committee has already decided the outcome.

REP. HENRY HYDE, Chairman, Judiciary Committee: I would not say that anybody has their mind made up certainly in a formal sense. I can't deny people have opinions but they're uninformed until they have the briefing of counsel, till they know just what significant things and insignificant things, what exculpatory things are available.

JIM LEHRER: At the White House Spokesman Mike McCurry talked about whether the president and his staff were resigned to impeachment by the Republican House.

MICHAEL MC CURRY, White House Spokesman: We're, just practically speaking, facing the reality of what the numbers are in the House of Representatives. It doesn't mean that we like it. It doesn't mean we agree with it. But, you know, you all are realists enough to know that there is not much that we're going to be able to do with it, other than to sort of see if public opinion has some sway as the House deals with the matter.

JIM LEHRER: Bob Dole said today President Clinton sought his counsel about the troubles. Dole told NBC's "Today Show" he met with the president last Friday, and they discussed the Lewinsky matter. He said the allegations against the president are too serious to fade away soon. In the White House Rose Garden today, the president was asked - after an event on poverty - whether he saw any means of avoiding an impeachment inquiry.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: The right thing for me to do is what I'm doing. I'm working on leading our country, and I'm working on healing my family. And if you look at what we announced today, what does it tell you? It proves, number one, that the course we have followed has been the right course for America. The way out here and the only way out is for people in Washington to do what the folks in America what them to do, which is to take care of their concerns, their children, and their future. That's what I mean to do, and I'm going to do my best.

JIM LEHRER: On Wall Street today the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more than half of yesterday's 257-point gain. It closed down 152 points at 8001.99. In Russia today, the central bank announced the inflation rate shot up 67 percent in the last month. It said prices would continue to soar, possibly up to 500 percent this year. The announcement came as Prime Minister Primakov presented parts of his economic rescue plan to his new cabinet. He said the government would pay overdue wages and pensions and impose more state controls on the revenue-producing liquor industry. NATO officials agreed today to begin planning strikes on Serb forces in Kosovo. Secretary General Javier Solana announced the decision following a meeting in Portugal. He warned Yugoslav President Milosevic to end attacks on ethnic Albanians in the Serbian province. And at the UN today the prime minister of India said his country was ready to accept the nuclear test ban treaty. Yesterday the Pakistani prime minister said he would sign the test ban if India stopped nuclear testing and international sanctions were eased. The U.S. and other countries cut off loans to India and Pakistan after both conducted nuclear tests in May. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to a hurricane update, the impeachment inquiry timetable, part three from Omaha, a foreign correspondence, and Gershwin fan Michael Tilson Thomas.% ? UPDATE - STORMY WEATHER

JIM LEHRER: Bracing for the storm. Spencer Michels begins our coverage.

SPENCER MICHELS: The evacuation advisory to hundreds of thousands of people in Florida is evidence that Hurricane Georges could be the most dangerous storm to threaten the state in six years. In August, 1992, Hurricane Andrew did $25 billion damage in the area around Miami. It was the most costly natural disaster in American history up to then. Hurricane Georges is predicted to be headed for the Florida Keys. But at least four other Florida counties are under evacuation advisories, and five more may be added to the list. Many residents have refused to leave. The hurricane has created havoc in both impoverished and affluent areas of the Caribbean, including St. Kitts & Nevis, Anguilla, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Cuba's eastern coast. With winds of up to 110 miles per hour, Hurricane Georges raged through Puerto Rico Monday. The conditions forced thousands of residents into makeshift shelters. Georges destroyed homes and businesses, while heavyrains flooded the area, leaving more than 80 percent of Puerto Rico's 3.8 million people without electricity and more than 70 percent without water. Damage estimates there were a billion dollars. At least 28 people died. And the hurricane's pace increased Tuesday. Georges bore down on the Dominican Republic with winds of up to 120 miles per hour, downing trees, power lines, and flooding streets. The hurricane left at least 70 people dead there. But Georges' destruction was far from over. Yesterday, the hurricane's winds and rains struck Haiti with deadly force, killing at least 27 people. And today the hurricane's path took it across the Northern Caribbean, where it hit Cuba. Latest figures indicate that at least 110 people and perhaps many more have been killed by the storm.

JIM LEHRER: And now for the latest and to Max Mayfield, Deputy Director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. I spoke with him a few moments ago.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Mayfield, welcome.

MAX MAYFIELD, Deputy Director, National Hurricane Center: Thank you.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Tell us where the hurricane is right now.

MAX MAYFIELD: Well, it's centered about 250 miles Southeast of Key West, Florida right now in the north central coast of Cuba. But you can see it's out of the rain bands - it's well out and already approaching the Florida Keys and southern tip of the Florida Peninsula. We just had an aircraft report - seeing 40 or 50 miles per hour in this rain band all the way up here near Andros Island, so I think we will start getting storm force very shortly tonight.

JIM LEHRER: How large is - how wide is that storm?

MAX MAYFIELD: The whole circulation is about 300 miles in diameter. The main thing that counts is the side, you know, closest to land here, about 150 miles or so to the Northwest.

