The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, the day in Kosovo and at the NATO summit: A NewsMaker interview with British Prime Minister Tony Blair; political analysis by Mark Shields and Paul Gigot; and a conversation with Scott Berg, winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Charles Lindbergh. It all follows our summary of the news this Friday that includes an update of the Colorado school tragedy.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The leaders of NATO's 19 countries pledged to pursue their military objectives against Yugoslavia today. They did so at the summit in Washington to observe NATO's 50th anniversary. Their heavy agenda was topped by the Kosovo conflict, but it was to be lightened somewhat by rounds of celebrations, which will end on Sunday. We'll have full coverage of the summit and the day in Kosovo; plus, an interview with Tony Blair right after this News Summary. Investigators pursued more leads in Tuesday's shooting and bombing assault at a suburban Denver high school. Jeffrey Kaye has our report.

JEFFREY KAYE: In Littleton, Colorado, today, authorities released 911 emergency police tapes, tapes o frantic phone calls made by a teacher and a student inside Columbine High School as shootings broke out Tuesday.

911 DISPATCHER: Okay, I just want you to stay on the line with me. We need to know what's going on.

TEACHER: Okay.

911 DISPATCHER: Okay?

TEACHER: I am on the floor.

911 DISPATCHER: Okay. And you've got the kids there?

TEACHER: And I've got every student on the floor. On the floor everybody! Stay on the floor!

911 DISPATCHER: Why don't you go lock the doors?

TEACHER: Smoke is coming from out there. [Shotgun blasts] The gun is going off right outside my door, okay?

JEFFREY KAYE: Earlier, authorities said they are tracing the guns used in Tuesday's mass shooting.

STEVE DAVIS, Jefferson County Sheriff's Department: They have tracked the handgun and the rifle back to its original purchase. They know where those guns were purchased originally, however, they don't know how many times those guns have changed hands before getting to our suspects. The two shotguns that were involved in the incident, it is my understanding that ATF is still working on those. They are quite old.

JEFFREY KAYE: The guns were two semiautomatics, a hi-point nine-millimeter carbine, and an Intratec AB-10, as well as two American-made shotguns, both sawed off to increase the spread of the shot. The Sheriff's Department clarified details about the one propane bomb that was found yesterday.

STEVED DAVIS: I talked to one of the guys from the bomb team. He advised me it certainly would have created quite a bit of damage. But as far as leveling the whole school, I don't think that that one bomb would have done it.

JEFFREY KAYE: In their search for additional suspects, law enforcement officials are watching surveillance videos from the school and are questioning students, according to Jefferson County District Attorney Dave Thomas.

DAVE THOMAS: The estimate is that 500 interviews have already been conducted. But because people have been out conducting those interviews, there has been no opportunity to share information between those investigators about who they have interviewed. In a couple of instances, the same person has been interviewed two or three times but by different people.

JEFFREY KAYE: Thomas' office also said that suspects Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had gone through anger management training and counseling after they were arrested last year for criminal trespass. After they finished the program this February, the two got glowing reports. Of Harris, his counselor said: "Eric is a very bright young man who is likely to succeed in life. He is intelligent enough to achieve lofty goals as long as he stays on task and remains motivated. He should seek out more education at higher levels. He impressed me as being very articulate and intelligent." But fellow students said that despite good grades, Harris had not gotten into college. As for Dylan Klebold, the DA's office wrote: "Dylan is a bright young man who has a great deal of potential. If he is able to tap his potential and become self-motivated, he should do well in life. He is intelligent enough to make any dream a reality." Thomas said the programs the two attended are being rethought.

DAVE THOMAS: I know the diversion counselor in this case. He's my employee. He's a very dedicated, committed public servant. He's anguishing over what happened here. I'm very concerned about him. He did the best he could do, I believe. But we need to go back and reflect upon these programs, how we operate them, how effective they are. I believe many of them are very effective. But we have to do a better job.

JEFFREY KAYE: Thomas is looking for closer ties among community members.

DAVE THOMAS: I met Dan Rather for the first time last night and he said, "Dave, what are the answers? Why did this happen? Can you help me understand why this occurred?" And I said, "Mr. Rather, you're asking me? You've been in the news business since I was a kid. What are the answers?" He said, "I don't know." And I've heard that repeatedly from the national media and the international media. I've had the same question asked by reporters from New Zealand, Germany, Britain, all around the world, what's going on in America? You're the greatest nation on earth and this occurred in a suburban community in Colorado? So I've been spending a lot of my time reflecting on that. I'm talking about a partnership. I'm talking about a partnership between this community and this nation -- a partnership between the kids who are in this the school and who want something to do to help solve this problem. I've talked to most of the families in this case, and they said there has to be some meaning to this. This has to result in something.

