The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Good evening. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Jim Lehrer is away. On the NewsHour tonight rethinking Iran; we have a report from Tehran and the latest on U.S.-Iranian relations, plus the week's politics with Shields & Gigot; the Harlem Renaissance revisited; and the discovery of water on the moon. It all follows our summary of the news this Friday.

NEWS SUMMARY

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The nation's unemployment rate dropped .1 percent, 4.6 percent last month, matching a 24-year low set last November. The Labor Department reported today the nation's employers created a greater than expected 310,000 jobs last month on top of January's 375,000. In a Rose Garden news conference President Clinton welcomed the new figures.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Inflations has remained low and stable. We continue to have the strongest economy in a generation, the lowest unemployment in a 1/4 century, the lowest inflation in 30 years, the highest home ownership in history. We're on track to have the longest peacetime recovery in the history of our country. These are good times for America.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The Labor Department also reported the percentage of adults with jobs remained at 64.2 percent, an all time high. At the capitol today the Senate preserved a program that helps women and minorities win highway construction contracts. The vote was 58 to 37. It defeated an attempt to kill the disadvantaged business enterprise program, which seeks to award 10 percent of federal transportation contracts to companies owned by minorities and women. Opponents had sought to replace the program with one that would not consider race or gender. U.N. arms inspector Scott Ritter, who had been branded as a spy by Iraq, led a team of investigators to several undisclosed sites in Iraq today. It was a first test of the inspection accord reached last month between Iraq and Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Ritter, an American, was directed to leave the country in January. Today his convoy of 10 U.N. vehicles carried out inspections described by a U.N. spokesman as routine. The Clinton administration's plans to pay for the military missions in the Gulf and in Bosnia were challenged in Congress today. Defense Secretary Cohen and Chairman at the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Hugh Shelton asked for a $2 billion emergency supplement to this year's Pentagon budget. Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia of the U.S. was already paying more than its share for world peacekeeping.

SEN. ROBERT BYRD, [D] West Virginia: Just note here my concern over what appears to be a quickly developing habit of American leadership through the permanent deployment of forces in theaters of potential conflict, there seems to be little or no discussion in these funding requests, or sharing that burden with our allies. Why shouldn't they help pay this bill?

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: If approved in committee, the emergency supplement will be taken up by the full Senate. One hundred and seventy-two million dollars would go to repair El Nino-related weather damage to military bases in Guam and California. The army honored two retired Vietnam veterans today for stopping the My Lai massacre 30 years ago. Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson on the left and Specialist Lawrence Colburn each received the Soldier's Medal in a ceremony at the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington. A third crewman, Glenn Andreotta, died in the war and will be honored later. An army general read their citation.

MAJ. GEN. MICHAEL ACKERMAN, U.S. Army: Thompson, then a warrant officer and a helicopter pilot, and Colburn, then a specialist and door gunner, and Andreotta, then a specialist and crew chief, came upon American ground troops killing Vietnamese civilians in and around the village of My Lai. They landed the helicopter in their line of fire between American ground troops and fleeing Vietnamese civilians to prevent their murder. Colburn and Andreotta provided cover for Thompson as he went forward to confront the leader of the American forces and subsequently coaxed the civilians out of a bunker to enable their evacuation.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: About 500 civilians were killed by U.S. troops at My Lai before the men intervened. Ukraine today canceled plans to sell nuclear technology to Iran. The Ukrainian foreign minister announced the decision after talks with Secretary of State Albright. They initialed the nuclear cooperation agreement in Kiev. In Moscow, Russia's atomic energy ministry said it would press ahead without the Ukraine on the project to construct two atomic reactors in Iran. We'll have more about Iran right after the News Summary. Violence erupted in Serbia again today. Serb policesaid they attacked and destroyed the core of an Albanian separatist organization. A police statement said the leader of the group had been killed and 30 of its members captured. The group has been seeking independence for the ethnic Albanian majority in the Southern Yugoslavian province of Kosovo. Yesterday, Serbian police said they killed 20 Albanians. Albanian leaders claim the Serbs have conducted massacres, a charge the Serbs denied. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to inside Iran, Shields & Gigot, the Harlem Renaissance, and water on the moon.

FOCUS - INSIDE IRAN

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now, rethinking Iran. First, the changes inside that Islamic republic. Our report was prepared by Jim Maceda, a correspondent for NBC News who was in Tehran recently.

JIM MACEDA: These are the scenes that are only too familiar to Americans: Cries of down with America and death to America, and death to the great Satan's ally, Israel. But, 19 years after the Islamic revolution, change in Iran is creeping in. You can see it in the streets and shops of Tehran, where, these days, women seem more interested in fashionable shoes than in anti-American slogans; where young couples, all born since the revolution, dare to show affection in public; once a jailable offense, authorities now turn a blind eye. Raised on satellite TV, illegal but tolerated here, and on smuggled Hollywood videos, this new generation sounds different too.

SPOKESPERSON: America very good, very good.

SPOKESPERSON: I love to come to America, very good.

SPOKESPERSON: All of Iranians like USA, USA people, but our government has a quarrel between your government, but Iranians like your people.

JIM MACEDA: And, in a country where the voting age is 15 and the majority of the population is under 20, Iran's powerful youth has put its hopes in this man. Mohammad Khatami, a moderate, highly-educated clergyman, Khatami ran for president last May on a platform of "Iran first, then Islam." He won by a landslide over his conservative opponent. He has promised more rights, more freedom, and a better life within the Islamic system, and so far his supporters remain hopeful.

