The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

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

MS. WARNER: And I'm Margaret Warner in Washington. After the News Summary, we look first at the move by some states to sue cigarette companies to recover smoking-related health costs. Then Betty Ann Bowser reports on the bitter Virginia Senate race, and we update the crisis in the Sudan. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MAC NEIL: President Clinton began his journey to Normandy today to mark the 50th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. The trip begins with meetings in Rome with Pope John Paul. It ends on June 6th, D-Day, with a ceremony on the Normandy beaches. Before he left, the President called on Americans to remember those who served overseas and those who supported them at home. He and Mrs. Clinton placed flowers at a memorial to the soldiers of the First Infantry Division who served in World War II. It's located across the street from the White House. Afterwards, the President had this to say.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: As it was on D-Day, America will be at work next Monday, June the 6th. For one moment on that Monday, we might pause and reflect: 50 years ago on this day at this hour the men and women of America saved democracy in Europe and changed the course of history or the world. This week, let us all, from the President to every other citizen, do our best to say a simple thank you. Thank you for what you did. Thank you for the years you have given us. Thank you for the example you have set through sacrifice and courage and determination.

MR. MAC NEIL: In addition to Italy and France, the President also plans a stop in England. Margaret.

MS. WARNER: North Korea has once again rebuffed international efforts to inspect is nuclear facilities. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported this weekend that the North Koreans are unloading spent fuel from a suspect reactor so quickly that it will soon be impossible to determine if it's being diverted to weapons use. Vice President Gore said the U.S. was not rattling its sabers but that North Korea must understand the U.S. will not flinch in its commitment to South Korea's security. Haitian refugees seeking to enter this country may soon be processed by U.S. Immigration officials in Jamaica. The State Department said today the U.S. and Jamaica are discussing a plan to let U.S. officials screen Haitians on ships anchored in Jamaican waters.

MR. MAC NEIL: The United Nations today resumed relief flights to the capital of Rwanda. The U.N. suspended flights yesterday after one of its peacekeepers was killed by a mortar blast. Robin White of Independent Television News has this report.

ROBIN WHITE, ITN: First pictures of the death of a United Nations officer described by colleagues as the bravest man in his outfit. Captain Babe Yagney, a liaison officer, died on the front line of this divided city, killed by shrapnel from a shell that landed close to his car, a shell fired, according to a preliminary investigation, by Tutsi rebels, an attack which led the U.N. to suspend operations in Kigali for 24 hours. With peacekeeping operations restarted, U.N. workers resumed food delivery to thousands of civilians trapped in the Rwandan capital. Around Kigali, the number of refugees fleeing the fighting has increased since Rwandan rebel and army commanders agreed that people must be free to move. Most have nowhere to go to. Meanwhile, reports of mass killings continue. The United Nations says it's unable to confirm that 500 refugees were massacred in this camp, seen recently a refuge mainly for Tutsis 30 miles from Kigali. U.N. investigators who visited the camp found only a few bodies, but the U.N. confirmed that people are taken from the camps each day and are killed.

MR. MAC NEIL: A new report from the United Nations lists 17 countries as being in or near a state of social disintegration. Many of the countries, including Rwanda, are in Africa, but Mexico and Egypt are also sighted. The fifth annual report on human development looked at factors such as education, income, and life expectancy in 173 countries. It ranked Canada first and the United States eighth. The report also called the U.S. one of the most violent developed countries.

MS. WARNER: A coalition of anti-abortion groups today announced a boycott of companies linked to the abortion pill, RU-486. They want to prevent the sale of the drug in this country. The boycott is targeted at the U.S. subsidiaries of the German and French companies that sell the drug in Europe and elsewhere. The president of the National Right to Life Committee talked about the boycott at a Washington news conference.

WANDA FRANZ, National Right to Life: We have not made this decision lightly. But we feel morally compelled to hold these companies accountable. Should the RU-486 abortion technique ever be used in this country, there will most certainly be an increase in the number of abortions from the already enormous number of 1.6 million annually and an untold number of women will be injured or even killed. In addition, we are concerned that licensing in the United States will encourage widespread use of RU- 486 on third world women which could have catastrophic consequences.

MS. WARNER: The French manufacturer of RU-486 donated its U.S. patent rights to a private group, The Population Council. The drug is currently awaiting FDA approval. California is suing the federal government again, this time for the medical costs of caring for illegal immigrants. California Governor Pete Wilson said the state was seeking 378 million dollars. California already has sued to recover prison costs associated with illegal immigrants and plans to sue for education costs as well. Six other states have filed similar suits or planned to.

MR. MAC NEIL: Margarethe Cammermeyer was ordered to be reinstated in the Washington State National Guard today. Two years ago, the 52-year-old colonel was involuntarily discharged as chief nurse after she admitted being a lesbian. Cammermeyer had served for 26 years and received the Bronze Star in Vietnam. In his ruling today, Federal District Judge Thomas Zilly said the government's rationale for excluding homosexuals was grounded solely in prejudice. A jury in Los Angeles ruled that Rodney King is not entitled to any punitive damages from two police officers who were convicted of beating him. The jury said the officers acted with malice when they beat King during his arrest in 1991, but it said he was not entitled to any money from them. The same jury has already ordered the city of Los Angeles to pay King $3.8 million in compensatory damages. That's it for the News Summary. Now it's on to some heat over smoke, a political slug fest, and more tragedy in Africa. FOCUS - PLAYBACK

MR. MAC NEIL: Can states sue cigarette makers on behalf of large numbers of Medicaid patients who smoke? That's the issue in our lead story, a new attempt to make tobacco companies pay for the diseases their product may cause. While the courts have ruled that individual smokers can sue them, not one dollar has ever been awarded to an individual smoker. Now, two states, Florida and Mississippi, are trying a different approach. Jeff Yasteen of public television's Nightly Business Report has the background.

