The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

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

MS. WOODRUFF: And I'm Judy Woodruff in Washington. Following our summary of the day's news, we'll review the Noriega guilty verdicts with a journalist and two legal experts, then a documentary report in the continuing strife in one of Yugoslavia's newly independent republics. Former Vice President and Democratic Presidential nominee Walter Mondale joins us for a conversation and Amei Wallach looks at an artist with an ear for jazz. NEWS SUMMARY

MS. WOODRUFF: Former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega was convicted on eight drug and racketeering charges in Miami today. He was acquitted of two lesser counts. Noriega was arrested and brought to this country in January 1990, after U.S. military forces invaded Panama and overthrew him. He now faces up to 120 years in prison. Sentencing was set for July 10th. Noriega had no visible reaction in the courtroom, but his attorney said he would appeal the verdict. He said one issue would be Noriega's status as a prisoner of war. In Washington, President Bush commented on the verdict at a White House photo opportunity.

PRES. BUSH: I think it's a major victory against the drug lords. We're going to continue to fight against drugs in every way possible, but I think it's significant that he was accorded a free and fair trial and he was found guilty and I hope it sends a lesson to drug lords here and around the world that they'll pay a price if they continue to poison the lives of our kids in this country or anywhere else. And so in my view, the case was a solid case and I have not commented on it since it began in the court. But now that he has been convicted, I think it's proper to say that justice has been served.

REPORTER: Was it worth defeating Panama to get that verdict?

PRES. BUSH: It was certainly worth bringing him to justice. It's certainly always with it when you protect the lives of American citizens and when a partial result of that -- a part of the result of that is democracy in a country -- it makes it double worth it.

MS. WOODRUFF: We'll have more on the story right after the News Summary. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: In economic news, the Federal Reserve today moved to lower interest rates again. It did so by pumping more money into the banking system enough to push down the Fed Fund's rate by a quarter point to 3.75 percent. The Fed Fund's rate is what banks charge each other for overnight loans. The Fed action sent stocks in New York sharply higher. After losing nearly a hundred points in the last two days, the Dow Jones Average closed up nearly 44 points on heavy volume. In the broader market, advances outnumbered losers by a 3 to 1 margin. Also today, new claims for jobless benefits were reported down 24,000 in the last week of March. The decline followed two weeks of rising claims. Meanwhile, the Labor Department reported wholesale prices rose just 2/10 of a percent last month. So far this year inflation at the wholesale level is running at an annual rate of less than 1 percent.

MS. WOODRUFF: Paul Tsongas said no today. The former Massachusetts Senator said he will not resume his campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination. He had suspended the campaign just three weeks ago, saying he had run out of money. Last Sunday, Tsongas said he would reconsider that decision pending the outcome of the New York primary. But today he said that Bill Clinton's Tuesday victories in New York, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Minnesota, had been decisive and that rejoining the race at this point would only put him in the role of spoiler. He spoke at a news conference in Boston.

PAUL TSONGAS, Former Democratic Presidential Candidate: My name will remain on future ballots. If people wish to express support for my message and to seek to become delegates, that is their choice. But I will not reenter the race. Preserve the message, yes, but we must heal this party as well. Both are noble purposes and I hope to be part of bringing them both into reality.

MS. WOODRUFF: We will talk with former Vice President and former Democratic Presidential Nominee Walter Mondale about the 1992 race later in the program.

MR. MacNeil: British voters went to the polls today in what appeared to be the closest election in years. Television exit polls suggested the outcome could be a hung parliament, with neither major party winning a majority. Prime Minister John Major was among the first to cast a vote this morning. His Conservative Party faced the toughest challenge of its 13 years in power. It came from Neil Kinnock's Labor Party, which focused its campaign on blaming the Conservatives for Britain's recession.

MS. WOODRUFF: There was another kind of political hard ball being played today. It happened in the Russian congress. We have a report narrated by Richard Vaughan.

MR. VAUGHAN: Former Communists stridently attacked Boris Yeltsin's economic reforms which have left the country reeling from huge price increases. The President's aides scrambled to save his political life. They're trying to stop a congressional resolution that would strip their leader of his extra powers as prime minister. The proposal would remove the Presidential mandate to rule the government without the normal parliamentary controls. The entire cabinet has said it will resign if the measure passes because it means Yeltsin would lose direct control of is own reforms. If they fail to block a resolution in the legislature, which is dominated by former Communists, Yeltsin's supporters say they'll call for a national vote. In the Ukraine, angry demonstrators picketed a meeting about the future of the Black Sea Fleet. The bitter dispute has strained Russian-Ukrainian relations and threatens to break up the commonwealth. Defense officials from both sides have been bickering about how to divide up the naval assets, including some 300 ships. The powerful neighbors have now suspended legal claims to the fleet in an effort to get the talks moving.

MS. WOODRUFF: The U.S. and its Gulf War allies today warned Iraq against renewed military activities. The warning was delivered by the U.S. commander of the allied task force in the region. Of particular concern was the movement of surface to air missile batteries and ground troops in Northern Iraq near the security line set up to protect the Kurds. The Kurdish leaders said today there were signs that Iraqi troops were bowing to Western pressure and were pulling back. President Bush said today that he had absolutely no regrets about not ousting Saddam Hussein before ending the Gulf War. But he also told the American Society of Newspaper Editors that in hind sight, he might not have provided aid to Iraq before its invasion of Kuwait.