JIM LEHRER: Northwest. So it's moving in a Northwesterly direction about how fast?

MAX MAYFIELD: About 14 miles per hour and our track really takes the core down here through the Keys. But this is a slight deviation. It could still come up here into the Florida Peninsula. It will be affecting this area tonight and tomorrow. Then we'll get into the Gulf of Mexico. We fully expect this to become a major hurricane in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico in the next couple of days.

JIM LEHRER: What are the highest winds it has right now?

MAX MAYFIELD: Right now about 80 miles an hour - it's a category one hurricane. But I don't want to minimize that. We think that now that it's getting away from Cuba it will continue to strengthen some. And we're really forecasting a category two hurricane taking Florida Keys and South Florida tonight and tomorrow, like a category three hurricane - a major hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico and beyond that.

JIM LEHRER: Category two, three - give us an idea for miles per hour what that means.

MAX MAYFIELD: Category three is above 110 miles per hour. That makes it a major hurricane. We're really not forecasting that to happen until it gets into the Gulf of Mexico. But the point here is that in addition to just South Florida, people in the Gulf, from the Florida Panhandle all the way over to Southeast Louisiana need to start monitoring this system as well.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. So, you expect it to hit the Keys, what, about midnight tonight?

MAX MAYFIELD: Well, the outer rain bands are going to be here in the upper Keys within 30 minutes or so, and they will get the same storm force winds and for a few hours. There can be another lull, but the core of the hurricane will be there early tomorrow morning.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. And then it will continue to go - you expect it to continue to go Northwest, up through the Gulf, right?

MAX MAYFIELD: Yes. Into the Gulf of Mexico, there's a lot of uncertainty there. We have a hurricane watch in effect now for the Southwest Florida coast. That may be extended Northward with time. If it gets out away from Florida now, it could threaten anywhere all the way over to Louisiana.

JIM LEHRER: What is it likely to do once it goes back over water primarily? In other words, let's say it hits Florida, keeps going Northwest, up in the Gulf, what happens?

MAX MAYFIELD: Well, the only thing that is inhibiting this hurricane from developing the last three days or so since it hit the islands has been land. It moved right over Puerto Rico - and now Cuba. That's the only thing that has held it back. The environment is very favorable. The Gulf of Mexico waters are warm, and that's why we think it will go ahead and intensify the next two to three days.

JIM LEHRER: Intensify, maybe hit - in other words Louisiana, the Gulf Coast with a big bang?

MAX MAYFIELD: There's still, you know, the usual uncertainty there. But everybody from Louisiana Eastward in the Gulf of Mexico needs to go ahead and monitor this hurricane.

JIM LEHRER: All right. More specifically tonight and tomorrow in the Keys and Southwest Florida, what should they be expecting, and not in terms of miles per hour but just in ferociousness?

MAX MAYFIELD: Jim, let me share our biggest concern. This was a picture taken back in 1965 of the Florida Keys. They had nine feet of storm surge over the Key Largo area. This picture - US Highway 1 is right here somewhere, well under water. They're going to get storm surges on two sides here. They're going to get storm surges three to five feet on the North side of the eye from the Florida Straits, and then as the hurricane moves into the Southeastern Gulf, they're going to get storm surge following on the back side of the hurricane from the Florida Bay. The roads are going to be cut off. They're actually going to stop the evacuation of the Keys here at 6 o'clock. So people down there that have not left need to understand that if this does strengthen, as was forecasted, they will have a significant storm surge and they're going to have to find a refuge of last resort because shelters are not open in Florida Keys.

JIM LEHRER: And the reason you have storm surges from both sides is because it's so narrow, is that right?

MAX MAYFIELD: Well, you've got water in both sides, the wind goes counterclockwise, you know, around the center of the hurricane, so when you have that water in your direction, towards your island, that is going to pile water up in that vicinity.

JIM LEHRER: Now, specifically where are the hurricane warnings in effect now?

MAX MAYFIELD: Okay. On the East Coast of Florida they go from Deerfield Beach southward, all the way through the Keys, actually down to Tortugas, and on the west coast they go from Bonita Beach southward. That's the hurricane warning area. And we really want to emphasize the uncertainty in the track there, even though we're forecasting a track like this, you know, a hurricane is not a point - it's not going to take just a little skinny line. This is a large hurricane. It will take a large area. A little deviation, just a little bit to the right, could bring the core of the hurricane into South Florida Peninsula.

JIM LEHRER: Right into the middle of Florida, you mean, not just the Keys?

MAX MAYFIELD: Well, the biggest threat and the biggest loss of life historically, nine out of ten people that are killed in a hurricane are killed by the storm surge. So that's our biggest immediate threat. They will certainly have winds and rain. We're very concerned about the rainfall. We're already very saturated down here. If it keeps moving in this 14 mile per hour cede, we'll easily have six to twelve inches, some - above that over much of South Florida.

JIM LEHRER: All right. And then tornadoes and other storms could come out of that.

MAX MAYFIELD: You always have some isolated tornadoes with hurricanes like this, and this will likely not be an exception.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Mr. Mayfield, thank you very much for the update.

