The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Good evening. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Jim Lehrer is away. On the NewsHour tonight science and the John Glenn space flight; the hard road to truth in South Africa; an affirmative action vote in Washington State; and a poem and an essay on war. It all follows our summary of the news this Thursday.% ? NEWS SUMMARY

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Pioneer astronaut John Glenn rode a rocket into space today, 36 years after he became the first American to orbit the Earth. The Ohio senator and six crew mates are safely in orbit aboard the space shuttle "Discovery." We have more on today's launch from Tom Bearden.

[LAUNCH OF "DISCOVERY"]

TOM BEARDEN: It was a flawless liftoff, as the shuttle roared into space, hurling Glenn and the rest of "Discovery's" crew on a nine-day science mission. An estimated half million spectators flocked to the Cape Canaveral area to watch the world's oldest astronaut return to space.

WOMAN: We decided we'd come out and watch history being made again and see John Glenn go up, because we all remember, age-wise, the first time he went up. So this is exciting for us.

TOM BEARDEN: At 77, Senator John Glenn is making his second space flight. The first came in February, 1962, when he became the first American to orbit the Earth. The mission for Glenn and the shuttle's other crew members began this morning. With a NASA helicopter hovering overheard, they were transported to the launch pad three hours before their scheduled 2 PM Eastern Time liftoff. Once there, the crew took a last look at "Discovery's" exterior, before heading to the pad's elevator shaft. Just outside the shuttle's hatch in the module known as "the white room," crew members were fitted with parachutes and final adjustments were made to their orange launch suits. Strapped on their backs, the seven made final flight checks.

MISSION CONTROL: "Discovery," Houston, for the entire crew, how do you hear?

ASTRONAUT: -- loud and clear.

MISSION CONTROL: "Discovery," Houston, we read you all loud and clear. This completes the air to ground voice checks.

TOM BEARDEN: Finally, the hatch was shut and secured. Close to launch time Scott Carpenter, the second US astronaut to make an orbital space flight and a long-time friend of Glenn, addressed the crew in a previously recorded message.

SCOTT CARPENTER: At this point in the count, it seems appropriate to say to the shuttle "Discovery" crew, good luck, have a safe flight, and to say once again, Godspeed, John Glenn.

TOM BEARDEN: President and Mrs. Clinton led a congressional delegation to view the launch. Mr. Clinton said he felt like a kid at his first Christmas. More than 80 scientific studies will be performed during "Discovery's" nine-day space flight. The astronauts will also release a free-flying satellite for two days of solar studies.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: We'll have more on the science of the shuttle mission right after the News Summary. The Food and Drug Administration approved Tamoxifen today as a preventive measure for women at high risk for breast cancer -- even though the medicine has not been conclusively shown to ward off disease. The treatment can carry with it potentially life-threatening side effects, and despite patients' demands, doctors had been reluctant to administer it without FDA approval. Tamoxifen is not a new drug. It has been prescribed to fight other types of cancer. In economic news, American workers in fiscal year 1998 got the biggest increase in pay and benefits in more than six years. The Labor Department said today worker compensation rose by 3.7 percent in the year ending September 30th. And on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 123 points at 8495. Overseas, in South Africa today, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released a long-awaited report on the crimes of the apartheid era. The panel found that the white ruling minority government was "the primary perpetrator of gross violations of human rights in South Africa" during the apartheid years. Nelson Mandela's African National Congress, which fought a guerrilla war against apartheid, also committed human rights atrocities, according to the report. The ANC tried to have the release of the document delayed, saying it needed time to answer the charges. We'll have more on this story later in the program. There was another suicide bombing in the Middle East today. A suspected Islamic militant tried to drive an explosives-packed car into a school bus. An Israeli army vehicle escorting the bus blocked the car and absorbed most of the blast. The bomber and an Israeli soldier were killed. Seven people were injured. Forty Israeli children on the bus were unharmed. The militant Islamic group Hamas claimed responsibility. Palestinian Leader Arafat condemned the attack. Hours later, Palestinian security forces placed Hamas Founder, Sheik Ahmed Youssin under house arrest. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu visited the injured soldiers in the hospital and had this to say about Arafat.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Unless he acts immediately to carry out rigorously the Wye Plantation commitments that the Palestinian Authority took with respect to security and fighting terrorism, this process will not go anywhere. And he promised me he'd do so, and I hope he will for the sake of security and for the sake of peace.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Netanyahu and Arafat signed a peace agreement last week in Washington that included a plan for the Palestinians to take concrete steps toward curbing terrorist attacks against Israel. Hurricane Mitch dwindled to a tropical storm today. It hovered off the Coast of Honduras, continuing to pummel the Central American country with high winds and heavy rains. Fifty rivers overran their banks, forcing more than 150,000 people to flee. At least 32 have died. At 350 miles across and with winds of up to 180 miles an hour, Mitch was one of the most powerful hurricanes of the century. British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes is dead. Recognized as one of the great poets of this century, Hughes died at a London hospital, after an 18-month fight against cancer. He was 68 years old. He gained fame in this country partly as the husband of American poet Sylvia Plath, who committed suicide more than 30 years ago. Hughes remained mostly silent about her death until this year when he published "Birthday Letters," a book of poems about her, which won much critical acclaim. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to science in space, truth in South Africa, affirmativeaction in Washington State, and the art of war.% ? FOCUS - SPACE SCIENCE

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: John Glenn's return to space and the science experiments that with him. Tom Bearden reports.

