The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight reaction to a critical report on the FBI lab and to the independent counsel decision; the story of the church-state case heard today by the U.S. Supreme Court; and a variety of views, memories, and celebrations of what a baseball player named Jackie Robinson did 50 years ago today. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday. NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The FBI's crime lab provided fraud evidence in several major criminal cases. That was the conclusion of a Justice Department report issued today. The cases included the bombings at the Oklahoma City Federal Building and the New York World Trade Center. But the report said no FBI scientist fabricated evidence or lied in court. The findings came from an 18-month study by the Department's inspector general. He criticized the lab's explosives unit and endorsed an effort to get outside accreditation of a lab for the first time. Deputy FBI Director William Esposito spoke to reporters.

WILLIAM ESPOSITO, Deputy Director, FBI: The bottom line is that the FBI lab has done some sensational work for this country over the last 65 years. Some problems have been found. We take any problems not only found in the lab but anyplace in the FBI very seriously. These problems have been identified. We are addressing those problems, and the FBI today remains a great laboratory.

JIM LEHRER: Sen. Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, has been critical of the FBI's recent performance. He had this reaction to the inspector general's assessment.

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY, [R] Iowa: The IG found significant deficiencies in what was once believed to be the best forensic crime lab in the world. Many of the major allegations by whistle blower Frederick Whitehurst have been substantiated. This report serves as a wake-up call to Congress and the public to rein in the FBI's errant leadership.

JIM LEHRER: Whitehurst initiated the charges of wrongdoing. The report recommended his transfer from the lab because his "overstated" allegations had hurt his relations with others. Republicans objected today to Attorney General Janet Reno's independent counsel decision. Yesterday she declined to ask an independent counsel to investigate campaign finance violations. She said in a letter she found no evidence to implicate high- ranking government officials in felonies. Congressional leaders predicted Reno would be summoned to public hearings to explain her action. We'll have more on the FBI report and the attorney general's decision right after this News Summary. White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles appeared before a federal grand jury for seven hours today in Little Rock. Bowles told reporters he was questioned about efforts to find work for former Deputy Attorney General Webster Hubbell after he resigned. Bowles denied Hubbell was paid hush money to keep silent about what he knew concerning the Whitewater matter. The Clintons' Whitewater business partner, James McDougal, said he was sick and tired of lying on behalf of the President. McDougal spoke on NBC last night. He was sentenced to three years in prison yesterday for crimes related to a failed savings & loan. Prosecutors asked for the light sentence on grounds he was cooperating with their investigation. President Clinton paid tribute to Jackie Robinson today on the 50th anniversary of the day Robinson broke Major League baseball's color barrier. The President also praised Tiger Woods, the first black to win the Masters golf tournament on Sunday. Mr. Clinton spoke at an anti-smoking rally at a junior high school in Brooklyn, New York. He told junior high school students about the dangers of tobacco and urged them to pursue their dreams the way Robinson and Woods did.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Everybody's life has real meaning. And every one of you has to figure out what that dream is going to be for you. But no matter what it is, you've got to do just what the champions do. You have to believe you can do it and think about it and visualize it. You have to work for it. You've got to get a good education, and you've got to take care of your mind and your body. And if you do, you'll be a champion no matter what you do and no matter whether you're famous or not.

JIM LEHRER: Tonight the President will lead a ceremony honoring Robinson at a New York Mets-LA Dodgers game at Shea Stadium in New York. We'll have more on the Robinson story later in the program. At the U.S. Supreme Court today the justices struck down a Georgia law requiring candidates for state office to pass drug tests. The vote was eight to one. The majority opinion said the mandatory testing infringed on the candidates' right to privacy. The court also heard oral arguments today on a separation of church and state case. The issue was the ban on public school teachers working in parochial classrooms. Opponents told the court the 1985 decision prevents parochial schoolchildren from getting the remedial help they need. A lawyer for a group of New York taxpayers said public funds should not be spent on religiously affiliated schools. A decision is expected in July. We'll have more on this story later in the program. This was income tax day in America. The Internal Revenue Service predicted 30 million people will file their returns today by midnight tonight. Another 6 million will file for extensions. Post offices in most major cities will extend their hours to accommodate these last-minute filers. Today also provided an opportunity for members of Congress to express their concerns about tax and budget priorities.

SEN. TRENT LOTT, Majority Leader: The American people want it. They want it to happen soon, and we're beginning now the process to decide what will be the alternative process that we go through for a fairer, flatter tax system. April the 15th is a miserable day for most Americans. What we want to make it is a day that the American people say, yes, we can too aspireto achieve the American dream without the oppressive burden of federal government taxes.

SEN. THOMAS DASCHLE, Minority Leader: This is the day that the American people have to meet their tax obligation or go to jail. The Republican leadership is failing to meet their obligation to the American people. They have failed to pass a budget by April 15th, as is required by law. Because of their delay American families today, tax day, can't count on getting a penny of tax relief next year for children's health insurance, or college tuition, or to help them with any of their top priorities.

