The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MAC NEIL: Good evening. I'm Robert MacNeil in New York.

MR. LEHRER: And I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington. After our summary of the news this Thursday, we look at Bosnia options with Senators Lugar and Lieberman and policy experts William Hyland and Leslie Gelb. Then come excerpts from the two big congressional hearings, Whitewater and Waco, Spencer Michels reports on an affirmative action debate in California, and Tom Bearden updates school desegregation in Kansas City. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MAC NEIL: Bosnian Serb victors today ordered the evacuation of the Muslim residence of Zepa. The town's citizens surrendered yesterday, but government leaders still deny it has fallen. They rejected Serb terms in particular their decision to round up all men of fighting age as prisoners of war. We have a report from Robert Moore of Independent Television News.

ROBERT MOORE, ITN: Savoring his victory, enjoying the humiliation of the UN and the defeat of the Muslims, Gen. Radko Mladic was in confident and ruthless mood. Despite the frantic efforts of the United Nations, he knew the safe haven of Zepa was his for the taking. Mladic was even filmed enjoying his daily exercise, the general viewed by many in the West as a war criminal. With a Ukrainian UN soldier in despair beside him, he negotiated the surrender, the general once again issuing his infamous orders for the civilian population to be expelled and the men of fighting age interrogated. Zepa's Muslim defenders, including the mayor, emerge with white flags. In a moment of humiliation, they were forced to toast their own surrender. Today, more of Bosnia's refugees were making their way toward Tuzla, and the fall of Zepa means another 15,000 will be in desperate need. According to the UN, consistent stories are now emerging from Srebrenica alleging that the Serbs lured refugees to their deaths by posing a peacekeepers.

KRIS JANOWSKI, UNHCR Spokesman: Bosnian Serb soldiers wearing blue helmets, UN uniforms, using a bullhorn to tell the people to get out of the woods, come out into the open, then lining them up on the road and shooting them.

ROBERT MOORE: The Western powers are now gathering in London for tomorrow's vital international conference on the future of the UN and NATO in Bosnia. Foreign Sec. Malcolm Rifkind and the U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher are engaged in frantic diplomacy this afternoon to try and ensure some consensus emerges. The UN Secretary General meeting today with John Major knows that tomorrow is perhaps the last chance of restoring the organization's credibility and avoiding the ultimate humiliation, that of a full withdrawal.

MR. MAC NEIL: White House Spokesman Mike McCurry said today officials from the U.S. and Britain are near agreement on a plan that could lead to stepped up air strikes against the Bosnian Serbs. Defense Secretary Perry said the action may be taken despite Serb threats to take more UN peacekeepers hostage. In Western Bosnia, the Croatian Serbs launched an offensive against the UN safe area of Bihac today. About 1200 Muslim refugees have fled the area. On Capitol Hill, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole announced he would delay a vote on lifting the arms embargo against Bosnia until next week. He said he was doing so at the request of President Clinton. We'll have more on Bosnia after the News Summary. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: There were more Waco hearings today. Testimony focused on the role of the military in the 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound. We'll have extended excerpts later in the program. Yesterday, some Republicans on the committee had equated the actions of federal agents with those of the cult leaders. President Clinton disputed that. In a speech to law enforcement officials this afternoon in Washington, he talked about cult leader David Koresh.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Here was a man who was molesting young girls and paddling children with boat oars, a man who was laying up supplies and illegal weapons for Armageddon, a man who was instructing women and children about how to commit suicide. Those are the facts. There is no moral equivalency between the disgusting act which took place inside that compound in Waco and the efforts that law enforcement officers made to enforce the law and protect the lives of innocent people.

MR. LEHRER: The Senate Whitewater hearings also continued today. There was testimony from three U.S. park police officers who investigated the July 1993 suicide of White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster. They said White House aides interfered with their investigation and failed to carry out their order to seal Foster's office. We'll have excerpts from that hearing later in the program too.

MR. MAC NEIL: Affirmative action came under fire at the University of California today. The university's governing board considered a measure to eliminate all race-based programs and to drop racial preference formulas from its admissions policy by January 1997. Gov. Pete Wilson, the president of the Board of Regents, is leading the fight to end affirmative action.

GOV. PETE WILSON, California: As regents of the University of California, we cannot tolerate university policies or practices that violate fundamental fairness, trampling individual rights to create and give preference to group rights. It takes all of the state taxes paid by three working Californians to provide the public subsidy for a single undergraduate at the University of California. People who work hard and pay the taxes and who play by the rules deserve a guarantee that their children will get an equal opportunity to compete for admission to this university, regardless of their race or gender.

MR. MAC NEIL: We'll have a fuller report on that story later in the program.

MR. LEHRER: In economic news today, the Interstate Commerce Commission approved the merger of the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Pacific Railroads. The new system is the largest in the nation, stretching from Canada to Mexico, with 33,000 miles of track. General Motors reported record profits for the second quarter of the year. The world's largest automaker earned $2.3 billion. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to a Bosnia debate, the hearings on Whitewater and on Waco, affirmative action in California, and school desegregation in Kansas City. FOCUS - CRITICAL CROSSROADS

MR. MAC NEIL: Our lead tonight is Bosnia, the war on the ground and efforts of the United States and its allies to stop it either by military or diplomatic measures. The focus of diplomatic activity was in London, where foreign and defense ministers from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and Russia were gathering for a conference tomorrow. We start with a report from Correspondent Gaby Rado of Independent Television News on some of the measures those officials are considering.