SPOKESPERSON: Mr. Khatami is the most popular man in the country. It's clear the people support him. People want their aspirations be realized, and we are hopeful because of the positive things he has been able to do already.

JIM MACEDA: Under Khatami, Iran is trying to improve its international "outlaw" image. When it recently chaired the World Islamic Summit in Tehran, Iran embraced its former enemies, and America's friends, like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. And it has moved to relax its severe Islamic laws. Newspapers and magazines, once banned, are back. Even American authors, for so long the epitome of evil, now fill Tehran's book shops. There is even American pop music on Radio Tehran. With all the good feeling in the streets, few believed, at least in private, that it would be long before political relations warmed as well. And in December, at the conclusion of the Islamic Summit, Khatami dropped the first bomb. "I hope that in the future," he said,"I can have a dialogue and talk with the people of America, and I hope that will not take long." It did not. Only weeks later, in an interview with CNN, Khatami appealed for a crack in the wall of mistrust between Iran and the United States and called for low-level, unofficial contacts between the two countries. Almost 17 years after the American hostages were released from this U.S. embassy in Tehran, mistrust on both sides still runs deep.Ataollah Mohajerani, Minister of Culture and President Khatami's chief spokesman, denies U.S. charges that Iran thinks a nuclear weapon supports terror or acts to sabotage the Middle East peace process. And even this most liberal voice in Khatami's cabinet calls direct talks with the United States premature, if not impossible.

ATAOLLAH MOHAJERANI: [speaking through interpreter] When our people look at the U.S. government, they see constant intervention. They see support for a despotic Shah. They see plundering in various fields, economically and politically, for their own interests, and even after the revolution they have never chased intervening in the affairs of this country, with economic sanctions and a propaganda war; we cannot trust America, and the signs have worsened during the Clinton administration.

JIM MACEDA: Iranian government officials say they are looking for a goodwill gesture, like Iran's effort in freeing U.S. hostages from Lebanon, never matched, they say, by America. The freeing-up of billions of dollars of Iran's assets, frozen in U.S. banks, they say, would be a good first step. Iran's foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, insists that, until the U.S. side offers such a signal, all calls for serious dialogue ring empty.

KAMAL KHARRAZI: They are using all of their instruments to put Iran in a corner, to isolate Iran. And this is a policy, the policy of containment, means like that. And that is why they make allegations, I guess, you know. That is why they intervene in internal, our internal affairs. So far, I don't see any change in their behavior. There have been some words, but words are not enough. We should see deeds.

JIM MACEDA: But Iran has pressing reasons to end the diplomatic standoff. Economically, Iran's isolation has hurt, $30 billion in debt, with inflation running over 20 percent a year, and unemployment some 35 percent, Iran's standard of living has dropped almost 1/3 since the fall of the Shah. Iran's population, which will double in the next 20 years, wants good jobs, not more economic frustration. That's one reason why Mehrnoosh, and Fahrid, like many post-revolutionary Iranians, see Iran and America as true friends one day sharing common values.

SPOKESPERSON: Iranian society is becoming a political society. That means that the young people want something and want to show their feelings.

SPOKESPERSON: Young people want to live. They want life--that's a normal thing.

JIM MACEDA: Mehrnoosh, an advertising executive, is a pioneer for women's rights in a country dominated by men. Fahrid, a struggling artist, wants more freedom of expression. They both voted for Mohammad Khatami and for change.

JIM MACEDA: What kind of change specifically do you want to see?

MEHRNOOSH: To have the right to have different political parties like that, to have non-governmental organizations, for example, the Association for Artists, the Association for Women, the little things that could be changed in Iran, to have our mayor, to vote for our mayor. I want things like that.

JIM MACEDA: It sounds like you want democracy.

MEHRNOOSH: Yes.

JIM MACEDA: But Khatami's calls for political parties and freedom of choice have not gone down well with Iran's right-wing clergy. The keepers of the revolution see any change as a threat to their power. Khatami, as president, still must report to this man, Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, whose supporters blame America and Israel for every evil on earth, and who took to the streets late last year when a few liberal voices, led by Ayatollah Montazeri, a respected theologian, dared suggest that the supreme leader was unqualified and should step down. In a wave of violent demonstrations, one of President Khatami's followers was beaten and his offices ransacked by an angry mob. Other dissidents were jailed. Western observers agree Iran is now at a crossroads, it must decide between two paths, one familiar, led by the conservative Khameini and his anti-American clergy, the other, towards reform, embodied by Iran's moderate president, calling, however cautiously, for dialogue with the West. Khameini has the power, but Khatami, the people, and the outcome is anyone's guess.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The Iranian government's efforts to expand people-to-people contacts with the United States included sending a special visitor to Philadelphia. Charles Krause takes up the story from here.