MAX MAYFIELD: Thank you, sure, my pleasure% ? UPDATE - IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY

JIM LEHRER: Now the impeachment inquiry. Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde said today he expects the whole House will vote on a resolution for such an inquiry in two weeks. Here are excerpts from his news conference.

REP. HENRY HYDE, Chairman, Judiciary Committee: Like all Americans, I want to bring this matter to closure as soon as possible. The timetable I've proposed today is the most expeditious schedule we can follow. I urge everyone to be patient, allow our system of law to work, and I'll be very happy to try and answer your questions. Mr. Franken.

FRANKEN: You started by talking about it's a crime to talk about a deal. Are you just absolutely eliminating the possibility that there will be any sort of a plea bargain, censure, censure plus, anything like that?

REP. HENRY HYDE: Well, there's an old saying, you never say never, but I don't know anybody on the committee on the Republican side who is contemplating anything remotely close to a deal.

REPORTER: But the criticism from Democrats is that evidence that you are trying to pile on the president.

REP. HENRY HYDE: No. We're not trying to pile on the president; we're trying to follow the rule of law, the Constitution, the precedence. There is no precedent for censuring a president. The Constitution doesn't provide for it. That's way down the line even considering that proposal, if, indeed, it is a proposal. We haven't gotten nearly there yet. But even so, if you'd like a curbstone opinion, I'm not entranced by that idea, and our members are not.

REPORTER: How do you respond to Speaker Gingrich's suggestion that the inquiry be expanded to include all kinds of matters like campaign finance and the Chinese satellite scandal, and so forth, and secondly, then, how would you do that, if you agreed, by the end of the year, as you said, that you wanted to do?

REP. HENRY HYDE: Well, none of us are very interested in casting a very wide net. We have enough on our plate, believe me, with the single matter we're looking at; however, if you recall from the introduction in the referral from the independent counsel, he said they were nearly through with their Whitewater, Filegate, Travelgate investigations. They interrupted those investigations to deal with the Lewinsky matter, and when they reached a point when they ought to, under the law, submit their findings to us by way of referral, they did and now they're going back to those other matters. I don't see that we would be justified in saying what we won't hear. We want to hear anything and everything - good, bad indifferent, exculpatory, accusatory - that bears on the main question. But we're not seeking to widen the scope. But if a further referral comes to us, we certainly would take it. I also have never felt we were bound by Judge Starr's activities, that is to say the independent counsel. There may be other matters that we feel bear on the main question of the fitness of the president for this office. I would never say we won't hear those things. But I would be guided by the rule of relevancy, germaneness, probity, or probative value We don't want to be a catch-all magnet for all kinds of things that really don't pertain to what we're looking at. Yes, sir.

REPORTER: Many Democrats on your committee would like for you to define an impeachable offense before you vote an inquiry. Why don't you do that? What's wrong with taking that approach?

REP. HENRY HYDE: Well, because we don't have all the evidence yet, and defining an impeachable offense right now would be an abstraction. People may have different standards. It is a fact that some people want clear and convincing evidence, some people want probable cause, some people want beyond a reasonable doubt. And it's pretty hard to do that right now. That's kind of abstract. But when we get to a vote, we must decide what may be an impeachable offense. We act as a grand jury. It would be the Senate, the other body, that would determine if A, B, C, D, E are impeachable offenses warranting the finding of guilty. So, I can't really answer that

REPORTER: On this resolution, are you saying that you believe the House will vote to initiate an impeachment inquiry?

REP. HENRY HYDE: I do not predict how the House will vote, but -

REPORTER: How the Republicans on the committee would vote.

REP. HENRY HYDE: They will vote, I'm sorry, we will cast a vote. I don't know how that will turn out.

REPORTER: Will Kenneth Starr be subject to subpoena issued by your committee and also will material under his control be subject to subpoena?

REP. HENRY HYDE: It could be. When it becomes subpoena time, if they want to subpoena Mr. Starr, they can.

REPORTER: Would the minority be able to do that without support of the majority of your committee? How would that work?

REP. HENRY HYDE: Well, we would try to find out what the purpose was. If there was a useful purpose to do it, I would agree. If it's just to harass Ken Starr, I might be less ready to agree. But that's a possibility.

JIM LEHRER: Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts spoke afterward for the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.

REP. BARNEY FRANK: What bothers me is according to this timetable, a month will have gone by from when we received Kenneth Starr's report and the committee will not have begun to deal with what I think are the serious questions. Starr makes some recommendations that he says - his latest letter now -- he's getting a little moderate for him - he says that it "may" be grounds for impeachment. And there are some things in there which many of us think are obviously not grounds for impeachment. And the committee hasn't decided what is or isn't impeachable. Not only hasn't it decided, we haven't even talked about how you would decide what is or isn't impeachable. There are factual disputes. Monica Lewinsky says one thing. And Betty Currie contradicts her. Actually, Monica Lewinsky says one thing and Kenneth Starr rewrites here about whether or not she was told to lie. There is not even a procedure for deciding, though. So, a month will have gone by in which we will have not begun seriously to deal with this issue. A month will have gone by in which all we will have done is to make more information available. And I realize that making more information available is not a practice to which you are constitutionally opposed. But it is not the sole business of the Judiciary Committee. We have not yet - and apparently according to this timetable - will not in a month have considered this. And so what they've done is managed to run out the clock - and I think this is what we're talking about - this is an effort to run out the clock so that the election comes and goes with this totally unresolved, with all of the questions hanging, because I think the dilemma my Republican colleagues face is they have a significant part of their party that wants an impeachment and to their disappointment, the public does not appear yet ready to join them. And, therefore, they don't want to take any conclusive action one way or the other. So what we have is a long timeout until after the election. And that's just not a very good idea. We ought to be meeting and trying to figure out some way to begin to be dealing with this.