TOM BEARDEN: The early years of manned space flight were truly journeys into the unknown. If John Glenn and the other early astronauts were to survive, they had to have a viable spacecraft, and engineering had the highest priority. Biomedical research was a stepchild, mostly limited to collecting samples and listing heart rates and the like. Even that was tricky. Joan Vernikos, the present head of life sciences atNASA, remembers the Gemini missions

JOAN VERNIKOS: Gemini, for instance, we had Gemini 7. That was fabulous -- fourteen days of actual first time in-flight urine collection. I mean, when I go and look at that spacecraft in the Smithsonian, I wonder how on earth l4 days of urine collection could have happened.

TOM BEARDEN: A lot has changed in 36 years. As a 77-year old John Glenn returns to space, life sciences research is finally getting more attention. One big reason for that is space science and aging science are being to converge.

SEN. JOHN GLENN: We have 34 million Americans over 65 right now. That figure is supposed to go up to -- according to the demographers -- is supposed to go up to about l00 million by the year 2050. And this graying of nations, as it's been called, is going on all over the world. And I'm looking at my role in this -- I just hope we can bring back -- I can bring back very good information in this area so that there won't be any doubt about going ahead with continued experiments in this area.

TOM BEARDEN: About ten years ago, scientists began to realize how much the human body's reaction to space resembled the aging process on earth. Muscles, for example, gradually atrophy in space. Nobody knows exactly why. One theory has to do with the way that proteins are built up and broken downin muscle tissue. In space, with no weight to provide constant resistance, muscle protein breaks down more rapidly than it is replaced. With no work to do, bone chemistry also subtly changes. In normal adults, bone matter is constantly being created -- a process called modeling-- and constantly being destroyed -- resorption. On earth the two processes are roughly in balance. But in space the bone loss gradually gains the upper hand. Bone mass gradually diminishes -- up to 1 percent per month for some weight-bearing bones. Astronauts can fight that with exercise, but only up to a point. When they return, some of their bone mass is believed to be gone forever. Sound familiar? Bone loss in space has struck many researchers as similar to the bone loss that happens to the elderly in osteoporosis. Space science and geriatric sciencerecently began to collaborate to try to find out if the underlying causes of that bone loss are the same. It's just one of the new possibilities that's opening as science begins to understand how life functions in theabsence of gravity. Until space flight, no terrestrial organism had ever experienced a lack of gravity. Every life form -- from the smallest one-celled animal to the largest -- evolved in ways that allowed it to function in the presence of gravity. On earth everything in an organism is pulled downward. In humans, muscles and bones work against gravity to keep us upright. A whole complex of systems work together to keep us from toppling over. The heart has to work against gravity to pump blood to the upper reaches of the body and the brain. All of that is gone in the weightless environment of space. Fluids begin to shift away from the lower body and toward the head. The face and neck swell up. Most astronauts report a feeling similar to a head cold. Microgravity also affects the subtle interplay of sensory stimuli, from the eye, the touch, and the inner ear, that give a sense of where we are in space and where our body parts are. John Glenn's Japanese colleague on the shuttle mission had that experience on her last flight.

CHIAKI MUKAI: When I went to space, I couldn't tell which is ceiling and which is the floor. It was so neat -- and wonderful experience because my eye says, Chiaki, that should be your ceiling, but my body didn't feel it was the ceiling. Sometimes I felt the wall is my ceiling and floor is my ceiling and I thought, oh, gee, that's a wonderful experience.

TOM BEARDEN: The space agency began to study that process in earnest when it sent up Neurolab, the first mission dedicated to studying the nervous system. That was just last April -- a measure of how recently life sciences research has come to the forefront.

JOAN VERNIKOS: There is value of microgravity of space flight as a tool in understanding physiology because we have here normal physiology in abnormal environment where we can delete one of the presumably prime sensory inputs that we receive here on earth.

TOM BEARDEN: One experiment on Neurolab placed astronauts in a rotating chair. When they spun around, centrifugal force made the inner ear feel some, but not all, of the forces it would feel on earth. A TV camera focused on eye movements to see how the balance system would respond in the new environment. Another experiment ejected a spring-loaded ball from overhead toward the astronaut's hand to test how eye-hand coordination changes in the absence of gravitational cues. Neurolab also investigated sleep disruption -- it's a longstanding problem in space and among older people on earth. Glenn and his crew will continue that investigation

DR. CHARLES CZEISLER: Many crew members take some form of sleeping pill to help them sleep while they're in space, which gives, you know, some measure of the difficulty that the crew members have sleeping in the space environment. They lose about one to three hours of sleep per night when they're in space, as compared to when they're here on earth.