UNIDENTIFIED SPOKESMAN: Do you believe nicotine is not addictive?

WILLIAM CAMPBELL, Philip Morris USA: I believe nicotine is not addictive, yes.

JEFF YASTEEN: Already defending themselves in Congress, tobacco companies are now faced with fighting a second front in state capitals like Tallahassee, Florida. Last week, Gov. Lawton Chiles signed a bill allowing the state to file class action lawsuits against tobacco producers as Mississippi did recently. Florida estimates it's spent about $1.2 billion fighting tobacco-related illness in Medicaid patients in the last five years. Now it wants a refund.

GOV. LAWTON CHILES, [D] Florida: For decades now, tobacco companies have turned an enormous product -- profit, while their victims have turned to the taxpayers for treatment. It's time for those responsible to pay back.

JEFF YASTEEN: Chiles and other state officials say the new law will make the state's case against tobacco companies easier to prove. Individuals in past lawsuits had to show a direct link between a company's tobacco and physical harm. But the state can use statistics on the health of groups of smokers to make the same link. The new law was opposed by business lobbyists, who said it would make other manufacturers libel for similar claims by the state.

JOHN SHEBEL, President, Associated Industries of Florida: Citrus, milk, beef, chicken, toothpaste, Pampers, anything.

MR. YASTEEN: It was a sentiment echoed by the Washington-based Tobacco Institute. In a statement, it said, the bill cheats thousands of Florida businesses and legitimate products out of the right to evidentiary protection and defenses by using statistics instead of direct proof. But state officials have their own response.

GOV. LAWTON CHILES: Those products don't kill anybody. The state's not losing any money in Medicaid because of any of those products.

MR. YASTEEN: While Florida officials held the law as a breakthrough, it may not last long on the books. Tobacco industry and business groups are already moving to have the law rewritten or repealed when state lawmakers meet for a special session this month.

MR. MAC NEIL: We have four views now. Harold Lewis is the general counsel for the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. John Shebel is the president of the Associated Industries of Florida, a group representing about 6,000 businesses in the state. Laurence Tribe is a professor of law at Harvard University. He's represented individuals in their legal battles against tobacco companies. And Peter Huber is a lawyer and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute in Washington. D.C. Mr. Lewis, how did you calculate that $1.2 billion was incurred in medical expenses for tobacco-related - - as you put it -- tobacco-related diseases? How do you make that calculation?

MR. LEWIS: Thank you, Mr. MacNeil. First, let me say that Gov. Lawton Chiles said it's time to take the Marlboro Man and Joe Camel to court to recover the millions of dollars that Florida taxpayers have paid because of the tobacco company. In answer to your question, we've taken what's known as the international classification of disease code 9CM, which is the clinical modification of the 9th edition, which is uniform throughout the United States, all 50 states in the United States, England, Australia, and the countries of the world. These disease classifications have been compiled in our Medicaid program by code number and by the diseases that we feel that through the surgeon general reports since 1964 that directly relate to the sickness and death caused by tobacco.

MR. MAC NEIL: So do you take everyone who died of heart disease say and who smoked, that his death and treatment leading to it or treatment without death was incurred because he smoked?

MR. LEWIS: No, we do not. We've taken the Medicaid codes and then we've taken the Office of Technical Assessment, and the Center for Disease Control in the United States Congress. On a May 6, 1993, report of the Office of Technical Assessment to the Congress of the United States, they published the actual percentage, costs attributable to smoking by these Medicaid codes. So, for instance, in Medicaid code CD -- ICD-155, we know precisely how many Medicaid patients were treated for that, and then we take the OTA and the Center for Disease Control figure that -- statistical figure that they've attributed to that, and then we have the actual number based on that percentage is what the dollar that we've used to calculate the total for each of the last fiscal years.

MR. MAC NEIL: So if --

MR. LEWIS: We feel it's a very sound statistical basis, and it's been approved by the Surgeon General of the United States.

MR. MAC NEIL: So if you proceed with one of these suits, class action suits, what do you think you'd have to prove in a court?

MR. LEWIS: Well, this is where some of these Chicken Little, Chicken Little sky is falling in argument being used by some in our state, where that comes from. We, as the state of Florida, as in any lawsuit, must show a cause of action. We must establish through a preponderance of the evidence at trial that, in fact, there was a causation between the product -- in this case tobacco -- and the injury cause for a particular ICD classification. That has not changed one bit in the court of law that we will enter in the jurisdiction here in Florida.

MR. MAC NEIL: There's been some confusion over this. Would this law apply only to tobacco, only to cigarettes?

MR. LEWIS: Gov. Chiles made it absolutely abundantly clear when he signed the law last Thursday, May the 26th, that this only applies to tobacco products. Gov. Chiles is pro- business and the ICD codes which we can certainly go into in great detail do not reflect in any other product or in any other classification the type of disease and death that tobacco causes. Gov. Chiles made it absolutely clear that this applies only to tobacco.