REPORTER: Mr. Gephardt asked for a timetable yesterday. Mr. Hyde's given him one. Is this the kind of timetable he envisaged?

REP. BARNEY FRANK: No, Mr. Gephardt asked for a timetable to resolve this. Mr. Hyde gave him a timetable to avoid resolving it. Mr. Hyde gave him a timetable that says we will in a couple of weeks vote on whether to do anything or not. This is a timetable for making sure that nothing is resolved before the election. What Mr. Gephardt was trying to do was to try to at least begin a process of trying to resolve this. By the way, most of the information is out. I mean, Kenneth Starr has been working on this for a long time. I don't understand what's going to take many, many more months, other than the need for the Republicans to resolve their political dilemma, which is how do you satisfy your own people who want an impeachment and the general public that appears to be less so. I think the Republicans are kind of mad at the public and we're all going to have to wait around while they try to work this out.

REPORTER: Mr. Hyde and then some other Republicans, Mr. Canady later, were rather adamant that they didn't think that it was necessary to hear from Mr. Starr. How do you feel on that subject?

REP. BARNEY FRANK: Well, I'm beginning to think this is going to be a pretty quick hearing. We can't hear from Monica Lewinsky. We can't hear from Kenneth Starr. They don't want to hear from Bill Clinton. What are we going to do at this hearing, play records? I mean, I don't understand this. I guess that's old fashioned - CD's. I'm sorry. I get in trouble with Hillary Rosen. But the - I mean, in the first place this underscores the point, these things ought to be discussed. This is what I mean. There has been no rational discussion about how do you structure this and who should you have.

JIM LEHRER: The Judiciary Committee will meet tomorrow to vote on the release of more documents from the Ken Starr investigation.% ? SERIES - VIEWS FROM OMAHA

JIM LEHRER: Now part three of our series on how people in Omaha, Nebraska see the Clinton-Lewinsky story. Tonight the views of women Monica Lewinsky's age. Betty Ann Bowser again reports.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: It's only September, and yet upperclassmen at the University of Nebraska at Omaha have already begun to worry about what kinds of jobs to pursue after graduation. That means this office -- the Career Planning and Placement Center -- has been a hub of activity as counselors try to help students draft resumes and find internships.

COUNSELOR: We'd love to get you acquainted with what our services are.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Nancy Nish, director of the center, says the White House scandal has brought more publicity to the word "internship" than she ever thought possible. She says, she hopes it will serve to make young women more aware of potential problems in the workplace.

NANCY NISH: Invariably I find that when I'm talking to students that they are somewhat surprised that there are laws related to appropriate and inappropriate interview questions and appropriate and inappropriate behaviors in the workplace.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Marilyn Marks is a junior looking for an internship in the communications field. She is quick to say that she could never imagine herself in a situation similar to that of Monica Lewinsky.

MARILYN MARKS: I wouldn't subject myself to that. I wouldn't put myself in that predicament. And I feel that she did. I felt like she went into the situation with a purpose in mind. And when she couldn't get what she wanted out of it, she held that against him: you know, get me a job or I'll blow the whistle on you.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Marks is also troubled by Lewinsky's seeming lack of remorse.

MARILYN MARKS: One thing that really bothers me-it's the fact that I've never heard her apologize-I've never heard her apologize to Mrs. Clinton, because I feel that she wronged Mrs. Clinton in participating in this activity with the President. She's as much to blame as he is. She knew he was married. She knew he had a wife, and she went ahead anyway and did what she did.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Melissa Buck-- a senior-- is also looking for an internship. This fall she's working in the campus information office but someday hopes to go to Washington, DC to become a political intern. She says the events of the past few months give a distorted image of the job.

MELISSA BUCK: You only hear about the bad stuff. I don't think we spend enough time trying to hear enough about the good stuff that goes on in politics. Not every intern is going to have an affair with their President. Not everybody is going to get into a relationship with a married person. It just - we don't hear the good stories. We don't hear about people who - well, I had an internship, now I'm working in the government, now I'm working in this agency. We don't hear about that stuff. And I mean, I know there's still stuff like that out there. I know Washington is not just this scary town where you go there and you're going to get harassed by all these older men just because you're 21. I mean, I'm not scared.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But senior Kyle Jones thinks that too many women are naive about what can happen in the workplace. Last year she worked as a paralegal intern at an Omaha law firm.