GABY RADO, ITN: The American secretary of state was in town early to continue the discussions ahead of the international conference. It appeared that Warren Christopher was persuading the British government to accept the USA's option of relying on the threat of heavy air strikes to deter the Serbs. And even as he was in the air en route to London, the U.S. defense secretary was giving details of that strategy.

WILLIAM PERRY, Secretary of Defense: We would first warn the Bosnian Serbs not to attack Gorazde, that they only bring this air campaign on themselves if they do attack Gorazde. Secondly, if in spite of that warning they do attack, then the first set of targets in the air campaign would, would be the air defense system.

GABY RADO: The talks have two objectives: One, to deter a Bosnian Serb attack on Gorazde and keep supplying Sarajevo; and two, to ensure that the UN Protection Force can continue its presence in Bosnia. What still has to be agreed upon is the scale of the action to be taken. The most vigorous option supported by the French is to reinforce Gorazde with a thousand of their troops. To achieve that, they'll need American helicopters from warships stationed in the Adriatic. But the Americans wouldn't risk their helicopters without first destroying Bosnian Serb air defenses, which as shown in last month's downing of an F-16 plane pose a serious threat to allied aircraft. The Americans, themselves, have been proposing a compromise option of using the threat of heavy air strikes, not the pin-prick close air support which failed in Srebrenica, to deter the Serbs from attacking Gorazde. The British, who after all have nearly 300 soldiers inside the Gorazde enclave, have been ambiguous, saying only that they'll take a course of action supported by the Americans. Securing a corridor for Sarajevo is the one thing about which there does see to be a measure of agreement. The only viable route goes over Mt. Igman and is vulnerable to attack by Serb shelling, so, again, there are varying levels of action: Simply escorting traffic or actively destroying Serb heavy weapons targeted on Igman. Tomorrow's meeting is bound to reawake memories of the London conference nearly three years ago. That was called after the disclosure of the inhumane Bosnia Serb detention camps. Its statements of good intentions have little effect on the realities of war. Now, another crisis, the collapse of the Eastern enclaves, have led to another international meeting. Lord Carrington, who stepped down as EU negotiator in 1992, takes a skeptical view of the UN role since then.

LORD CARRINGTON, Former EU Envoy to Yugoslavia: The lesson, I think, personally, the lesson to be learned from all this is that you really shouldn't involve yourself in somebody's civil war unless you know whose side you're on. You can involve yourself in humanitarian aspects of it but you shouldn't involve yourself, however slightly militarily you do, otherwise, you will find yourself despised by all sides. And I think you could argue if we'd not involved in ourselves in all this, very many fewer people would have been killed, there would be much less ethnic cleansing.

MR. MAC NEIL: We get four views not from Capitol Hill. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, member of the Armed Services Committee and co-sponsor of the amendment calling to an end to the arms embargo on Bosnia, and Sen. Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, member of the Foreign Relations Committee and a Republican presidential contender. Joining us here are William Hyland, former deputy national security adviser to President Ford, now a professor at Georgetown University, and Leslie Gelb, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, a state and Defense Department official under Presidents Carter and Johnson. Sen. Lugar, if we can delay for a moment the consideration of the vote which has now been deferred until next week on lifting the arms embargo, and discuss the options that are being considered in London. What do you think of the plan the U.S. is apparently pushing the allies to accept, the threatened heavy NATO bombing of Serb positions unless they stop threatening the safe areas?

SEN. RICHARD LUGAR, [R] Indiana: I think it's important that the United States put forward a plan. President Clinton told some of us yesterday that we were going to give it one more try, at least in his judgment, and it's very important that the UN UNPROFOR group stay there because if they have to come out, the United States, i.e., President Clinton has made a commitment that 25,000 American forces are going to be involved in getting them out with risk to our country and with certain costs that have not been appropriated. So this is at least a final attempt, and the President asked Sen. Dole and Sen. Lieberman to postpone a vote on this situation and to give him that opportunity over the weekend.

MR. MAC NEIL: Sen. Lieberman, in agreeing to that, do you have any hope that this plan of the administration could save the UN presence and, and be successful?

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN, [D] Connecticut: I am skeptical about whether this can be turned around for the United Nations, but, nonetheless, Sen. Dole and I both felt with the President asking for this delay, it was the appropriate thing to do, to delay. I am somewhat encouraged by the statements that we've heard in the last day from Sec. Perry and others, because this is finally, though the hour is extremely late, and ever more difficult in Bosnia, plainly the implementation of one half of the policy that President Clinton brought into office with him, which was lift and strike, that we will plainly see some strike from the air. I still think that the arms embargo on the Bosnians remain illegal and immoral and regardless of what else happens, we must lift that embargo and let these people defend themselves.

MR. MAC NEIL: Okay. I'll come back to that a little later, but just let me pursue with our guests here, Leslie Gelb, what do you think of this, this plan to threaten the Serbs, the Bosnian Serbs, with much more massive, not pin-prick NATO air attacks, not restricted by prior UN permission?

LESLIE GELB, Council on Foreign Relations: I certainly don't think the threat of stepped up air strikes is a plan. I think it's a single act of desperation which, by itself, will not work. What we do need is a plan. This should be part of it, but it can't work by itself. We need a diplomatic proposal, a negotiating proposal that's viable, and it ought to have two elements: One, that the Bosnian Serbs can reunite with Serbia, and the other that there be a viable, although small state, for the Bosnian Muslims. We need real economic carrots and sticks.

MR. MAC NEIL: That would mean throwing out the map which has been the basis for negotiation.

MR. GELB: Throw it out because it will never lead to a settlement. Secondly, you need real economic carrots andsticks, and we have both, and have not used neither, and then we need also lift and strike. But none of these by itself will lead to a resolution. If we start bombing again to show the Serbs we're tough, they will react in ways we've been familiar with. They'll take hostages. They'll respond. Then what do we do?