MR. MAC NEIL: Mr. Shebel, give us in very brief form what the objection of your association is to this law.

MR. SHEBEL: Well, to start off with, what Mr. Lewis just said about Gov. Chiles saying this only applies to tobacco is absolutely wrong. That's not what Gov. Chiles said at his press conference. That's not what this law does. Mr. Lewis and his friends in the trial bar initially misinformed the governor and advised the governor that this only applied to tobacco products. I've met with the governor. He has said that he was not advised initially that this was as broad as it was, and he subsequently said that he's willing to repeal those things that are not tobacco.

MR. MAC NEIL: Now, would that be all right with you, if it was just tobacco? Would you still be against it?

MR. SHEBEL: Well, we'd be a lot happier if you took every product in the world out of having no defenses and whenever they arrive at the courthouse being sued that they're automatically guilty. I mean, I didn't understand anything Mr. Lewis said when you asked the question how he arrived at his determination. But under this law that's basically all you have to take to the courthouse is a study like that, lay it on the desk and say, judge and jury, here's what we've got and by statistical evidence and the defendant having no defenses you've pretty much proved your case. They've taken every defense away from any product manufacturer. Specifically as to tobacco, we can't go along as a business association with any product that is permitted by state and federal law to be sold, having all its defenses taken away. If you were to relate this to human beings, you would then go along with the philosophy of saying that if the federal crimes statistics show that a particular group has a higher incidence of murder than another group, then let's take away all that group's defenses. I don't think that anyone in this country would want to go along with that. That's exactly what we're talking about here.

MR. MAC NEIL: You're going to work to get this law repealed, I gather?

MR. SHEBEL: Yes, sir. And we're going to work with the governor, not with Mr. Lewis and the trial bar, but we're going to be working with our governor, who we've worked with very closely on health issues for the last three years. And I think the governor wants to get to where we want to get with this thing, and we're going to be doing that.

MR. MAC NEIL: Laurence Tribe in Boston, is this good law?

MR. TRIBE: I think it's a very intelligent and sensible legal approach. What it does is certainly not what Mr. Shebel describes. It doesn't presume the cigarette companies guilty. It doesn't take away all their defenses. I've read the law with some care. What it does is take away those defenses that have no application in a suit by an innocent third party like the state of Florida, namely defenses like assumption of risk. When individual smokers have brought suits against tobacco companies, they have failed typically because the companies have persuaded juries that individual smokers knew what they were doing, they read the label, they knew that they were basically smoking "cancer sticks," but the state of Florida or any other state never did inhale. They didn't smoke these cigarettes. They didn't read the label. They and their taxpayers are stuck with the bill, the social costs on programs like Medicaid of very large numbers of people and, of course, the numbers have to be established statistically -- that's the only way you can do it -- whose respiratory ailments, whose cancer, whose cardiovascular ailments are tobacco-related. And there's no good reason in the world in terms of sound economics or legal principle why taxpayers should subsidize the tobacco industry by absorbing these costs. The state is an innocent third party and it makes eminent sense to have this kind of lawsuit.

MR. MAC NEIL: Peter Huber, what is your view of this? Is this good law, and will it stand up, do you think?

MR. HUBER: Well, to start with, one has to understand the law does address all businesses in Florida. It is not restricted to tobacco companies, as written. Now, if it really were a broadly written law to be applied prospectively in particular, I think it might survive. But, of course, the governor has already said that's not what he means, and in that case, the law really is very specifically aimed at one industry and I think probably will not survive. It does violate notions of fairness and equal protection. Beyond that, the economics behind this law are silly. We're talking about a product which undoubtedly does kill many poor people who are on public welfare in the state. Whatever else it may be doing, this product, it's almost certainly overall not costing the state money.

MR. MAC NEIL: It is not costing the state -- how do you --

MR. HUBER: Because --

MR. MAC NEIL: -- spell that out?

MR. HUBER: -- everybody dies sooner or later. If they die sooner and they happen to be on welfare and getting public housing and so on, the bottom line, the fact of the matter is that the state's almost certainly saving money here.

MR. TRIBE: That is just not true. I can't believe, Peter, that you're saying that. I read an article a year ago that you wrote in which you said basically that, and you said that the Federal Reserve --

MR. HUBER: And the numbers will show that.

MR. TRIBE: No. I'm sorry. Let me tell you about the numbers. I think you said that Alan Greenspan should put a little thank you note next to the warning on each label because smoking is good for the deficit. Though, the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment in 1993 looked closely at the issue, concluded, first of all, even if a ghoulish argument like that, that we should be grateful that these people are being killed, even if we could accept that morally, it's not true economically, because what happens is people are cut down in their productive years.

MR. HUBER: No, you're wrong.

MR. TRIBE: I'm sorry. Let me give you the data.

MR. HUBER: The data does not address specifically the poor.

MR. MAC NEIL: Mr. Huber, one at a time. Let him finish, and then I'll come to you.