MR. MacNeil: President Bush and Vice President Quayle reacted today to a congressional report which said Mr. Quayle had taken four golfing trips last year on military planes accompanied by White House Chief of Staff Samuel Skinner, who was then Transportation Secretary. Since the golf tournaments were also political fund-raisers, the travel was reimbursed at the cost of a commercial air ticket plus $1. That amounts to a fraction of the cost of operating a military flight. House Democrats said it amounted to a taxpayers' subsidy of political travel. The President and Vice President had this reaction at a White House photo session.

REPORTER: Has the Vice President abused his travel privileges?

PRES. BUSH: No, he has not.

REPORTER: Do you think so, Mr. Vice President?

VICE PRES. QUAYLE: The President is right.

PRES. BUSH: Following the rules.

REPORTER: Allowing you to play golf on the taxpayer money?

VICE PRES. QUAYLE: We're complying with all the rules and regulations.

MR. MacNeil: An employee of the House post office was indicted today by a federal grand jury on drug charges. The grand jury alleged he was part of a broad conspiracy to distribute drugs at the post office used by members of Congress. The indictment charged that crack cocaine and other drugs were exchanged for money and favors. The 32-year-old former stamp clerk has already been charged with embezzlement.

MS. WOODRUFF: Roman Catholic Bishops today released a pastoral letter denouncing sexism. It said discrimination against women is a sin. But it also said the church should continue its tradition of allowing only men to be ordained as priests. The draft document is subject to final approval by the National Bishops Conference in November. It is intended as a policy guide for the estimated 55 million American Catholics. That's it for the News Summary. Now it's on to the Noriega guilty verdict, continuing ethnic fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a conversation with Walter Mondale, and an Amei Wallach essay. UPDATE - GUILTY

MR. MacNeil: The Noriega verdict is in and it is our lead segment tonight. It's been called the most important drug trial in history, the president of Panama, ousted by U.S. military invasion and brought to justice in the United States. And after several days of tension over what appeared to be a deadlock, the jury came back today withguilty verdicts on eight of ten counts. They include racketeering, laundering drug profits, and conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States. The seven-month trial has taken many curves. At one point this week, the jury foreman wrote, "We have a serious problem. We are deadlocked." That sent shockwaves from Panama to the White House. Spencer Reiss has covered the trial for Newsweek Magazine since it began. Spencer, describe the scene in the courtroom today when the verdict was announced.

MR. REISS: It was very calm, Robin. The court -- through this whole thing there has never been the sort of public clamor that most trials of this sort had. In fact, oftentimes this has been conducted in a half empty courtroom. Even today there were empty seats and it was all basically a professional crowd. It was journalists, lawyers, interested parties, Noriega's family, his wife, his three daughters were all there. When the jury read its verdict, or when the bailiff read the jury's verdict, Noriega, himself, was motionless. He absolutely did not move a muscle. He had the little wireless headphone in his ear that he heard the translation from a court translator, court interpreter through, and he stayed eyes ahead, straight ahead, right through till after the whole proceedings were over. In fact, I don't think he ever, as far as I could see, turned around and acknowledged his family even after it was over.

MR. MacNeil: Yesterday it was a threatened hung jury. Today it's unanimous convictions on eight serious charges. What happened, as far as you can tell?

MR. REISS: Very clearly, the jury went hook, line and sinker for the government's case and were it not for that holdout juror, we probably would have had this verdict two or three days ago. I think that surprised everybody. I think most of us expected some kind of conviction on some of the counts, but I would imagine that even the prosecutors, and I dare say the White House, were surprised to get eight out of ten. I think that's a big victory for them.

MR. MacNeil: Do you know who the holdout juror was and what the problem was?

MR. REISS: Speculation only, and it centers on one of the woman jurors and, in fact, the only Latin on the jury, which brings into question the defense's theory in selection of avoiding Latin jurors on the theory that they would be more likely to convict. It appears that it was a Latin woman that was the holdout, and she was the sole Latin juror.

MR. MacNeil: On what do you base the speculation that she was the holdout?

MR. REISS: There were several hearings in the last couple of days in which the judge attempted to give additional instructions to the jury to help them through this deadlock that they had earlier said they had. And during the back and forth between the foreman and Judge Hoovler on a number of occasions the jurors all seem to look around toward her and she was also spotted by some sharp-eyed observers with what appeared to be almost tears in her eyes. So the suspicion was that she was holding out for at least a partial acquittal or more of an acquittal than the rest were willing to go up with.

MR. MacNeil: It's been widely reported by reporters covering the trial -- I don't know whether you're among them -- but the government case looked weak, that its witnesses were of questionable credibility, that it was mostly based on circumstantial evidence. And yet, the jury seems to have had little trouble with it. Now, how do you explain that?

MR. REISS: Well, they used a very broad brush and that was always -- you know, the government's contention was this is just a drug trial, you know, don't consider anything other than the evidence. But, in fact, quite clearly, the jury did take other things into account. And the best evidence of that is their willingness to convict after only two days in a trial that lasted seven months, that generated 17,000 pages of transcripts, that generated 700 exhibits, and all of that they dealt with very peremptorily, and the only two counts that were tossed out, oddly enough, were the two most recent in chronological terms, events, the so-called "frill count," about a boat of that name was supposedly loaded up in Colombia and passed through Panama -- that was supposed to pass through Panama on its way to the states. That was in 1985 incredibly. And, in fact, all the events he's been convicted of go all the way back to '82, '3 and '4. So I think when President Bush crows about this as a victory in the war on drugs, he needs to remember that none of this was anything that happened even remotely resembling real time right now.

