The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, rebuilding Bosnia, Charlayne Hunter-Gault talks to three people involved in doing so; candidate stump speeches, Steve Forbes launches our series; voting by mail, Lee Hochberg reports from Oregon; the great Vermeer exhibit, Paul Solman takes us through it; and poet Joseph Brodsky, we talk about his poetry and legacy with two other poets, Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Hass. It all follows our summary of the news this Monday. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: President Clinton received an optimistic report on the Bosnia peacekeeping mission today. It came at a White House meeting from Adm. Leighton Smith, the commander of the NATO force. He said the three main risks facing NATO troops remain land mines, road hazards, and road snipers. There were casualties in Bosnia over the weekend. Three British soldiers were killed when their vehicle hit a land mine. We have more in this report from Andrew Simmons of Independent Television News.

ANDREW SIMMONS, ITN: It had been a routine reconnaissance patrol like so many others, but an anti-tank mine lay in the path of Lt. Richard Madden's vehicle in front-line territory about 25 miles from the British base in Leconicgrad. In a grim recovery operation, mine clearance teams have spent all day slowly moving toward the wreckage in a remote part of an area known as the angle, spreading across 800 square miles. Under the Dayton plan, all mine fields should have been identified by the warring sides; this one wasn't. One thousand nine hundred mine fields have been marked out so far in a complex operation. But thousands more remain unidentified. It's the biggest threat facing troops here.

MR. LEHRER: A Swedish soldier was also killed Sunday when his vehicle slid off an icy road. Back in Washington today, First Lady Hillary Clinton announced a new assistance program for Bosnia. It will be led by religious charitable organizations. Mrs. Clinton spoke at a ceremony in the East Room of the White House.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: The United States will support a new relief initiative in Bosnia focusing on families and children. Our partners in this effort will be the Catholic Relief Services and the International Orthodox Christian Charities. This marks the first time these two important groups have embarked on a project together. Their participation is a crucial step in promoting religious reconciliation in Bosnia.

MR. LEHRER: We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. In South Africa today, eight people were killed when gunmen fired on hundreds of people waiting in line for factory jobs outside Johannesburg. Twenty-three others were injured. The apparent motive for the attack was competition for the jobs. A police commissioner said the shooting began after a group of men tried to cut in to the line. In the Japan rape case, prosecutors concluded their arguments today. They asked an Okinawan court to give three U.S. servicemen 10 years at forced labor. The men are accused of raping a schoolgirl on the island of Okinawa. A three- judge panel will render its verdict March 7th. In France today, President Chirac announced an end to French nuclear testing in the South Pacific. The decision ends the series of weapons tests four months early and cuts the number from eight to six. Back in this country today, a Navy F-14 fighter plane crashed into a residential neighborhood in Nashville. At least five people were killed, two of them were crew members. The others were in a House directly hit by the falling plane. The fighter had taken off from Nashville International Airport on a training mission. It was based at Miramar Naval Air Station, North of San Diego, California. President Clinton launched a new program on teen pregnancy today. He named Dr. Henry Foster, a former surgeon general nominee, to lead the effort.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: In this new role, he will work in partnership with community-based organizations all across America to help give our young people the strength and the tools they need to lead responsible and successful lives. Ultimately, I believe what is needed on this issue is a revolution of the heart. We have to work to instill within every young man and woman a sense of personal responsibility, a sense of self-respect, and a sense of possibility. Having a child is the greatest responsibility anybody can assume, and it is not the right choice for a teenager to make before she or he is ready.

MR. LEHRER: The goal of the campaign is to cut teen births by one-third over the next 10 years. Joseph Brodsky died yesterday in New York City. The Russian-born poet won the Nobel Prize in 1987. He once described poetry as "the only insurance we've got against the vulgarity of the human heart." He came to the United States in 1972, after serving 18 months in prison and being forced into exile by Soviet authorities. He had had a series of heart attacks and other heart problems. He was only 55 years old. We'll have more on Joseph Brodsky at the end of the program tonight. Between now and then, we'll have coverage of the Bosnian aid conference, a Forbes stump speech a report on mail voting in Oregon, and a look at the paintings of Vermeer. FOCUS - REBUILDING BOSNIA

MR. LEHRER: First tonight is the effort to rebuild Bosnia. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has that story.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The civil war in Bosnia has left half that country's 4 million people homeless or displaced. Four years of fighting destroyed much of the country's infrastructure. An international campaign to rebuild the country has been launched as a part of the Dayton peace accords. At the White House today, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and administration officials met with representatives of international relief organizations. Mrs. Clinton warned of the job ahead.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Today the children of Bosnia are truly the world's orphans. Thankfully, the process of reconciliation and rebuilding and the process of healing has begun. It will not, as all of you know, be an easy task, but it is one of the most important tasks that we can face together on behalf of the people of Bosnia, particularly the children, but also on behalf of ourselves.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Now, we hear from representatives of three organizations working in Bosnia who were at the White House today. Robert DeVecchi is president of the International Rescue Committee. Kenneth Hackett is executive director of Catholic Relief Services, And Umar Al-Qadi is president of Mercy International, a relief organization founded by Muslim-Americans. And starting with you, Mr. Al-Qadi, what kind of work is your organization doing in Bosnia?