CHARLES KRAUSE: The Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia is a school of communications, not regional studies or diplomacy. Yet, it was here in a basement classroom last Thursday that Penn's Political Science Department hosted the first public exchange between Iran and the United States since the hostage crisis nearly 20 years ago. Iran and the U.S. haven't had formal diplomatic relations ever since. Given the two decades of hostility, last week's meeting was historic. But it wasn't official. Technically, neither the Iranian nor the American participants were there representing their governments, only themselves. Still, both governments knew the meeting was taking place. And it came just weeks after a group of American wrestlers visited Tehran, another sign that the dialogue which Iran's new government has called for has now begun. Representing Iran in Philadelphia last week was Dr. Moustaffa Torkzahrani, an academic reportedly close to Iran's new president, Mohammed Khatami. And representing the United States was Bruce Laingen. Laingen was the highest ranking American diplomat held captive during the hostage crisis. Now retired from the Foreign Service, he remains an active participant in U.S.-Iranian affairs. Because of internal conflicts in Iran between Khatami's moderates and fundamentalist hardliners Iran's new president does not want it to appear that his government is talking directly to the U.S. government. So to avoid photographs at no time during the encounter in Philadelphia did Professor Torkzahrani appear side by side with Amb. Laingen.

MOUSTAFFA TORKZAHRANI: There is one thing which is very important to our people, and that is the clear distinction between people and the government policy. This is especially true for the people of the United States of America. It is why our President Khatami chose as his audience the people of the United States, and not policy makers. And it is why I am speaking to you at the University of Pennsylvania today.

CHARLES KRAUSE: During the first part of his speech, Torkzahrani emphasized that President Khatami believes in elections and democratic values and is determined to end the fundamentalist excesses that have characterized Iran since the revolution two decades ago. Khatami is also determined to improve Iran's relations with the outside world, according to the professor.

MOUSTAFFA TORKZAHRANI: Khatami's foreign policy stance is characterized by a desire for dialogue in place of conflict. In the words of Khatami, himself, "Our revolution is a revolution of words." This approach, along with consolidation of power in the hands of the people during the last election, has prepared the ground for a turning point in Iran's foreign policy. Thus, a new window of opportunity has been created for other nations to re-think their attitudes toward Iran.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Yet, much of the speech was a litany of Iranian complaints about the U.S., not a blueprint for how the U.S. and Iran might go about re-establishing relations.

MOUSTAFFA TORKZAHRANI: The perception of the Iranian people is that following the Cold War, the psychological dimension of American foreign policy necessitates the existence of some kind of enemy. In the absence of Communism, Iran becomes the target. Picturing Iran as enemy is one way of justifying military expenditure and foreign policy. In general, it can be said the effect of efforts of successive American administrations to isolate Iran has been to isolate America instead.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Indeed, Torkzahrani said that one of the reasons the Iranians are now so cautious in trying to re-engage the U.S. government is that previous attempts have been rebuffed. Specifically, the professor mentioned the U.S. reaction to an Iranian decision in 1995 that would have allowed the American oil company, CONOCO, to develop oil and gas fields off Iran's coast. President Clinton decided the billion dollar deal was a violation of U.S. economic sanctions aimed at punishing Iran for its alleged support of terrorists and its opposition to the Middle East peace process.

MOUSTAFFA TORKZAHRANI: When the CONOCO deal was halted by the American government, there was some surprise in Iran. The concern was not that the deal was a major one, which it was not, but that it had been intended by Iranian authorities as a gesture from our side. The gesture, if it was ever recognized, was rejected. If there is real will on the part of the American government to better relations with Iran, that will must be tangibly demonstrated through reconsideration of policies, such as the sanctions and release of Iranian assets. Otherwise, I believe, there is no need for the government of Iran to jeopardize its legitimacy for nothing.

CHARLES KRAUSE: And now the American response. As we reported, Bruce Laingen was the other speaker at the session in Philadelphia. Laingen was the highest-ranking American diplomat held captive during the hostage crisis nearly 20 years ago. He's now president of the American Academy of diplomacy, a private organization of retired senior diplomats. Also joining us is Robin Wright, a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times who travels frequently to Iran and who's written extensively on that country. Thank you both for joining us.

Mr. Ambassador, you were in Philadelphia. You heard the professor as a former diplomat and hostage. What was your reaction?

BRUCE LAINGEN, Former State Department Official: I was glad to be there. I was glad he was there. It was an important speech, however isolated it was in one place. But it was the first speech by a person representing the government of Iran, I believe, in the United States laying out their views on both what's going on inside that country and what their expectations are in the United States. In that sense it was a very important signal from the government of Iran toward the United States.

CHARLES KRAUSE: And what about the list of criticisms--his main contention being that it's the U.S. Government that has been uninterested and not responsive to the gestures, which the Iranians have been making for some time?

BRUCE LAINGEN: Well, we know what the issues are. We know what their concerns are. We know what their grievances are. I think they know what ours are. We're recited them frequently. The important thing is now to get, in my view, all the more reason to sit down and talk, all the more reason to have what we're experiencing now, a series of signals back and forth. That was one and a very important one from our side was the one from President Clinton a month or so ago in the occasion of Ede, the end of Ramadan, in which he said that he looked forward to good relations with Iran, noting that we have major differences but saying it was important, he believed these were not insurmountable. That was a very important signal, and it should--I hope it was received that way in Tehran.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Robin Wright, would you agree that the President's remarks, that that was a very important signal?

ROBIN WRIGHT, Los Angeles Times: Yes. In fact, the administration worked for weeks in trying to figure out how to respond in an appropriate way to President Khatami's overture, wanting to send a message back to Tehran but also not in such a huge way that might make it more difficult for him because he's got problems at home too in terms of this initiative.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Problems, what kind of problems?