KYLE JONES: I found that many of the middle-aged, too older men, they came in, the lawyers who had the power and the prestige felt that they could say virtually anything to me. They would make sexual remarks, very crude remarks in the context of joking. And yet it was not a joke. They were directed at me. And I was uncomfortable with it but at the same time what can you do? I needed that job. And I would need future internships and these would be the people I would get recommendations for. And so, you know, you want to be good-natured about it. You laugh it off, you know, ha, ha, you know, you guys are funny, and you let it go.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Jones said unfortunately she also knows that many young women initiate inappropriate behavior, thinking it can help their career. She thinks that was the case with Lewinsky.

KYLE JONES: As a na ve, yet very ambitious young woman, she had this opportunity to have this very close, intimate relationship with the most powerful man in the world. And knowing, as she does, that having a relationship like that would immediately catapult her into these circles of power and prestige, I don't know how many people would actually avoid that opportunity -- if you were ambitious and if you did not have the moral conflicts or concerns, and you knew that this would get you where you wanted to go, and you knew that our society would condone it, because that's how things are done, I think that a lot of people would do that.

EVE McLAIN: She set us back about 10 feet right there. She used a man to get what she perceived as where she needed to be in life. And I can't condone that.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Senior Eve McLain works in the women's resource center on campus where she counsels young women who have sexual harassment complaints. She is also an intern at an Omaha architecture firm.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: How has this impacted you as a woman in terms of how you look at the world?

EVE McLAIN: I want to identify with her but I have a hard time identifying with what she did. The problem also stands in the fact that I want to have children someday and this is really raising a lot of moral issues, because I'm going to raise children. Should I start talking to them about not just sex, not just AIDS, not just every problem facing America -- but if you have an older man -- or even a younger man - of specific power, don't lust after him. You don't want to be with him. There is so much to teach children nowadays. And I feel that it puts more responsibility on me now - one more thing to add to the list: Don't forget to tell your child "don't sleep with the President."

BETTY ANN BOWSER: While most of the women we talked with felt that Lewinsky was at least as responsible as the president for the inappropriate behavior, senior Amy Kopocis put the blame squarely on the president. Kopocis works as an intern three days a week at a prestigious Omaha law firm. She's also 21, a year younger than Lewinsky was when she began her intimate relationship with the president.

AMY KOPOCIS: I think that it's been very eye opening and very disturbing. I've been very disheartened by it. It's opened my eyes a lot to how the real world works, and that while I'm in college and I'm learning about equal rights and women in the workplace and that type of thing, that look at the person who controls the United States. Look what he's doing and look what he's done we might not even know about -- and, you know, all these questions. I think that it is kind of like a slap in the face.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Kopocis says she has great sympathy for another young woman who has been greatly affected by all this: Chelsea Clinton.

AMY KOPOCIS: I cannot imagine the strength it must take her to get up every day when the rest of the world and the rest of that campus is talking about her father. To have to bear the weight of your father's actions like that is just incredible. I mean, it would be incredible for anyone -- let alone someone who's the daughter of the President of the United States. I can't fathom it.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Kopocis and her classmates say the White House scandal has significantly affected the way they view not only the highest office in government but the work environment in general.

JIM LEHRER: Tomorrow night, part four in our series: How Omaha's schools are handling the Clinton-Lewinsky story.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, a foreign correspondence and Michael Tillson Thomas. % ? CONVERSATION - FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE

JIM LEHRER: Now a foreign correspondence, another in our occasional series of conversations with reporters based overseas with American news organizations. Terence Smith has tonight's.

TERENCE SMITH: Tonight that correspondent is Keith Richburg, Southeast Asia bureau chief for the Washington Post. He's based in Hong Kong but has spent much of the past year covering the financial crisis that has spread from Thailand through Indonesia. Welcome. Keith, welcome home.

KEITH RICHBURG, Washington Post: Thanks.

TERENCE SMITH: Indonesia, rioting, strikes, runaway inflation, civil unrest, is history repeating itself there?

KEITH RICHBURG: It's starting to look fairly familiar to what happened in May, isn't it? You know, the forces that brought down Suharto were primarily the economic forces there, people not having enough to eat, you know, people really seeing their - what they had built up over the last few decades quickly eroded by this financial crisis. And while Habibi has made a lot of concessions, if you want to call it that, on the political side, you know, opening free speech, allowing political parties to form, really creating a new openness in the government there, he has not been able to get a handle on this economic crisis, and it's growing and growing and growing, and we could see him consumed by it much the same way Suharto was consumed by it.

TERENCE SMITH: There are reports just in the last few days of a threat of famine that could involve 17 million families?

KEITH RICHBURG: Well, that's right. There's a huge food problem there that's actually quite complex. There is food growing in some areas. In fact, some areas are having a very abundant harvest now. There's a distribution problem in moving the food around in the cities like Jakarta, where you have this massive unemployment problem. The main issue there is actually affordability. The purchasing power has just been completely eroded by this crisis. And you can see it every day, you know, just walking around on the streets of Jakarta. You know, I'm seeing more beggars on the streets than I've seen before. You're seeing more street children out, people moving in from rural areas at the same time you've people who had moved in from the rural areas who've lost their jobs moving back again, so there's an incredible movement of people going on there.