JIM LEHRER: The Senate voted today to build a nuclear waste facility in Nevada. The legislation will create a temporary underground storage site near Yucca Mountain. Spent fuel from nuclear reactors in more than 40 states will be stored there until a permanent underground dump is ready. Nevada's Senators objected to the bill. President Clinton has said he will veto it. On Wall Street today the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 135 points to close at 6587.16. The rise followed positive inflation news that consumer prices edged up only .1 percent in March. In Saudi Arabia today state radio reported 181 people were killed, 800 injured, when a fire swept a camp outside the holy city of Mecca. A Saudi newspaper said most of the dead were trampled in the panic cause by the blaze. It broke out on the Plains of Mun'nah, where nearly 2 million Muslims gathered for a pilgrimage or hodge, one of Islam's most sacred rituals. Firefighters battled 140 degree temperatures and high winds to contain the fire. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to two Senators on two Justice Department issues, a church-state argument before the U.S. Supreme Court, and the story and legacies of Jackie Robinson. FOCUS - UNDER FIRE

JIM LEHRER: We go first to two major stories involving the Justice Department, today's report on the FBI crime lab, and yesterday's decision by the attorney general not to ask for an independent counsel in the White House fund-raising matter. Margaret Warner is in charge.

MARGARET WARNER: We begin with the FBI lab story. At a press conference of the Justice Department today inspector general Michael Bromwich reported the results of an 18-month investigation into allegations of improper procedures and misconduct at the FBI crime laboratories.

MICHAEL BROMWICH, Inspector General, Department of Justice: The allegations were first brought to our attention by a scientist employed by the laboratory, Dr. Frederick Whitehurst. Whitehurst has asserted that significant problems existed in the way the laboratory handles certain cases. Those allegations strike at the heart of the way the laboratory examiners carry out their mission of analyzing evidence and testifying about their conclusions. He has attacked the professional integrity of his colleagues and complained that the laboratory management has ignored or even covered up problems within the lab. The allegations relate to some of the most significant prosecutions in the recent history of the Department of Justice, including the World Trade Center bombing, the Oklahoma City bombing, the mail bomb assassination of U.S. Circuit Judge Robert Vance, and the bombing aboard an Avianca Airlines jet. Our principal findings were as follows: Although Whitehurst raised some valid concerns, we did not substantiate the majority of his allegations, including his most inflammatory charges of perjury and fabrication of evidence. Our investigation found deficient work in some high profile cases and also identified policies and practices in need of substantial change. Examples of the types of deficiencies we found include the following: scientifically flawed testimony, inaccurate testimony, testimony beyond the laboratory examiner's expertise, improper preparation of laboratory reports, insufficient documentation of test results, scientifically flawed reports. Inadequate record management and retention and instances in which laboratory managers failed to adequately address and resolve a range of issues. These are serious and significant deficiencies. Let me be clear--the problems and deficiencies that Whitehurst brought to our attention are extremely serious, but they are a far cry from the types of rampant and intentional wrongdoing alleged by Dr. Whitehurst. Whitehurst alleged that many employees within the lab repeatedly committed perjury, fabricated evidence, obstructed justice, and suppressed exculpatory evidence. Our careful and lengthy review failed to substantiate those charges.

MARGARET WARNER: Now for congressional reaction to the FBI lab report and the independent counsel issue we're joined by two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee: Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa and Democrat Robert Torricelli of New Jersey. Welcome, gentlemen. Sen. Grassley, you've been quite critical of the FBI in past months, in part on the basis of the charges made by Dr. Whitehurst. How do you react to these findings? Do you find them reassuring, or do you find them alarming?

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY, [R] Iowa: I think the FBI has stated it very well. They say that they're accurate, and they're going to make the changes that the IG recommended, and the IG said that Dr. Whitehurst did the country and the FBI a favor by bringing this to their attention, and also they said that he may have gone too far, but the important point there is that the regulations of the FBI and the Department of Justice require over-reporting. If he had under-reported anything he felt was wrong, he could have been charged for malfeasance in that case.

MARGARET WARNER: But how serious do you think the findings of fact are about the FBI lab procedures?

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY: Well, I think that it lays it out very clear. They used to be a state of the art, an accredited institution. They're no longer accredited. There are state crime laboratories that are accredited. And the IG had to bring in people from foreign crime labs to look the situation over, to verify what Dr. Whitehurst has said. So yes, I think they're very true, and they need to be carried out. And the real test for Director Freeh and the senior FBI, are they going to stonewall, or are they going to carry it out? I hold every intention that they will carry it out, and if they do, I think that Director Freeh can rehabilitate himself.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. What's your assessment of this report and where you go from here?

SEN. ROBERT TORRICELLI, [D] New Jersey: Well, I think largely that many of our minds can be set to rest. The worst of Dr. Whitehurst's allegations was that there was false testimony, even perjury, in criminal trials. That is not the case. Largely what the IG has recommended are things that Louis Freeh, the director of the FBI, has already begun, certifying laboratories to national standards, increasing the equality of the personnel, the transfer of people who not meet these standards. If anything, I think this report is an endorsement of Louis Freeh's directorship of the FBI, and I think there's every reason to be confident that now with this report in hand we'll see the laboratory return to international standards.

JIM LEHRER: Any comment on the perjury and the evidence tampering?

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY: First of all, the inspector general has told me that he was not investigating anything criminal. Perjury and evidence tampering is something criminal. Now they could say that they never found any evidence of that, but in the first place they didn't investigate it. And the fact that they didn't investigate anything and prove it doesn't mean it is a fact, so I don't think we should draw a conclusion.