MR. TRIBE: There are a couple of points. First of all, one out of four people who dies between the age of thirty-five and sixty- five in this country dies of a smoking-related ailment. The net cost, the net social cost, even if you include people who are temporarily on welfare, is about $68 billion a year, about 50 billion of that from the private sector, about 18 billion in the public sector, because what happens is that people don't simply die quickly. They linger. They have more sick days. They are forced onto unemployment. The cost -- even of people on Medicaid -- is very, very substantial, and the calculation in Florida, for example, of about $289 million a year is about right. But if Peter were right, it would be a very simple matter for the state of Florida. You know, the tobacco industry would hardly be fighting this law if he were right. All they'd do is file a counter claim saying, look, we've done you a favor by saving you money by killing the poor.

MR. MAC NEIL: Mr. Huber.

MR. HUBER: Well, Larry, among other things, you should check the law, because the state of Florida very carefully preserved its sovereign immunity for counter claims. Beyond that, under this law, one of those first defendants should be the state of Florida's own sunshine industry, every hotel that's peddling sunshine. We have 500,000 skin cancers a year in this country, 30,000 of those are malignant. They are much promoted by sunshine. Do you agree that then we should also be suing every major hotel and that sort on this theory?

MR. MAC NEIL: Let's go back to Mr. Lewis on that one. Mr. Lewis, what do you say to that argument, that Florida advertises its argument and sunshine causes cancer?

MR. LEWIS: Well, that is certainly baloney, and we don't believe that for one minute. Sunshine is given to us by God and the universe, and that is certainly an inaccurate statement. And I think, Mr. MacNeil, what you and your viewers across the country are seeing here tonight is the classic example of misinformation and misstatements that's being put out in our state about this legislation and what Gov. Chiles has said. We feel that this is a very, very strong piece of legislation, as Mr. Tribe has indicated, and we feel that what statements that I've made are absolutely correct. And I think that it is unfortunate. I'm an appointee of Gov. Lawton Chiles for the health care administration representing the people of Florida. And for him to characterize me as the trial lawyers and not a state employee I think is part of the general misconception that they're trying to project to the people of Florida when we're trying to look out after the public dollar.

MR. MAC NEIL: What's your view?

MR. LEWIS: That's Gov. Chiles' objective.

MR. MAC NEIL: What's your view of that, Mr. Shebel?

MR. SHEBEL: Well, I think the truth speaks for itself. Mr. Lewis and a trial lawyer and a state senator, all of whom are very good friends, slipped this bill through the legislature. Mr. Lewis misled the governor about the broadness of this bill. The governor thought this bill related to tobacco, and it was his intent to have this bill relate to tobacco, that he was not told the broadness of this bill.

MR. MAC NEIL: Can I --

MR. HUBER: Mr. MacNeil.

MR. MAC NEIL: Yes, sir.

MR. HUBER: May I respond to that?

MR. MAC NEIL: Yes.

MR. HUBER: I think that Mr. Shebel's statement is totally inaccurate. The senator that he's referring to is a former president of the Florida senate, the dean of the senate, having been in the senate for 24 years, and the legislature had 29 hours from the time the bill passed the Florida senate until it was enacted by the House. Mr. Shebel and his association have 16 registered lobbyists. The tobacco industry has 19 registered lobbyists, a total of 35 lobbyists that certainly are most sophisticated, highest paid in Tallahassee. They're not John Doe from Amokley. They are sophisticated, knowledgeable government specialists, and this bill sat in the legislature for 29 hours, and it passed the Senate 38 to nothing. It passed the House of Representatives 118 to nothing. And additionally, after the regular session ended in and it passed on April the 8th, the governor extended the session for an additional week until April the 15th, and the bill passed and was part of that.

MR. MAC NEIL: Let me just ask in closing here -- we have a couple of minutes let -- Mr. Tribe, in principle, should taxpayers be compensated due to the lifestyle choices of fellow taxpayers?

MR. TRIBE: I think, Robin, taxpayers should be compensated for costs that are directly associated with dangerous products, whether they take the form of products that people choose to use or not. I do want to take a moment to answer an earlier point that Peter Huber made.

MR. MAC NEIL: Can you make it brief? Can you make it brief?

MR. TRIBE: I'll make it very brief. There's nothing unfair about singling out an industry that is uniquely responsible for 417,000 needless deaths a year. But it is also quite reasonable, if the law is written more broadly, to say in general that innocent taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bill for any of the dangerous products that absolutely cause the state to incur massive expenses. And I think that we can't sweep it under the rug by saying --

MR. MAC NEIL: Can we have a final, a final comment, Mr. Huber, briefly?

MR. HUBER: Look, as a non-smoking taxpayer, I very much would like to receive money from anywhere I can, but I simply don't see - - you either single out one industry very specifically and then ultimately unfairly, or you else you apply this broadly, and sooner or later, even people in Florida will learn that sunshine does cause skin cancer, and if you're going to peddle that across the country, you'll have to pay for it.

MR. MAC NEIL: I think we've been around that one, so we'll leave it there. Mr. Lewis and Mr. Shebel in Tallahassee, Mr. Tribe, and Mr. Huber, thank you. Margaret.

MS. WARNER: Still ahead, the Virginia Senate race and crisis in the Sudan. FOCUS - SENATE STAKES - VIRGINIA

MS. WARNER: Now, the Senate race in Virginia. Bitterly fought nomination fights and the threat of independent challenges are raising the political temperature in both the Democratic and Republican Parties this year. Correspondent Betty Ann Bowser reports.