TERENCE SMITH: Where's the break point, when does it reach a point of serious civil unrest, and even -

KEITH RICHBURG: That's what people are waiting to see. I mean, the military has been putting out warnings now that people have to maintain calm, or the place could spin out of control. Where the break point is we don't know. I mean, it's getting dangerously close to that now, and it's going to get worse. It's going to get worse before it gets better. We still haven't seen the mass wave of layoffs, the mass wave of factory closings that we all know are inevitable. At this point people had been generally keeping factories open, keeping stores open, not laying people off, and they can't afford to muddle along now. They're going to have to make these tough choices. A lot more people will lose jobs. They've got a lot of people in the city. It's a congested, crowded capital. They've already could have tasted this, and the other thing to keep in mind, it was the students who were at the forefront of this movement that brought down Suharto. They went home for the summer. They're back now, so they've got the students back out again, and, you know, this political calendar that Habibi laid out for new elections, takes you well into next year. He may not have that long.

TERENCE SMITH: And the military, are they in the barracks?

KEITH RICHBURG: They've always been out of the barracks and in politics in Indonesia, and that will be the case for a long time. They've got a big problem now with credibility. As this political process has opened, we've seen revelations coming out of atrocities committed in East Timor, atrocities committed in Irian Jaya, atrocities committed in Ache, horrible atrocities, mass graves being uncovered, and within Jakarta, itself, in those last months of Suharto's regime. We've got stories now of military units possibly being involved in the rioting of May, those really destructive riots. We've had these horrific mass gang rapes of Chinese women and girls as young as eight years old, and military units being implicated in that. They've got a credibility problem, but at the same time they need to be able to maintain order because a place like Indonesia, a vast Archipelago like that and so many geographic entities - islands, ethnic groups could very easily spin apart. They're in a tough situation; they cannot crack down now because they've lost their credibility. General Varanto was trying to restore it.

TERENCE SMITH: In fact, what's the situation of the overseas Chinese - the - they represent a significant presence there, certainly in the mercantile, the merchant world, and many fled last April and May.

KEITH RICHBURG: That's right. A lot of them were in Hong Kong; a lot are in Singapore; a lot went to Perth. Some have gone back tentatively. Some have moved their families out, and the head of the family will go back, check on the business, but they're cautious, and they're very scared. They get worried by what I call this ambivalent attitude coming out of Indonesia. When I interviewed President Habibi a couple of months ago, he was very ambivalent about the Chinese coming back. He said, yes, yes, we want them to come back; they're Indonesians. But, on the other hand, if they don't come back, we will survive; others will take their place. There's a feeling that this tiny minority - only 3 percent of the population - maybe they've got too much of the economic pie, controlling 3/4 of it, and maybe this is an opportunity for the indigenous Indonesians, as they're called, the Buli Putra, to take over some of these distribution networks run by the Chinese. That could be a dangerous path if they're trying to follow that at the same time they're trying to revive the economy, which relies on this ethnic Chinese capital.

TERENCE SMITH: When you talk to Indonesians, when you're there, is there a resentment these days of the United States and the IMF, which are trying to impose controls on Indonesia?

KEITH RICHBURG: There is more resentment of the IMF. The program isn't working, and there are some questions about why are we following this program that's not working, that's causing more pain and suffering? I don't think there's much resentment at this point that I hear directed towards the United States per se. There is a lot directed towards the IMF as an institution. There's a question about, you know, this whole - the whole philosophy of the program. Are we bailing out international banks that lent money to Indonesia? I mean, why are we doing that, whereas the average Indonesian and the individual is in debt.

TERENCE SMITH: All right.

KEITH RICHBURG: And he's saying why not have debt relief for the individual, why not debt relief for the poor farmer, so you're starting to see a little bit of that. You're going to, I think, see a nationalist backlash because what's going to happen, the only way out of this is going to be for foreign companies to come in and start buying banks and buying land, buying some of these factories that are going bankrupt. And Indonesians will wake up one morning and find out that foreigners own a huge chunk of their economy.

TERENCE SMITH: What's it like to be there for a foreigner? It's a great bargain.

KEITH RICHBURG: It's a great bargain.

TERENCE SMITH: Because of the inflation.

KEITH RICHBURG: Because of inflation.

TERENCE SMITH: What's the atmosphere?

KEITH RICHBURG: The atmosphere is it's depressing, among other things, because, as I said, you see a lot more beggars on the streets, more poor people. It was a place that had really boomed for a long period of time, so you still can come in and see the infrastructure of the go-go years still there. There is the hard rock cafes and the discotheques and the McDonald's outlets. But then you walk inside and you see that most of them are empty now. You see that the skyscrapers have been constructed, and the cranes are sitting on top of them, because the buildings are incomplete. A lot of incomplete construction - you find - a friend of mine has moved into an apartment building there, a brand new - newly completed building, and he's one of about three or four people in this 27-story building. The rest of it is just completely vacant because nobody could afford the rents.

TERENCE SMITH: Wow.