MARGARET WARNER: So you wouldn't go as far as Sen. Torricelli, to say that--

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY: No. And not based on something I'm saying, based on what the IG said that he was only looking at administrative problems within the FBI, not something criminal.

SEN. ROBERT TORRICELLI: Well, these are some of the important cases in American history, from Oklahoma City to the World Trade Center bombing, and it's important to note that the U.S. Attorney's offices involved have all said after reviewing this report that there is nothing in it that gives them any concern about the status of these cases. And, indeed, the report, itself, focuses on the procedures of the lab, all of which Louie Freeh has already, before this report was issued, begun to improve and taken command and specifically says that there is no evidence--and for the lack of any evidence, no reason to conclude that there's any false testimony.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me ask you both briefly before we go on to the Reno matter, how did we get to this point? How did we get to a point that Sen. Grassley said, that the FBI lab, which should be the pinnacle of forensic science in this country, wasn't even accredited?

SEN. ROBERT TORRICELLI: Well, the FBI has operated independently, and we found this with the Central Intelligence Agency, when I was on the Intelligence Committee as well, when you have government agencies that operate independently, are not sufficiently monitored on occasion, they do not rise as standards rise. To Louie Freeh's credit, this began when he started an internal review. This is now really just confirming what he began eight years ago.

MARGARET WARNER: Does Congress reserve some of the blame for this, for not exercising oversight?

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY: Yes. We need to do more oversight, but first of all, a lot of this happened before Louie Freeh came there, admittedly, but Dr. Whitehurst started complaining about this eight years ago, and it proves that we ought to listen to whistle blowers; that they're a source of information, and both the inspector general, the FBI, and both in my office and today in the news reports, said if they had listened to Dr. Whitehurst eight years ago, this problem would never happen. So it proves that whistle blowers to have a good contribution to make to the process of representative government.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Changing--switching now to the issue of the independent counsel and, of course, Attorney General Reno said last night, responding to letters from both parties in your committee, that she was not going to seek an independent counsel, Sen. Torricelli, do you think she made the right call?

SEN. ROBERT TORRICELLI: She made the right call and one that many of us on the committee urged her to make; that is, the independent counsel law needs to be a legal process. This is not a political judgment. The statutes is very specific, and she's exercised on four different occasions against the interest of the Clinton administration. That is, there must be a specific and credible claim against someone covered by the statute. There clearly from news accounts are problems with policy; there were bad judgments, but there is not a specific and credible claim that a statute of the United States has clearly been violated, or on an uncovered person by the statute where there's a clear conflict of interest with this attorney general. I think she exercised good judgment, the kind of judgment we've come to expect from Janet Reno--independent, tough, and principled.

MARGARET WARNER: Respond to those two points, which was her reading of the statute.

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY: Well, first of all, I read the statute; I have it right here in front of me; a definition of contribution. She states her entire case based on the fact that this statute only applies to hard money--it doesn't--

MARGARET WARNER: Meaning donations to candidates?

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY: Yes. As opposed to soft money, donations to parties.

MARGARET WARNER: To parties.

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY: And how do we know, without getting into this and get it investigated, how do we know that some of this soft money didn't go to state parties, which in turn could have been used to influence federal elections? At that point, it's strictly a violation of the campaign law. It sounds to me like she sees her position more, instead of being the chief prosecutor of the United States, being the administration's chief defense, and some of the defense arguments she put up yesterday makes her look more like F. Lee Bailey than the country's chief prosecutor.

SEN. ROBERT TORRICELLI: I just don't think that's fair to an attorney general who named an independent counsel to deal with Whitewater and three different members of Bill Clinton's administration. Indeed, no attorney general in history has named more independent counsels to deal with their own administration. She has looked at this law on its face. Contributions under the federal law are money intended for federal candidates. They do not include soft money contributions. Maybe they should. In fact, I would argue we should change the statute to do that, which is interpreting the law as it is written, not as we would have it.

MARGARET WARNER: Where do you go from here?

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY: Well, where we go from here, hopefully, is somewheres along the line her own professional staff is going to wake her up to the serious public relations problem she has here, and they're going to find some sort of a peg for her to hang a request for an independent counsel on, because I think she's gotten herself into a very deep hole, and the only way she's going to get out of it is by appointing an independent counsel.

SEN. ROBERT TORRICELLI: But let's be clear. Janet Reno has not said that in the future she will not name an independent counsel. Her professional staff is now involved in an investigation of all these claims. The FBI has 50 agents working on these claims. It is not as if the justice process in this country is sitting still. It is in motion, in full investigation, and she has made clear that she is reserving judgment. If there is a specific and credible claim against someone covered by the statute, I believe she'll name an independent counsel.

MARGARET WARNER: Sunday, House Speaker Gingrich said if she didn't seek an independent counsel, she should be investigated. Do you agree with that?

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY: I would not go that far at this point, but I would say this; that she has appointed lots of independent counsels. More importantly, this is something that every day there's a drumbeat of charges coming on fund-raising towards the White House and out of problems with the White House, and she's a political appointee, and it seems to me she has a responsibility to show the country that there's absolutely no politics involved in this, and the only way to do that is to appoint an independent counsel.