UMAR AL-QADI, Mercy International: Well, up until now, we've been working, we've been focusing on food production, helping the Bosnia--local food production I should say--helping the Bosnians producing their own food, and that's been distribution of seeds for agriculture, also fertilizer, and small animal husbandry projects like our poultry project that produces 35,000 fresh eggs in Tuzla, also a rabbit project in Zenica, and--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Growing rabbits for eating them?

MR. AL-QADI: Exactly. Rabbits for meat, and also livestock improvement in the Tuzla region. The other area we've worked in is health care infrastructure. We renovated the intravenous solution factory in Sarajevo, and we're also providing medicine--raw material, I should say, for the production of medicines like burn creams, baby creams, antacid pills, et cetera, at the same state hospital in Sarajevo.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And you've been able to do that throughout all of this terrible war, or mostly your work has just started after the peace accords?

MR. AL-QADI: No. Actually, we've been in former Yugoslavia since March of '94, so we were there during, you know, the height of the war, and it--of course, it was a struggle. The main problems that we faced--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, let's get to the problems in a minute.

MR. AL-QADI: Sure.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Let me just find out from Mr. DeVecchi briefly what your organization's doing.

ROBERT DeVECCHI, International Rescue Committee: Well, the International Rescue Committee began working actually in 1992, and it's really become the most comprehensive and largest program in our 63-year history. We have programs working out of Belgrade, out of Sarajevo, out of Mostar, out of Zenica, out of Zagreb, out of Split. A lot of it is the distribution of supplies and raw materials. A lot of it is local production, stimulating local production, some large infrastructure projects like the building of a new water system in Sarajevo and the extension of natural gas, and a very comprehensive mental health series of programs throughout the area.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And you, what about you, Mr. Hackett?

KENNETH HACKETT, Catholic Relief Services: Catholic Relief Services did many of the same things, and of course, during the war, it was involved in the immediate relief effort. But I think maybe a slight difference is we took our approach in conjunction with local religious and ethnic organizations, working with Muslim, Orthodox, Jewish, and Catholic organizations together to make sure that the assistance and the aid we provided was determined in its orientation by them. And this provided a forum--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But a lot of them were fighting each other.

MR. HACKETT: You bet.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How did that work?

MR. HACKETT: But that's the whole thing. Assistance can be divisive as well as cohesive, and by putting our assistance through committees made up of each of the different denominations, we found they have to sit around the table and argue with each other about how to slice up the pie. And this provided a forum for dialogue, and that's what we hope we can continue as, as the recovery and rebuilding effort goes on.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You sort of described my next question, because it was going to be: What is--I mean, all of you have done relief work all over the world. What is--is there anything that's unique about Bosnia? Now, you already answered that question. Mr. Al-Qadi, what about you? Do you find unique problems in Bosnia that aren't existing in other problem areas?

MR. AL-QADI: If you realize how small the country is, I mean, the pre-war population was about four and a half million and the kind of atrocities that have occurred there, I think that makes it unique. I mean, such a small population and such devastation that's occurred and that's been a particular challenge, andtrying to overcome the hatreds that have now developed between the, the religious groups there which didn't exist prior to the war, but now we have to enter a phase of healing, I mean, it needs not only individual healing but also community healing for the real peace to--I mean--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You heard the First Lady say this process of healing has begun. What is your organization--you're dealing with mental health--how are you going about doing that? I mean, is it really enormous, the problem of mental and psychological problems?

MR. AL-QADI: Well, our particular angle on it, and we hope to be working with Catholic Relief Services and IOCC, International Orthodox Christian Charities, in this, is to work on the community healing part because that's--we don't have any particular expertise in, in counseling of post-traumatic stress syndrome, but we do have--and I described that in our local food production--we do have expertise in trying to rebuild dignity in communities, and that's the part that we would be focusing on, a thing--projects like trying to beautify the parks in Sarajevo, in Tuzla, and Mostar, because, of course, if--the population really can't feel that the war has ended and that there is healing occurring, if every time they go outside, they see the scars of the war constantly. So that's one aspect. Another is to try to get the people who are being counseled in, in the treatment to provide them with opportunities for employment, and so those are some of the areas that we'll be looking into.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. DeVecchi, what are some of the unique problems your organization is--

MR. DeVECCHI: I think one of the unique problems that this terrible conflict has created is that the creation of refugees and displaced persons is a goal of, of the war. Often refugees are the by-product of fighting. But here the goal of the aggressive forces has been to create refugees and displaced persons, and we have really 2 million displaced persons, either within Bosnia or in Croatia, in Serbia, in West Europe, in this country, and there's a tremendous problem ahead of these people are going to go home, do they have a home to go to, what's left of their communities, how do you reintegrate people into a community where your neighbor may have turned on you and, and killed part of your family?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, you're talking about working with Muslims, Bosnian Muslims, Croatians, and Serbs?

MR. DeVECCHI: That's correct.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All of you?