MR. MAC NEIL: Well, then what do we do? Bill Hyland, Secretary Perry in elaborating in that little interview we saw on Air Force One taking him to London told reporters that even if the Serbs responded by taking UN hostages, NATO should go ahead anyway: "You can't allow your policy to be taken hostage with your hostages."

WILLIAM HYLAND, Georgetown University: Well, it's a lot of brave talk but the fact is that the last time they took hostages, the French and the UN command negotiated secretly to get them released. So I think that--I think the whole thing is a hair-brained scheme. The French are cynical, putting forward proposals they know we'll reject. Perry's talking about heavy bombing. I am very doubtful we'll continue it, see it through, as Les Gelb pointed out. It's just kind of floating out there. Where does it lead? Suppose you bombed Gorazde and they didn't attack for a month? Then where are you? We need some kind of end game to this war, and I think the end game is going to be that the UN will decide to pull out, and I don't understand why--

MR. MAC NEIL: You predict that happening, being decided tomorrow?

MR. HYLAND: Not tomorrow. No. There will be one more kind of desperate--as Sen. Lugar said--kind of a desperate round of, of flailing the air and, and trying to be tough. I don't understand why we don't negotiate the withdrawal of UN forces, the peaceful withdrawal. I think if we're going to get out, we should try and get out peacefully, rather than put in 25,000 Americans to kind of fight our way out, which I think is just insane.

MR. MAC NEIL: Can I just persist with the Senators for a moment in following up. What were the consequences be, Sen. Lugar, of NATO making massive air strikes on Bosnian Serb installation supply lines and things, do you think?

SEN. LUGAR: Well, my, my guess is that you already covered that. Essentially, it's a last desperate attempt. I don't want to undermine for a moment that last desperate attempt. Unless it's a part of an overall plan, it is unlikely, I think, to affect what I believe will be the withdrawal of the UNPROFOR forces sometime this summer.

MR. MAC NEIL: From the briefing you got from the President yesterday, do you think, taking up with Les Gelb's point, that it is part of an overall plan?

SEN. LUGAR: No. I think the President and his people really do not have an overall plan, and they would say that, in part, they don't have one because they haven't gotten the British and French to agree that they have a UN Security Council problem involving the Russians, and finally, we still have the dual lock business of who actually authorizes the strikes. At this stage, it's not really clear that United States, Britain, and France can do all this without violating the UN mandate or at least bringing some protest from Russia.

MR. MAC NEIL: And Sen. Lieberman, from the briefings you've had in persuading you to delay your vote, do you think the bombing threat is part of a, a larger plan to end the war?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: I don't see that at all at this point. The decision by Sen. Dole and me to--and Sen. Dole really because he controls the calendar to delay the vote until next Tuesday--really was a courtesy, an act of respect to the President, who requested that. I don't think it's going to change much of anything. It certainly will not change our support for lifting the arms embargo and giving the Muslims the opportunity to defend themselves. We feel that we've had a plan, lift and strike, for more than three and a half years. There has been no plan other than that, and the fact is that the Serbs have continued to be aggressive, and nobody's stopped them.

MR. MAC NEIL: The--go to the next step, Sen. Lieberman. Do you think any attempt now to keep the UN force, the UNPROFOR there and viable, is doomed, that it's just a hopeless cause?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: I think it's as close to hopeless as one can imagine, ultimately hopeless, ultimately impossible. Look, we--the United Nations came out of the last spasms of worldwide anger and anxiety when we saw the concentration camps revealed that the Bosnian Serbs were holding the Bosnians in, in 1992. At that point, after more than a year of clear Serbian aggression, the western powers should have acted against it to stop it invading one country, and one country invading another; they didn't. They threw in the United Nations presumably for humanitarian purposes, sending these brave soldiers wearing blue helmets into a situation where they were viewed as combatants, so they were not able to be combatants, themselves. It was a mission impossible from the beginning, which has had disastrous effects on the credibility of the United Nations, let alone on the lives of the Bosnian people. So I do think it's time for them to get out. Let's arm the Bosnian Muslims, and let's use some air power to stop Serbian aggression. The aim of all this is to get the parties to the peace table to accept some plan to end all this.

MR. MAC NEIL: Sen. Lugar, do you agree that it's time to get the UN out? Has that time arrived yet?

SEN. LUGAR: Yes, I believe that it has, but let me just say that the problem that I have with the resolution that we're about to vote on is not that the Bosnians ought to have the right to defend themselves, but there ought to be a more comprehensive plan of what we, that is the United States, are planning to do. Specifically, the President really does need authorization from the Congress to send the people over there to begin with, as well as for the money that it's going to take. If he doesn't get that, he's going to be criticized again and again as the casualties occur and as vulnerabilities occur. We really have to decide once we make this decision, if the vote is Tuesday or Wednesday, what happens to the Bosnians in the interim period before they re-arm. They are bravely saying that they don't need very much, but, in fact, they need a whole lot, and it will take time to get it to them before more laughters occur, and finally, the United States has not thought through, quite apart from our lives, what happens after the vacuum occurs, that is, everybody gets out of harm's way in terms of stopping the spread of the war? What will NATO's function be as hopefully we regroup after this debacle?

MR. MAC NEIL: Are you saying that Sen. Dole and Sen. Lieberman don't have a comprehensive plan beyond lift and strike themselves?