MR. MacNeil: So can you put in plain English what this jury has convicted Noriega of doing, of actually helping cocaine to get into this country and making money out of it?

MR. REISS: Yeah. The prosecution's term, which I assume stuck, was that he was a bad cop in the sense that he had been a useful ally, he had even on occasion turned in other drug traffickers to American authorities, but at the same time he was being paid by the Medillin Cartel to allow drug traffic or drug traffickers to work through Panama. And they seemed to have accepted that argument, despite the defense's counter arguments that all of this was happening unknown to General Noriega and that if there were drug traffickers operating in Panama, they were operating there in the same way that they operate say in South Florida, which is despite the best efforts of law enforcement authorities.

MR. MacNeil: Now, tell us what the defense plans to do about appeals.

MR. REISS: Well, obviously, there are going to be appeals of this and it's a real grab bag. They're starting right with the circumstances that he was brought to the United States under his capture, the question of whether a U.S. court has jurisdiction at all over him because of the fact that he was brought here coercively, whether or not, as a head of state, he could have had sovereign immunity. All of these were issues that Judge Hoovler disposed with -- disposed of along the way during the trial and made rulings on. All those rulings will now be subject to challenge. In addition to that, there are a number of other questionable activities during the trial. There was the famous CNN tapes episode whereby some conversations between Noriega and his defense team were leaked to the television network. There is a variety of things like that that could all be subjects of appeal. And his defense team, or more likely an appeals lawyer, a specialist, rather than a trial lawyer of the kind that did the case now, will look at the 17,000 page transcript and try and find holes that can be driven through.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Spencer Reiss, thank you very much for joining us.

MR. REISS: A pleasure.

MR. MacNeil: Noriega's attorney steadfastly maintained that he was a victim of U.S. politics, not a drug lord. At a news conference in Washington this afternoon, the head of the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency was asked whether his arrest has had any impact on drug trafficking in Panama.

ROBERT BONNER, Drug Enforcement Administration: I think I can state with a fair degree of certitude that the degree of drug money laundering that existed under Gen. Noriega's regime in Panama has been reduced, perhaps even drastically reduced, since the removal of Noriega. Secondly, we think that while it's a fledgling law enforcement effort in Panama, because they've had to rebuild institutions there, we think that the Panamanian police and the Panamanian narcotic officers are certainly striving to do a better job in terms of controlling the flow of drugs, particularly cocaine, that's moving into and through Panama. There is still cocaine moving into and through Panama. There's no question about that. But I will say this, that with respect to DEA's assistance and cooperative efforts with the Panamanian law enforcement, I can say that there hasn't been a single investigation that we're aware of that's been compromised. And that could not have been said under the regime of Gen. Noriega.

MR. MacNeil: We're joined now by Robert Mueller, the assistant attorney general in the criminal division of the Justice Department. Also joining is Bruce Bagley, the associate dean of the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Miami. Mr. Bagley is also the director of the University's North South Center on Drug Trafficking and has been watching the trial since it began. Mr. Attorney General, the defense says it will appeal the verdict on many grounds that were dealt with, as we've just heard, during the trial, the legality in international law of seizing Noriega, his claim to have been a prisoner of war, and so on. What is the Justice Department reaction to the prospect of a long appeals process?

MR. MUELLER: Well, quite obviously, we expect an appeal, but we expect also to be successful on appeal. Judge Hoovler rendered many opinions in the course of this case and each one, we think, was fully supported by the law and will stand up under scrutiny.

MR. MacNeil: Supported under U.S. law, or other law?

MR. MUELLER: United States law.

MR. MacNeil: United States law. Do you have any anxiety that under other law, these -- the seizing of Noriega and his treatment as a criminal and brought to justice in the United States may be illegal?

MR. MUELLER: No, I do not believe that to be the case at all. I think it was wholly legal.

MR. MacNeil: This is estimated to have been, if not the most expensive, one of the most expensive cases ever brought under -- in U.S. legal history. Considering that, on top of the cost of the military operation, which seized Noriega, and the loss of human life involved, was this verdict worth it today?

MR. MUELLER: Well, I think you have to look and separate out the various rationales for Operation Just Cause, and first and foremost, it was to restore democracy in Panama. As a part of that operation, we had the opportunity and utilized that opportunity to effectuate the arrest of Manuel Noriega. And certainly the effort that has been put into the case by the prosecutors, by the investigators, to bring Manuel Noriega to justice is well worth that portion of the effort.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Bagley, President Bush said this was a major victory against the drug lords today. In terms of its effect on the drug trade, is the Noriega conviction worth the effort to you?

MR. BAGLEY: I think there's very little evidence for that position. The facts of the matter are that the drug trafficking process through Panama continues and, in fact, has increased very substantially and there is no evidence whatsoever that the overall process of cocaine trafficking from the Andean region and from Colombia into the United States has been significantly effected at all. I think that we could draw a similar parallel with the arrest and conviction of the top drug lord, Carlos Leder, of the Medillin Cartel. I think that arresting and convicting individual top copos of the cartel organizations or individual traffickers in specific countries is not at all convincing as a way of addressing the question of cocaine trafficking into the United States.