MR. DeVECCHI: So it's just a monumental problem. I--one plea would be that we not be impatient about it. This is going to be a very slow process, and the Dayton accords are very fragile and the slightest trip wire could set off fighting again, which would be a terrible setback.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, how are the people responding to your interventions? I mean, you said you've consulted the people themselves in helping. Have you all consulted the people in setting your priorities, that's why you decided to focus on--

MR. DeVECCHI: I have a theory on this. I'll be very brief about it. I think there's been a silent majority all along throughout Yugoslavia that has detested this war, has detested the nationalistic positions they've been forced to take, and if we can give breathing time for these people to reestablish themselves to get an economy started again and so on, I think the healing process can be much more solid and perhaps more rapid than, than we allow ourselves to think right now.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Are you getting reaction from people? I mean- -

MR. HACKETT: Oh, very positively. I mean, right after the Dayton accord, we saw and we saw on the media here how tense things were and how, how little hope people had. They were skeptical. We've seen a change even since the signing of the Dayton Accord in certain communities; people are becoming a little more reassured.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Across-the-board, Serbs, Muslims, Croats?

MR. HACKETT: Yes. I mean, there's still tension, and we vary quite a bit about what's happening in Serbia. We're focusing very much on Bosnia at this point and the accord is focused on Bosnia. We don't want to leave Serbia behind, so that the tensions build there because they're not part of the whole process.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you have other problems, I mean, reaching people, aside from some of the things you've mentioned? I mean, we saw the piece about the accident today, the terrible accident with the mines. Is this--does that present--are you having trouble getting to the people?

MR. AL-QADI: Transportation has always been a problem in Bosnia. I mean, the road system is very bad, even without the mines, and that's just an added hazard, and we--our organization's had a number of accidents, but fortunately, no one's been seriously injured in them.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I read somewhere that 40 percent of the bridges are out and 35 percent of the roads.

MR. HACKETT: And there's still a situation I think for all of us that it's not secure.

MR. AL-QADI: Right.

MR. HACKETT: I mean, there are still people who are there who are set upon disrupting things, and one has to be--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You mean, all sides, or--

MR. DeVECCHI: I think all sides. There are the so-called Mujahedeen, who under the Dayton Accords are supposed to, to leave, who are still there in some strength. There are those who are, are out to disrupt the accords and try to, to see that they don't work. So it's not a safe environment.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So far, there's an estimate that it's going to take about $5 billion over four years to rebuild Bosnia. How does that sound to you on the ground, having to deal with resource issues every day? Mr. Al-Qadi, they're all looking at you for some reason.

MR. AL-QADI: It's a difficult question. Umm, I mean, I suppose- -I really don't have a--I'm not sure on the estimate, on the $5 billion, but definitely it's going to require a lot of money to rebuild the country because you're talking about the entire infrastructure of the country, whether it's the education, health care, the homes have been destroyed, and so you have to--you're basically rebuilding the country from scratch and in addition to that, you have to rebuild, you have to rebuild hearts, so you have to build bridges again between the hearts. So I--I don't know exactly what the financial estimate for that would be, but I know it's great.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You were at the White House today, meeting with the First Lady and other officials of this administration, you've talked with members of Congress, what are you hearing about U.S. support, and how do you feel about what you're hearing, Mr. Hackett?

MR. HACKETT: I feel very positive about it. I mean, there have been cutbacks and people are skeptical in our Congress about what's going to happen, but we have to look at this too in the context of Europe. We are not alone as a nation supporting the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Bosnia. We are with our European and NATO partners, and they have been very generous. Maybe they could be more generous, but I think we have to look at this whole reconstruction effort as part of agrouping. This is an important place in the world.

MR. DeVECCHI: I think the primary responsibility, financial responsibility, seems to be resting with the European Community. Karl Bildt, the infrastructure that is being built there, the civilian structure all of us will be looking to for assistance. I think it's important to know that the international relief community was there before IFOR, before Dayton. They will be there while the NATO troops are there, and you can bet your bottom dollar they'll be there after the troops leave.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, with that perspective on Bosnia, how optimistic are you that Bosnia can be rebuilt psychically, socially, politically, all the ways, physically?

MR. AL-QADI: Well, I'm always an optimist at heart, so I think - -there's no doubt it's a long road. I mean, we shouldn't feel that it's going to be--there's something that's going to happen in the short-term, but the fact is the people lived together in harmony for decades and centuries, and there's no reason why that shouldn't--we can't restore that again, but it's going to take a long, a long healing.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you feel the same?

MR. HACKETT: I feel absolutely the same.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And you, Mr. DeVecchi?

MR. DeVECCHI: I do too. I agree. I agree.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So you're optimistic that one day Bosnia will be whole again?

MR. DeVECCHI: It could all slip away very quickly, but I think we have, we have it within our power to make it work.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, thank you all for joining us.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, a stump speech, voting by mail, the Vermeer exhibit, and remembering Joseph Brodsky. SERIES - ON THE STUMP

MR. LEHRER: Now we renew a traditional feature of NewsHour presidential campaign coverage, the stump speech. Over the next several days, we'll have those of the Republican presidential candidates. We begin with Steve Forbes. It was delivered today at a Rotary Club luncheon in Nashua, New Hampshire.