ROBIN WRIGHT: Well, obviously your piece pointed out that President Khatami faces challenges from the religious right, and what I think he's trying to do in this peace people-to-people initiative is create a fait accompli on the ground, to build the environment in which the United States is once again welcome, that Americans traveling to Iran are welcome. There have been a number of tourist groups, for example, for the past year going over and the pace of that's to accelerate. The first group of academics went to Iran a week ago, and more expected in the next couple of months. And the kind of publicity they generate--I got a call today from Tehran because I'm going next month, and they wanted to put an item in the newspaper now. I've got every year basically since the revolution, but they're kind of drawing attention to the fact that Americans are coming and embracing the idea. And I think that's really one of the fundamental first steps that President Khatami has to take to create a new environment to legitimize the kind of direct overture that the United States really wants.

BRUCE LAINGEN: Robin's lucky. She's been there recently and I haven't.

CHARLES KRAUSE: And why is that? Could you go?

BRUCE LAINGEN: Yes. I assume I could get a visa. I'm not sure this is the right time for a former hostage to go back.

CHARLES KRAUSE: What is your--

BRUCE LAINGEN: We need to wait a while for that.

CHARLES KRAUSE: What is your sense of the atmosphere here in Washington? Is Washington ready to--for a rapprochement with Iran?

BRUCE LAINGEN: I'd like to believe that it is. I don't sit here necessarily representing the United States Government. But I think I have some idea of how it feels, and I sense that there are--that the United States is looking--I have to read what the President said. That clearly suggests to me that he believes too that this government believes that--at least the executive branch of government--we have to draw that distinction--believes strongly that this--we need to get off the dime, put it in the vernacular.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Robin Wright, if you agree with that, why do we need to get off the dime, what's happening?

ROBIN WRIGHT: Well, I think you've seen for the first time in twenty years really a fundamental shift that both sides are interested. In the past we've been interested when they haven't and vice versa. We've always been going in opposite directions. I think you see two presidents today who are very much interested in re-engaging, and I'm told that at the highest levels that this president in the United States is particularly intrigued by the possibilities, sees it even potentially as his China, that he could end the longstanding deadlock in relations between the two countries, and I think that's been reflected, for example, during the Iraq crisis when he sent a message to the Iranians that our actions in the Persian Gulf were aimed just at Iraq and appreciated that Iran's past neutrality, and the fact that the State Department just a week ago not only encouraged Americans to go to Iran but welcomed Iranians to come to the United States.

BRUCE LAINGEN: I'd like to think, Charles, that this Iran-Iraq crisis that we've been through, not necessarily though yet but going through has helped develop a stronger awareness in Washington, and among all concerned. There's Iran too. Iran is of considerable strategic concern to the United States, and we shouldn't forget that. You know, to borrow from real estate, location, location, location matters a lot. Iran is there with great consequence for American strategic interests in that part of the world. We need to talk about those.

CHARLES KRAUSE: At the same time you--there are some obstacles. We're kind of making it sound as if this is all well underway, but what are the problems? What are the obstacles? What has to happen for the two governments to re-establish relations?

BRUCE LAINGEN: We've got to find a way to talk. We've got to sit in front--at the beginning to find--to start talking about how to talk. We don't even know that yet. But we have no dialogue at all. We can exchange signals, and that's important. The lowering of rhetoric on both sides, you can't have negotiations when rhetoric is sort of boiling up here. Both sides, I think, are appreciating that.

CHARLES KRAUSE: And that's happening?

BRUCE LAINGEN: I think that's happening, and in my view, you know, Bill Richardson is reported recently as having shook hands with the foreign minister in Davos. We need to shake some more hands somewhere. We need to find some quiet corner, in my view, where trusted emissaries on both sides can sit down--maybe Oslo, Helsinki, Geneva, and start talking about how to talk.

CHARLES KRAUSE: But very briefly, what are the issues they have to talk about once they start talking?

BRUCE LAINGEN: Our concerns of course are obvious--the field of terrorism, the concern about weapons of mass destruction, and their position on the Israeli peace process--those are very important concerns. They know them. The have concerns about our view of course. The sanctions are there; they don't particularly like those sanctions.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Economic sanctions.

BRUCE LAINGEN: Economic sanctions, and they are having a significant impact on the economic potential of that country. They--as your interview indicated earlier--they've got some strong concerns about our failure to respond to their position on Beruit hostages, on--

CHARLES KRAUSE: A gesture.

BRUCE LAINGEN: A number of other things--gestures that they've made. And their position not least in the Gulf War, where they stayed out of it.

CHARLES KRAUSE: And very quickly, Robin, tell me, do you see any changes in Iran's policies that might match some of the rhetoric?

ROBIN WRIGHT: I think so. I think the fact that they've come out publicly and said that on the Rushdie edict the condemning of Salman Rushdie, the author of "Satanic Verses," to death nine yearsago, have said they will not try to kill him if they can't get the edict lifted, that is a small gesture.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Peace process.

ROBIN WRIGHT: Of peace process--sending a message through Yasser Arafat that it is prepared--while it disagrees with the process--doesn't think it's going to be successful, that if Yasser Arafat accepts something, they're prepared to accept it too, and that is I think a major step and Arafat carried that message to the administration about six weeks ago.

CHARLES KRAUSE: All right. I'm afraid we are going to have to leave it there, but I want to thank you both, Amb. Laingen, Robin Wright, for joining us. Thank you.

FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now our Friday night political analysis by Shields & Gigot. That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot.

Paul, a significant development this week was the leaking to the Washington Post of the President's sealed deposition in the Paul Jones case. Were there any clear winners or losers from this?