SEN. LUGAR: Yes, I think that's right. I think it's mutual. I don't think the administration has thought it through, and certainly this resolution doesn't. Now, it--it says something that's very important, that Bosnians have been denied the right to defend themselves, and that was a bad deal, and they ought to have that opportunity. And Dole and Lieberman have given the President some latitude here to make sure that UNPROFOR actually gets out. That's one reservation I and some others had with the earlier resolution. So there's flexibility there in terms of UNPROFOR. I'm just saying the preparation of the American people, the appropriation authorization process, plus the planning afterward and what happens to Bosnians in the meanwhile, is very important before you take this step.

MR. MAC NEIL: Sen. Lieberman, your resolution, as I read it, specifically prohibits the sending of troops to--

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Not in its current phase. It has--it has prohibited the placement in earlier versions of American troops on Bosnian soil to train Bosnian troops, but it is silent on the question of American troops to help in the withdrawal, and respectfully, I believe that Sen. Dole and I have the only plan. We've had it for three years, going back to the Bush administration. The fact is that, that we are focusing here on the arms embargo, imposed at the request of the Milosevic government in Belgrade in 1991 as a way to deny arms to their, their enemies and their neighbors in Bosnia and Croatia, supported by a naive world community at that point as a way to stop the conflict from erupting and maintain--even though war went on, Bosnians were killed, raped, murdered, one excuse after another, so I say to those who say we should wait and do the authorization of troops to help the UN withdrawal, I must respectfully view that as the latest reason not to lift the arms embargo. In my opinion, these are separate issues. Let's do the right thing--lift the arms embargo- -and then let's come back and talk about the details of authorizing American troops to help the UN withdraw. I will support that. Sen. Dole will support that. But that's a separate discussion.

MR. MAC NEIL: What do you think, Les Gelb, of the Dole-Lieberman proposal now as it stands?

MR. GELB: Well, for three or four years, I've been in favor of both lifting the embargo and doing strategic air strikes against the Serbs but not by themselves. By themselves, they won't work. The Bosnian Muslims will still be left in a vulnerable position. You have to put together a whole package designed to satisfy some of the legitimate concerns of the Serbs with the absolute requirements of saving those Bosnian lives. One of the things missing from this debate all along is really seriousness of purpose and intent. Everyone involved in it knows that none of these actions by itself is going to solve the problem, either Clinton's current diplomatic maneuvering in London, nor the maneuvering in Congress. We need a whole plan. Everyone involved, involved in this knows that nothing short of that will work. And the eye must be kept on the victims and the aggressors in this. You know, this is not unlike the situation with the Jews in Europe before World War II, where people see what's happening and, in effect, have left them adrift. The consequences of that were terrible. And I think the consequences of leaving the Bosnians to their fate will also be terrible.

MR. MAC NEIL: Bill Hyland, what do you think of the Dole- Lieberman lift strike resolution?

MR. HYLAND: Well, I, I think the substance is probably all right, but I think it's irresponsible and frivolous to keep inserting it into the debate. This is a decision the President has to make. It's not a decision for a hundred senators to play around and make speeches. The President is in a very difficult position, mainly because I think his own policy has been a force. But, nevertheless, he has, he has to make these decisions. We can always lift the arms embargo. The main thing now is, is the UN force there are going to be withdrawn and is it going to be withdrawn by American combat troops, or is it going to be withdrawn peacefully, or are we going to take the Perry route, which is to start bombing, which certainly is going to lead to a wider war, and I would guess the Serbs will have to fight back and protecting this or that enclave by bombing, I think, is going to create an enormous mess?

MR. MAC NEIL: Sen. Lieberman, what do you say to the President when he uses the argument the administration's been using against your resolution that to lift the embargo now, for the United States to lift it would Americanize the war, either it would result immediately or soon in the U.S. force getting out with 25,000 American troops promised to help them get out, or that the United States would feel a different or a moral responsibility to help the Bosnian Muslims?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Well, the answer is the answer that we've heard from Prime Minister Sladic, which is that the continued American support for the arms embargo has Americanized the war. In that sense, we have blood on our hands. We have deprived these people of the right to defend themselves. It's up to us as to what our next steps are. We have said all along--Sen. Dole and I and many others of both parties--lift the embargo, strike from the air. We don't want to see American troops on the ground. I honestly believe that if that policy had been implemented in 1992, the war would be over today, because the Serbs would have felt something they've not felt until now, which is pain, and shed some blood. And I just want to take a moment to respond to Bill Hyland and say to Bill, of course, it would be better if the President implemented this policy, but what are we in the Congress supposed to do as we see people being tortured, nations being invaded with no response, history being repeated, as Les Gelb has referred to, the prestige and credibility of NATO, the United Nations, and the United States all being decimated? This is an outcry by the Congress--and I believe it will be by strong bipartisan majorities in both Houses--that--against the absence of a plan and the tolerance of aggression and genocide in Europe. This is an alternative. It's not guaranteed to succeed, it's not perfect, but it's a darned sight better than the, the weakness that has been shown in the face of aggression.

MR. GELB: But, Senator, then why not call on the President to come up with that plan that we all feel he needs?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Bill, we have done that four times, and it's passed the Senate by growing majorities, and what's been their response? Nothing.

MR. GELB: Well, just to say lift the arms embargo, which I'm in favor of, is not going to be the answer, because, in truth, we've got to bring them arms. It will involve some training. There will have to be some U.S. troops on the ground to do so. What kind of air strikes are we talking about? Are we talking about close air support for ground action without U.S. troops on the ground to call in those strikes? Are we talking about strategic bombing against Serb military targets? Are we talking about leveling Pale? These are the things that make up a plan.

MR. MAC NEIL: Sen. Lugar, finally, what do you think Washington's greatest priority should be right now in Bosnia?