MR. MacNeil: You just heard the head of the Drug Enforcement Agency say that drug money laundering through Panama had been drastically reduced since Noriega's arrest.

MR. BAGLEY: Frankly, I've been reading very carefully the government documents that have been generated by that. And there are a number of reports that have come out in the press as well that indicate that the United States has had considerable difficulties with Panamanian authorities in clamping down on money laundering in Panama. If we assume for the moment that there has been some success on that front, I think that one has to raise the issue of the balloon effect of these kinds of activities. We have driven, without any doubt, some of the previous money launderers out of Panama, but we have seen it emerge in other parts of the world and, in fact, we've got a kind of shell game going on around the globe in which we force both drug trafficking activities and cultivation, as well as money laundering from one country into another. And in some senses, I think that we've begun to proliferate these processes throughout Central America, that we see it throughout the Caribbean, and that we see it in other parts of the world as well. So we have not stopped money laundering even if we've stopped it in Panama.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Mueller, what do you say to Mr. Bagley's comments, one, that arresting copos doesn't do any -- have any effect on the cocaine trade, and that -- well, you've just heard what he said about the money laundering, that it just balloons elsewhere.

MR. MUELLER: I absolutely disagree. In the last three to four years, with the assistance of the Colombians, we have had a substantial effect on the Medillin Cartel and disrupted that cartel and effectively stopped its ability to ship cocaine to the United States. Panama is no longer a safe haven for the Medillin Cartel or other cartel members. It is no longer the transit point that it once was when Manuel Noriega was in charge, and that is a substantial success in the war on drugs. But I'm not here to say that there are not failures and that it doesn't go on elsewhere. But it is our responsibility, and what we intend to pursue and pursue relentlessly is drug cartels and drug traffickers, wherever they may be. And we can't -- and I don't expect that anyone would want us to fold up our tents and walk away from it.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Bagley, you dispute that the Medillin Cartel has been seriously interfered with and that drug traffic from Colombia has been reduced?

MR. BAGLEY: Those are two separate issues. I think that the Medillin Cartel has been in some senses severely constrained, primarily by the plea bargaining arrangements that were set up and the decision of various top bosses to accept President Cesar Ravidia's offers to allow them to plead guilty to a single count in Colombia. Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa Brothers are in jail. There is some evidence that they continue to traffic out of the jail facilities in which they operate. Even more important in Colombia, we have seen a very substantial increase in the market share of the Coli Cartel. So the drug trafficking is certainly alive and well and continuing in Colombia even if the Medillin Cartel has been cut down to size somewhat. In that context then I think that the entire policy of interdiction and supply side approaches really must be readdressed. The central problems here are that as long as there is a continuing demand and a huge market of $50 billion or more in the United States, we are going to see poor third world countries, whether Panama, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, other parts of the world, continuing to traffic. I think that we have failed as a country and I include -- this is not an indictment of the Bush administration or any other specific government -- I think that the United States as a society must more effectively address the demand side of this issue. We must be able to rein in the profitability of this industry before any of the overseas or international drug control efforts are going to have any permanent effect on drug trafficking into this country.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Mueller.

MR. MUELLER: The -- I don't disagree at all that we must emphasize the demand side. But on the other side, on the supply side, you cannot forget that the Ochoa Brothers, Pablo Escobar, found a safe haven in Panama principally because Manuel Noriega, as the dictator of that country, was willing to give them that safe haven. And today, Manuel Noriega stands convicted before the Bar of Justice. And that is a substantial success in the war on drugs, not just for the United States, but for the world community.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Bagley, what is your feeling, as somebody who follows the whole drug industry, what is your feeling about the witnesses the government used to get this conviction, former drug dealers, and the deals made with them, and the impact of that on the drug trade?

MR. BAGLEY: Well, I think it's a double-edged sword. It is quite clear that in order to get witnesses to testify against drug traffickers that U.S. prosecutors are going to have to deal with a very nefarious group of people. In that sense it is inevitable that deals be struck with people who are former drug traffickers or murderers or others. On the other hand, the extraordinary effort that the United States government and the very costly deals, I mean, there is a large amount of money that has been paid to people in the witness program. There have been major concessions made to a number of traffickers who already have been convicted. I think that we have a kind of mixed signal being sent. In order to get people higher up the chain, such as Noriega, a whole series of individuals have been partially exonerated from previous crimes and that's a way out of paying the price to society for their previous activities. If we are going to multiply this effort, going after only the Noriegas of the world, I think a whole lot of middle range and upper middle range traffickers will get off or have major concessions made to their families.

MR. MacNeil: Let me go back to the assistant attorney general on that. Do you have any qualms about the amount of money you paid, the concessions you've made to some of these already-convicted drug traffickers, which include murderers, for instance, giving green cards to some of their families to come to the United States and so on in order to get this conviction?

MR. MUELLER: Well, No. 1, you have to realize, as I think has already been acknowledged, that the only way that you are going to be able to successfully prosecute a drug kingpin is to find persons who are willing to testify against that drug kingpin, because drug kingpins do not want to get near to the drugs or the money. In this case it was necessary to elicit the testimony from those who had operated with Manuel Noriega. Now, contrary to what has been said out there, almost every one of these individuals is facing substantial time in jail, most of them with a cap of 20 years. And if they're in their forties or fifties, 20 years is a very, very long time. With regard to payments to the witness protection program, the person is put in the witness protection program because there is a very realistic fear that that individual will be harmed, or if not that individual that individual's family, and when a green card is provided to a family member who is in Colombia, it is given for the purpose of that family member being able to move away from a situation in which that person's life would be very much at risk.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Mr. Mueller, Mr. Bagley, thank you both for joining us.