PAUL GIGOT: Well, Elizabeth, somebody said that there was no smoking gun in this, and that's not surprising because it was the President's gun. This was his story. This was his side of the story made under oath in the deposition, and the President, to show how good a politician he is, he went out and denounced a leak that helped him. He said this is a shock, an outrage that this leak. But really the story is his side of the story. It--there was not a lot of revelation in it about the Monica Lewinsky episode, which of course is right now the biggest debate, an issue and cloud over this presidency. So I don't think we got a lot of news. One bit of news that might have been troubling for him in it was that he did--we are told--admit that he had had an affair with Gennifer Flowers in 1992, which he had denied at the time, before 1992, which he had denied, and that would affect his credibility. And there's a contradiction between his account now in the Paula Jones case about his denying that he made any advance on another woman by the name of Kathleen Willy, which contradicts her testimony, which we've been--we've ready about--under oath. So that could affect the President's credibility also in the Paula Jones case.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But overall--

PAUL GIGOT: But overall this is not--this was not a big advance legally in the Monica Lewinsky case, no.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Do you agree with that, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS: I do. It may upset Paul to hear me say it but I do agree with him basically, Elizabeth, and that is that the leak is certainly helpful when you have a court-imposed gag order, it's about the only way really left to communicate to sympathetic witnesses on your side, and I'm sure that people sympathetic of the President want to get the word to Vernon Jordan, to others who are appearing before the grand jury as to what the President's own story was. I don't think he admitted to an affair. I think he said that he had had relations once with Gennifer Flowers in 1977, which I don't know if we're going to define affairs on this show isn't exactly Dr. Laura, but I don't know if once in 1977 constitutes an affair, Paul.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Mark, the Republican report on campaign finance was released and voted on yesterday in Senator Thompson's committee. Do you think there were any smoking guns in that report that really revealed something very new about what happened in the campaign in '96, '95 and '96?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, the reports basically reflected the way the committee had worked, which was--it had been at partisan loggerheads almost from day one--but taken together, they constitute a pretty serious indictment of the status quo in politics, whether it's money laundering, whether it's foreign contributions. And I thought Fred Thompson, the chairman of the committee, who I know was frustrated throughout, put it pretty well, that our system is in a shambles; it's riddled with Swiss cheese-- loopholes through which anybody can drive. And he made the prediction--and I think he's absolutely right-- that unless and until something is done about the system, what we saw in 1996 is going to look like bean bag compared to what we'll see in 1998 and 2000, when it comes to soft money being used by candidates.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What do you think the political message is in this report?

PAUL GIGOT: Crimes pays.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Really?

PAUL GIGOT: In a political sense I think. Mark, I think, is right that when you look at the document, itself, it was a factual success. The committee came out with an awful lot of information. They uncovered things that we are now--that are now showing up in indictments through the Justice Department. They showed the White House was at least aware of some of the things that went on, if not- -if it wasn't organized out of the White House. But it was a political failure, and it was a political failure because the Democratic line was that everybody does it, and it worked. The public bought it. The public believes that there really was nothing all that different about 1996 than any other time. So they're holding nobody accountable as a political matter, it seems to me, so I think the lesson that people are going to learn, especially professional politicians who want to win is you can get away with it, and so I think you're going to see an awful lot more of it.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Do you agree with that, Mark, that the lesson is crime pays?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, crime pays is strong but Paul's never been accused of not being strong. It is his convictions and his statements. I do think that there was a lack of public alarm, whether it's by the new Dow Jones or the lower unemployment, or whatever else. There isn't a sense that they can connect what is perceived political corruption of the system to their lives being adversely affected. And I think that's been one of the problems for those want to change it. I think the Republicans tried to have it both ways on this. Republicans said, isn't this awful, what went on, isn't it terrible, oh, my goodness, oh, let's not change it in the least when they had a chance to do it. And that's why Sen. Thompson I think probably stands alone on that--on that committee--as somebody who has really walked the walk and talked the talk. We saw money laundering on the Republican side of historic proportions where non-profit groups just became wholly-owned fronts for the Republican Party, and I agree with Paul what went on in the Democratic side, the use of soft money was quite beyond anything we've ever seen before, especially when a presidential candidate takes the pledge, that only the publicly-received money he receives and signs for will be spent in his campaign and no other money. And that certainly was not the case in 1996.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Paul, you mentioned some indictments and yesterday Johnny Chung, who was one of the Democratic fund-raisers, was charged, and is apparently going to agree to plead guilty. How significant is this, do you think?

PAUL GIGOT: Wedon't know. And we don't know because we don't know what he's willing to cooperate to and what information he has. It's certainly significant in the sense that at least somebody is being held accountable for things that happen in 1996, but we don't know to what extent he can move up the food chain as prosecutors try to do, so how far it goes, we don't know.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. And, Mark, one thing I skipped over in what happened in the Starr investigation is the Vernon Jordan testimony before the grand jury. Was there anything significant in what he said as he came out?

MARK SHIELDS: I may be the only person in this--I'm not trying to pose as a drama critic but you recall Barbara Jordan, the congresswoman from Texas, I think she and Vernon Jordan--she was enormously eloquent as keynoter at the 1976 Democratic Convention--she and Vernon Jordan must be related because they each had the same elocution coach. They find--you find your attention riveted by the slowness with which they speak and the way they enunciate, and I thought he was quite a compelling figure outside the courtroom. I don't know what he said inside the courtroom in his testimony but what it appeared to be--a breach earlier between him and the President--appeared to have been healed by the time he took the oath.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Do you think there was--do you get the same message?