JEFFREY KAYE: Columbine High remained closed today and it was far from business as usual at other area schools. At Alameda High in the nearby city of Lakewood, some students said they were afraid to be at school.

STUDENT: Parents are really scared to let their kids come to school. Parents are really, really scared. So are the kids.

STUDENT: I've talked to some people who said their parents didn't even want them to come to school today.

JEFFREY KAYE: Officials are not letting the news media inside area schools. There is increased security all around. At Alameda High, a patrol officer stops by more regularly and another police officer is assigned to the school full time.

JEFFREY KAYE: What's going on differently in terms of -

SPOKESMAN: Several things. One is the doors are being monitored and locked, other than some of the main entrances and the doors that the students need to go get in and out of their classrooms but otherwise the other doors are locked or being checked on a regular basis. Name tags are being given out to adults that are in the building that have come to help, or anybody that comes into the building is given a name tag so that we know that they've been checked in and monitored as to who is in the building.

JEFFREY KAYE: Students have mixed feelings about the stepped up police presence. Is that comforting?

STUDENT: Yes.

STUDENT: I think it's a little more comforting.

STUDENT: In a way but it's -

STUDENT: It's more scary to know that you have to have a cop at your school to be safe or even to be a little bit safe. They had cops at that school and they still, there are 14 people dead. It really doesn't matter. You can't really protect anybody from it because you never know when people are going to snap.

JEFFREY KAYE: So you just feel more vulnerable now?

STUDENT: Yes, definitely.

JEFFREY KAYE: This weekend, funerals and memorial services are planned for victims of the Littleton massacre. Vice President Gore is scheduled to attend one service on Sunday. Today, President Clinton announced that $1 1/2 million in federal funds will be available to help victims pay for funerals, medical expenses, lost wages, and counseling. Local authorities have announced that Columbine High School, the site of the killings, will reopen for class in the fall.

JIM LEHRER: Florida Governor Jeb Bush asked President Clinton today to declare emergencies in 67 counties. He wants federal funding to help the state deal with wildfires; 240,000 acres have burned this year. Forecasters predicted frequent rain next week; they also warned thunderstorms could bring lightning strikes, increasing the danger of fires. There is new evidence of a link between apes and humans. A skull, bones, and tools were dug up in Ethiopia dating back to two and a half million years. Researchers writing in today's issue of "Science" magazine think the fossils were of a new species that joins modern humans to primate ancestors. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to Kosovo and the NATO summit, Prime Minister Blair of Britain, Shields and Gigot, and the Pulitzer biography winner.

FOCUS - CAMPAIGN FOR KOSOVO

JIM LEHRER: Tom Bearden narrates our coverage of the day and the summit over Kosovo.

TOM BEARDEN: NATO wrecked the headquarters of Serbia's state television last night as viewers were watching a Houston television station's taped interview with President Slobodan Milosevic. Yugoslavian officials said ten people were killed and twenty were believed buried in the rubble. A TV station employee said when the bombs exploded, she fell through the floor of one studio into another one beneath it. The RTS Network was off the air for six hours, but is now back on the air. The European Broadcasting Union, made up of 68 broadcasters in 49 countries, expressed concerns about the attack. It noted the center had been used to transmit reports by international as well as local media, but NATO Spokesman Jamie Shea said RTS is a propaganda tool, not a news organization.

JAMIE SHEA: We had nothing against the media, but RTS is not media. It's full of government employees who are paid to produce propaganda and lies. To call it media is totally misleading. Its function is not to produce news and information; its function is to incite hatred and to distort reality, not to reflect reality, but to distort it. And therefore, we see that as a military target. It is the same thing as a military propaganda machine integrated into the armed forces. We would never target legitimate, free media. Let me make that point clear. But please, and I'm sure you're not doing this, do not confuse RTS with CNN Center in Atlanta, or BBC Milbank House, or La Masion De La Radio in Paris. They don't have anything at all in common.