SEN. ROBERT TORRICELLI: I found Speaker Gingrich's comments in a politically charged atmosphere to be uniquely distasteful. Indeed, if it were not constitutionally protected speech on the floor of the Congress, it would invite an analysis of whether or not it's an obstruction of justice to be threatening the attorney general if you don't reach a judgment that you find politically palatable.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, gentlemen, we have to leave it there. Thank you both, Senators. FOCUS - SEPARATING ISSUE

JIM LEHRER: Now the Supreme Court and the separation of church and state. The justices heard arguments today in an education case from New York State. Elizabeth Farnsworth reports.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The children at Sacred Heart Primary School in the South Bronx do a lot of walking. About 100 of the Catholic school's 900 students participate in remedial education programs. They're provided for poor students by the federal government in a program called Title I. But because of a 1985 Supreme Court decision remedial classes taught by public school teachers cannot take place inside parochial schools. So the New York City Board of Education parks three vans down the street from Sacred Heart. The children put on their coats and are escorted from their classrooms by parent volunteers. At the school door they're met by the van drivers, who help them cross the street and enter the vans. After an hour or sometimes less of instruction, they return to Sacred Heart in two straight lines. Teachers complain the walk to the vans takes time that could be better spent in the classroom.

RON BELLIN, Public School Teacher: The walk here is about a half a block from the school entrance, and so to walk here and back it takes up at least 10 minutes of the instruction time each, for each group. So that mounts up.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The 1985 Supreme Court decision was based on preserving the separation of church and state by keeping public school teachers out of parochial schools. But teachers say that decision has resulted in less than ideal working conditions.

OLIVE TOMLINSON, Public School Teacher: Living in a hot sardine can, praying that you don't offend the neighbors with the exhaust pipes, trying to make the best of a very annoying situation.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And teachers complain the situation is especially difficult for small children.

MAXINE BENDER, Public School Teacher: We have no water on the bus, especially with the young children. This bus is so far away that the children have to be reminded to go to the bathroom. Usually at the beginning of the year, that's stressed; before they leave, they must go to the bathroom. Yeah. There have been accidents.

JOANNE WALSH, Principal, Sacred Heart Primary School: During the winter--and the winter before this was particularly difficult, with all the snow and the ice. The sidewalk is not shoveled. People use that as a pathway, themselves, and it becomes iced up very quickly. So it's a danger.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The youngest children at Sacred Heart, kindergartners and first graders, get no remedial education because the school's principal believes they can't handle the trip across the street. Yet, she says, they would benefit most from the special classes.

JOANNE WALSH: The interventions in kindergarten and first grade, if they are consistent and not interrupted, and if they're directed, make a difference. There's plenty of studies that will show that. And that really is a key. And that has been a big loss by the program being moved out of the school, one of the biggest losses is those children are not--their needs are not being met.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: To remedy the Title I problems a group of parochial school parents and the New York City Board of Education filed a motion asking the Supreme Court to reconsider its 1985 ruling and to allow remedial teachers to work inside the parochial schools as they did prior to that time. The motion for reconsideration argues that moving Title I teachers to the off-site classrooms has produced inferior education and excessive costs. Each van costs $100,000 per year to operate, and the program has cost New York taxpayers more than $100 million since 1985. The parents, the Board of Education, and the Clinton administration, which has weighed in on their side, all argue the money could be better spent educating more children. But attorney Stanley Geller doesn't buy that argument.

STANLEY GELLER, Attorney: The Constitution wasn't written by people who were worried about cost and efficiency; they were worried about basic rights of religious liberty. And one of our arguments on the constitutional issue would be--as well as in the procedural issue--is, so what, so it costs more money, and it's less efficient, but it's intended to preserve religious liberty.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Geller has argued numerous cases involving separation of church and state, including the 1962 case which led to banning prayer in schools and the 1985 case which resulted in the off-site classrooms. He believes it's even more important today that the principle of keeping the government and the church apart remain sacred.

STANLEY GELLER: Never more than today has there been a--had there been religious organizations that appeared bent on making the machinery of government work for their religious purposes and vice versa. It's a grave danger that the government may use the machinery of religious organizations to further their purpose.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Although it's unusual for the Supreme Court to rehear a case and even more unusual to reverse their own decision, five of the current justices, a majority, have criticized the 1985 decision. At the court today lawyers for both sides made their cases.

LISA THURAU, National Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty: I want to refer to James Madison who said, "Not even threepence of the taxpayers' money can be used to a purpose that supports a religious organization or a religious mission that the taxpayer never agreed to support." That's the bottom line. That's what this country's founded on. There is no change in that rule of law or decision, and we want it to be abided by.

PAUL CROTTY, New York City Corporation Counsel: We would like to put--as we did for 19 years--we would like to put the public school teachers back onto the parochial school premises to teach them remedial English and remedial math because that's best for the children.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The court is expected to announce its decision by July. FINALLY - BASEBALL LEGEND

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight a Jackie Robinson celebration. It was 50 years ago today that Robinson went to the infield as a Brooklyn Dodger, a Major League baseball player for the first time. Tonight in New York President Clinton and others will mark that event during a game between the New York Mets and the Dodgers now of Los Angeles. Our celebration begins with this report by Kwame Holman.