MS. WOODRUFF: Still to come, ethnic conflict in a former Yugoslav republic, a political talk with Walter Mondale, and an Amei Wallach essay. FOCUS - COMING APART

MS. WOODRUFF: We turn next to the continuing civil war in the country that used to be Yugoslavia. The fighting now is going on in the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which declared independence on March 1st. Some 4 million Serbs, Croats, and Muslims live there. This week, the European Community and the United States recognized Bosnian independence, but Serbian paramilitary forces have been fighting to keep as much land in Serbian control as possible. They did the same in Croatia before a cease-fire was reached there. So far, an estimated 10,000 people have been killed in the Yugoslav civil war, mostly in Croatia. More than 150 have died in fighting in Bosnia over the past month. Liz Donnelly of Independent Television News prepared this report which begins in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.

MS. DONNELLY: The bombardment of the medieval city of Sarajevo by Serb irregular forces positioned in the hills above has prompted the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina to declare a state of emergency. By early evening, local people virtually abandon the streets to the gunmen. For almost a year, the Croats, Muslims and Serbs, who lived here peacefully side by side, watched the war next door in Croatia with horror. Now they too are the victims. We were taken to an underground cafe in the heart of the predominantly Muslim old part of the city. A hundred or so families are packed inside and they told us they'd been too frightened to leave their shelter all week. These people are Muslim and their distress is acute. They put the blame on the Yugoslav federal army who they accuse of giving heavy weapons to the Serb fighters. What they fear most is a war between heavily armed Serbs and Croats with Muslims caught in the middle. This man told us he remembered the second world war when the whole of Yugoslavia was occupied. [man in shelter] "This never happened before," he said.

MAN IN SHELTER: [Speaking through Interpreter] The German occupation army didn't fire like this. This was a Muslim place for 500 years and now they're firing at us every night. They're firing at our homes.

LIZ DONNELLY: "My brother was killed defending the city and no one could reach us," this woman explained. "Even five doctors were captured with us. We're all going through great traumas."

OTHER WOMAN IN SHELTER: [Speaking through Interpreter] We don't deserve to have to keep 300 of our children down here with us. I have two children and I want my children to be happy, along with Serb and Croat children.

MS. DONNELLY: Those who did venture out during today are shocked at the speed with which the situation has deteriorated. With virtual anarchy prevailing at night, more than 60 shops have been destroyed and their contents looted. And in the normally busy marketplace, there were very few things to buy, just some cabbage and fruit. For Serbs living in Sarajevo, who make up more than a third of the population, the situation is equally confusing.

MAN: This crazy people. I don't know what he wants, this, in Sarajevo. This is my town. These people not live in this city. I live here. I don't know what he want, what he need.

MS. DONNELLY: Inside the president's building, what remains of Bosnia-Herzegovina's leadership has been tied up all day in a series of crisis meetings. The two Serb members of the presidency who resigned earlier this week have left their colleagues, three Muslims and two Croats, to run the country. Until now, leaders like Stjepan Kljait have shown a remarkable ability to juggle the conflicting demands of the different ethnic groups here. He puts the blame for the current crisis squarely on Belgrade.

STJEPAN KLJAIT, Croatian Member, Bosnian Presidency: [Speaking through Interpreter] The Serbs want an independent Bosnia, but the Serbian Democratic Party and its leaders who are under the control of Belgrade don't want independence, so that Slobodan Milosovitch can keep his imperialistic control over Yugoslavia. If Bosnia becomes independent, Milosovitch, who started this whole war in Yugoslavia, will have lost territory. He lost Macedonia, he lost Croatia. The only remaining Serbian empire is in Bosnia.

MS. DONNELLY: Away from Sarajevo, irregular Serb forces have launched an offensive against predominantly Muslim villages here in the North of the country. Serbs, who make up a third of the population of Bosnia-Herzegovina, are claiming 50 percent of the territory. There's been heavy fighting here in Bijeljina, one of the first, predominantly Muslim towns to be attacked by the Serbs, and until today, it's been completely sealed off. EC monitors who came to investigate allegations of a massacre were turned away by Serbian road blocks. We found evidence of several battles which locals say took place here last weekend. Muslims too frightened to appear in front of our camera told us more than 40 people were missing. But at the town hall, where the Serbian flag shows clearly who's taken control, they tell a very different story. The local leader of the irregular Serb forces says the trouble was started by Muslims, but even so, the Serbs want to live in peace and don't want to drive them out.

MAJOR SAVIC MAUZER, Commander, Serbian National Guard, Bijeljina: [Speaking through Interpreter] There was no massacre of Muslims. Many people were killed, Serbs, Croats and Muslims, but there was no massacre.

MR. MacNeil: Since the capture of Bijeljina last week, Serb forces have extended their control across the Northeast section of the republic. The Bosnian president has appealed for a cease-fire. CONVERSATION - '92 - ELECTION

MS. WOODRUFF: Next, the Democratic Presidential race. Bill Clinton's victories in Tuesday's primaries give him almost an insurmountable lead in delegates. He now has almost 60 percent of the 2145 delegates needed to win the nomination. The Associated Press gives Clinton a total of 1267 to Jerry Brown's 264 and Paul Tsongas's 539. In addition to the delegates selected in the last three months, there are 772 so-called "super delegates," party leaders and office holders. Almost 400 of them have not committed to any candidate yet and Clinton'sstrategists are putting pressure on them to rally around the presumptive nominee. One of the super delegates is former Vice President Walter Mondale, the Democratic Presidential nominee in 1984. I spoke with him late this afternoon. Mr. Vice President, thank you for being with us.