TOM BEARDEN: At the Pentagon this morning, Spokesman Ken Bacon briefed reporters on last night's strike missions over Yugoslavia. Sea-launched Cruise missiles struck two electric power transformers in Belgrade last night, marking what some viewed as an escalation of the air campaign.

KENNETH BACON: It is a new class of targets, and the philosophy behind this was that these were dual-use facilities that powered command and control and other military facilities in the area.

REPORTER: Ken, are you increasingly going after what's going to more directly affect the civilian population?

KENNETH BACON: The reason that these were selected was because we believe that they are directly tied to powering command and control centers and other parts of the military infrastructure.

TOM BEARDEN: Earlier this week, NATO claimed to have destroyed Yugoslavia's capacity to refine petroleum, and Yugoslavia said that's caused an ecological catastrophe. In a letter to the UN, the Yugoslav foreign minister said attacks on chemical, oil, and pharmaceutical industries have released huge quantities of hazardous substances and that thousands of Yugoslavs have been forced to seek medical assistance.

SPOKESPERSON: The right honorable Tony Blair, prime minister -

TOM BEARDEN: This afternoon the NATO summit meeting in Washington got underway. What was originally planned as a 50th anniversary celebration of the founding of the alliance has turned into a three-day meeting on the Kosovo conflict. NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana welcomed the leaders to the opening session.

JAVIER SOLANA: The founding fathers of this alliance would be proud of what we have done and what we are doing. Fifty years after its creation, the Atlantic Alliance continues to demonstrate that for us, values have meaning. Even half a century after its founding, NATO remains a community that faces up to challenges. And this is the central message of our anniversary summit, a message that will reinforce the many initiatives that this historic meeting will generate, a message worthy of our Atlantic community. Thank you very much. [applause]

TOM BEARDEN: President Clinton told the leaders that after having won the Cold War, the Alliance is now facing new challenges.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: As we look to the future, we know that for the first time in history we have a chance to build a Europe truly undivided, peaceful, and free. But we know there are challenges to that vision in the fragility of new democracies, in the proliferation of deadly weapons and terrorism, and surely in the awful specter of ethnic cleansing in Southeast Europe, where Mr. Milosevic -- first in Croatia and Slovenia, then in Bosnia, now in Kosovo -- has inflamed ancient hatreds to gain and maintain his power. He is bent on dehumanizing -- indeed, destroying -- a whole people and their culture and in the process driving his own people to deep levels of distress. But we are fundamentally there because the alliance will not have meaning in the 21st century if it permits the slaughter of innocents on its doorstep. This is not a question of territorial conquest or political domination, but standing for the values that made NATO possible in the first place.

TOM BEARDEN: The NATO leaders signed a joint statement at the conclusion of their three-hour private session this morning, reaffirming NATO's determination to prevail against Milosevic. It did not mention the possibility of sending ground troops into battle, a subject on which alliance leaders are divided. Late this afternoon, German Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder told reporters the issue of whether to send ground troops to Kosovo had been taken off NATO's agenda. Protesters opposed to NATO's air strikes gathered at the Washington Monument. They want NATO to stop bombing and seek a peaceful resolution in Kosovo. On the diplomatic front, Russia's Balkan envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin said he expected to meet with NATO representatives tomorrow to build on what he hailed as a breakthrough in negotiations. Chernomyrdin met with President Milosevic yesterday and announced afterward that Yugoslavia had agreed to the deployment of foreign troops in Kosovo. But Belgrade later said it had discussed only a possible unarmed UN presence in the province. Western leaders dismissed the Yugoslav offer as inadequate. Living conditions for refugees along Kosovo's southern borders remain arduous. US officials have outlined the start of a long-term food aid plan for the Balkans. The open-ended commitment is expected to meet about 70 percent of the needs of a refugee population that could eventually reach 1.6 million people.

NEWSMAKER

JIM LEHRER: Our interview with the Prime Minister of Britain, Tony Blair. I talked with him this morning at his hotel in Washington.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Prime Minister, welcome. Is it correct to say that you now believe ground troops should be used in Kosovo?

TONY BLAIR, British Prime Minister: The position as I have set it out in the last few days is the same as the Secretary-General of NATO, Mr. Solana, which is that we should plan and assess all options, but the air campaign continues and it's important that we make it effective.

JIM LEHRER: Now, the air campaign has essentially not worked, has it?