KWAME HOLMAN: Jackie Robinson was the son of a sharecropper and the grandson of a slave. His athletic ability won him a scholarship at UCLA, where he became the first four-sport athlete in school history. After finishing college and a short stint in the army, Robinson faced a segregated sports world. So he joined the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Baseball League. In 1945, Branch Rickey, then owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, approached Robinson with a historic proposition. Rickey asked Robinson to be a pioneer in an effort to desegregate America's favorite pastime.

BRANCH RICKEY: I had to give him an actual picture by voice, by gesture, but by every means I had, to have him realize what he was in front of and what he was about to agree to. He had to know that he would be called these names and his mother would be attacked.

KWAME HOLMAN: Robinson then signed with the Farm Club for the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Montreal Royals. During spring training of 1974, the Dodgers sent out a press release announcing the signing of Jackie Robinson to the Major Leagues. It received little attention from news organizations. But it was an announcement that would change baseball and America forever. On April 15, 1947, the 28-year-old Robinson became the first black player to play in the Major Leagues since the turn of the century. Robinson's wife, Rachel, brought their newborn son to that first game at Ebitts Field in Brooklyn.

RACHEL ROBINSON: he was so excited about the opportunity and was so sure about his own skills that he kind of thought he could manage the other things. They weren't as real for him at that moment as they became once he got in the ball parks, obviously.

KWAME HOLMAN: Some of Robinson's Dodger teammates rejected the idea of playing with a black man. There was talk of circulating a petition opposing Robinson's playing on the team, but Manager Leo Derouche put a stop to it. In other parks, there were racial epithets and taunting. In Cincinnati, even death threats, and in Philadelphia a much-publicized incident, the manager of the Fillies screamed racial slurs at Robinson.

RACHEL ROBINSON: Jack reacted to it very very strongly, and had to restrain himself in really big ways. That was one of the more provocative incidents that he had to endure.

KWAME HOLMAN: But through it all, Robinson excelled on the field. In 1947, he was named Rookie of the Year. In 1949, he won National League Most Valuable Player, and led the League in batting. Before Robinson came to the Dodgers, the team had been to just three World Series in forty-five years.

ANNOUNCER: The Dodgers have done it--unpredictable darlings of the baseball world!

KWAME HOLMAN: In the ten seasons he played, they went to six. In 1955 came a moment many observers call one of the highlights of Robinson's career. In a World Series game against the New York Yankees, Jackie Robinson stole home, sliding safely under Yankee Hall of Famer Yogi Berra. Robinson retired in 1957. It would be two more years before very Major League team had at least one black player.

ANNOUNCER: The doors of baseball's Hall of Fame have swung open to admit Jackie Robinson.

KWAME HOLMAN: In 1962, Robinson became the first black player inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

JACKIE ROBINSON: I fell quite inadequate here this afternoon or this morning, but I think a lot of this has been eliminated because today it seems that everything is complete. I want to thank all of the people throughout this country who were just so wonderful during those trying days. I appreciate it no end. It's the greatest honor any person could have, and I only hope that I'll be able to live up to this tremendously fine honor. It's something that I think those of us who are fortunate to get must use in order to help others.

KWAME HOLMAN: In 1972, at the age of 53, Robinson died of a massive heart attack. This year Major League Baseball is honoring the 50th anniversary of Robinson's entry into the League by dedicating the season to him. Every team is wearing commemorative patches. His wife has published a book about Robinson's life. And this week, the Smithsonian Museum opened an exhibit called "Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Major League Baseball". The corporate world is getting into the 50thanniversary as well. Wheaties boxes sport pictures of Robinson.

SPOKESMAN: For the joys of stealing home, for all of us that never got to play.

SPOKESMAN: For enduring every taunt.

SPOKESMAN: And not lashing out in hate.

KWAME HOLMAN: And Robinson is remembered in a TV ad by NIKE.

AD SPOKESMAN: Thank you.

AD SPOKESMAN: Thank you.

AD SPOKESMAN: Thank you, Jackie Robinson.

AD SPOKESMAN: Thank you.

JIM LEHRER: Now to Charlayne Hunter-Gault for more on the Robinson story.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: What was it like when Jackie Robinson broke into baseball? Here to talk about that are four men of baseball from that era. Carl Erskine played with Jackie Robinson for nine years as a pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers; Buck O'Neil played in the Negro Leagues for eighteen years with the Memphis Red Sox and the Kansas City Monarchs. In 1962, he became the first African-American coach in the Major Leagues with the Chicago Cubs. He is now chairman of the Negro Baseball Museum in Kansas City. Leonard Koppett covered the Dodgers in Brooklyn and LA starting in 1949 as a sportswriter for several newspapers, including the "New York Times" and the "Herald Tribune." He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1992. And Ernest Burke played in the Negro Leagues with the Baltimore Elite Giants from 1946 to 1948. He played in the Canadian League from 1949 to 1954. And thank you all for joining us. And starting with you, Mr. Burke, do you remember what you thought on first hearing that Jackie Robinson had been signed with the Dodgers?

ERNEST BURKE, Former Negro Leagues Players: Well, when I first heard it I was in the Marine Corps at the time that Jackie was signed, and we heard it on radio. And I was very thrilled. I said, Jackie made it to the Majors; there's no looking back for the rest of us. I said, once he opened the door, you're going to get all the best ball players up there, and they're going to show what we can do, what wasn't presented to us before, now the door is open. Now we have to show them what we can do.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And you were in the Marine Corps but you were ready to get out.