TOM BEARDEN: Dr. Charles Czeisler has studied sleep disorders for more than 20 years. At his lab at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, he keeps volunteer subjects in isolation for months at a time.On earth, the body follows a daily pattern of change in temperature and chemical balance that both follows and governs our sleep-wake cycle. In isolation the so-called Circadian Rhythm begins to lose its connection with the cycle of day and night. That is similar to what happens in space

DR. CHARLES CZEISLER: The sun rises and sets every 90 minutes in the space environment, instead of every 24 hours as it does here on earth. And that sends a signal to the pacemaker in the brain that controls the biological clock in the brain that normally cycles every 24 hours. That sends a signal that it really can't interpret.

TOM BEARDEN: Research on earth has shown that during the sleep period the pineal gland in the brain produces more of the hormone melatonin. It plays an important but not fully understood role in thesleep-wake cycle. On Neurolab, astronauts wore special apparatus that measured eye movement, breathing, body temperature and brain activity while they slept. They took melatonin pills one day and a placebo the next, without knowing which was which. Sleep patterns were compared in hopes of developing something to help astronauts sleep normally in space. Glenn and Chiaki Mukai were scheduled to repeat the experiment on this week's shuttle mission. But in the weeks before the flight, Czeisler discovered Glenn did not meet one of the 200-odd criteria he had established for his study. So Glenn will not take melatonin -- but his sleep patterns will still be measured.

TOM BEARDEN: Does it hurt the experiment that he's not taking melatonin?

DR. CHARLES CZEISLER: I don't think it will decrease the science yield on his experiment because we'll get a very fine look at how his sleep on the ground compares with his sleep in space.

TOM BEARDEN: There's never been a 77-year-old astronaut before and not likely to be another one anytime soon. How valuable is the information you're going to get from him?

DR. CHARLES CZEISLER: As Senator Glenn put it, there always for every experiment, there has to be a first subject.

TOM BEARDEN: One of the major unanswered questions about the Glenn mission is how much science can you get with just one man and one data point? Critics of the senator's participation argue he isscientifically superfluous Dr. Mary Osborn headed a panel that recently studied the future of biomedical research in space for the National Research Council.

DR. MARY OSBORN: My own personal opinion would be that one person is not going to make or be the source of major new insights any more than one woman astronaut would be considered a sourceof major new insights.

TOM BEARDEN: Just one more data point?

DR. MARY OSBORN: Perhaps. I think it will be very interesting but also not terribly likely that there will be anything beyond a very careful and well-designed set of data points as a matter of fact.

TOM BEARDEN: Glenn himself said his presence would be justified only if it was scientifically useful.

SEN. JOHN GLENN: This has to make sense from a science standpoint, or we can't even consider it. And I said it has to make sense from a science standpoint or I don't think I should go either.

TOM BEARDEN: He said in his press conference he only wants to go on this mission if he actually contributes to the science itself.

JOAN VERNIKOS: And he is. Would we be flying an older astronaut now if we were developing the program in a systematic fashion? Probably not. Probably in five years we might be at the point where we'd want to fly an older individual, or older individuals, maybe. But it's not every day that John Glenn presents himself, and I don't think he'd wait five years, or we might be willing to wait for him to go five years from now. And in space, we've learned to take advantage of our opportunities when they present themselves.

TOM BEARDEN: Taking advantage of the opportunities has been a way of life in astro biology -- that's changing as the science matures. But there is still the problem of doing good science with smallnumbers.

JOAN VERNIKOS: In an experimental science, as you well know, no one in their right mind would publish the results of one experiment, which is the situation we have found ourselves in. You have to repeat it at least, to make sure that what you saw the first time is real. And so far, we have had 40 years of NASA and less than a year of space, life sciences research. So when people say well what have you done in40 years, it's all, you know, yeah, we've flown humans and they survived. But that's hardly science.

TOM BEARDEN: The Research Council generally endorsed NASA's goals in astro biology but had concerns about the small numbers - made even smaller by the fact that astronauts can withhold medical data from researchers for reasons of privacy. The Council also is worried about the lack of research opportunities. This will be the last life sciences mission until the international space station is operational. That's at least five years away. And in that time scientists and funding could drift away. And yet,unless countermeasures to the physical problems of space travel are developed, there's no way astronauts can go to Mars -- a trip that should take place within the next 20 years.

MISSION CONTROL: -- 2, 1 - booster ignition and liftoff of "Discovery" --

TOM BEARDEN: The experiments that Glenn and the other astronauts now in orbit will be performing are among the first steps toward solving those formidable biomedical problems. % ? FOCUS - TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The report of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Kwame Holman begins our coverage.