MS. BOWSER: In Virginia politics, there's nothing more traditional than the annual spring pilgrimage to the tidewater town of Wakefield for the shad planking. Cooking this regional fish on a plank is a ritual that dates back to a time when politics was recreation for country gentlemen.

SPOKESMAN: It's not Virginia shad?

SECOND UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Delaware shad.

SPOKESMAN: Is that right? Was that set up by the Democrats?

MS. BOWSER: Not only does the shad not come from Virginia anymore, most of the politicians aren't home grown either, and these days, tradition has lost out to political theater.

SPOKESMAN: I want you fellahs looking at each other and shaking hands there.

MS. BOWSER: Two of the leading men are Democrats; incumbent U.S. Senator Charles "Chuck" Robb, and former Virginia Governor Doug Wilder, and two are Republicans, Oliver North, who gained national celebrity when he testified during the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings, and Jim Miller, in his first big role since serving as Ronald Reagan's budget director. Right now, attention is focused on the Republicans as they get ready to nominate their standard bearer this weekend in Richmond. More than 15,000 delegates are expected to be there after attending regional conventions like this one in Williamsburg. By almost every estimate, conservative North is in the lead for the nomination.

OLIVER NORTH, Republican Candidate: I believe we can get a balanced budget amendment, we can get a line item veto, and we can end the permanent incumbency of those permanent political potentates of pork with term limits. We can do it if we go up there and fight for it. And that's what I'm going to do for you.

UNIDENTIFIED SPOKESMAN: Do you solemnly swear that in the testimony you're about to give --

MS. BOWSER: Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North first captured national attention when he testified before the Iran-Contra congressional hearing.

SPOKESMAN: And you admitted that you lied to the Congress, is that correct?

OLIVER NORTH: I have.

MS. BOWSER: He was later tried and convicted on three felony counts for his role in the scandal. Then in 1991, his convictions were overturned by a federal appeals court. Since leaving the Reagan White House as a national security aide, North has raised millions of dollars to pay for his legal defense. He's written two best sellers and made countless public appearances on behalf of conservative Republican causes, including the religious right. Reporter Dale Eiseman, who's covered politics for the past 18 years, says this weekend's nominating convention will test the strength of the religious right.

DALE EISEMAN, The Virginian Pilot: It is the coming out, I guess, of the evangelical movement in the Republican Party and really in its full glory flexing its muscle. Ollie North speaks to the "mad as hell, not going to take it anymore" crowd in the Republican Party, folks who are mad at the government, mad at big media, and speaks to them very powerfully.

SPOKESMAN: This is the one chance I'm going to have in my life to send somebody to Washington, D.C., whose very presence there will shake that rotten city to its core.

MS. BOWSER: North cultivates the image of a Washington outsider, a dragon slayer coming to do battle with Capitol Hill liberals he says are ruining the country.

SPOKESMAN: I think what you want me to do when Ted Kennedy comes rolling down the aisle with one of his wild ideas, somebody's got to sit in there, jump up and say, Ted, stop, right there, stop, don't go any further.

MS. BOWSER: Diane Kellar is an enthusiastic North delegate.

DIANE KELLAR, North Delegate: I think he'll stand up and fight for us.

MS. BOWSER: Does it bother you that at one point he was convicted of three violations of law even though they were later overturned?

DIANE KELLAR: Not in the least, because I just can't feel that he did anything wrong. He was doing a job.

MS. BOWSER: But a number of prominent Americans, including members of North's own Republican Party, don't agree. Former President Ronald Reagan has questioned North's truthfulness, and there was this from Virginia's senior Republican Senator, John Warner.

SEN. JOHN WARNER, [R] Virginia: Oliver North betrayed his president. He betrayed the people of the commonwealth of Virginia in his search to become the nominee for the United States Senate.

MS. BOWSER: Even if North gets the nomination, Warner vows not to support him. And Warner's hinted he's urging former Republican State Attorney General Marshall Coleman to enter the race as an independent. That kind of criticism from within the Republican Party's own rank is helping North's opponent, 51-year-old former Reagan Budget Director Jim Miller. PATTI FAYVA, Miller Delegate: I must admit to you that I stand before you tonight a former North delegate who has seen the light and has switched over to the North side.

JIM MILLER, Republican Candidate: I'll go everywhere to convince people that I'm the conservative and we can get the Reagan coalition going together and win in November.

MS. BOWSER: Miller started his campaign with almost no name recognition and a fraction of North's money, but he says lingering doubts about North's character are helping him.

JIM MILLER: I think people in Virginia want someone in the United States Senate that Thomas Jefferson wouldn't roll over in his grave about. A lot of people have come over to me who've said, you know, I like Ollie, but I don't think he can win. Jim, you can win, I know you can win.

MS. BOWSER: The one thing that unite Miller and North delegates is their desire to beat Democratic incumbent Chuck Robb. The GOP has the Governor's Mansion and the other U.S. Senate seats, so if a Republican is elected to the Senate in November, the party would have a clean sweep of Virginia's three top political jobs. Particularly enticing to Republicans are questions in recent years that have come up about Robb's character; questions about marital infidelity to his wife, the former Linda Bird Johnson, daughter of the late President Lyndon Johnson, questions about Robb being at parties where people were using drugs, and questions about whether or not Robb was involved in electronic eavesdropping.