ERNEST BURKE: I was ready to go.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Buck O'Neil, what did it mean to you for Jackie Robinson to be signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers?

BUCK O'NEIL, Chairman, Negro Leagues Baseball Museum: [Kansas City, Missouri] It just meant everything to me because actually we'd been thinking about this since 1920, when Rube Foster organized the Negro National League. Rube Foster was so far ahead of his time Rube Foster was thinking expansion during that era. He thought if he organized the black ball players that one day the Negro--that one day the National League would take a black team and the American League would take a black team. It was really an exciting period when Jackie signed. I'm in the Navy at the time. I'm in Subic Bay in the Philippines when Jackie signed to play with Montreal, and I was a bosun, and it's 10:30 at night and the commanding officer called and said, "Bosun O'Neill, come to my office at once." I said, oh-oh, what did I do now? When I got to the office he said, "You know what happened?". I said, "No." He said, "Jackie Robinson has just been signed to an organized baseball contract by Branch Rickey." I said, "Thank God. It finally happened." I said, "Give me that mike." I got the mike, and I said, "Hear this, hear this, hear this. Branch Rickey just signed Jackie Robinson to an organized baseball contract." We whooped and hollered. We shot our guns. We didn't sleep much that night.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Were there blacks and whites on the ship?

BUCK O'NEIL: Oh, no. All this was, all this was blacks. This was a black--see, during that time the army--the navy was segregated.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So everybody on that ship, whether they wanted to be a baseball player or not, could identify with this move.

BUCK O'NEIL: Of course, of course, they could. That's the same principle now that the people looking at this 50th anniversary and Tiger Woods. You're seeing these things happen, and you didn't have to play golf to really be really overboard on this. The same thing- -baseball--everybody in this country--especially black--but, oh, man Jackie, somebody's signed to organized baseball.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Carl Erskine, that was your team. What did it mean to you?

CARL ERSKINE, Former Dodgers Pitcher: Well, of course, Jackie was one of the most exciting players I ever saw play, and I can't imagine Ty Cobb or any of the other greats being more exciting than Jackie, turning a crowd on any more than Jackie could. He was a very intense player, very talented--we all know that--but he was very intelligent. Jackie was one of the few college men in pro- baseball in those days.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: But at the moment that you heard he was going to be signed to the Dodgers, I mean, what kind of reaction was there?

CARL ERSKINE: Well, we didn't--I was in the Navy also at the time, but got out mid summer of '46, got into the minor leagues. And when I heard about Jackie, it was no big deal to me. I was raised in Indiana, Anderson, Indiana. A good buddy of mine, Johnny Wilson, who was a great player in Indiana, basketball, played with the Chicago American Giants in the Black League, Johnny and I grew up together, and this race thing, I was color blind, thanks to Johnny Wilson.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Leonard Koppett, not everyone was color blind though. What were the other actions around white baseball circles and among white people generally?

LEONARD KOPPETT, Baseball Writer: I was just getting out of the army at that point, and my reaction was a sense of outrage gradually building not just from that moment, but over the next few months a sense of outrage when I realized what he was, that I had been deprived all the prior years of what was going on in the Negro Leagues, because reading the major papers every day as a baseball fan it was completely invisible to me, and as the years have gone on, are more and more upset at what I missed and what we all should have been able to experience.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So did the news about Jackie Robinson mean anything? I mean, were you able to evaluate it, or accept it?

LEONARD KOPPETT: It was really, you know, it's an about time kind of response for a New Yorker. You know, in the 1940's New York is a very liberal place. Most of the opposition to Robinson's arrival was expressed elsewhere than in New York. Of course, there was some in New York also, but New York was the most liberal milieu in which he could have entered.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Burke, what was it like for black baseball players right around in that time? I mean, you stayed basically in your own area with your own people. I mean, can you then help us understand what that transition must have been like.

ERNEST BURKE: Well, when we went to large cities, we stayed with people that rent rooms, like New York, we had the Teresa Hotel in- -down in Harlem.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So even in New York you were segregated.

ERNEST BURKE: Yeah. We were segregated but we stayed in the hotels in the black area, and when we went to small towns we had people where we--the owners rented rooms, and we stayed there. And the eating situation was terrible. I mean, we couldn't go into restaurants when we traveled. We couldn't go in restaurants to eat. We had to go to the corner store and buy lunch meat or a stick of bologna, or a loaf of bread and a can of baked beans, and eat it. And, I mean, things were really bad, but we still ate like that and was still able to play double hitters, triple hitters, and hit home runs.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Buck O'Neil, what was it like? I mean, you weren't with him exactly but you--what was that environment like for Jackie Robinson out there now, being the only one, the only black player with a major white team, that kind of environment?

BUCK O'NEIL: Well, actually factually when Branch Rickey signed Jackie to that contract, it--this was the second round of the civil rights, really, because the civil rights started, you know, right after the Civil War. Civil rights started--this is Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and all that, they started building this bridge across that chasm of prejudice and hatred. Now, here comes Jackie Robinson. When Jackie Robinson came, they still--we were still having the prejudice, but let me tell you this. They--the Negro League was actually the third largest black business in this country. So actually we were doing pretty good but segregation was a horrible thing, but the young man just said about staying at the Teresa Hotel and--and we mostly stayed at the Woodside Hotel in New York--we knew the places to go.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Leonard Koppett, you traveled with Jackie Robinson, and he used to talk to you on the bus. This, this moving into this new milieu, we heard some of the details in Kwame's piece, how did that affect him? I mean, did he talk about it much?