TONY BLAIR: No, I don't believe that's right. I think it is possible to exaggerate both ways on this, and I think the sensible position is to look at the damage that has been done by the air campaign. I mean, half the top aircraft of Milosevic are down. His air defenses are down. His oil refineries and oil depots have been hugely hit. His lines of communication, his lines of supply have been badly affected. His whole command and control center, his military infrastructure has been targeted and badly hit. We are getting after people on the ground now. We're hitting tanks and artillery and people on the ground in Kosovo. If you're asking me, does it still have some way to go, the answer is yes. But it certainly wouldn't be correct to say it hasn't been effective.

JIM LEHRER: But it has not been effective in accomplishing what NATO wanted to accomplish, has it, which was to end ethnic cleansing? Wasn't that the number one priority?

TONY BLAIR: Yes it was, but remember this - I mean, it isn't over yet -- number one. But number two - irrespective of the argument about ground troops -- it's terribly important people realize this -- we would be in an air campaign at this stage in any event because of the time it takes to assemble such a force. So this is where we would be. This is where we have to be and the only way of reversing ethnic cleansing, which we must do, is to make sure that this policy is successful.

JIM LEHRER: Did you personally believe that it would go this far, that Milosevic would hang in there for four weeks after this bombing campaign?

TONY BLAIR: Oh, I think nobody who has watched the detail of the negotiation in the months leading up to this was in any doubt that it wasn't going to happen overnight. Indeed, I said in my very first statement to the House of Commons before the NATO action began, I said we've got to prepare for the long term; this isn't going to happen overnight. And, you know people, because there's such focus on this now -- for the politicians involved, we've been focused on this for really six months or so before this action began because we threatened action back in October last year. He backed down. We then had a further whole process of negotiation where we were going the extra mile to try and get a diplomatic solution precisely because we knew this man is unpredictable, he's a dictator, and he's done some very terrible things before. So, this is not totally unforeseeable.

JIM LEHRER: Why was the ground forces option not on the table from the very beginning?

TONY BLAIR: It wasn't practical because you'd have to have the air campaign in any event, and it is important that we make this air campaign effective, that we don't lose focus on that.

JIM LEHRER: But why was it not on the table? In other words, why were you and President Clinton and other NATO leaders saying, "No, no, no, we're not going to introduce ground forces?" Why was it not there as a threat behind the air campaign from the beginning?

TONY BLAIR: Well, as we said right from the very beginning, we always anticipated using ground forces in order to go in and police a settlement. But, what again we've said for a significant period of time is that, you know, we plan and have all options under review. But the air campaign was our chosen -- and in my view the right -- method of getting this campaign underway and doing the damage that we needed to do to Milosevic. And significant damage has actually been done.

JIM LEHRER: But isn't there a practical -- wasn't there a practical political element here too that you all have been, at least publicly, unwilling to acknowledge that NATO - the 19 countries of NATO -- would not have supported that at the very beginning and you had to take it one step at a time, is that correct?

TONY BLAIR: Well, that is not the reason because the reason, as I gave you, is that we are going to do the air campaign.

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

TONY BLAIR: But you're right, of course, we do have to take the NATO countries with us. We are an alliance. But I also think that just a few days into this campaign, the whole mood towards it changed in this sense. The question my public opinion asked - and people, people like yourself asked me in Britain -- during the first few days was "Was this campaign justified?" After seeing what Milosevic did to the refugees, I don't think people asked that question anymore. The question they now ask is "Is it effective?" And we have to make sure that it is effective, and that's the purpose of carrying through the missions we're doing and intensifying the campaign.

JIM LEHRER: So, the politics, and I'm talking about public opinion politics, the other countries of NATO politics, they were not there for ground troops at the beginning but they are now as a result of the air campaign and the ethnic cleansing that has continued. Is that a correct statement of what happened?

TONY BLAIR: Well, I wouldn't say so actually, no, because what I think happened actually was that we had to conduct the air campaign in any event. And all that people are saying is that we've got to keep all options under review and that is sensible to do. And we can see from the policy of ethnic cleansing now how huge, how massive the justification is for taking the action we have. And all people like myself are saying, as I said a couple of days ago in the House of Commons, is Milosevic isn't going to have veto over NATO action.

JIM LEHRER: Are the people of Great Britain ready to send their young people to die on the ground in Kosovo?