MR. MONDALE: Glad to be here.

MS. WOODRUFF: You were quoted in the New York Times as saying that right now as of then that Bill Clinton's performances in New York and the other states weren't decisive enough yet, as you put it, to end this nightmare. What did you mean by that?

MR. MONDALE: Well, I was afraid that even though Clinton had done well and carried all of these states that it wasn't quite the margin that would permit him to say let's end this now and unite the party and go on. I still hope that that's what'll happen. It was a good victory. He piled up a lot of new delegates. He won all of these contests. And I think the time has come to end this fight.

MS. WOODRUFF: Are you saying then his performance is decisive?

MR. MONDALE: I'm saying I would like to have seen it a little bit stronger, but I think it's still enough, after we've had all these primaries, he's won most of them, this fight is starting to tear us apart and diminish our chances of winning, and I hope that we can end it.

MS. WOODRUFF: Is he the nominee? Is he on a clear path to the nomination?

MR. MONDALE: He's not there yet, but he's almost there. If you look at the statistics of where he is now, he could lose all these upcoming primaries and still win enough delegates. So I think for all practical purposes he is the presumptive nominee.

MS. WOODRUFF: And yet, as we keep reading and we keep hearing, it's almost as if the more Bill Clinton wins, the better he does, the more doubts that are raised about him by party officials, by the pundits and everybody else.

MR. MONDALE: This is where I think a little history is important. I don't think anybody could go through what Bill Clinton's been through and be the front-runner and get trashed 50 times a day by everyone else running against him and not have high negatives. It happened to me. It happened to -- any candidate has to go through what he's done. What we need now, it seems to me, is to do exactly what Tsongas did today. And I think he deserves a lot of credit. He said, my message was heard, I feel good about that, but I am not going to be a spoiler. In fact, I want this -- he said, Clinton won and that's it, let's get this thing together and win this election. I really believe that that's what we should be doing.

MS. WOODRUFF: So you believe Tsongas did the right thing by not getting back in?

MR. MONDALE: I feel very strongly that he did the right thing and the way he did it. I mean, there was class to that.

MS. WOODRUFF: What about Jerry Brown, I mean, what are you saying to him after this New York primary?

MR. MONDALE: Well, if I were talking to him, I'd say, Jerry, all you're doing now is helping Bush. Your message has been heard; you've had chance after chance. I'm not telling -- I wouldn't tell Jerry he has to get out -- that's his right -- but why can't he make his argument in a less personal way? Why can't he -- let's hear the arguments but let's not make them mean and mean spirited. If he did that, I think -- I think it would be very helpful. After all, even Pat Buchanan has changed his tone.

MS. WOODRUFF: But do you really think that's possible? I mean, we've seen primary after primary in the South, in the North, in the Midwest, where we have seen one really nasty character attack after another.

MR. MONDALE: I know.

MS. WOODRUFF: "Prince of Sleaze," he called him.

MR. MONDALE: Go back in previous campaigns. People forget that. Let me give you one example. I've been through so many of these I know how these party fights kill us. And I think we've got a real chance this time and I think if we don't --

MS. WOODRUFF: You do think the Democrats --

MR. MONDALE: Yes. But if we keep this fight up, that nomination may be worthless. I remember in 1960 when Kennedy and Humphrey went at in Wisconsin, and in West Virginia. We forget now, those were very bitter fights. The morning after Humphrey lost the primary in West Virginia, he endorsed John Kennedy and he campaigned for him all the rest of the fall and the reason Kennedy won was that Minnesota went for Kennedy, the crucial, the final state, by only 28,000 votes. If Humphrey had fought Kennedy further, I think Nixon would have been President. And I looked in 1980 -- I don't what our chances were for a Carter re-election in 1980, but by the time that primary was over all --

MS. WOODRUFF: With the Kennedy challenge.

MR. MONDALE: -- and all that bitterness, and right up, including the convention, I remember you going after me at that convention. What chances we had were gone. What I want -- in 1976 we had a united party and Carter won. In 1980, we were divided and we lost. In 1984, when I ran, I couldn't get the party together, probably didn't have a chance anyway, but what chance I had was gone. This time we've got a chance and I would ask Jerry Brown to conduct himself in a way that -- let's hear his arguments -- give him his status and his dignity. I wouldn't take that away from him. But let Bill Clinton get a chance to put this party together, to be the nominee. You know, here's Bill Clinton, his doctor says he can't even talk because his throat's so sore, and you've got President Bush walking around the basin here, looking at cherry blossoms, and there's a big difference. We've got to allow Bill Clinton to be Presidential.

MS. WOODRUFF: But what do you do, Mr. Vice President, about the very real doubts that voters are saying when they go into the voting or come out of the voting booth, what they're telling the exit pollsters, that they have real doubts still about this man's integrity and honesty?