SEN. LUGAR: Well, I think we've talked about it this evening. It ought to be to get this plan. We ought to understand in terms of our own foreign policy and the maintenance of our alliance with NATO how to maintain European security, and that is going to involve nowgetting UNPROFOR out safely. That probably will involve American forces, and that probably will involve American public opinion, as well as the safety for Bosnians while all this proceeds. These are crucial elements, and the President and his people need to concentrate on it devoutly, and they need to ask for support, which they would receive in a bipartisan way here. The resolution is going to get bipartisan support on Tuesday or Wednesday because people are voting for very diverse motives simply out of agony that the United States is not acting, and our constituents are saying act, and they're saying act for all sorts of reasons. But that does not substitute for a President and a foreign policy.

MR. MAC NEIL: Okay. Well, Sen. Lugar, Sen. Lieberman, and gentlemen, thank you.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, Whitewater, Waco, affirmative action in California, and Kansas City schools. FOCUS - CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS

MR. LEHRER: Now the two big congressional hearings. First, Whitewater. For the third day, a special Senate panel focused on the actions of a White House staff after the suicide of deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster. Kwame Holman reports.

KWAME HOLMAN: Democrats and Republicans have agreed on little during the first two days of Whitewater hearings, but day three found Republican committee chairman Alfonse D'Amato and top Democrat Paul Sarbanes on the same side.

SEN. ALFONSE D'AMATO, [R] New York: The independent counsel indicates he's received a request from our committee for the information that we requested as it relates to Maggie Williams and the polygraph test that may have been administered, and he has denied our request.

SEN. PAUL SARBANES, [D] Maryland: The independent counsel has it, and we thought he should have provided it or helped to accommodate us, and he's not done that.

MR. HOLMAN: The committee wanted to know about a lie detector test reportedly taken by Margaret Williams, one of the White House staff members ordered to remove Whitewater documents from Vincent Foster's office shortly after his 1993 suicide. Foster was charged by President and Mrs. Clinton with wrapping up their investment in the Whitewater Land Development Company they jointly owned with James MacDougal. MacDougal also owned the bankrupt Arkansas savings & loan called Madison, which is at the center of the ongoing independent counsel investigation into whether its funds benefited the Clintons. This morning, a panel of park police officers who first investigated the Foster suicide said his office should have been sealed in the hours after his death.

SEN. ROD GRAMS, [R] Minnesota: Mr. Rolla, do you remember discussing the need to seal the office with Sgt. Braun?

DETECTIVE JOHN ROLLA, U.S. Park Police: Yes, I did.

SEN. ROD GRAMS: What did you talk about or how did you come to that conclusion as well?

DETECTIVE JOHN ROLLA: Well, first let me say that there was no legal authority for us to tell them to seal and lock that office.

SEN. ROD GRAMS: Whose?

DETECTIVE JOHN ROLLA: There is no legal authority. We're not looking for national secrets or corporate secrets or anything like that. We're looking basically for something that says, "Good-bye cruel world."

MR. HOLMAN: U.S. Park Police Sgt. Cheryl Braun said on the night of the suicide, she was assured by White House official David Watkins that Foster's office would be sealed off.

SERGEANT CHERYL BRAUN, U.S. Park Police: I asked that Mr. Watkins see that Mr. Foster's office was secured so that we could send somebody in the morning outto check his office.

MIKE CHERTOFF, Republican Counsel: What did Mr. Watkins say to you?

SERGEANT CHERYL BRAUN: He said yes. He acknowledged my request. I don't remember what his exact words were, but he acknowledged my request.

MIKE CHERTOFF: And you're quite certain that you made the request, and he acknowledged it?

SERGEANT CHERYL BRAUN: Yes.

MIKE CHERTOFF: In your conversation with Mr. Watkins, either at that point or at any earlier point, did he tell you that he had asked somebody to go into Mr. Foster's office and look for a suicide note?

SERGEANT CHERYL BROWN: No.

MIKE CHERTOFF: Is that something you would have wanted to know?

SERGEANT CHERYL BROWN: Yes.

MR. HOLMAN: White House officials have said they answered Foster's office to look for a suicide note. Committee Republicans suggest they may have been more concerned about removing Whitewater documents. The committee Democrats' counsel, Richard Ben-Veniste, said park police who took over the Foster investigation never complained about that.

RICHARD BEN-VENISTE, Democratic Counsel: And it is clear from that report that Mr. Nussbaum reported to Detective Markland and Captain Hume on the 21st that he, together with Patsy Thomasson and Margaret Williams, had conducted a brief search of Mr. Foster's office on the night of the 20th in the hope of discovering a note, is that correct?

SERGEANT CHERYL BROWN: Yes, that's correct.

MR. HOLMAN: But Missouri Republican Christopher Bond prompted a different response.

SEN. CHRISTOPHER BOND, [R] Missouri: I understood from your testimony that it didn't matter whether you said, close, seal, or secure the office, you did not want anybody going in there, rummaging through papers, removing papers, or having access to the office, is that correct?

SERGEANT CHERYL BROWN: That's correct. I wanted it left pretty much the way it was when Mr. Foster left.

MR. HOLMAN: This afternoon the committee seated but did not question a panel of current and former Clinton administration officials. They'll be back Tuesday for week two of the Senate's Whitewater hearings.

MR. LEHRER: Now to the second set of high profile congressional hearings this week--Waco. Two House subcommittees continued their investigation into the initial raid of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. Betty Ann Bowser reports.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: For the second day in a row, minority Democrats criticized Republicans for the way they are conducting the hearing. This time it was over documents.