KWAME HOLMAN: The report handed to President Nelson Mandela today is the culmination of two and a half years of work. The five volume, twenty-seven hundred page document chronicles investigations into atrocities committed during the deadliest years of apartheid -- from 1960 to 1994. In that era of white minority rule,220 mostly black political activists were assassinated by state-sponsored death squads. The government detained 75,000 civilians without charges and swept up 3.5 million people from their homes at gunpoint. Participants on both sides of the conflict -- and ordinary civilians alike -- were tortured and killed. Apartheid ended in 1994 with South Africa's first free, multi-racial elections, which made Nelson Mandela president and produced a black majority government. One of the government's early initiatives was to force both blacks and whites to confront their nation's violent past. In 1995, the government created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to undertake a wide-ranging investigation of apartheid-era atrocities. It was headed by the Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The commission offered all perpetrators of violence a chance to repent -- and brought them face to face with victims or their families. One case received worldwide attention -- the amnesty petition of five former police officers who admitted to the 1977 beating death of Steven Biko. Biko was one of South Africa's most influential black leaders. The reconciliation panel still is considering the amnesty plea. In all, the panel took more than 20,000 statements and received some 7,000 applications for amnesty. The report called apartheid "a crime against humanity" and said the white government was the primary perpetrator of gross violations of human rights. The panel criticized such white-dominated institutions as Christian churches -- the media -- businesses -- and the courts for their role in sustaining apartheid. The report also criticized the African National Congress, saying the political and military group created by Mandela and others to fight apartheid had itself "perpetrated gross violations of human rights in that the distinction between civilian and military targets was blurred." Singled out for individual criticism were former South African President P.W. Botha, as well as the former wife of Nelson Mandela, Winnie Ma-Dik-I-Zela Mandela, whose United Football Club was blamed for killings and torture of dissidents. Even before the report's release, both the ANC and South Africa's last apartheid-era president, F.W. De Klerk, went to court to block parts of the report from being published. References to De Klerk were deleted from today's report, but a court will decide later whether they eventually will be published. This morning Archbishop Desmond Tutu warned that criticism of the commission's work would not obscure the past.

ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU: Many will be upset by this report. Some have sought to discredit it pre-emptively. Even if they were to succeed, what is that to the point? Those are not inventions by the commission, that is what the perpetrators, themselves, told us.

KWAME HOLMAN: President Mandela said while the report would not produce immediate reconciliation, it will help South Africa to move on.

PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA: If the pain has often been unbearable and the revelations shocking to all of us, it is because they, indeed, bring us the beginnings of a common understanding of what happened and a steady restoration of the nation's humanity.

KWAME HOLMAN: But Mandela's vice president and likely heir, Thabo Mbeki, criticized the commission report, calling it wrong and misguided.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: More now and to Phil Ponce.

PHIL PONCE: Joining us now are Franklin Sonn, South Africa's ambassador to the United States; Richard Mkhondo, Washington Correspondent for the Independent Newspapers of South Africa; and Cliff Matheson, editor of "Juluka," a newsletter on South African affairs. And welcome all.Mr. Ambassador, for people who have not been following this process as closely as you have, please explain why this report is important.

FRANKLIN SONN, Ambassador, South Africa: Well, the report is important because it tries to deal with the past in a creative and in a constructive way. And this is important in the way that it's another final end of apartheid that puts us on the way to both a non-racial, democratic country at peace with itself.

PHIL PONCE: And, Mr. Ambassador, by that, do you mean that it attempts to what - lay blame or assign blame, or identify who did what?

FRANKLIN SONN: This is a very important question. One must remember that the report's intention was never recriminatory. It wasn't intended to punish people primarily. It was intended to be what the report says it is. It's an attempt to heal, an attempt to reconcile the nation by dealing openly and transparently with the past.

PHIL PONCE: But in dealing with the past, there is an attempt clearly to establish responsibility for what happened in the past.

FRANKLIN SONN: Well, naturally, if you deal with the past, there will be people that will have to take the blame of it. Apartheid was perpetrated by the previous regime, by the government. And for that reason, it is actually just quite unfair to try and equate the deeds that were perpetrated by the apartheid regime that was called by the United Nations "a crime against humanity," and also by the reformed world - Council of Reform Churches as a heresy to equate that with the actions of those that fought in defense of the people against which this crime was committed.

PHIL PONCE: So you're saying that the report - as Kwame stated in his report - the report assigns primary responsibility for the former government, while still acknowledging that even on the part of the ANC, there were some abuses as well?

FRANKLIN SONN: Well, certainly there is always the contingent of a just war. There was a crime committed against people and there was resistance to it, and in that process people got hurt. That's understandable. But to equate the two is just wrong and misguided.

PHIL PONCE: Cliff, how do you see the importance of this report?

CLIFF MATHESON, Editor: Well, I think this is the true start of what might be reconciliation. I think time will tell. We need to go through a few generations to get on the beginning process. I don't think we've healed that much right now. We've now got the report. We can see who was wrong; who was right, and now we can get on with healing.

PHIL PONCE: Rich, from a personal standpoint, does this - why is this report important to you?

RICH MKHONDO, Independent Newspapers, South Africa: Well, there are quite a number of issues that we have to remember. The first one is the intention of the Truth Commission. It was to establish as much as possible the truth of what happened in the past, as much as possible. It's not possible to establish as fuller the truth as we can, because, for example, there are many people who didn't testify; there are many people who were forced to testify; and there are many people who lied. For me, it's very important, because it confirms some of the things that I witnessed as a journalist. It confirms some of the suspicions that we had about some of the disappearances of some of our friends, some of our colleagues and so on. I have a lot of friends who died, who were killed mysteriously. And now I know. And I have family members who didn't know where their loved ones were. And through the commission people came and said, I know, I'm the one who buried so and so; I can go and point the space where the - the spot where the person is buried. And then the Truth Commission people went there and exhumed the bodies, and the people are given decent funerals. That's quite important, but you know, there will always be finger pointing, and that's healthy for our country.