MR. MONDALE: Here's what I'd say. I've known Bill Clinton for 20 years and he's an honest man. When you have these kinds of fights, all kinds of little things become important, negatives become the thing, negatives dominate these campaigns, we forget that in 1980, Ronald Reagan's negatives were higher at this point than are Bill Clinton's. Bush's negatives were higher in 1988 than are Bill Clinton's now. If we could let Bill get a night's rest and talk about real issues and get on to real matters, it is when people of the same party attack each other, as they have, that these things really hurt.

MS. WOODRUFF: Then what about the party leaders, the so-called "super delegates," the people who were either elected or by virtue of their status as a --

MR. MONDALE: I'm one of them.

MS. WOODRUFF: You're a super delegate. There are what, three hundred and some odd of them who are holding off. They could have declared for Bill Clinton.

MR. MONDALE: Well, this is standard. About this time a lot of them will hold off. That was true of me too. It was -- but I think now is the time for those of us who are free to make the choice to help try to unite this party. And I would urge -- I would urge my fellow super delegates -- I'm one of them -- let's step across that line and help Bill put this together.

MS. WOODRUFF: Because there have been meetings on the hill. We read a group of Congress -- members of Congress met yesterday, met this week, to talk about who else -- who else is there, by the way, for the nominee?

MR. MONDALE: Well, I don't think this idea of somebody showing up at an engineered convention is anything at all worth thinking about. In this process, we select a nominee in the nominating process. We have these primaries and billions of people participate in them. Bill Clinton's participated. Several others have participated. He's winning this thing. He will be the nominee. And the idea that you can go to a convention and say, well, we've had all this fun, folks, at all these primaries now, we'd like to introduce your candidate to you, I don't think it's worth thinking about.

MS. WOODRUFF: So you just don't think that's a possibility?

MR. MONDALE: No.

MS. WOODRUFF: All these people who are talking about brokered conventions?

MR. MONDALE: No. It's just not the way it works or the way it should work.

MS. WOODRUFF: You wrote a column, a so-called "op ed" piece in the New York Times.

MR. MONDALE: Yes.

MS. WOODRUFF: In February, when you talked about the -- if I can quote back -- in so many words, you said the influence of the primary should be reduced, the influence of party leaders should be increased.

MR. MONDALE: Right.

MS. WOODRUFF: Is that a little different from what you're saying right now?

MR. MONDALE: No. I think I'm asking party leaders to step up and help make a decision. We are in a system that calls for primaries. I honor those primaries. That op ed piece was a more basic question about how we select our President. Today I just saw the election returns from the United Kingdom. That election was called a month ago. They've had their campaign. They've had their election. We started campaigning two years ago. We've got a half a year to go. People get tired of this and all the rest. I think we need to change it. I think we need to have more leadership in the process. We need to get it over faster. People who have been elected, who are party leaders, need more to say about these things within the party than they now do. That's what I'm saying.

MS. WOODRUFF: But how do you change that process when the voters are used to, as you just said yourself -- you can't go to the convention and say, meet your nominee.

MR. MONDALE: I don't say disregard primaries by any means. It's a question of degree. We have about I think 15 percent of the delegates are super delegates. They're elected officers, party leaders, and so on. I would raise that number higher. I would do away with proportionality. You know, you can win a state and maybe only get two more delegates than the person who lost. I would like to have the winner get a much bigger share of the delegates when they wins, things to get it over faster. Let's have the debate, but let's get it over. The Democratic Party has almost democratized itself to death. We can't seem to ever get to a conclusion so we fight on and on and on, and we'd lose and lose and lose. Let's have democracy. But let's get it over with at some point and go on and have the real election where the people can decide. One final point, if you're interested in the speech, is I don't think there's any dignity to this. There's nothing that makes people feel good about this. And as the campaigns go on and it seems like the level of discussion deteriorates and becomes more negative, so I don't think there's much redeeming value in any of it.

MS. WOODRUFF: How much of your concern about what the Democrats face in November has to do with the candidacy of Ross Perot? How serious a factor do you think he can be, assuming he gets in?

MR. MONDALE: I haven't any idea. I do know this: The alienation in this country is more intense than I have ever seen it. And it may be that somebody comes in as an anti-politician, despite the fact they have no public career at all, would have more appeal than in the past. History, however, does not suggest that it would be very affected. Third party candidates have never done well. Up front they look good. Remember, John Anderson had about 21 percent about this same time, same as Mr. Perot, but the time the election was done, about 5 percent. Whether that would happen this time I don't know.

MS. WOODRUFF: But as you say, the turnouts this time are extraordinarily low, the lowest they've been, at least in modern history.

MR. MONDALE: People are just plain disgusted, there's no question about it.

MS. WOODRUFF: What about -- another comment I want to ask you about is what Sen. Warren Rudman said when he announced that he was retiring. He talked about people really are ready to hear the truth from politicians and they're not hearing it.

MR. MONDALE: Yes.

MS. WOODRUFF: And yet, when you tried something, when you tried to talk about taxes at the famous convention, the Democratic Convention in 1984, it wasn't something people wanted to hear. How do you explain that?

MR. MONDALE: I want very much to believe Warren Rudman. People want the truth and I think we should hear the truth. And I think Bill's been talking about the truth. But I don't hear anybody discussing this deficit, which is pulling us to the ground, because to raise that question, you have to talk about taxes and budget cuts, the rest. The other thing --

MS. WOODRUFF: Gov. Clinton isn't talking about the deficit.