STEVE FORBES, Republican Presidential Candidate: [Nashua, New Hampshire] The 1996 election will be one of the most important in American history. It will define the direction that America takes in the post-Cold War world, and as we enter a new era that will alter the way we live and the way we work, and not only have importance to us at home, but it is also going to have global importance as well. The reason is that being the only superpower today, the rest of the world is looking to America for a sense of direction of where to go in this new era. They're looking to us for an example. They're floundering right now. And you go around the world and you sense that they're looking to the United States for how to move forward, and thus far, we haven't provided them with much of an example. The fact of the matter is that if America regains her self-confidence, moves forward dynamically, energetically, with a sense of innovation, imagination, excitement, the rest of the world, much of the rest of the world will quickly follow suit. If America does well, the rest of the world can do well. If America is in trouble, the fact is the rest of the world is in trouble. If we falter, the world falters, and this is the significance of 1996. We can move forward in a very traditional, vibrant American way, and then the rest of the world will quickly follow our example. If we move forward positively, if we get rid of these barriers that stand in the way of our moving ahead, we're going to quickly astound the world and ourselves with our achievements and our opportunities. That's the promise of 1996. We must begin by changing the culture of Washington. Right now, it is not good enough. It's simply not good enough to send more good people to Washington, because if you don't change the culture, eventually the culture envelops them and eventually they become, many of them, the very people they came to fight and to replace. And to change the culture of Washington, you have to get to the source of power in Washington, which is simply the major source of power is the tax code. The power to tax is the power to destroy. It is the major source of power in Washington, because they do trade favors for loopholes. That's the way the system works. That's why in the last twenty/twenty-five years, the tax code has become so incomprehensible that even the tax collector can't understand it anymore, and it's done for political reasons. Just remember, it is not your typical American who writes that tax code. It is the lobbyists, the lawyers, the rich, and the powerful, and that's why it's the monstrosity that it is today. If we want Americans to have faith again in their institutions, want to have--to get rid of this corrosive effect on American life, we have to get rid of that tax code. No one outside of Washington, no one outside of Washington could have consciously devised something more incomprehensible, more un-understandable, more corrupting, more anti-growth, more anti-family, more anti-anything you might like today, than the tax code that we have today. As I've said before, our Declaration of Independence was 1300 words, the Bible 773,000 words, the tax code 7 million words and rising. That puts it in perspective. [applause] And there's only--[applause]--there's only one thing to do with this monstrosity. You can't reform it. You can't trim it. The only thing to do with this monstrosity is to scrap it, kill it, drive a stake through its heart, bury it, and hope it never rises again to terrorize the American people. It's the only thing to be done with it. And when we do that, when we do that, America will start to move forward again. All of my opponents, or many of my opponents, and the Washington political institutions and political class are all trying to get you to believe that by simplifying the tax code, removing certain deductions, you are going to come out on the short end. Just remember with the flat tax, with you as individuals, and with you as families, the flat tax is a tax cut. You will gain more than you lose. Let me just quickly explain it. Each individual gets a $13,000 deduction, $13,000 for each individual, tax-exempt income, each child $5,000, so if you're a single person, your first $13,000 of income is tax-free from federal income tax; if you're a couple, it's 13 times 2, $26,000; if you have two kids, it's $36,000, 26 plus 10, $36,000 for a family of four of tax exemptions, $36,000 of income tax-free. That family today now pays Uncle Sam about $3,000 in federal income tax; under the flat tax, they would pay zero, zip. Remember, too, your personal savings are no longer taxed. So it makes it easier, a little easier, to put together a nest egg, which is hard to do these days, for a house, for a college education, for retirement. Your personal savings are tax-free. If you're on pensions, tax-free. Social Security, tax-free. Capital gains, tax-free. Inheritances, tax-free. You can pass that business on and not have to worry about the IRS, in effect, confiscating it from you. This is the essence of the flat tax. This is what the Washington political class does not want you to know or learn. They want you to think it's going to somehow hurt you. It's going to help you. The only ones who lose is the Washington political culture and those who feast off of it. They also say it's going to be bad for homeowners, if you want to buy a house or own a house. Again, it's the Washington logic again. Just let's walk through it because I know there may be some people here from Washington, so I'll try be slow and deliberate. [laughter and applause] Okay. Step No. 1, you keep more of what you earn, which means you have more money in your pocket, that shouldn't be bad for buying a house. Two, because your personal savings are not taxed it makes it a little easier to put the nest egg together to make the down payment. That should be good. No. 3, this is a shocker you never read about, is that even critics of the flat tax acknowledge that the flat tax will mean lower interest rates. Now, in the real world, lower interest rates means lower mortgage rates, which means lower monthly payments to finance your house. So you have more money in your pocket, you have a better chance to put the nest egg together, the cost of financing your house becomes cheaper. Don't you think in the real world that helps housing, rather than hurts it? In the real world, it does. Now, just imagine waking up tomorrow morning; flat tax, $36,000 of exemptions for a family of four, 17 percent rate above $36,000 for that family, no tax on personal savings, and a 4 1/2 percent mortgage. Don't you think life in these United States would be better? Don't you think the quality of life would be better? Don't you think families would have a chance to get off the treadmill, instead of being on the treadmill and feeling that the treadmill is winning? Don't you think that would remove one of the principal burdens on families? Of course, it would. We can do it in 1996, if we get the mandate.

MR. LEHRER: We'll have a stump speech from another Republican presidential candidate tomorrow. FOCUS - MAILING IT IN

MR. LEHRER: Now, to an election experiment in Oregon. Voters there are selecting a new U.S. Senator to replace Republican Bob Packwood. But instead of going to the polls tomorrow, they are casting their ballots through the mail. Lee Hochberg of Oregon Public Broadcasting reports.