PHIL PONCE: How about this issue of fairness? How is the Truth & Reconciliation Commission being perceived as far as fairness, Rich?

RICH MKHONDO: Well, fairness is quite relative, and as a journalist, I have interviewed people who favored the Commission. For example, you must remember - I think in their report they mentioned Steve Biko. The wife of Steve Biko was against the Commission. She even took the Commission to court, to the constitutional court, and wanted - didn't want anything to do with it. Actually, she didn't even testify. The wife of Metha Gonewe, who was one of the heroes of anti-apartheid South Africa, favored the report. Now, if you look at the two people, the other one - both of them are victims, but the other one favors the Commission; the other one doesn't favor the Commission. Both of them were wives of very famous anti-apartheid activists. This is a sign that the report is - the Commission's intention was not to satisfy everyone but to actually put the point and everything on the table for people to analyze and let's move on.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Ambassador, is everything on the table now?

FRANKLIN SONN: Well, yes, and the alternative to that was just to deny the past, to sweep it under the floor, and then hope that everything will be in order. When everything is on the table, that's a relative point - apartheid and oppression was a long period. It was centuries and more especially during formal apartheid. But the essential elements of the cruelty that apartheid represented is on the table.

PHIL PONCE: Cliff, is it being perceived - how is it - or is it being perceived differently by blacks and whites as far as fairness is concerned?

CLIFF MATHESON: There have been some polls taken, and from what I have read, I think the number is 65 percent of blacks feel that it's quite fair. There is only 17 percent of whites feel that it was fair, so it's quite a big disparity.

FRANKLIN SONN: I think possibly because whites feel that they were mostly under fire by the Commission, perhaps they feel they were especially targeted more so. On the other hand, they were in power at the time, and so much more was done by whites. The weight was with whites.

RICH MKHONDO: There should be a point - I think the most important thing to remember here is now we know. Now we know. It's quite important to emphasize that. Now we know what happened. You know, during the bad days of apartheid, there were many people, particularly white South Africans, who lived in Cloud Kukula. They just didn't want to know what was going on in the townships. When we wrote to tell them -

PHIL PONCE: They purposely sort of ignored or avoided the realization.

RICH MKHONDO: Exactly. And when the elections came, they voted to keep the apartheid government in power. They denied exactly what was happening. Now they should know what happened.

FRANKLIN SONN: And it's also impossible to go to healing without knowing the past, because the past is a funny thing. It comes up at the most awkward moments, when you least expect it, and then he disrupts the process of healing and reconciliation. But a very important point also to mention is that our government never expected this to be an easy process, never expected that the outcome would be pleasant. It was a painful process to start off with, and it, therefore, took enormous courage for us as nation to face our past in the manner that it did. But, Richard, it's out now, and now we can start with the healing process.

PHIL PONCE: On the first part of the - the first part of the title of the Commission is Truth and presumably that's what this is about. But you raised a question of reconciliation. Is this - is this helping people come together, or is it exposing some divisions?

FRANKLIN SONN: Well, we are a very deeply divided society, and part of the effort is, in fact, to use truth in order to bring us together, and I - it is my contention and also the contention of the government that it's impossible to do reconciliation and bring it together effectively without respect for the truth, and respect for the truth being a revelation of the truth.

PHIL PONCE: Is this bringing out some divisions, Cliff?

CLIFF MATHESON: I think it certainly has exposed the divisions, but I think we need time. We need lots of time. We need a new generation to come up through the ranks, and with time, I think - and understanding of what happened - I think a lot of healing can take place. However, there are lots of people - and this goes on Rich's point - that didn't get a chance to go on the - to be heard. There are some people right here in Washington, a couple of black South Africans, that were threatened with their lives if they testified. The Commission could not give them any protection. Hopefully, with time, they will be able to go back to South Africa and not be killed.

PHIL PONCE: Rich, just a basic point of information, the Commission was not - was not a court of law. What powers exactly did it have?

RICH MKHONDO: Well, it had quite a number of powers, including to subpoena witnesses - take witnesses to court. You know that former President P. W. Botha is still facing charges of actually refusing to testify. Now -

PHIL PONCE: But if you're named in the report, for example, does this mean you're going to go to prison? What does it mean?

RICH MKHONDO: Oh, quite a number of things. One of them is the fact that it recommends that those who didn't apply for amnesty should be probably prosecuted, including Former President F.W. DeKlerk. That's the reason why he challenged them. The other point, it actually I think suggests some kind of reparations for the victims. Actually, the reparations have already started. Some people have been given money for the sufferings of the past. But the most important point that I wanted to make is that this is not the first Commission. There were quite a number of them, including the Chilean one, the Argentinean. The most famous one is the Nuremberg Trials. We're still talking about it today.