REP. CHARLES SCHUMER, [D] New York: Every time the gentleman in the majority has asked for documents from the White House, from Treasury, from others, they've been given every single document. They asked for one group, then they want another.

MS. BOWSER: The Republican majority has subpoenaed hundreds of thousands of pages of documents from the Justice Department and the White House, papers Democrats say have nothing to do with what happened in Waco. Nevertheless, ranking minority member Charles Schumer turned them over today.

REP. CHARLES SCHUMER: Here they are. Take them.

REP. BILL ZELIFF, [R] New Hampshire: Could the gentleman from the Department of Justice--

REP. CHARLES SCHUMER: He's got the same one.

REP. BILL ZELIFF: Are you delivering them for someone else?

REP. CHARLES SCHUMER: No. You've gotten the same package, but you refuse to say it. We've all gotten it--13,000 of them, everything in them, private meetings with the counsel where we go over even the President's own personal notes, nothing is found, and then a request for more documents, but when there's something very relevant--

REP. BILL ZELIFF: Good quality documents? [holding up document with massive censoring]

REP. CHARLES SCHUMER: That is the document, because those on that page, there are no calls to the Justice Department and no calls to the White House.

MS. BOWSER: But the real order of business today was an examination of how the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms involved the U.S. military in its February 28th raid on the Davidian compound. To request the assistance ATF got from the army, it had to have evidence of drug activity. The ATF claimed it had that evidence at the time, but several drug and law enforcement consultants today contradicted the claim.

WADE ISHIMOTO, Former Military Intelligence Officer: What I saw in my review was that ATF had a basis for investigating a drug nexus. It was turning out to be very weak, in my opinion. I believe that they were then reliant upon their military adviser at ATF headquarters and most importantly, a person out of the Texas governor's office, who is federally--a federally funded employee, and who I believe encouraged ATF to proceed with non-reimbursable use of the military using a drug nexus as a criteria.

MS. ROS-LEHTINEN: They were using false, you know, old, outdated information from five years before.

WADE ISHIMOTO: They were using outdated information, and then, as I stated previously, this member of the Texas governor's office, I believe, was somewhat overzealous in proposing that ATF did, in fact, still have evidence that a meth lab existed on the compound.

MS. BOWSER: Committee co-chairman Bill Zeliff asked the entire panel to address the same question.

REP. BILL ZELIFF: Any of you believe that there's any drug connection at all at Waco?

WITNESS: No, I haven't seen any indication of a drug nexus.

REP. BILL ZELIFF: Mr. Morrison.

GEORGE MORRISON, Los Angeles Police Department: I don't believe so. I think it was considered and rejected, and it was not part of the planning element for the raid to consider confrontation with a meth lab.

REP. BILL ZELIFF: Mr. Bassett.

MR. BASSETT: My understanding is that there was no drug connection.

MS. BOWSER: Indiana Republican Steve Buyer, a Gulf War veteran, raised concerns about whether the law was violated when the army gave technical assistance for the ATF raid. The law in question is called "posse comitatus." It prohibits most military involvement in domestic law enforcement activities. Buyer questioned the Pentagon's Task Force Six commander, the head of drug operations.

REP. STEVE BUYER, [R] Indiana: And in order for soldiers under your command to provide support for law enforcement, your command needed a drug nexus, is that correct?

MAJ. GEN. JOHN PICKLER, U.S. Army: That's correct, sir.

REP. STEVE BUYER: When ATF came to you and said that there were this methamphetamine lab on the compound, did you just accept it on its face value, or did you do some kind of analysis? If there was an analysis, what was it?

MAJ. GEN. JOHN PICKLER: JTF-6 has, of course--had no reason to doubt the legitimacy of the drug operation, and we do not routinely question the veracity of credentialed officials for duly constituted law enforcement agencies.

MS. BOWSER: Zeliff introduced an operational order from Task Force Six that grew out of Pickler's conversations with ATF officials. It authorized military training for ATF agents because "the suspect group is an extremist, cult/survivalist organization" with "an active methamphetamine lab." Then ranking minority member Schumer took the lineof questioning in another direction, with the army's No. 2 lawyer, Brig. Gen. Walter Huffman and Assistant Secretary of Defense Allen Holmes.

REP. CHARLES SCHUMER: It is absolutely clear that no law was violated, no action was taken that comes close to violating posse comitatus or any other law. Gen. Huffman, is that your--do you agree with that?

GEN. WALTER HUFFMAN: Congressman, so far as the army's involvement in this, I would say that is correct.

REP. CHARLES SCHUMER: That's correct, that the military, the army, it's not even close, did not even come close to stepping over any line that might be regarded as violating that law, is that correct, sir?

GEN. WALTER HUFFMAN: That's my opinion, yes, sir.

REP. CHARLES SCHUMER: There was no violation of any law, and the only consequence, if it was clear that ATF purposely deceived you folks in saying that there were drugs there would be who would pay for the military equipment, the helicopters and other things that were used, that is clear. There is no dispute about that, as I understand it, is that correct, Amb. Holmes?

AMB. HOLMES: That is essentially correct, Congressman.

REP. CHARLES SCHUMER: And finally, you know of no law that was broken in any of these activities?

AMB. HOLMES: I know of no law that was broken.

REP. CHARLES SCHUMER: Thank you, Mr. Holmes.

MS. BOWSER: Tomorrow, former Treasury Sec. Lloyd Bentsen and former ATF Chief Steven Higgins are scheduled to testify. FOCUS - SPECIAL TREATMENT?