RON WYDEN: No one, Democrat or Republican, has ever before you questioned my honesty, my integrity, and my ethics. You're the very first.

GORDON SMITH: After 15 years, wouldn't you agree that you're Exhibit A in a case for term limits for career politicians?

LEE HOCHBERG: The Oregon Senate race has been a slug fest. Liberal Democratic Congress Ron Wyden, a long-time advocate for consumers and the elderly, and conservative Republican State Senator Gordon Smith, a multi-millionaire owner of a frozen factory. Wyden's TV spots blast Smith as a Newt Gingrich-like extremist.

COMMERCIAL ANNOUNCER: [Wyden Ad] Gordon Smith is a follower of the revolution of the right catechism of Speaker Newt Gingrich. Gordon Smith and Newt Gingrich, they're going to extremes.

MR. HOCHBERG: Smith, for his part, hammers Wyden's liberal voting record.

ANNOUNCER: [Smith Ad] So why's Ron Wyden so out of touch with Oregonians? Is it because he's been in Washington too long, or has he become so liberal he's forgotten what's important to Oregon?

MR. HOCHBERG: It's the kind of nasty campaign often blamed for alienating voters. Ironically, it's coming in a controversial experimental election that Oregon officials had hoped would enfranchise more voters. The state is conducting the election by mail. Almost 2 million Oregon voters received ballots two weeks ago. They have until January 30th to mark them and mail them back. Election officials say mailing ballots will be easier for voters than going to the ballot box.

PHIL KEISLING, Oregon Secretary of State: The way that we vote, I believe, is part of what is failing to engage people right now.

MR. HOCHBERG: Oregon's Secretary of State, Phil Keisling, says the traditional ballot box election is partly to blame for the nation's meager 38 percent turnout in the 1994 election.

PHIL KEISLING: You know, in today's world, where more and more people are working full-time, both parents working, having to do the kinds of things necessary to keep up an economy that's changing very profoundly, good intentions on election day of highly- motivated voters can often fall victim to a sick child, soccer practice, having to work late, being called out of town, something unexpected.

MR. HOCHBERG: Other states are watching Oregon's experiment and say they'll try mail-in elections too if it boosts voter participation and saves the state money, as Keisling has promised. In last month's Senate primary, the first election for national office ever conducted by mail, 58 percent of eligible voters cast ballots. That's a primary record. But critics of vote-by-mail say it will make political campaigns more expensive. Both Oregon Senate candidates, for example, say they've been forced to saturate the airwaves with more commercials than usual because of the 20-day voting period. Smith has spent $3.7 million on his campaign, $2 million of it out of his own pocket. And Wyden's campaign has spent $2.7 million. Wyden spokeswoman Lisa Grove Donovan.

LISA GROVE DONOVAN, Wyden Campaign: Our election day is over two weeks long, and so what we have to do is instead of build to that crescendo, sustain a very long musical note, if you will, so that people hear from us and hear the Ron Wyden message but not so they can make a decision on one particular day but so that that message will resonate for, for weeks.

MR. HOCHBERG: If vote-by-mail favors wealthy candidates, it might also create opportunities for crooked ones.

MR. HOCHBERG: [speaking to Jonathan Isaacs] So all of these ballots came in and you don't know any of these people?

JONATHAN ISAACS, Oregon State University: Well, no, I know--

MR. HOCHBERG: With almost 2 million ballots mailed out, thousands appear to have arrived at addresses from which registered voters have long since moved. Oregon State University's student body president says piles of blank ballots have stacked up at his fraternity house.

JONATHAN ISAACS: Like, I don't know who this guy is. This guy was a fifth-year--this guy here was a fifth-year senior when I was a freshman. I knew him for one term. I think this guy joined the army. I don't--so, this guy, he's a firefighter now in Portland the last I heard, he was a senior when I was a freshman. I don't--I've seen this guy before in pictures, old pictures, old composite pictures, but I don't know who he is, and never met him, but anyone could walk in here anytime, pick up these ballots, take 'em down to their party headquarters or their house or whatever, and send in 100 votes for candidate, you know, X, candidate Y, whoever they want.

MR. HOCHBERG: Oregon's secretary Keisling sees the potential for vote fraud but says in a state known for its squeaky clean politics, it hasn't happened in any local vote-by-mail elections.

PHIL KEISLING: The overwhelming evidence has been in all the ballots we've been casting, including 300,000 last time around when we had 16 initiatives, the governor being elected, 75 legislators, and you didn't have a single allegation of improper undue influence and coercion in those--in that election, much less a proven case of it.

SPOKESPERSON: Now Channel 2 news continues with--

MR. HOCHBERG: Major media outlets in Oregon have agreed not to further influence voters by conducting polls that could declare the election winner with days left to go in the race. In the opening days of the Senate vote, though, several stations, while not commissioning new polls, continued to report old data gathered before ballots went out.

NEWS PERSON: A recent Channel 2 News Oregonian poll shows the two candidates running neck and neck.

MR. HOCHBERG: Oregon pollster Tim Hibbits, whose poll the station reported, doubts the media will be able to resist handicapping future races.