KEITH RICHBURG: I mean, it's so - and also on the streets, you do also get this slightly dangerous feel. There are more people out who don't have money. There are more beggars pressing their hands against the glass. It hasn't gotten to the stage of what I have seen in some African countries or even in India yet. It's heading very quickly in that direction. They're talking about half the people going below the poverty line by the next year.

TERENCE SMITH: You live, when you're able to get home, in Hong Kong.

KEITH RICHBURG: That's right. Sometimes I get there.

TERENCE SMITH: Tell us what that's like -- 15 months now after the takeover.

KEITH RICHBURG: You know, the most surprising thing is what hasn't changed there. It feels - looks - the smells and sights and sounds are very much the way it was before and without this sort of sense of foreboding, I mean, nobody knew what was going to happen when the Chinese took over and the British left, it's happened now. They're over the transition. There was almost a collective sigh of relief about the place as they looked around; they saw the flags changed - not much else did change. The one thing is Hong Kong has been caught up in the same regional economic crisis. What was completely unexpected - we were all expecting the Hong Kong residents - foreign correspondents there - we were all expecting a challenge on the political front, some attempt to lock up political leaders of the democratic party or some attempt to censor newspapers. It hasn't happened. What we didn't anticipate was this slowdown in the economy. You've got layoffs; unemployment is about 4 percent now, probably going to reach 5 percent. You've got companies, department stores closing down, the tourism industry has basically collapsed. You're starting to see real suffering in a place that almost had full employment before, and it never really knew these problems. So it's brand new for Hong Kong, and you're starting to see real questioning of the government's ability to handle this. Are they up to the task in this new all-Chinese government for the first time, actually handle a recession, which is what they're going through right at the moment?

TERENCE SMITH: So it sounds as if perhaps we ought to stay tuned there too.

KEITH RICHBURG: It's going to be a very interesting thing to see. It's going to be very interesting now also because you do have left over by the British a new kind of democratic politics. The financial secretary there now is being called into the legislature to answer for things that they're doing, to answer for mistakes being made, to answer for bad economic forecasts. There's a lot of give and take going on now there, which is new, it's brand new for China, and it's happening on Chinese soil, which is interesting.

TERENCE SMITH: Thanks very much.

KEITH RICHBURG: Thanks for having me.% ? FINALLY - AMERICAN ACCENTS

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, something from the world of music. Saturday is the 100th anniversary of composer George Gershwin's birth. We have a profile of one of his most enthusiastic interpreters, San Francisco's Symphony Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas. Elizabeth Farnsworth reports.

[MUSIC IN BACKGROUND]

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Opening night at the San Francisco Symphony.

[MUSIC IN BACKGROUND]

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The conductor is Michael Tilson Thomas.

[MUSIC IN BACKGROUND]

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The music is, of course, George Gershwin. These two musical personalities seem uniquely made for each other. It's not just that their families came out of the same New York Jewish immigrant world and were friends. There's also a connection through the music itself.

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS, Music Director, San Francisco Symphony: You know, I think of him really like America's village composer in the biggest sense that I think his music matters to people of so many ethnicities, and that he took things from Jewish music, from black music, from Irish Music Hall, from so many different genres. Somehow he made this into a language which is at once his own and at the same time says, hey, we all understand one another as Americans in this kind of music.

[MUSIC IN BACKGROUND]

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: American music has always been important to Michael Tilson Thomas. He grew up in Los Angeles, a young classical piano prodigy who as a teenager worked alongside musical legends like Igor Stravinsky and Erin Copeland. Tilson Thomas turned to conducting in college, earning awards and even some fame as a very young man. There's show business in Tilson Thomas's background too. His grandparents helped found Yiddish Theater in New York, where they blended popular appeal with high art. Something of that blend survives in Tilson Thomas and has helped make him a classical music star and his show biz savvy has also brought new energy and excitement to the orchestras he's directed in Buffalo, London, and since 1995, San Francisco. The excitement is partly in Tilson Thomas's musical programming. Tilson Thomas likes to challenge audiences, sometimes with difficult modern works like Albon Berg's "Three Pieces for Orchestra." But the conductor also works hard to make familiar works like "An American in Pairs" seem new and fresh again.

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS: Good, good - a couple of small things here -

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In this passage Tilson Thomas tried to bring out what he called the piece's distinctive American accent - first the percussion -

[MUSIC PLAYING]

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Then the brass.

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS: -- at 29 - could we have shorter and snappier notes pulling to the cadence point - ba, ba ...

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What were you doing there?

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS: Trying to get those little events to sparkle, to sort of pop out at you. When I was first string - and they were kind of undifferentiated - just a little bit murmuring, and I wanted them to speak really clearly, so that every listener will think - I never heard that before.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS: It's very difficult. It's more difficult than Ricard Strauss often - and to clarify the music and to let it be inflected correctly is a difficult problem. It's not just playing it accurately, but you also have to play it with a kind of American accent. And that's a very specific thing that we Americans know how to do?

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What do you mean?

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS: Well, because to make it really have swing, to make it seem bluesy - to make it seem as fresh as the pop idioms that spawned it, you have to have players who know that this note is shorter than the way it's notated, and this note's longer, and this note is a little bit flatter, and this note has to come around the corner in a certain way.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Finally he worked on the strings.