MR. MAC NEIL: Should the largest university system in the country drop its affirmative action policies? That was the question at the University of California today. Correspondent Spencer Michels reports from San Francisco.

STUDENT DEMONSTRATORS: Affirmative action is our fight. Education is our right.

SPENCER MICHELS: The debate over the University of California admissions policy has been billed as a milestone in the nationwide controversy over affirmative action. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside a university regents meeting today to protest the possible end of affirmative action. The nine-campus California system, which includes Berkeley and UCLA, allows race, gender, or low family income to be considered, along with scholarship, in admitting 40 percent of its students. Regent Ward Connerly, a Sacramento businessman, wants to change that. He would, instead, have the university consider socioeconomic factors in some admissions, while always emphasizing academics. The university administration and faculty want to continue the present policy, but Connerly is backed by Gov. Pete Wilson, who has made his opposition to affirmative action part of his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. He was the first speaker at today's regents meeting.

GOV. PETE WILSON, [R] California: The questions before us are simple and cannot be set aside. Are we going to treat all Californians equally and fairly, or are we going to continue to divide Californians by race? The answer we owe the people and the change we must make are clear. By doing so, we will keep faith with the principles on which the university and our nation were built. We must do no less.

MR. MICHELS: More than 150 people had signed up to speak at this jammed packed regents meeting. Several urged delay, arguing that the voters in California will most likely be casting ballots on abolishing affirmative action in November of 1996. Many speakers accused Gov. Wilson of dragging the university into the political mire.

WILLIE BROWN, Former Assembly Speaker: It would be pure folly for you inthis body to move ahead of either the legislature or the courts or the Constitution or the people's will by way of the initiative process. To step backwards now would be to consign the university to the same base place where we in the world of politics reside.

MAYOR MIKE BRODSKY, Albany, California: Gov. Wilson has the right to stake his fortune on the most polarizing of issues. You must not risk the future of our university by taking precipitous action today.

BARBARA LEE, [D] Assemblywoman: In your public statement on July 18, 1995, you quote Thomas Jefferson's statement, "Equal rights for all, special privileges for none" without reminding the citizens of this state that when Thomas Jefferson made this same statement, he was the proud owner of slaves, and he also considered African-Americans property. So it's not surprising that given your all out assault on affirmative action, you would cite Thomas Jefferson as an example of ideal fairness. [applause]

GOV. PETE WILSON: I would just point out that I am in very good company in quoting Thomas Jefferson. Dr. Martin Luther King found his remarks so inspiring that he quoted them in his description of his dream for this nation. [applause]

MR. MICHELS: But the governor had ample support as well, both among the regents, many of whom he appointed, and among the speakers at the meeting. Moderate Republican State Senator Tom Campbell told the regents that he served as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Byron White at the time of the Bakke decision which outlawed racial quotas.

TOM CAMPBELL, [R] State Senator: Use of race by government is wrong. Justice William Douglas is a hero of the liberals, hardly the conservatives, but in his opinion in 1973, and with this I close, he said, "There is no constitutional right for anyone to be preferred. A student who is white has no constitutional entitlement to any preference but also no constitutional right to be discriminated against."

ERROL SMITH, Businessman: Routinely, as I step up to speak on this, as you can imagine, there are many people who say to me, why would someone like you be in support of an initiative that essentially seeks to ban the use of race or preferences? And of course, what they really mean by that is, why would someone black be in support of doing away with racial and gender preferences? This is the tragedy, in my opinion, that there is lingering suspicion about our competence. I believe that that is the result at least in part to the fact that there are many people who have sold for a long time the notion that but for these programs, someone who looks like me just can't make it. [applause]

MR. MICHELS: Jesse Jackson was the last of the public figures to speak, and he took ten times the three-minute limit, addressing his remarks directly to Gov. Wilson and to Ward Connerly. He began by asking everyone to stand and pray. Wilson and most of the regents didn't. Then he launched into a plea for a continuation of affirmative action to counter what he called systemic racism and discrimination.

REV. JESSE JACKSON, Rainbow Coalition: I remember what it was like to live in a color-blind society. I was invisible. My thoughts, concerns, and rights were of little or no importance to whites, Governor, for them to process and to control the economy of Greenville, South Carolina. I grew up, Mr. Governor, I never saw a black policeman until I was an adult. I never saw a black fireman until I was an adult. Blacks couldn't sell shoes downtown. We were qualified to sell them. We went to Washington the day that Dr. King gave the dream speech I hear many of you quote. The day he gave that speech, we, who traveled from as far Southwest as Texas, across Florida up through Virginia, we couldn't use a single public toilet. I appeal to you today to rise above the politics of the moment and make an investment in the healing of our nation. I urge all of you through all of this pain to keep hope alive. Thank you very much. [applause] UPDATE - DREAM DEFERRED

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, Tom Bearden updates the story of the Kansas City schools and desegregation.

TOM BEARDEN: Like a lot of big cities, Kansas City, Missouri, is divided along racial and economic lines. The core inner city is large African-American and poor, the outlying areas mostly white and affluent. Whites had fled the city during the 1960's, leaving behind a segregated, grossly overcrowded school system whose buildings were literally falling down. Annie Fryer remembered what it was like to teach under those conditions in this interview with the NewsHour seven years ago.

MRS. ANNIE FRYER, 5th Grade Teacher: [1988] That water came in most all the classrooms; you had peeling walls. You had ceilings falling out in places. In fact, we had to move out of two rooms due to the ceiling collapsing.