LEONARD KOPPETT: The really wonderful thing about my experience with Robinson is that we talked baseball, and on my level we had achieved what the integration was supposed to achieve in the first place. He was a baseball player; I was a baseball writer; and 99 percent of our conversation had to do with baseball and not all these major sociological things. But the point I'd like to make is- -that gets lost in this talk about 50 years ago--such a long time- -it's very hard to explain to people today that what was going on then was acceptable to the white society. That was the trouble. That was the thing that Jackie actually broke down. It's not that- -it's not that some people were mean to people of another race; it's that the society at large accepted the fact that it was all right to be segregationists. And that's what Robinson's presence in the greatest publicity spotlight of that time, Major League Baseball, that's what Jackie started to break down.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Carl Erskine, you started to talk a little bit ago about the kind of baseball player Jackie Robinson was. What do you remember about his playing? What made him stand out?

CARL ERSKINE: Well, he was very intense, plus we know he was talented, and he was quick on the bases. That's what made him so exciting, is he--he'd get in a run down and he'd almost get out of it, and just electrified the crowd, and it confused the opposition because Jackie was so quick; he would cause good players to make bad throws, and he would just get out of these run downs. Jackie's presence on the field or in a clubhouse gave us a spirit that we needed, and it really was kind of the centerpiece of that team. We had some great people but Jackie was the centerpiece.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Buck O'Neil, what do you remember about Robinson, the ball player?

BUCK O'NEIL: Robinson brought--changed baseball the way they played baseball. Robinson brought Negro League baseball to the Major Leagues; that quickness that he brought. See, I didn't see Robinson until 1947, the year he went to the Major Leagues. I saw him in Cuba. I was playing in Cuba that year, and you know, Rickey took the ball club to Cuba for spring training because of the problems that they had in Florida, and they came to see us play, and we would go out and see them practice, saw them in inner squad game, the first time I saw him play, and listen, let me tell you something: Jackie Robinson showed me the intestinal fortitude and the--I guess--the intelligence of a Rube Foster. He showed me that one step quickness of a cool Papa Bell. Then he showed me the hand and eye coordination of a Josh Gibson or Babe Ruth or a Ted Williams. This is what he--what Jackie--see, baseball had come to a point where actually a lot of baseball players were big, they were slow, they could hit the ball out of the ball park. This was Major League Baseball. But--and so you could go and get your popcorn or something like that until Ruth come up and say Jimmy Fox or somebody would come up to the plate--but with Jackie Robinson you couldn't go to get the popcorn. You couldn't get it because Jackie might do something that you'd never seen before. That was Negro League Baseball.

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

JIM LEHRER: Some closing thoughts now from two historians about the meaning of the Jackie Robinson story. Doris Kearns Goodwin, a NewsHour regular, as a kid watched Robinson play ball in Brooklyn. Roger Wilkins wrote the forward to Jackie Robinson's widow's book, "Jackie Robinson, An Intimate Portrait." He's a professor of American history at George Mason University, among other things. Doris, in the world outside of baseball, how important an event was that event 50 years ago today when Jackie Robinson went out on that infield in Brooklyn?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, Historian: Well, I think it's almost impossible to overestimate it. Look what had happened. You had the war coming right before Jackie Robinson, and during the war blacks had fought to save the country. They had worked in the factories to help build the tanks, the ships, and the weapons, and the planes, and then the end of the war came, and so much of that a possibility that it opened, and the war got crushed. The Fair Employment Practice Commission set up to allow equal opportunity during the war, the appropriations was cut off, blacks came home from soldiers, and they hit segregation in the South and discrimination in theNorth. So what Jackie represented was somehow he carried that hope, that militancy, that vitality that had started in the civil rights movement during the war, forward, until it could come full blast again in the 1950's. Baseball was the sport right then, so when he became an integrated force, blacks and whites had to look at themselves differently, had to look at their relationships differently, and he then carried those hopes like a bridge up to Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, and all the great progress into a place in the 50's. Without him, that would have been a really sterile period. And I think it's absolutely critical.

JIM LEHRER: Yeah. Do you agree with that, Roger?

ROGER WILKINS, Historian: Yeah. I really do. And I love the way Doris puts it, but I want to talk for a minute not as an historian, but as a person who was a 15-year-old kid in 1947, living in a baseball fantasy. You know, little boys threw a ball against the wall, and fantasized that they were pitching in the World Series. And for a black man to go into baseball was like having Christmas for five straight months, and Jackie got a hit one day, two hits, he stole a base. He had a good day that day. If he went 0 for 4, he felt terrible that day. But you road on his back. But it wasn't just 15-year-old black kids. It was black people all over our country because at the time Doris was describing the country was really segregated, the way Leonard Koppett said. And so we blacks lived inside a big lie that said we were ugly and dumb, and bad athletes, and slow, and irresponsible. And none of us had a big enough voice to challenge that lie in a massive way, not large enough to get the attention of the overall culture. And along comes Jack, and he's standing in the middle of the culture. Everybody paid attention to baseball. He's beautiful. He's intelligent. He's disciplined, and he's a spectacular ball player. So that he--he's not only telling it's a lie about baseball players; he's saying to the whole culture black people are a whole lot larger and a whole lot better.