TONY BLAIR: Well, we take risks the moment we start any form of military campaign - even with our air crews. I mean, they are risking their lives every night. And, look, nobody wants to be in this situation. Nobody wants to be in this conflict, but as I again said right at the very beginning, we have a simple choice. We either stand aside and let this man conduct a policy effectively of racial genocide in a part of Europe or we say "I'm afraid we're not going to allow that. We are going to act." And I think people understand that. And even when something terrible happens -- as you know, the bombing of the civilian convoy that happened -- and it's a terrible thing because, of course, we do not mean to harm civilians at all. I think people understand that in a conflict, in a war such as this, people, including innocent people, die. But the choice is still the same. We either act or we don't, and the person responsible for every single piece of misery and pain inflicted in this conflict is Milosevic.

JIM LEHRER: The bombing, the most recent target that has gotten the most publicity is the bombing of the television station in Belgrade. What was the point of that?

TONY BLAIR: We have to target his military machine and the whole apparatus of power, of dictatorship of Milosevic and the state-controlled media is one part of that. And I think it is a right and justified target for us. Remember, this is a -- this again is something I think people have to understand during the course of this conflict. And especially when, you know, you've been asking me about ground forces and are we putting ground troops in, and we are expected as political leaders to discuss almost every aspect of strategy and tactics in an open way. I'm being interviewed by you here and other people in Britain and around the world. Milosevic isn't conducting that type of campaign. It is a dictatorship. His whole network of power is based on giving the top businesses to his friends. It's based on giving special privileged positions to his family. He has amassed a huge personal wealth on the backs of the people of Serbia, and he has this dictatorship in place through things like the state-run media, and we've got to be prepared to tackle that whole apparatus of power and really bring it home to him and also to say to the Serbian people "Our quarrel is not with you, it's with the man who has conducted the most appalling campaign of killing and brutality in your name."

JIM LEHRER: President Clinton has been criticized in this country - either rightly or wrongly - for being involved in selecting targets. As a practical matter did you clear the bombing of the television station in Belgrade? Is that the kind of thing the political leaders of NATO are doing?

TONY BLAIR: Now, I think it's very important people understand this. Of course, there is a process because it's an alliance that people go through, but I believe that the politicians, of course, set the parameters of any campaign, but we've got to allow our military people to get on with the job and that's important to do.

JIM LEHRER: So you're not signing off on targets?

TONY BLAIR: Well, there is a process that we go through, but if you're saying to me do I sit there and pour over every target, that's not my job, that's the guys that I have in the military to do that. My job is to get out there and make sure that the overall strategy of the campaign is right and that we are giving our military people every backup they need in order to make sure it's effective.

JIM LEHRER: But the strategy that you outlined a moment ago about getting to the dictatorship through public opinion and through his television station, this is in keeping with the policy that you political leaders set, correct?

TONY BLAIR: Oh, absolutely, it is important that we get through to his whole apparatus of power.

JIM LEHRER: In other words, you were not surprised and said "Oh, my goodness, we bombed the Belgrade television station." You knew that was going to happen?

TONY BLAIR: No, we certainly knew that these things were legitimate targets - absolutely. And they are legitimate targets.

JIM LEHRER: Now the -- much as has been said about you and other NATO leaders, including President Clinton, of being of a generation that was anti-war when you were younger, now actually running this war. Are you comfortable with that?

TONY BLAIR: Well, I've never been anti-war if the war is justified. And my father fought in the Second World War, and I hope very much if I had been his age at the time I would have been doing the same, so I don't have any difficulty in saying you need sometimes to use force and when you are against a bloody dictator who is engaged in a policy of racial genocide, then I believe force is necessary. I think what people, in a sense, mean is that you know this is a different generation that hasn't had to face a situation like this before. Well, no we haven't. And, my goodness, we tried to avoid it as responsibly we should, and anybody who thinks -- I mean sometimes I read things of people saying, "oh well, they, you know, watch every opinion poll and decide what they can do and what they can't do and, you know, or that we sit there bedazzled by the technology of modern warfare." Look, when I put young men's lives at risk, as I am doing, I do it with a very, very heavy heart and a great sense of responsibility and I have no doubt at all that your President does the same and every prime minister and president involved in this conflict. But we do have a choice. I mean, there aren't any easy options. The options in the end are - you let him do it or you try and stop him. And my view is we have to stop him.

JIM LEHRER: And this, of course, is a new thing for NATO. NATO is a defensive organization set up to protect the West from the Soviet Union. This is an offensive move by NATO. You are at ease with that?