[TILSON THOMAS WORKING ON STRINGS AND MUSIC PLAYING]

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What is it that they need you for up there, that they can't do on their own?

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS: Most of all, they need me to listen for them, to listen to the complete sound world of what is happening and to advise and help them to make music as wonderful as it can be. And I try to do this in a way that's encouraging. There are conductors who are control freaks, who try to kind of hold people in, but I'm just the opposite. I want people to open up, and I want them to try things which perhaps might scare them because they think, well, am I sticking out too much, or is this really too quiet, or, you know, but say, no, let me encourage you to inhabit the complete range of what your expression can be.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The relationship between musicians and their conductor is rarely as harmonious as the sounds they make together. But the symphony's principal oboist says Michael Tilson Thomas's methods are working.

BILL BENNETT, Principal Oboist: It's great to have a conductor that really encourages you to take chances, and to really push yourself as far as you can so that - like I said - that wallop is communicated to the audience. There's a chemistry between him and this orchestra and this town that is very exciting, always has been. In a way it was inevitable that he came here. I think being a Californian, being a native American, being someone of our generation who's really steeped in the tradition of the West Coast as well.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: His being steeped in the tradition of the West Coast may explain while Tilson Thomas brought in musicians from the Grateful Dead for a 1996 performance of music by avant-garde composer John Cage. And it may also explain why Tilson Thomas conducts a lot of inexpensive or free performances, like this one last week at an urban park in San Francisco, to attract people who might never frequent a concert hall.

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS: I believe so much in the spiritual and cultural force of music that it helps people to understand one another and that leads them to come to grips with big issues in their lives and that sticks with them after the performance is over, so in moments of their life when they need comfort or encouragement or energy or humor, they can think of a piece of music and be sustained by that.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: San Franciscans, especially younger ones, have responded to Thomas by coming to the symphony in record numbers. The chemistry was undeniable on opening night earlier this month.

WOMAN IN AUDIENCE: There's more spirit. There's more liveliness to the music. The programs have changed. Their fantastic.

MAN IN AUDIENCE: He seems unafraid to take risks as well, you know, a little bit more diverse in his thinking.

WOMAN IN AUDIENCE: Michael Tilson Thomas for me captures the spirit of American music, and a new sound, and I am absolutely compelled to come to the symphony because I know he's here.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: As the audience got seated, Tilson Thomas, or MTT, as he's often called, warmed up in his office. His star power has made him a celebrity here. But it's also led to some grumblings that he's too flashy, too glib, too crowd-pleasing. But the music critic of the San Francisco Chronicle thinks there's plenty of depth in Tilson Thomas's work.

JOSHUA KOSMAN, Critic, San Francisco Chronicle: I don't agree. I hear a lot of substance every time I hear him play. He makes clear to everybody that we're not just going to be playing Beethoven and Brahms here. He played a lot of music that might have been scary on paper to people who weren't used to contemporary music or American music. And, you know, what do you know, it didn't bother me. In fact, a lot of it was really exciting.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The first violinist sounded the traditional "A" as the opening night Gershwin concert got underway. Tilson Thomas waited back stage to make his entrance. As always, he said a Jewish prayer to help rid himself of extraneous thoughts.

SPOKESMAN: Maestro, the house is yours. Enjoy, sir. [applause]

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: As he often does, he explained a piece, in this case the Gershwin's "Second Rhapsody," as a way of helping the audience understand and enjoy it more.

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS: He thought of calling the piece "Rhapsody in Rivets." It's one of all those pieces on this whole evening - Gershwin's obsession with rhythm - which, after all, is the rhythm of the great American construction site, but also there's that other thing in this music that fascinating rhythm - fascinating rhythm - fascinating rhythm - which - let's face it, folks - is not seven/eight. He's talking about there - he's talking about another kind of rhythm that we've all gotten a lot better acquainted with since the 20's.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS: His music is not hip because it's very direct emotionally. It might be breezy sometimes; maybe it's meant to be thrown off in a very sophisticated way. But it doesn't flinch, doesn't look away. It looks right at you and says, they can't take that away from me, or how long has this been going on.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Breezy, sophisticated, emotionally direct, this description of Gershwin could fit Michael Tilson Thomas, himself. The opening night concert was, according to the reviews, a hit. And this week, Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony repeated their performance in New York's Carnegie Hall. On Saturday, the 100th anniversary of George Gershwin's birth, Michael Tilson Thomas will be conducting another Gershwin celebration at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

JIM LEHRER: The Tilson Thomas Carnegie Hall concert will be broadcast on Great Performances on most PBS stations next Wednesday, September 30th.% ? RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Thursday, Hurricane Georges regained strength as it spun between Cuba and the Florida Keys. The National Hurricane Center said the storm was likely to move into the Gulf of Mexico after hitting the Keys late tonight. And the House Judiciary Committee will vote October 5th or 6th on whether to launch an impeachment inquiry against President Clinton. The full House would vote two or three days later. We'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening with Shields & Gigot, among others. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.