JIM LEHRER: And he's you.

ROGER WILKINS: And he's me, right.

JIM LEHRER: When you saw Jack Robinson, you saw you.

ROGER WILKINS: Absolutely. He was carrying me right on his shoulders.

JIM LEHRER: Both of you explain--Doris begin--for those who were not around in 1947, when baseball really was the--this was before the days of pro-basketball and pro-football today--give us a--just give us a taste of how important baseball was, why Jackie Robinson in baseball could have the huge effect that it had.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Yeah. That's so important to real life, but except for boxing, there was really no other sport that captured the hearts and the imaginations of the American people. You could walk down any block and you could hear what was going on from inning to inning because every radio would be turned on to baseball. You could argue on your street corners in local bars about who was the better centerfielder among--Mickey Mantle or Duke Snyder--et cetera, et cetera. It was a part of the fabric of your life. And so when Jackie Robinson broke through, it wasn't just breaking through in one of any number of sports. It was "the" national sport. I mean, we lived it. I went to bed dreaming about the Dodgers. I mean, Jackie Robinson was in my heart as a player long before I understood in my mind what he meant to civil rights because I loved him.

JIM LEHRER: And it wasn't, Roger, it wasn't just in New York, cities that had Major League baseball. It was out where I come from too. Kids were listening to the radio in Kansas and Texas and Oklahoma and following those same games that you all had the privilege to go see.

ROGER WILKINS: And it was not just--well, I lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which was--Michigan was a Tiger state, American League state, so you really had to scour the--for the box scores, but you found it. And it wasn't just baseball fans. It's like Sunday Tiger Woods turned people don't know a putter from a driver into golf fans. The same was true with baseball. My mother-in-law did not know anything about baseball, not a thing. All of a sudden Jack comes up and she lived in Cleveland, and Larry Doby comes up in the middle of the season.

JIM LEHRER: Larry Doby was the first black in the American League.

ROGER WILKINS: That's right.

JIM LEHRER: He played for the Cleveland Indians. He followed Robinson.

ROGER WILKINS: She'd dream about him. She never knew a thing about baseball. I mean, that's--and a lot of white people all over the country, like in Beaumont, Texas--I had a buddy from Shreveport, Louisiana--they all--white people who didn't like the racial order that we had then were also drawn to this drama just the way blacks were.

JIM LEHRER: Why do you think, Doris, that baseball was the institution that first did this, or could permit this, or got it done?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Well, I think in part because there was the leadership there. I mean, always these movements need somebody who's a leader, and Branch Rickey deserves enormous credit for understanding that there was this enormous talent out there in the Negro Leagues, as Buck had said earlier, and that it was nuts to not have those great players part of baseball. But he thought it through it so carefully. He knew Jackie Robinson was "the" person who could carry that enormous burden of being the first person. And then once it happened then someone it opened the doors not only to other blacks. You just hope that blacks today understand the shoulders on which they stood, and Jackie, and in Branch Rickey making this possible, it was a black and white team that made this possible.

JIM LEHRER: Do they understand--

ROGER WILKINS: Black and white team because you can't leave out Rachel.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Absolutely.

ROGER WILKINS: You know, Cal Ripken, who is about as great and careful a baseball craftsman as--

JIM LEHRER: Plays for the Baltimore Orioles now, right?

ROGER WILKINS: --said the other day he wanted to settle his contract before the season started because several years ago the negotiations went through the season, and he had his worst season. And he said baseball is so hard that you really can't be thinking about something else while you're trying to play baseball. Well, just think, Jack is thinking about carrying the whole race on his back; he's thinking about death threats; and--

JIM LEHRER: And Rickey told him don't react, don't do anything.

ROGER WILKINS: He can't fight back. He's got one person that he can talk to--Rachel. If she caves, if she cries, if she says, I can't stand it, the guy probably can't do it. Still, he comes to her. She's wise; she's strong; she goes through the death threats and all the rest, and she just helps send him back out there with strength. Rickey, as Doris said, was brilliant. He was--and he was a decent, god-fearing man. He also went, I might say, to the University of Michigan Law School. [laughter] You just know where people get character, that's all. But he was also very sharp because he knew there was this huge pool of talent out there, and he got there first. He would get the best. And, of course, one of the reasons that the Dodgers did so well in those years was they had Jack gave the energy to that team but they also had--

JIM LEHRER: Roy Campanella.

ROGER WILKINS: --Campanella and Newcomb and Junior Gilliam, Sandy Ameros, all those people. And--and they were doing that teams like Tigers, Red Sox, Yankees, nobody--

JIM LEHRER: Look, the three of us can go ahead and talk, but we're going to have to end this for the audience, which I hate. But thank you both very much.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Oh, you're welcome.

ROGER WILKINS: Thank you. RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday, a Justice Department report said the FBI crime lab has problems, but no one fabricated evidence. Republicans in Congress criticized the decision not to seek an independent counsel in the campaign finance matter. And the Dow Jones Industrial Average went up 135 points to close at 6587.16. The rise followed positive inflation news that consumer prices edged up only .1 percent in March. We'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.