MR. BEARDEN: But then in the late 70's, attorneys for the schoolchildren sued the school district and the state of Missouri to force desegregation. They won. Federal District Court Judge Russell G. Clark ordered the city and the state to virtually rebuild the entire system. Clark's goal was not only to upgrade the quality of education but also to attract white students back to the district schools. He tried to do that by ordering the system to build magnet schools, schools with special themes. Today, Kansas City has some of the most impressive school facilities in the country, offering something for everyone. For students interested in fine and performing arts, there is Paseo Academy. [music in background] This brand new high school has three theaters and separate rehearsal rooms for ballet and choir. There are also schools that specialize in teaching languages, a high school with a rigorous curriculum for college-bound students, and two Montessori elementary schools. The crown jewel of the system is four-year-old Central High, a $32 million building housing two theme programs: Computers Unlimited, with one computer for every three students, and the Classical Greek program, an athletic program designed to produce scholar athletes. Thus far, all of this has cost city and state taxpayers more than $1 1/2 billion. Jay Nixon is Missouri's attorney general.

JAY NIXON, Attorney General, Missouri: More has been done to help the kids of this particular system financially than any district in the history of our state. The state of Missouri has rebuilt in its entirety the school system here. We have provided the finest facilities in the country. The court has found that we have provided the finest facilities in the country here.

MR. BEARDEN: But the court forced you to do it.

JAY NIXON: Well, we did it. You know, the court forced us to do it, and we did it.

MR. BEARDEN: Judge Clark ordered the state of Missouri to pick up more than half the desegregation costs. The state fought from the beginning to limit those costs but lost every step of the way, i.e., until June 12th, when it finally won and won big. In a five to four decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the idea of magnet schools to attract white students from other districts. Basically, it ruled that those outside districts were not guilty of segregation themselves and, therefore, could not be used to help Kansas City solve its segregation problem. It then ordered a lower court to restudy the case. The surprise decision left Kansas City parents and educators reeling. At a meeting three days after the Supreme Court ruling, attorney Arthur Benson tried to explain what had happened.

ARTHUR BENSON, Lawyer: I resisted saying it was a defeat for the schoolchildren and the, and the school district, but it was a defeat. We lost. And it's, it's hard to take it, and we're going to have to pay for it. I don't know how we're going to pay for it but we are not going to be able to continue operating our $350 million a year school district.

MR. BEARDEN: Earlier this month, Benson's prediction came true. Negotiators for the school board, the state, the children, and the teachers reached an interim agreement to halt state funding of Kansas City's desegregation program. Under the agreement, the state will gradually reduce its payments to the district over four years. State funding will stop completely in June of 1999. The agreement does not apply to funding from the city, which accounts for a little less than half the annual desegregation costs. The cutbacks and the U.S. Supreme Court decision do not necessarily mean an end to desegregation in Kansas City. Judge Clark is obligated to continue the slimmed down program until he decides that the problems of the past have been remedied to the extent practicable. Opponents of the desegregation plan say that point has already been reached, that there's a limit to what magnet schools, even multi-million dollar ones, can do to attract suburban whites to the inner city.

JAY NIXON: We've seen what can happen. When we try to dream our dreams and expend billions of dollars, we get a product that today, while it has been helpful to many and has made significant progress for many, still today, 17 years later, the black-white ratio is worse in this district, and the graduation rate is also worse, so there's going to have to be significant cuts, significant retooling, and a real major restructuring of this district.

MANETHIA CONNOR: [mother talking to child] Have you washed your hands?

MR. BEARDEN: Manethia Connor is a divorced mother of twin girls. Her daughters Ashley and Alexis are in a German language program at Melcher Elementary. She says if retooling and restructuring mean a return to racial isolation and inferior education, she's leaving Kansas City.

MANETHIA CONNOR: If things go the way they are, then I'll probably consider relocating, because I have that option with my job, to relocate to Boston. And I've looked into that option prior to this particular situation, and I decided not to because I like the schools that the kids are in. Now if they change it, then I don't have any reason to stay in Kansas City.

MR. BEARDEN: Arthur Benson hopes the state will listen to parents like Manethia Connor and do what's best for the city.

ARTHUR BENSON: We're right on the state line. It would be so easy for many middle class Kansas Citians of all races to move their businesses and their residences over to Kansas. It's just across the street. And if our school system goes down the tubes, a lot of them will do that. And in the long run, we will increase the number of poor people left behind, social costs will go up, tax consumers will increase and taxpayers will go to Kansas.

TEACHER: [lecturing class] You're going to have the Townsend duties. You're going to have the Grenville Acts. You're going to have the Stamp Act.

MR. BEARDEN:The decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Kansas City case is the latest in a series of rulings starting in 1991, which have placed new limits on desegregation plans.

ARTHUR BENSON: Emphasis has changed. I don't think there will ever be a time when you can say that desegregation has now ended in this nation the way it started with Brown. It's more likely to just fade out over a period of a decade or two in the future, but certainly the emphasis has shifted from developing and implementing new remedies, which was the emphasis for thirty-five years, and over the last five and over the next five, the emphasis is upon how you end them and phase them out. That definitely has occurred.

MR. BEARDEN: For Kansas City, the phasing out appears to have begun much earlier than anyone anticipated. Proponents think that holding on to the gains they've made and avoiding what scholars call resegregation in the wake of the new court ruling may be their biggest challenge yet. RECAP

MR. MAC NEIL: Again, the major story of this Thursday was Bosnia. The Bosnian Serbs conquered the town of Zepa and ordered the evacuation of its Muslim residents. The Serbs also said they would round up all men of fighting age as prisoners of war, and this evening, White House spokesman Mike McCurry said France had signed on to a U.S. plan that could lead to stepped up air strikes against the Serbs. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night with Shields and Gigot, among other things. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.