PAUL GIGOT: Yes. I don't think that there's--both Vernon Jordan's interest in this case and the President's interest are the same, and I don't think that there is a big difference in their story lines right now, not that I've detected, and certainly none that either one of Vernon Jordan or the President claims. What he said in the grand jury of course we don't know.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Paul, turning to the interesting vote on Puerto Rico and the House, this was a bill that would set up the possibility for a referendum in which Puerto Ricans could decide whether they wanted statehood or independence or to keep their commonwealth status, and it was--it was sponsored by some top Republican leaders, including Newt Gingrich. Why?

PAUL GIGOT: Is there a Republican Congress? Sometimes I wonder, particularly when the first priority or one of the first priorities of this year, an election year, sponsored by that Republican Congress was opposed in the end by 177 members of the House Republican Conference. You have to ask yourself why. The leaders when you talk to them say, No. 1, we made a promise to one of our committee chairmen, Don Young, chairman of the Resources Committee, who has had this as a hobby horse, so we had to do it. Second, big lobbying, and I mean big lobbying in this city, something like 20 lobbying firms.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And these would be lobbyists mostly for people who want statehood.

PAUL GIGOT: They happen to be on both sides, but, the big Republicans for statehood, Haley Barbour's firm--the former RNC chairman--Bob Dole's law firm--or even Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition, got into this. Who knows what that has to do with the Christian Coalition. Nothing. Puerto Rican statehood, but he was supporting it too, and then the third thing, they even got a pollster, Frank Luntz, to come in and say this is going to help us with the Hispanic voters, though how Puerto Rican statehood helps a Hispanic voters in Tucson, or in California is beyond me, but they persuaded themselves, but they couldn't persuade their own members.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mark, how do you see that vote?

MARK SHIELDS: I think Paul has it pretty well. The Republicans are in trouble with Hispanic voters, and they know it. Between 1994 and 1996 the Republican vote among Hispanic voters for Congress fell by a third. The Proposition 187 in California was seen as immigrant bashing by a number of Hispanic voters, the rhetoric of Pat Buchanan in the last campaign, as well as of Pete Wilson and his own campaign, so I think there are real problems there, there's no question about it, and I think this was an attempt to address it and it failed miserably.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, thank you both very much.

FOCUS - HARLEM RENAISSANCE

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Spencer Michels in San Francisco has the Harlem Renaissance story.

SPENCER MICHELS: The setting is the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, a classical style museum with the famous statue "The Thinker" by Rodin in the courtyard. It was an African-American pupil of Rodin who sculpted "Ethiopia Awakening," the starting point for a major exhibit on the Harlem Renaissance. "Rhapsodies in Black," the sculpture and the exhibit, evoke African ancestry and the rebirth of black culture in America after centuries of slavery and repression. The art on display tells the story of that lively, mostly poor section of Manhattan known as Harlem, where thousands of blacks from rural areas and the South migrated after the first world war. According to the show's San Francisco curator, Timothy Burgard, those immigrants created a new culture based partly on the old.

TIMOTHY BURGARD, Exhibit Curator: The Harlem Renaissance is an extraordinary moment, usually defined as being between the first and second world wars, in which there's really a sense of cultural renewal, really a sense that Harlem and by a larger context, African-American culture, are re-embracing history but also making new history and making new culture.

SPENCER MICHELS: Through photography, painting, sculpture, writing, and even music, artists, mostly but not exclusively black, celebrated the wide range of African-American culture. Because Harlem was a major home of jazz, the exhibit is accompanied by the ever-present sound of music. Jazz certainly helped inspire Archibald Motley, who painted an upbeat "Blues" in 1919, which Burgard lists as one of the show's highlights.

TIMOTHY BURGARD: This is a jazz nightclub in Paris in which--it's called a black and tan club, where people of all different races and colors mixed freely togther, something that was difficult to do in the United States, and yet that he titles it "Blues," I think, is very interesting because it suggests literally an undertone or an undercurrent. And I think this is true in most African-American experience.

SPENCER MICHELS: Some artists were more direct. Edward Burra, an English painter, portrayed Harlem as seamy and sultry, off-color, and perhaps illegal. Yet, even among the resients in this picture, there is a sense of style. And style was part of the rebirth, according to Nashormeh Lindo, an artist and art educator who worked on the show.

NASHORMEH LINDO, Art Educator: Even today if you go to Harlem, you may see people who don't have a lot of money. It doesn't mean they're not the best-dressed people walking up and down the street. They set the style. People dressed well when it was time to go out. But I think that there is a sense of spirit that's in Harlem that kind of denies that poverty on some level.

SPENCER MICHELS: Lindo points to James Van der Zee's 1932 photo of a Harlem couple and their car.

NASHORMEH LINDO: I mean, this is in the Depression. Are they well-to-do, or are they just taking a wonderful photograph? Who knows? I mean, how much difference does it make, since it captures the sense of the time and the feeling of the time.

SPENCER MICHELS: The feeling of the time was exciting. There was a sense of well-being and opportunity in the air, not just among artists. Pictures of returning black troops from World War I still inspire Lindo.