FRANKLIN SONN: Because that was retribution.

RICH MKHONDO: Exactly. Now, we're still going to be talking about the South African Truth Commission for many years to come. In my view, talking about reconciliation, it is actually helping us and the process of our country. But it's up to all South Africans. It's not up to the government. It's not up to the former - the former government. It's not up to President Mandela. It's up to the people of South Africa to reconcile with the past and move on.

FRANKLIN SONN: But it's important that in this process that government takes the lead and the government says to the world that anything that we might have been guilty of, we did give the right to an independent commission to look at that, but to remember the perspective that we were faced with a crime against humanity, and we were in defense against that not only for ourselves but for our people, and in that process we were not the instigator of the violence. But don't focus on that; focus on the importance that we as a government are willing to bring everything in the open with a specific purpose of bringing healing in our nation and that emphasis must not be lost sight of.

PHIL PONCE: Cliff, the report is out, so what now, in your opinion?

CLIFF MATHESON: Well, what does concern me is that there were certain rules that were set up for the Commission. One of them was that you had to tell all, and there were several other criteria. And if you didn't, you might be subject to prosecution in a proper criminal court. There may be thousands of court cases spun off in the aftermath of the Commission. It'll be interesting to see how that is handled.

FRANKLIN SONN: But reportedly, what will happen to the report technically, the report is now in the hands of the president. The president will study the report, and once he's done that, he will present it to parliament. Parliament will then review the report and the point that was made, a committee will be set up, for example, for compensation to the victims, which will be - come from a presidential fund, and there will be appeals to the world to participate in contributing to that presidential fund, so that a modicum - not entirely - but a modicum of compensation could be paid to mothers and parents, who have lost their children and wives who have lost their husbands.

PHIL PONCE: Rich, in the very little time we have left, is there a perception at this point that the truth is by and large known at this point?

RICH MKHONDO: For those who want to know the truth, yes. For those who don't want to know the truth, no. There are people who are still not going to want to know the truth, and there are many of them. And it's not only we South Africans. Even here - even in either country - if you want to close your eyes and ears and don't want to know what happened, surely you can, but now we know, as I said.

FRANKLIN SONN: I agree, people are uncomfortable. Everybody is uncomfortable with the past. Everybody is uncomfortable with the truth.

PHIL PONCE: And with that, gentlemen, I thank youall very much.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, voting on affirmative action and the art of war.% ? FOCUS - UNDOING AFFIRMATIVE ACTION?

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Jim Compton of KCTS-Seattle reports on Washington State's ballot initiative to end affirmative action.

MARY RADCLIFFE, Co-Chairman, 1-200: I've never been a victim, and I hear people say, well, you're strong, you can get over that.

JIM COMPTON: Mary Radcliffe is involved in her first political campaign. The Seattle area homemaker is co-chair of a drive to end all state programs giving advantages to minorities and women.

MARY RADCLIFFE: Have they ever thought of how degrading and how arrogant they are to assume because of someone's color skin or their sex that the government needs to help them along?

JIM COMPTON: Mary Radcliffe is speaking on behalf of Initiative 200, a ballot measure stirring deep emotion here over racial preference in hiring in education.

MARY RADCLIFFE: Yes, the doors were shut in my face. But did that keep me from knocking? Did that tell me that I had to go back to that same door and tell them, well, the law says you owe me this? No. I kept knocking on doors until the one that opened.

JIM COMPTON: At this rally of suburban Republicans in Bellevue, Washington, Radcliffe is among sympathetic voters. But in other settings she has faced doubters and hecklers.

MAN IN AUDIENCE: And you want to talk about qualifications. You must think you changed colors or something. I don't understand it. But, you know -

JIM COMPTON: Opponents see Initiative 200 as an attempt to roll back 30 years of economic and educational gains for people of color and women. The very wording of the ballot title, called "The Washington Civil Rights Initiative," is controversial. The ballot says, "Shall government be prohibited from discriminating or granting preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in public employment, education, and contracting?" Dr. Hubert Locke, a prominent civil rights scholar at the University of Washington, thinks not.

DR. HUBERT LOCKE, Dean Emeritus, University of Washington: It's purposeful hypocrisy, and it worked in the case of Prop 209 in California. You call it a civil rights initiative and you say we're against segregation; we're against discrimination; we're against preferences; we think all people ought to be treated alike; and the average voter will say, well, yes, certainly, I agree with that. I have said on many occasions it's an absolute insult to those of us who struggled for the civil rights cause 30 years ago to call it a civil rights initiative. That's just a gross slap in the face.

WARD CONNERLY, President, American Civil Rights Coalition: This is not about taking away opportunity. It's not about ending all affirmative action.

JIM COMPTON: Whatever their intent, advocates put the measure on the ballot with more than 200,000 signatures from Washington voters. The campaign will be one of the most expensive ever waged for a ballot measure in Washington State. Supporters say they will spend about $400,000. The opponents say their spending could exceed $1 million. Initiative 200 has attracted a steady stream of national figures to campaign for both sides. Ward Connerly, author of the successful California initiative, taunts his opponents.