SEN. CHARLES ROBB, [D] Virginia: I've admitted that I in my truly private life, nothing having to do with public or having any impact on public life. I've been less than perfect. And if that were by itself criteria, or for election to this or any other office, I would concede that I don't -- I'm not sure somebody could, if perfection is required.

MS. BOWSER: Robb says he is identified with human rights and government fiscal responsibility. Republicans say he's too liberal, out of touch with Virginia voters, and they are critical of Robb for casting the deciding vote on President Clinton's 1993 budget.

SEN. CHARLES ROBB: I took the fiscally responsible approach, and I was very pleased to do it in that particular instance because it was real deficit reduction. We're finally dealing with real numbers. We've thrown out all those phony numbers that we used to play with for years that absolutely infuriated me.

MS. BOWSER: Robb thinks his opposition in the June 14th Democratic primary, his closest competitor, State Sen. Virgil Goode, is trying to make political capital out of what polls say a lot of Virginia voters feel.

VIRGIL GOODE, Democratic Candidate: Just imagine, one hand is a picture of Senator Robb, the other hand is a picture of Col. North. I can tell you, this is the choice that faces the electorate of Virginia in November. You're going to see one slam bang affair.

MS. BOWSER: Still, two weeks away from the Democratic Party, polls show Robb with a sizeable lead over his opponent. So for now, the real battle is over who will get the Republican nomination. North forces virtually control the Republican State Central Committee which this year opted for a convention instead of a statewide primary. The convention process favors North, because statewide polling shows him unpopular with voters. So for the past two weeks, North has made few public appearances. Instead, he's been campaigning among small groups of delegates like he did one recent Sunday afternoon at this home along the Rapahanic River in Eastern Virginia.

DAVID: My name's David. I'm out campaigning to defeat Oliver North in the coming Senate election.

MS. BOWSER: Clean up Congress is a group of young people, mostly Republicans, who are trying to deny North the nomination because they say he lied to Congress.

WOODY HOLTON, Political Activist: This is a man who's done all this and now tells us Virginians that we should vote for him because he is an outsider. Oliver North is an outsider and I'm the King of Sweden.

MS. BOWSER: Woody Holton is director of Clean up Congress. He's also concerned about recent federal election commission reports that show North's big contributors are not Virginians.

WOODY HOLTON: 85 percent of it comes from outside the state. And, you know, there's not a dollar in the world that doesn't have a string attached to it. He owes his network. I call it the soldier of fortune crowd, the people who fund his campaign. It's not us Virginians. We are not giving him money.

MS. BOWSER: North does not deny where the large contributions are coming from but says it's not important.

OLIVER NORTH: You can go all the way back to Patrick Henry, and there's never been this many Virginians give to a campaign in May of an election year.

MS. BOWSER: Numbers of Virginians or amounts of money?

OLIVER NORTH: Numbers of Virginians, that's what counts. And, of course, what drives me nuts is these aren't the fat cats. These are the hard working people who put a meal in a lunch bucket. They go to work in the coal mines out there in South Side Virginia, and that is a grassroots movement the likes of which nobody has ever seen.

ROBERT HOLSWORTH, Professor: North is really a national candidate who simply happens to live in Virginia.

MS. BOWSER: Robert Holsworth is chairman of the Political Science Department at Virginia Commonwealth University.

ROBERT HOLSWORTH: North might be the strongest symbolic candidate that we have seen in quite some time in American politics. What he symbolizes to his supporters is the kind of America in which their politicians will stand up for what they believe rather than waffle around on issues, and I think what happens with North is that the symbolism overwhelms all of the little details about what he may or may not have done during Iran-Contra.

MS. BOWSER: Even if North and Robb are their party's nominee, polls show they both have very high negative ratings with voters, among the highest ever seen in any statewide contest in the nation, and that fact is not lost on candidate Miller.

JIM MILLER: I've just never heard of anyone winning a statewide race anywhere in this country with 50 percent negatives, and Mr. North and Mr. Robb both have upwards of 50 percent negatives. So how do you win when half the people already don't like you?

MS. BOWSER: That is a question former Democratic Governor Doug Wilder has been asking himself a lot lately. And every day he gets closer to answering it by considering entering the race as an independent.

DOUGLAS WILDER, Former Virginia Governor: I don't have baggage. Take my record and put it up against Chuck Robb and you take whatever is considered to be negative about him, could you say that about me? No. Take Oliver North, put whatever baggage you think he's carrying, and whatever negatives are against him, ask him, ask, do I have that? No.

MS. BOWSER: But polls show Wilder does have baggage, high negatives from his on again/off again presidential campaign in 1992. Add to that the possibility of a fourth candidate and Virginians may be in for the most confusing and volatile elections in the state's history. FOCUS - ANOTHER KILLING FIELD?

MS. WARNER: Finally tonight, the multiple tragedies in Africa. At the moment, Rwanda is receiving the most international attention but other crisis abound. The Clinton administration sent two high level delegations to Africa this week. One will try to come up with a program to combat famine in nine East African nations where 20 million lives could be at risk. The second delegation will try to mediate the civil war in Sudan. Charlayne Hunter-Gault picks up our story from there.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Sudan's civil war is one of the longest running in the world. The latest round of fighting began in 1983. That's when rebel soldiers in the Christian and Animus South formed a breakaway movement after the government in Khartoum proclaimed Islamic law. It's estimated the war has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives already, but aid workers and other observers fear another 1/2 million people may soon die from famine, disease, and other rules of war. Free lance journalist William Dauz recently visited the rebel area in the South. Here is his report.