TIM HIBBITS, Pollster: Sooner or later, whether it's the national press or whether it's something here in Oregon, you're going to have a situation snap where for some reason or another someone is going to be releasing polling data in the middle of this process, and then I think we're going to have a big dust-up.

MR. HOCHBERG: Despite all of the concerns, Oregonians using the mail and those using drop boxes like this seem to accept and appreciate the ease of their new system. For many critics, that may be the worst part of vote-by-mail, the ease. Though her newspaper editorialized in favor of mail elections, Oregonian columnist Margie Boule says the gain in convenience will never replace what's lost in democratic tradition.

MARGIE BOULE, Columnist: It makes the act of voting less important. It makes it as important as responding to anything else that comes in the mail that you have to send back; the questionnaire from your grocery store, how do you like our service, you fill it out and you mail it back; the bill from the electric company, you write a check, you mail it back; the, the voter's ballot for the senatorial primary, you fill it out, you mail it back. Ho-hum. It's nothing important. I think human beings need ritual. You go to the polling place. You see your neighbors. You exchange greetings. It is the ritual of our citizenship, the ritual of our participatory democracy. And I'm very sad to see that go.

PHIL KEISLING: What turned me around on that was that in a sense I thought it was a form of misplaced sentimentality and a confusion of the form of democracy with the substance of it. You know, a community doesn't disappear because the polling place disappears. Yes, we've got--we should on one level mourn the passing of the polling place. I'll miss it myself. But it's a trade-off.

MR. HOCHBERG: Results from this election, expected by week's end, likely will be interpreted and reinterpreted as a referendum on vote-by-mail, itself. FOCUS - THE MYSTERY OF VERMEER

MR. LEHRER: Now, the mystery of Vermeer. The 17th century Dutch painter has taken Washington by storm this winter, and our man, Paul Solman, an art man, as well as a business correspondent, explores why.

PAUL SOLMAN: In the art world, perhaps the show of the century. Until mid February, with limited seating, actually standing, the paintings of the Dutch master Johannes Vermeer, who did no more than five dozen pictures of which only thirty-five are known to still exist. This show boasts almost two thirds of all known Vermeers, by far the most ever assembled. On the other hand, that's only 21 paintings, most of them small, and yet, the crowds have thronged to Washington's National Gallery as if Vermeer werea rock star. Why do they love him?

MAN: I think the physical beauty first, the fact that it's so quiet, oh, his very realistic style.

MR. SOLMAN: Vermeer's seems to be an art that just about everyone can connect with, even those who, like this woman, are legally blind.

WOMAN: I'm very impressed with both his use of light and the very distinctive lines and the detail that he uses, I think, they're very amazing, and some of the ones I saw previously were so clear they almost looked like, you know, they looked like a photograph.

MR. SOLMAN: We asked the show's curator, Arthur Wheelock, a distinguished Vermeer scholar, if he thought Vermeer's primary appeal was his realism, and whether fellow academics might consider that unsophisticated.

ARTHUR WHEELOCK, Curator, National Gallery: There's nothing unsophisticated about loving a painting that looks very real. The joy that these paintings bring is on many levels, and the realism, the sense of realism, is, is, I think, fundamental. I mean, you've got to look at these and say, wow, it is incredible what we can do.

MR. SOLMAN: "The Music Lesson" is a great example of Vermeer could do. Acquired by King George III, back when America was still a bunch of colonies, and on loan from Buckingham Palace, it gives new meaning to the phrase "attention to detail."

ARTHUR WHEELOCK: To look at the textures of, of the tablecloth, to look at the, the light coming through the windows, the way it floods in and the shadows that it creates and the way it illuminates her, her arm, which gives a kind of sparkle to her jacket, the sheen on that wonderful white pitcher and the reflections of the platter underneath it as it comes up and the light flickers off the bottom of it, these things he captures, a sense of light, of color, of textures, and these are very, very important in making his paintings seem so real.

MR. SOLMAN: But how real or realistic are they? At the harpsichord, the woman is looking down; in the mirror, she's turned toward the man. It's as if two moments were captured at once, one musical, the other romantic. And the shadows from the windows to the harpsichord fall at different angles, part of the composition, not reality. In fact, some scholars consider Vermeer abstract.

ARTHUR WHEELOCK: We think of Vermeer as being very realistic and very precise, but if you look closely, occasionally you can see how incredibly bold and abstract he is. If you look at the marbling, the--on these tiles, this incredibly quick, fluid brush strokes that he is, he is giving the sense of, of that floor.

MR. SOLMAN: Vermeer, who died at 43, was a small part of the world's first middle class art market, pictures for folks who lived like this. The map in the background of many of his pictures, like this woman with a pitcher, speaks to Holland's global trade and widespread wealth in the 1600's. His subjects frequently wear the finest clothing. On occasion, their wealth, itself, is in evidence. But behind the mundane, admirers have long found mystery.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: But there's just something when you see a Vermeer, you want to stop and spend a few minutes, and you can find of ask yourself, why am I spending time looking at this woman in the silly hat? I think after thinking about it a long time, he was able to capture the sort of sense of ambiguity. You really don't know what they're thinking.

MR. SOLMAN: They mystery of Vermeer; it's been written about since at least 1866 by a French critic who called Vermeer "my sphinx." In 1921, another French critic wrote about the mysterious Vermeer and tried to figure out "by what witchcraft did he, representing the most daily and commonplace sights, manage to give the viewer so mysterious, so grand, so exceptional emotion?". Arthur Wheelock has studied Vermeer for 20 years. He says the man is as mysterious as his work.