NASHORMEH LINDO: If I had my choice in places in time I could go back to, one of those places in time would be February 1919, as the Harlem Hell Fighters were marching up Fifth Avenue and just when they turned that corner at 110th and Lennox and the band started playing, "Here Comes My Baby Now," I think I would have loved to have been at that moment in that place and time.

SPENCER MICHELS: While some black political activity was beginning, the back to Africa campaign of Marcus Garvey and his Negro Peoples of the World, for example, culture reigned.

TIMOTHY BURGARD: Black leaders at this time actually consciously decided that they would use culture, rather than politics per se, to achieve their goals, among which, of course, were civil rights and liberties, which we would tink of as being one of the great contributions of this movement. But they felt that culture would be an easier way for mainstream America to accept some of these ideas.

SPENCER MICHELS: Mainstream America didn't always go along, and so many African-Americans with roots in Harlem had to move to Europe to achieve stardom. The exhibit includes old film from France of singer Josephine Baker, now considered part of the renaissance.

[JOSEPHINE BAKER SINGING]

TIMOTHY BURGARD: She did start in Harlem, but, interestingly, she was actually considered too short and also too dark-sinned to be a star in Harlem. She goes to Paris and becomes an international star, most famously for this dance in which she wore a skirt made of bananas and not much else, and creates this wonderful persona on stage of this powerful, almost mythical, African or African-American woman.

SPENCER MICHELS: Paul Robeson's 1936 film "Song of Freedom," the story of a dockworker's recovery of his African heritage, is on display as well. Robeson moved to Europe in the 20's to escape racism. African heritage was one major theme of the Harlem Renaissance used by many painters who felt free at last to explore roots that had been repressed by slavery.

NASHORMEH LINDO: People who enslaved Africans were not interested in having them celebrate their traditions and their heritage because it was a way of controlling them. So, therefore, the art was suppressed.

SPENCER MICHELS: It was a time of transition for African-Americans. And it wasn't always easy to shake off the stereotypes that white society had imposed on blacks. This silent film at the exhibit, "Charleston," by French director John Renoir, features a well-known African-American dancer, Johnny Hudgins, wearing black face.

TIMOTHY BURGARD: He's taught how to do the Charleston by a young French showgirl, and, indeed, he is wearing black face. This is one of the contradictions of the period is that artists like Johnny Hudgins, or even Josephine Baker, with her banana skirt or Paul Robeson in the filming in Africa were forced to deal with some of these stereotypes, even as they attempted to transcend them.

SPENCER MICHELS: It was probably Archibald Motley, even though he was from Chicago, who tried hardest to portray the full range of life for the Negro, as the phrase went, during the Harlem Renaissance. His "Brown Girl After the Bath" was a traditional classical nude, except for the color of the girl. And his painting of a Holy Roller church scene, called "Tongues," gives a sense of excitement to practices the prevailing white culture might look down on. In 1926, Motley painted "Cocktails," a look at a very proper party of sophisticated black women.

NASHORMEH LINDO: When I first saw this picture, it just reminded me of my auntie when she used to have her card parties in the afternoon, and her friends would come over, and some of my other aunts would come, and they may be dressed up, you know, doing their nails and talking about makeup and those kinds of things, and there's always food around. And a lot of times people would hold parties or have concerts in their homes because they weren't allowed to have them in the more established places.

SPENCER MICHELS: But Motley wasn't afraid to show the dark side of modern life either.

TIMOTHY BURGARD: There's a wonderful painting called "The Plotters," which seems to be just that, men around a table in a smoky bar, plotting something that almost certainly has some criminal intent, and that he's willing to show this side of black culture was one of the great contributions of the Harlem Renaissance.

SPENCER MICHELS: It wasn't called the Harlem Renaissance until the 1940's, after it had dissolved with the coming of World War II. But a renaissance it was--a time when black writers and artists themselves became a part of the heritage that inspires African- American art today. The show moves from San Francisco to Washington's Corcoran Gallery in April.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The exhibition closes in San Francisco this weekend. After its run in Washington, it travels to Los Angeles and Houston.

FINALLY - WATER ON THE MOON

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Finally tonight, is there a moon river after all? Phil Ponce explains.

PHIL PONCE: Yesterday, NASA scientists announced evidence of water on the moon. With us now is Alan Binder, the mission's principal scientist.

Welcome, Mr. Binder. Mr. Binder, water on the moon, where is it?

ALAN BINDER, NASA: Absolutely. It's at the North and South Poles.

PHIL PONCE: And why only on the poles? Why isn't it throughout the moon?

ALAN BINDER: Well, the only way water can be preserved on the moon, which has no atmosphere, to be in extremely cold areas. The only areas that are cold enough to preserve the water are craters in the near vicinity of the pole where the temperatures are only 80 degrees Calvin, or minus 190 degrees Centigrade. Temperatures any higher, the water simply evaporates.

PHIL PONCE: So the waters in the craters, is it on the surface, are they blocks--is it blocks of ice? Is it underground? How would you describe it?

ALAN BINDER: Well, it's dispersed as ice crystals or frost, if you will, in the outer about two meters or six feet of the lunar soil. It's not ice in the terms of patches of ice or ice cubes or sheets of ice. It's just small ice crystals dispersed in the soil, itself.

PHIL PONCE: Now, NASA estimates that there are about 7 billion gallons of water that you think might be available on the moon. How much is 7 billion gallons of water? Is that Lake Tahoe? Is that Lake Michigan? Is that Lake Champlain?