WILLIAM DAUZ: The 15 year old rebel soldier lies dying in a Southern Sudanese hospital. He has shrapnel lodged in his lung and his stomach. It took him three days to reach here from the front line just 60 miles away, another victim in a 12-year conflict that has gone largely unnoticed by the outside world. But the denial is perhaps the one uniting factor in this war torn country. It makes its way North, where the Islamic fundamentalist government is waging war on the predominantly Christian South, which is controlled by the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, the SPLA. The rainy season is due to begin in earnest later this month. It will make most roads impassable. The government knows that this is its last chance to launch an offensive and capture the South. Aid agencies are warning that humanitarian consequences could be devastating.

HELGE ROHN, Norwegian Aid Worker: If the government should succeed in the current crisis and offensive, you may have up to half a million people, new people, displaced. You may have even worse access to the areas and that will be very bad for the emergency situation.

WILLIAM DAUZ: A month ago, this village housed 45,000 refugees from the fighting. But when the government stepped up its bombing campaign to include civilian targets, the whole camp fled to the relative safely of the Ugandan and Kenyan borders. Many of the old and crippled were simply left behind in the mass evacuation. After several days of wandering in the bush, they sought refuge in this village. They were lucky. Aid workers found them and were able to feed them and clothe them. They will stay here for the time being making up just a fraction of the half a million people displaced from the war. This film, shot by aid workers, shows the effect of one of the most recent government bombing raids on the South. As the government prepares its land defensive, civilian areas have become targeted for bombing. The SPLA has no planes of its own to launch counter strikes, but the fighting talk continues.

STEVEN WONDU, SPLA Spokesman: We're fighting back man! Just fighting back. And the time will come when they will realize that carrying flags and singing songs is not the best way of winning war. And they're winning this war, as long as they are fanatical, as long as they don't see realities. We're not taking it sitting down. We're fighting back -- tooth and nail.

WILLIAM DAUZ: Few people believe Sudan can ever exist again as one nation. Despite its war with the Muslim North, the Christian South is by no means unified. This village was attacked by one of several factions to split from the SPLA in the last couple of years because of tribal differences.

STEVEN WONDU: Yes, we have many tribes in the South, but what I do know for sure is that in spite of our tribal problems, we regard ourselves as one family, and we regard the Muslims of the North and the Arabs of the North as enemies -- mutual enemies, common enemies, and that common enmity between the people of the South and the North is in a way creating greater harmony in the South.

WILLIAM DAUZ: At the front line, SPLA soldiers adopt ambush positions on the road that holds the key to victory. The government troops are less than 300 meters away.

OYAI DENG AJAK, SPLA Commander: We have been fighting now for months here in this location, and they've been attacking us more than 10 times with heavy assault. We have been holding out from them and we are still firm on the ground, so we are ready to fight them as long as they wish to go ahead. We don't have a specific period. I have enough resources, we have concentrated all our human and material resources there, and we will hold out forever.

WILLIAM DAUZ: To win the war, the government must take the town of Nimule on the Uganda border, thereby cutting off the SPLA supply lines. The Nimule Hospital houses the SPLA soldiers recovering from their injuries. When they're better, they will be forced to go back to the front and carry on the fight. The Christian faith is strongly adhered to here, and it seems unlikely that the South will ever accept Islamic rule. Many observers are saying that religion is not the sole motive of the war.

TODD CORNETTE, Catholic Relief Services: More or less, it's Muslim versus Christian. There's a little more to it than that. The South has all the mineral resources. There's not much in the North. The North would love to come down here and get ahold of all the resources.

WILLIAM DAUZ: It is the existence of huge oil deposits in the South that has significantly raised the stakes in this war. The outside world is beginning to take a more active interest in the outcome of the conflict and is putting pressure on both the North and the South to agree to a cease-fire.

TODD CORNETTE: After what's happened in Somalia, everybody's been very turned off to these sorts of wars and they're very, very gun shy of getting involved so that is a problem I think as far as troops. No troops are coming here. That's a given. But mediation, especially for Western countries, they don't want to get too involved because they don't want to be seen as anti-Muslim, which would isolate themselves from some of the other Arab countries.

SPOKESMAN: I don't know if this is a new cold war. Sometimes you can wonder whether it is the end of the cold war which is holding up the solution because nobody has a need to control Sudan. There is not the strategic side of the conflict anymore when the other superpower disappeared.

WILLIAM DAUZ: The U.N. and aid agencies continue to fly through the supplies into Sudan trying to avoid a repeat of recent famine that has killed over a million people. The humanitarian crisis is by no means over. In Nimule, this child is suffering from TB, one of the most common killers amongst under nourished children. Aid agencies are keeping most of the children here alive but few are optimistic about the future.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: With me now is Philippe Biberson, president of Doctors Without Borders, the world's largest independent emergency medical aid group. Dr. Biberson has been meeting with key U.S. officials in Washington about the situation in the Sudan. Dr. Biberson, thank you for joining us. You heard that last line in the taped piece that there were few optimistic about the future of Sudan. Does that include you?

DR. BIBERSON: Yes. Yes, of course. We have come here to draw attention to the crisis which is now presently in this part of Southern Sudan, and especially the food crisis, the nutrition crisis.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It's worse than it's been. I mean, this has been going on for ten, twelve years.