MR. MONDALE: Well, he's -- no, none of them are talking about it. They're all staying away from this. Up on the Hill, the Republicans -- because they know -- I think I taught a whole generation how to deal with the deficit, run away from it. But meanwhile, we're not solving it. Warren Rudman said something that I've heard from several others that are quitting. You know, every day there's a new -- Sen. Wirth, Kent Conrad -- it seems like every day somebody surprises you -- they're going home. And he said the reason I'm quitting, above all, is there's nothing I can do, there's no money, the country's broke, I can't do anything about health or education or anything that I believe in, I can't do it. And what that is, that's the deficit. We have allowed this thing to become a national scandal. We now owe over $3 trillion, spend 220 billion a year just to pay the management of the debt. And now it's paralyzing government to the point that good people don't see any point in serving. This has got to change. We've got a good country, but we've got to start dealing with it with effective leadership.

MS. WOODRUFF: Would you share their pessimism if you were in Congress right now?

MR. MONDALE: I -- I sympathize with it, but I think, you know, we need the Warren Rudmans, we need the Tim Wirths. We need them more than ever because of those problems. And we need candor and we need strength and this -- I think Bill Clinton will give us that.

MS. WOODRUFF: Just quickly, the last time we had a Southern nominee for President, a Democrat --

MR. MONDALE: I remember.

MS. WOODRUFF: -- he picked a liberal Senator from Minnesota. Who should Bill Clinton pick as his running mate?

MR. MONDALE: The best person in the country. I think he's free to do that, and more than ever now because there's going to be --

MS. WOODRUFF: No name?

MR. MONDALE: Well, no, I don't -- unless you're interested -- the contrast between a superb candidate for Vice President and the Republican incumbent I think will pick up votes for us every day.

MS. WOODRUFF: Mr. Vice President, we thank you for being with us.

MR. MONDALE: Thank you. ESSAY - ALL THAT JAZZ

MR. MacNeil: Finally tonight, Amei Wallach, art critic for New York Newsday, has an essay about an artist with an eye for jazz.

MS. WALLACH: In 1913, New York's armory show introduced the latest from Picasso and Matiste, not to mention old-timers Goghan and Van Gogh, to a broad American audience for the first time, and there wasn't an American painter worth a name who didn't snap to startled attention. But nobody reacted like the 20-year-old artist Stuart Davis. Davis became the first all American painter of the modernist era as the Metropolitan Museum of Art is reminding us in a spectacular traveling exhibition celebrating the centennial of his birth. Up till then he'd been painting the streets of his native Philadelphia and of New York with front page realism. But the armory show reminded him of what he really loved, jazz. The show he said, "Gave me the same kind of excitement I got from the numerical precision of the negro piano players. And I resolved that I would quite definitely have to become a modern artist." After that, like other American painters, he may have been willing to take hints from Van Gogh's color and the patterns of Matiste, but his real lessons in abstraction came from jazz. Let jazz tune your eye and you can see in the show how even in those early years when Stuart Davis was apprenticing himself to cubism, street smart rhythms interfered. He may have gotten his ideas about incorporating words and labels into his paintings from the French, but his words are brand names and they blare like trumpets. Like jazz, Stuart Davis has been eclipsed in more recent years by people who make louder noises. And now like jazz, Stuart Davis is making a comeback. In light of this show, a lot of art history is going to have to be rewritten. By 1927, Davis had left Picasso behind and invented his own boisterous version of cubism. As he told it, he nailed an electric fan,a rubber glove, and an egg beater to a table and used them as exclusive subject matter for one year. They're all but unrecognizable in the paintings in which flat colored planes curve, collide, bounce and thrust the way in a Duke Ellington arrangement a muted trumpet will cut through a sax solo, while symbols clash, and a clarinet trills into grace notes. By the depression, many artists were sloganeering about work and workers for the WPA. But Davis knew from swing that you get a worker's attention with rhythm and color, as much as storytelling. And his murals made abstractions out of street life. From then on, recognizable subject matter, including bananas, gas pumps, and Taminy Hall homburgs, slipped in and out of his work, but it wasn't the point. Louie Armstrong could blend Italian funeral dirges, the best of Don Philip Souza and the blues and shake them up. Davis did the same with surrealist squiggles and signs of a busy street in a painting about 7th Avenue style. His colors, he said, are used as the instruments in a musical composition might be, where the tone color variety results from the simultaneous juxtaposition of different instrument groups. In the forties, like bebop, is where it became more complicated. In paintings like "Anna," there's no single focus. In the mellow "Pad," tangled webs of layered colors, lines, planes, brilliantly chase one another every which way across the canvas. By the fifties, Stuart Davis was the grand master in his sixties for the retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. And then while he was making his most glorious painting, we simply stopped looking. He was no longer the undisputed champion, no matter what his paintings said. There were new, hotter styles in town. The problem was he was ahead of his time. His art pointed to the pop art of the sixties. He didn't seem to matter because the artists he influenced didn't matter, mostly because they were black, like Jacob Lawrence and Romar Bearden, long before most black artists were taken seriously. He gave jazz back to them and now the jazz revival and the Met are giving Stuart Davis back to us. I'm Amei Wallach. RECAP

MS. WOODRUFF: Again, the major stories of this Thursday, a jury in Miami convicted former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega on drug and racketeering charges. The Federal Reserve pumped more money into the banking system in an effort to lower interest rates, and Paul Tsongas said he would not resume his campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Judy. That's the NewsHour tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night with results and analysis of today's British elections. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.