ALAN BINDER: Well, it's a relatively small lake, and if those numbers hold--and I'll discuss that in a moment--that figure is equivalent to a small lake about two miles on the side, about four square miles, and about thirty-five feet deep. That's a modest amount in terms of terrestrial water, but it's a lot of water for the moon and for the development of the moon. However, I would like to emphasize, while we're certain there is water on the moon, our results are very early. We have just had one month's data. We, as you know, have 17 more months to go, and those numbers will be refined. So right now we are not saying we know exactly how much water is there. Those numbers will get better with time. We're just saying we know it is there.

PHIL PONCE: And how do you know that? What makes you so sure?

ALAN BINDER: Well, we flew an experiment called the Neutron Spectrometer. And basically, it works this way. Cosmic rays continually bombard the moon, and when they do and they hit the surface, they cause neutrons to be formed. The presence of water diminishes a number of neutrons that are released from the moon. And so, as we fly across the moon, when we reach the polls, we find a diminished number of neutrons coming from an area about 20 degrees wide. That's a clear signature that water is present.

PHIL PONCE: So, I mean, make sure I understand it. The Lunar Prospector has these instruments on board. The Lunar Prospector is orbiting the moon, and it can measure hydrogen. It can detect the sense of hydrogen--the presence of hydrogen, which, of course, is one of the elements of water.

ALAN BINDER: That is correct. It's an inference that the hydrogen is bound as water, but, of course, from the standpoint of the abundance of elements in the cosmos, usually hydrogen is bound up in water in this type of environment. So we're quite sure that it is water ice. But obviously, as I said before, we don't yet know exactly how much. That will come as the measurements are refined.

PHIL PONCE: And where did this water ice come from?

ALAN BINDER: Well, the moon, itself, was born very, very hot. All the water, all the volatile elements were simply boiled away from the moon. We know that from the Apollo samples, which were brought back over 25 years ago. However, since the moon was formed, it's been constantly bombarded by comets and meteorites, forming many of the craters we, of course, see with telescopes, while a comet, as I think you know, consists mainly of water. And while most of that water would simply be blasted away during the impact, some of it will remain in the lunar environment and can be transported to the polar regions, where it would freeze out. So this is water brought to the moon during the last 2 billion years.

PHIL PONCE: So comets are sort of like dirty snowballs.

ALAN BINDER: They certainly are.

PHIL PONCE: That was one description I read.

ALAN BINDER: That is a very good description, yes.

PHIL PONCE: And why is it a big deal that you're finding water on the moon, or confirming it in this amount?

ALAN BINDER: Well, as I mentioned, the moon simply does not have water of its own. And this was one of the disappointments when we brought the samples back during the Apollo era. Water is clearly necessary for human life. We need it for life support. Secondly, water can be broken down to oxygen and hydrogen, which is the most efficient propellent for rockets. And so the absence of water meant that we would have to take every bit that we would need for life support, and the absence of water also meant we did not have a fuel. Well, now we know that is there. So we can move ahead with the exploration of the moon, set up a lunar base, and I expect we'll set up a lunar colony, and the water is there to be used. If that were not the case, we have to take all that water with us. And since it costs on the order of a thousand dollars to ten thousand dollars per pound to take anything to the moon, every drop of water you take to the moon costs a tremendous amount of money.

PHIL PONCE: And when you talked about the use of water as a fuel, that's because hydrogen and oxygen is one of the propellants in some of the spacecraft?

ALAN BINDER: That's correct. That's correct.

PHIL PONCE: Water is also a sign of life. Does this indicate that maybe there's some frozen bacteria under the surface of the moon?

ALAN BINDER: No. Again, the moon's environment, itself, was totally hostile from its origin to the formation of life. And while comets and carbonaceous condrite meteorites--those that do contain some water--do contain organic molecules in relatively high abundances, when a meteorite or a comet hits the moon, it is totally vaporized. And those compounds are destroyed. So all we have left are the remnants of the water that was brought there from the comets. However, I'd like to say that the presence of water doesn't mean that there was life on the moon, or could be life on the moon in the past, but what it does mean is we can take life, i.e., ourselves to the moon and live there and work there. So it will enable the moon to have life.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Binder, you described the water on the moon as a type of frost mixed in with the soil. How would you extract it?

ALAN BINDER: Well, quite simply, as I mentioned earlier, the water is preserved only because of the extreme cold temperatures. If the polar regions were just a little bit warmer, for example, if the sun did shine in the east crater, the water would simply, the water ice, I should say, should simply evaporate, so all we have to do to recover it is dig it up, put it in a chamber, raise the temperature a few tenths of a degree--or to even room temperature if you wanted to, and the water will evaporate, and then you collect it just to cool it down and just like frost or dew form in the morning, you can rinse it out, and so it's a relatively simple process.

PHIL PONCE: And viola, moon river.

ALAN BINDER: Pardon?

PHIL PONCE: And voila, moon river, Mr. Binder.

ALAN BINDER: That's correct.

PHIL PONCE: Thank you very much.

RECAP

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Again, the major stories of this Friday, the nation's unemployment rate dropped to 4.6 percent last month, matching a 24-year low set last November. U.N. inspectors toured an Iraqi weapons site. The group was led by American Scott Ritter, whom Iraq had accused of spying, and two Vietnam veterans were honored for stopping the My Lai massacre thirty years ago. We'll be with you on-line and again here Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Thank you and good night.