DR. BIBERSON: Yes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And yet, there is something now that's making it even worse.

DR. BIBERSON: Yes. We can see that it's worse that it has been the last years because of the combining efforts of the war and of the drought. A lot of people have been displaced, and these people are now at risk for starving.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You met with U.S. officials. What did you ask them for, and what kind of response did you get?

DR. BIBERSON: Well, the U.S. government has done already enormous efforts to try to alleviate the situation in this part of Sudan, and we have come here to ask them to give the necessary impulse that we feel is needed urgently to prevent another Somalia to occur. The situation is very comparable to what we new in Somalia in 1992, and that we feel that if we are able to, to help a number of people at risk in this area now, we can prevent the situation.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How would you help them, and what do you want the U.S. specifically to do, give money, give what?

DR. BIBERSON: Give money, and also give a political impulse behind the U.N. operation, Life Line Sudan, because we feel that this is like -- there is a program meant to supply different places and food. This program is not functioning presently.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Why not?

DR. BIBERSON: It's not functioning because of different logistic problems, because also of financial problems, and also because we feel that there is a lack of will, there is a kind of fatigue, and we --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Fatigue?

DR. BIBERSON: Fatigue, yes. And everything there, the only thing that's lacking is it will be functioning, so that's why we want - - how do you say -- momentum to take place tomake this machine function.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What would constitute momentum, a huge donation of money?

DR. BIBERSON: You know, it's not the matter of a huge donation. The program we're talking about is quite limited program, and targeted to quite a small number of population at risk. We are thinking of 500,000 people for the whole region. It's not a matter of very big amount of money.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How much?

DR. BIBERSON: The food is there. The food is there. The operation is there. We need to fly planes, and we think that one plane for one month would be one million dollars, and I think we need these planes for three to six months, so it's a matter of five to six million dollars is not big money.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Are you optimistic that you're going to get this money?

DR. BIBERSON: In a certain way, yes, but as I told you, it's not a matter of very big program and very big amount of money.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The reason I asked the question was because, you know, Americans first it was Somalia, then other troubled areas, Haiti, Bosnia, now Rwanda.

DR. BIBERSON: Rwanda.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And there's a perception at least that there's just a compassion fatigue out there, that people just don't have any more to give.

DR. BIBERSON: Yes. We feel completely that compassion fatigue, but at a certain point in this case it's not a matter of years. It's a matter just of prevention. The people die in the coming months, and we feel that we need a little bit more. So much has been done already. We need three to five to six months more.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: To save millions of people.

DR. BIBERSON: To save hundreds of thousands of people.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But what about the argument that we heard in the taped piece that the Sudanese government was close to a military victory and a military victory in the South would be devastating, possibly costing a half a million lives? I mean, how do we assess the military situation and its impact on humanitarian assistance?

DR. BIBERSON: Famine has been used as a tool by the different warring factions and food we'll have to say can be also used as a weapon, so of course, the political, the military situation is very difficult. I don't know what will happen in the coming months, but the rains are coming, so usually it will put the military offensive to a stop. And --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And is that when you're hoping to make some gains in salvaging the people during that rainy season?

DR. BIBERSON: Yes, provided we can bring in the food before the heavy rains, because then it will be much more difficult. That's why we have only two or three weeks from now on to start this and to make this function.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Let me just turn quickly to Rwanda, where you also have doctors from your organization. Are you at all -- from this distance it seems totally hopeless. What do you think?

DR. BIBERSON: It is totally hopeless. It's my feeling it's totally hopeless, and what's hopeless, it's -- at least from France, we have been waiting for a reaction for so many weeks -- it's already six weeks that the massacres are being, are being -- are going on. And we haven't heard any strong voice to condemn this, and to try to limit the effect of this, of this -- of this - - of this civil war.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You mean from the international community?

DR. BIBERSON: From the international community, of the country. We have seen the U.N. withdrawing its troops when they should have reinforced then at this time.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What signal do you think has to be sent that would be meaningful and would make a difference from the international community from America?

DR. BIBERSON: Well, I think the signal would be that these are hundreds of thousands of human beings concerned by what's happening, and this we cannot turn our eyes away from what's happening even if the political situations are difficult, complex, even if the solutions are not immediately coming and immediately seeable, I think we should stick on our principles which are universal, which are that every human being has to be saved. I think it's -- in Rwanda, in a way it's too late already. Hundreds of thousands have been -- have been killed. To come back to, to Sudan, we think that if action is taken now, it will be prevented, it will prevent a lot of deaths, and it will prevent the situation to, to evaluate where a situation we could not control any longer with hundreds of thousands of people suffering and dying and with nothing that could be done efficiently then.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So to prevent another Rwanda?

DR. BIBERSON: Yes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Dr. Philippe Biberson, thank you for joining us and all the best.

DR. BIBERSON: Thank you very much. RECAP

MR. MAC NEIL: Again, the major stories of this Wednesday, President Clinton arrived in Italy this evening, beginning an eight-day trip to mark the 50th anniversary of D-Day. Before he left, he called on Americans to remember those who served in World War II, and North Korea again rejected international demands to verify that it's not making nuclear weapons. Good night, Margaret.

MS. WARNER: Good night, Robin. That's it for the NewsHour tonight. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Margaret Warner. Good night.