ARTHUR WHEELOCK: The guy's name is Johannes Vermeer, but it's amazing how little we know about him.

MR. SOLMAN: We know he was married and had 13 children, so his wife was mostly pregnant. But we don't know if any of his models were his wife, and there are no kids in any of his work. We know he was an art dealer and innkeeper living here in Delft. We don't know how actively he sold his own work. We know he died fairly young and broke. We don't know why. We do know some things about how he worked. For example, he seems to have used a camera obscura 200 years before film was invented to see projected images, which then inspired him to blur details in the foreground, as old- fashioned box cameras did. These lion-chair finials are often pointed to as an example. And then there's what he does with the painted self. In the famed "View of Delft," for instance, you can actually see how he manipulated his pigments.

ARTHUR WHEELOCK: There's even sand. I mean, he has over there in the red roofs on the left, I mean, you feel the various textures all the way across, the ones in shadow, the ones in light, the tower of the Nuva Kirk, which is really three-dimensional, and here's this little spot of yellow that Proust writes about.

MR. SOLMAN: Wheelock's referring to French novelist Marcel Proust, who immortalized this picture in the words of one of his characters, a dying author. "That is how I ought to have written," he said. "My last books are too dry. I ought to have gone over them with several coats of paint, made my language exquisite in itself, like this little patch of yellow wall." Now if Marcel Proust was excited by Vermeer, imagine how Arthur Wheelock must feel. It took him eight years to put this show together, coaxing from some of the world's greatest collections priceless treasures--"The Geographer," for example.

ARTHUR WHEELOCK: It's from a museum in Frankfurt that traditionally does not lend paintings, and so we worked about four years, and the process was complicated because the chairman of the board died during the process, during all of our negotiations. The director was fired; a new director was hired; his first decision as the new director was to lend Vermeer.

MR. SOLMAN: Getting "The Geographer" was the coup, so too "Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid"--twice stolen from the same private collection, once for ransom to fund the IRA, and only recently recovered by authorities for its new owner, the National Gallery of Ireland, it came to Washington before ever yet hanging in the Irish museum. The exhibition has had its share of crises--the budget stand-offs that have twice shut down the government have twice darkened the Vermeer Show. But thanks to private money and a couple of continuing resolutions, the lights are back on and the people back in for reasons that connoisseurs and the rest of us all seem to agree on.

WOMAN: Well, my husband is getting ready to paint a portrait of our daughter, and I was saying that he had to study this painting more than any other in the show, because if he could capture that glow and that luminescence that she has, then he would capture the essence of a young girl.

ARTHUR WHEELOCK: But what's wonderful about this painting is how he creates an image that really represents I think a universal type, and, in fact, he generalizes. He's a classicist in many ways. He purifies and idealizes forms, and you feel the sense of beauty emanating from this woman in large part in the way he does this in this painting.

MR. SOLMAN: What do you take away from this event?

ARTHUR WHEELOCK: Well, I think all of us feel this incredible sense of quietude and peaceful harmony from these paintings, and it's something you feel when you walk through the crowds here on the most crowded of days, that it's a really reverential attitude of people looking at these paintings. It feels--it comes--it emanates from them, and it really comes in to all of us. It's a really extraordinary thing, and it's nothing you can explain. There's a certain mystery about Vermeer that will always remain, but it has this peacefulness that I think overwhelms all of us. FINALLY - IN MEMORIAM

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, Joseph Brodsky, the Nobel Prize- winning poet who died yesterday. He was the poet laureate of the United States in 1991. He had been exiled from his native Russia following 18 months in a Siberian labor camp. Brodsky appeared on the NewsHour in 1988, and talked about the thing he liked most about America; its spirit of individualism.

JOSEPH BRODSKY, Poet: [November 10, 1988] In order to live in a different country, you have to love something there. You have to love something there. You have to love either the spirit of the laws or the economic opportunities, or the--well, history of the country, the language perhaps, literature. I happen to love the latter two, but you ought to have some sentiment. You also have to, to--in my case, well, there is something else. I simply loved all my life, loved is the stronger word, but I had a tremendous sentiment, partly conditioned of course by the reality of which-- of where I grew up--for the spirit of individualism, for the idea of your being on your own in a big way. Well, so in a sense, in a sense when I came here, this is what happened, this is what I found.

MR. LEHRER: Now two eminent poets on Brodsky and poetry in America today. Czeslaw Milosz won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980. He's a Professor Emeritus of Slavic Languages at the University of California at Berkeley. Robert Hass is the current poet laureate of the United States and a professor of English at Berkeley. Gentlemen, welcome to both of you. Mr. Milosz, how would you characterize Joseph Brodsky's poetry?

CZESLAW MILOSZ, Nobel Prize Winning Poet: [San Francisco] He was a very great poet and great successor of very great period of Russian poetry in the beginning of the 20th century. And he was my very close friend.

MR. LEHRER: Why does the word "great" apply to him?