WARD CONNERLY: I don't know why the other side has such heartburn when we talk about equality. Equality is not bad public policy; it's good public policy. We have a cultural equality in this nation. We're trying to perfect that experiment -that noble American experiment in which all of us, as American citizens, will be treated equally, without regard to our skin color, our ethnicity, our sex, our national origin.

JIM COMPTON: Affirmative action programs have been in place in this state for more than two decades. And today there are more than 4500 firms competing for hundreds of millions of dollars in state contracts.

MEL STREETER, Architect: In 1976, affirmative action came into being and suddenly my firm started to prosper and grow.

JIM COMPTON: Mel Streeter is a Seattle architect who was once told by a high school counselor he should go into teaching or coaching. Today his architectural firm grosses over $2 million a year - most of it as subcontractor on large, public projects. The contracts come to him because the state earmarks a percentage of work for minorities and women.

MEL STREETER: I don't feel like we've ever taken a job away from any of the majority firms. I mean, to prove my point, in the State of Washington 90 percent of the work goes to the majority males in the contracting and design industry, okay? 10 percent goes to mainly women and about 3 percent go to minority firms.

JIM COMPTON: Like yourself?

MEL STREETER: Yes.

JIM COMPTON: Supporters of Initiative 200 have made no claims of adverse impact of affirmative action on white businesses, so-called reverse discrimination. One thing on which all agree is that the main beneficiaries of affirmative action in Washington State have been white women. Anne McPhee is a general contractor in the Seattle area.

ANNE McPHEE, General Contractor: I still have to be the low bidder. I mean, there's nobody standing there down at Olympia giving me a contract just because I show up in a skirt. I think it's providing opportunities for minority- and women-owned contractors to prove that they can compete in the industry and be viable business enterprises.

JIM COMPTON: And McPhee says there is another effect - changing attitudes of men in the workplace.

ANNE McPHEE: Let's say their comfort level is stretched to where an electrician who has never worked side by side with a minority or woman gets the opportunity to do so and find that hey, this ain't so bad, that, you know, that's where we want to be.

JIM COMPTON: In education the issue is especially complex. Although this year's undergraduate freshman class was less than 2 percent black, the University of Washington is being sued for admitting to its law school a black male over a white female with a higher grade point average. Meanwhile, Asian-American enrollment has soared nearly 19 percent on the UW campus. Because of high grades and test scores, Asian-Americans need no benefit from racial preferences, and many say they would prefer not to be treated as a minority. Nevertheless, the state's Asian-American governor, Gary Locke, a leading opponent, says he was a beneficiary of affirmative action.

GOV. GARY LOCKE, [D] Washington: Well, I was admitted to Yale University under an affirmative action program. Yale was looking for students of color, students from the West Coast, because most of their students were from the East Coast, and they were looking for students from the public schools, because many of their students, most of their students were from private academies and private schools. So I was kind of a "three-fer." I joked than I'm a "three-fer." But I still had to pass the same exams and write the same papers and meet the same graduating requirements as anybody else.

JIM COMPTON: The state's major newspapers have all come out in opposition to I200. And the publisher of the "Seattle Times," Frank Blethen, took the unusual step of buying a full page ad in his own paper against the initiative. The state's largest private employer, the Boeing Company, has come out against Initiative 200. Boeing has been joined by Microsoft and most of the state's large companies. The opponents have enlisted dozens of public officials, churches, synagogues, and labor unions to fight the measure. Supporters of I200 launched an early television campaign saying that the end to discrimination can only be achieved if all racial preferences are halted.

I200 AD SPOKESPERSON: Understanding I200.

CHILD IN AD: Bringing us together.

JOHN CARLSON, Co-Chairman, I-200: I think most Americans believe that we are dwelling on race too much.

JIM COMPTON: John Carlson, the conservative activist spearheading Initiative 200.

JOHN CARLSON: I think the civil rights movement, the traditional civil rights movement got off track, and instead of being a movement that tried to expand liberty and opportunity for all people, it became a race lobby. And instead of focusing on making sure that all Americans had opportunities and rights, it became a movement that focused on race conscious remedies. Instead of aiming toward a colorblind society, it aimed toward a color-conscious society.

JIM COMPTON: Independent opinion polls have been predicting that Initiative 200 would pass comfortably. Nevertheless, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, campaigning against the proposal during one of four trips to this state, said Washington's vote was only part of a larger picture.

JULIAN BOND, Chairman, NAACP: Twenty states have tried to do what's been done in California and only two have succeeded: California, which passed Proposition 209, and Washington State, which has managed to get it on the ballot. The other good news about affirmative action is that three times this year. The Congress has voted on measures to repeal federally mandated affirmative action and three times this year by bipartisan majorities, Democrats and Republicans alike, the Congress has rejected these calls for repeal. So -

JIM COMPTON: The campaign began early, almost six weeks before the election, because 45 percent of the voters in this state now cast their votes by mail. Both sides agree that much of the fight has been to win the votes of absentees. % ? FINALLY - THE ART OF WAR

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Finally tonight, two takes on the tragedy of war and the hope of peace. The first is from NewsHour contributor Robert Pinsky, Poet Laureate of the United States.