MR. MILOSZ: Already since his beginnings and his trial in Russia the aura of greatness surrounded him. It's very difficult to define what it is.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Hass, for those watching, listening now who have not read anything by Joseph Brodsky and this is the first time they're coming to his--he is coming to their attention, what would be your No. 1 recommendation as to what they should read to get the essence of this man as a poet?

ROBERT HASS, Poet Laureate: [San Francisco] I'd say to begin with, the first of his two books that were published in this country, Jim, a book called A Part of Speech. I guess the thing that should be said about Brodsky for us readers in English is that we're reading him in translation. He's a--he's a poet of immense verbal brilliance, lots of pyrotechnics, and when people try to bring that into English, what you often get is almost pyrotechnics, andalmost brilliance, so partly you read his poetry in English as an act of faith, but I think the poems in the book A Part of Speech conveys the--his passion and his irony and a kind of a ferocious intelligence that will give people a sense of what he's like. His great work in English is the essays.

MR. LEHRER: The essays.

MR. HASS: And a book of his essays I think might be another place to get the quality of his mind and energy.

MR. LEHRER: In addition to the--reading the poetry.

MR. HASS: Yes.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. When you use the term "pyrotechnic," are you referring to his uses of words,--

MR. HASS: Yes.

MR. LEHRER: --the way he arranges them, or his ideas?

MR. HASS: Both. All three.

MR. LEHRER: All three.

MR. HASS: But mostly, mostly the, the--he puns a lot. He plays a lot with language. He surprises with rhyme. There isn't much like him in American poetry right now.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Mr. Milosz, what was it about Joseph Brodsky that the Soviet authorities didn't like, that causes them to put him in, in--to try him and then put him in prison and then eventually to exile him?

MR. MILOSZ: You know, his attitude towards the word was sort of detachment and he really didn't acknowledge the existence of those authorities. He went his own way, and that was extremely irritating.

MR. LEHRER: And that's why--that was the only thing? I mean, he was not--he wasn't a--what you'd call a dissident poet, was he, in the--in what we normally refer to as people who are writing poetry against the state and all of that?

MR. MILOSZ: Not at all. He considered it below his dignity to quarrel with the state. He simply considered that the state is something ruled by law kind of individuals.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Mr. Hass, I read somewhere today that in describing where Joseph Brodsky came from, of course, which was Russia, they described it as the land of the poets. Are we a land of poets?

MR. HASS: Oh, I think we are. You know, one of the things that Joseph said about his years in Russia reading American poetry was that American poetry was for him a long lecture on autonomy, on freedom, and when he came here, he brought with him a passion for English language poetry, and he was one of the people who's made this country a sort of dazzling center of poetry in the world during the last twenty or thirty years.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Milosz, do you see the United States as a dazzling place for poetry?

MR. MILOSZ: Yes. I must say that Joe Brodsky was very happy being in America, and I consider that America is better for poets than, for instance, Western Europe.

MR. LEHRER: Now, why is that? Because I say--the common thing here is that we are not a poetic people, that we are very pragmatic and we read our stories but we don't read our poetry, but you don't see it that way.

MR. MILOSZ: Well, judging by interest in poetry on the campuses, we would say that this is not quite true.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Hass, I read today also that Brodsky said "that poetry is the only insurance we've got against the vulgarity of the human heart." And, in fact, I mentioned that in the News Summary at the beginning of the program. Is that a basic truth for you poets?

MR. HASS: Oh, I think it's a basic truth. You know, Yates, a great Irish poet whom Joseph loved, said it another way, he said, "We have filled our hearts with fantasy and our hearts grow brutal on the fair." One of the great things about poetry is that besides being an enchanter, it's a disenchanter, and a truth-teller, and Brodsky more than any other poet was one of those who managed to disenchant us out of the stupidity of our fantasies, and create more durable ones.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Would you agree with that, Mr. Milosz, that his poetry had that ability?

MR. MILOSZ: Yes. Yes. I consider that, that through his poetry one can apply the epithet sublime.

MR. LEHRER: Sublime.

MR. MILOSZ: Yeah. It's a very high praise, but undoubtedly his poetry is, is such. The trouble is, you see, and even I wonder his poetry is written in Russian, and it is in a way, its strength is linguistic, how it goes through translations, that's, that's another thing, not always go through translations.

MR. LEHRER: Sure. That was a point that Mr. Hass made a minute ago. Mr. Hass, you have a book of Joseph Brodsky's poetry there in your hand. Why don't--why don't you read a little bit. Tell us what it is, and give us--set it up, if it requires anything, and then read it, and we will say good night to you listening to Joseph Brodsky.

MR. HASS: Yes. Well, if Joseph was sublime, he was also amazingly clear and tough-minded, and here's a poem that--part of a poem sequence called "A Part of Speech" that might be a place to end: "Life that no one dares to appraise, like that gift horse's mouth, bears its teeth in a grin at each encounter. What gets left of a man amounts to a part, to his spoken part, to a part of speech."

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Hass, Mr. Milosz, thank you very much for being with us tonight.

MR. HASS: Thanks, Jim. It's a pleasure to be here. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the other major stories of this Monday, President Clinton received an optimistic report on Bosnia from Adm. Leighton Smith, a commander of the NATO force, and First Lady Hillary Clinton announced a new assistance program for families and children in Bosnia. We'll see you tomorrow night with another stump speech and U.N. Ambassador Madeleine, among other things. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.