ROBERT PINSKY, Poet Laureate: The halting and imperfect struggle to negotiate a way out of violence in Ireland, more recently in the Middle East, and in Kosovo, has its tentative breakthroughs and rays of hope. That's Seamus Heaney's subject in the chorus at the end of "The Cure at Troy," Heaney's translation of "The Philoctetes," by Sophocles. Here are the lines: "Human beings suffer. They torture one another. They get hurt and get hard. No poem or play or song can fully right a wrong inflicted and endured. The innocent in jails beat on their bars together. A hunger striker's father stands in the graveyard, dumb. The police widow in veils faints at the funeral home. History says, 'Don't hope on this side of the grave.' But then, once in a lifetime, the longed for tidal wave of justice can rise up and hope and history run. So hope for a great sea change on the far side of revenge. Believe that a further shore is reachable from here. Believe in miracles and cures and healing wells. Call miracle self-healing, the utter self-revealing double-take of feeling. If there's fire on the mountain or lightning in storm and a God speaks from the sky, that means someone is hearing the outcry and the birth cry of new life at its turn."

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now, essayist Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune considers the art of war.

CLARENCE PAGE: Vietnam taunts my generation like an old rock and roll song, one you haven't thought about in years. Then suddenly you hear a familiar phrase, a rhythm, and it call comes back - every word. [music in background] Fort Dix, New Jersey, 1970, that's me, a rare photo, there among other young faces, kids on our way to war. "Gimme Shelter" was a popular song at the time, just a kiss away, just a shot away. I never saw the war up close. Those who did find the war coming back to them in places like this, a quiet street just south of downtown Chicago, Mayor Daley, the city, and a small volunteer army of Vietnam veterans all pitched in to convert this old warehouse into the Vietnam Veterans Art Museum. Step inside, or look inside the pages of this book -- "Vietnam: Reflexes and Reflections--" and find yourself in a different world - a long-ago and faraway world of Saigon and Kai San, of choppers and rice paddies, of Tu Do Street, Highway 1, and a forest three canopies thick. Vietnam lit a fire in the minds of those who saw it up close. When they no longer could hold their fire, this happened. Memories became art. Ghosts from the past found their way onto paper - canvas and heavy metal - then, in many cases, into closets. Randy Evans called his creations "Closet Art." It was for his eyes only-never intended to be displayed until his fellow veterans coaxed it out into the open. Joseph Fornelli also had to be coaxed. He painted this miniature, titled, "Going Home Early," in the jungle with C-ration coffee on paper. He was a helicopter crew chief in 'Nam. He became a wildlife artist in suburban Chicago. But his Vietnam art also had to be coaxed into the open when concerned veterans and friends urged him and other vets to exhibit. That was almost 20 years ago. For years, the exhibition traveled, gypsy-like, gathering crowds, and attracting more art out of more closets. Memories created in private were now about to be shared. Richard Yohnka's big pastel portraits sway with the agony of war. His dense and brooding view of war has deep roots. A New York Time's critic compared him to Francisco De Goya's depiction of the Napoleonic Wars. When giants fight, these pictures say, others must suffer. An emotional suffering is captured by this work by the late Cleveland Wright. It is called "We Regret to Inform You." It recreates a cold, wrenching moment of loss for the family left behind by a soldier who won't be coming home. Sharing this space are weapons and other souvenirs, tokens of remembrance. Souvenir is an old French word. It means to recall. The memories depicted the walls echo off the enduring reality of the artifacts that separate them. Some viewers are troubled that there is not more grandeur or military glory here. Dark themes dominate. But here and there a glimmer of unblemished beauty catches the eye. These gently-flowing water colors defy the chaos around them. A closer look reveals they come from a soldier from the other side, the Communist side. They were found in the pocket of a dead Communist soldier. They give us a window into his side of the world and remind us of how much our worlds have in common. War Correspondent Michael Herr once said that all the wrong people remember Vietnam; that those who have forgotten it need to remember, and those who remember it need to forget. That irony forms a subtext to this exhibition. It is a disturbing theme, but this art is meant to disturb. Young people sometimes come here to find out more about their fathers' war. We, their fathers, come here to find something more about ourselves. We, like our country, grew up a little too quickly, and yet, at times not quickly enough. In the contours of these images we hope to find some answer that makes sense of that which we left behind, and that which never left us. [music in background - "Gimme Shelter"] I'm Clarence Page.% ? RECAP

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Again, the major stories of this Thursday, Pioneer Astronaut John Glenn soared into space for the second time in thirty-six years. He and six crew mates are in orbit aboard the shuttle "Discovery" for a nine-day mission. The Food & Drug Administration approved Tamoxifen as a preventive measure for women at high risk for breast cancer. And in the Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers foiled a suicide bomber's attack on a school bus. The bomber and a soldier died. Forty Israeli children on the bus were unharmed. We'll be with you online and again here tomorrow evening with Shields & Gigot, among others. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Thank you and good night.