TONY BLAIR: Yes, I am. But you are quite right in pointing out it is -- it is an extension of NATO's role. It is a development of NATO. I said in the speech I gave in Chicago last night that at a later stage it is important that we reflect on the lessons of all this, but I think that NATO has changed since the end of the Cold War, and a lot of the humanitarian missions that we have undertaken and the work that we've done is of a different nature from what people envisaged when after the war, people from Britain and the United States and elsewhere established NATO. That is how institutions evolve.

JIM LEHRER: I read your speech yesterday in Chicago as well. Are you essentially -- is it correct to say what you're saying is that in this new world, this new generation that we are in, post Cold War, that you and the other leaders of NATO or of the civilized world - however you want to describe it - are going to say that's not acceptable, Mr. Milosevic, that's not acceptable Mr. Whoever, whatever, and you will -- you have the right to intervene in internal affairs of countries or whatever affairs of countries if you decide what they are doing doesn't meet your high standards?

TONY BLAIR: I'm saying that we shouldn't interfere in every conflict and the principle of non-interference in the affairs of another state is a very sound principle. But I'm saying there are circumstances - racial genocide, where our strategic interests are dramatically engaged, circumstances where we've exhausted every diplomatic solution, circumstances where we have the capability to act - that we do have to think of what I call a doctrine of international community where we are prepared to act, where we are prepared to take a lead, and I think I'm trying to say something more than that; I'm also saying that it is important both with the globalization of economics, of the environment, of issues like third world debt and of security and disarmament issues that we don't focus whenever there is a crisis, but lose focus when there isn't, and that we realize that there are certain issues that we have to remain focused and engaged with the whole time because this is the world in which we live, and our national interests are more dependent on international cooperation today than every before, certainly even at the time when NATO was established.

JIM LEHRER: So that would mean then, success in Kosovo is absolutely paramount, is it not, if this is going to be an example of the future, it has to work?

TONY BLAIR: It does have to work. I have no doubt about that at all, because -- it is the same with the action that we took against Saddam. Many people criticized it. I believe if Saddam had been allowed to develop chemical, nuclear, biological weapons and we had stood aside and said well, you can carry on doing that, then at some point we would have had to have dealt with a resurgent Iraq under a leader who was a dictator, utterly ruthless, prepared to wage war on his neighbors. Now, we took action there. And as a result, he is back constrained again. So I think it is important that we are prepared to act, and you are quite right, Kosovo has to be successful forus. But we're doing it because it is the right thing to do.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Prime Minister, thank you very much.

TONY BLAIR: Thank you.

FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

JIM LEHRER: Shields and Gigot and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: For end-of-the-week analysis, we turn to our NewsHour regulars, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, "Wall Street Journal" columnist Paul Gigot.

Paul, we just heard Prime Minister Blair talk about this new generation, and this is a theme of his, he, President Clinton, the German chancellor all part of. Is there something new do you think about their leadership style, about the way the generation of leaders is prosecuting this war?

PAUL GIGOT: Well, it's fascinating, Margaret. What's new about them, of course, they are all younger and they're all part of the Vietnam generation, and at least among the big leaders, Blair, Clinton, Schroeder of Germany, they are all anti-war. They were all anti-Vietnam. What is fascinating - remarkable, I think, and maybe a little bit disconcerting is that they are all making some of the mistakes in office of the leaders they criticized back in Vietnam, the gradualism, the relying on bombing alone, that sort of thing, the gradual escalation, the sending of modulated messages to Milosevic. So if they are trying to send those messages, I don't know. They are the new generation, maybe they should go back and think about some of the older leaders like George Bush and Franklin Roosevelt.

MARGARET WARNER: World war II generation, you mean. Do you see them as different?

MARK SHIELDS: I do see them as different. And I see them as different, Clinton and Blair as being quite different as well. Vietnam was an American war. It was not a British war. It was not a German war. It was a war fought by the sons of America's secretaries and steelworkers, her cops and her waitresses. The well connected, the well off and the well educated were encouraged to avoid their obligation to defend their country. Bill Clinton, although he was the son of a nurse, fell in that second category. And Tony Blair doesn't have to live with the same sort of embarrassing personal history that Clinton and so many of his Republican colleagues, the leaders of the Congress have as well to this day. For Clinton it is a different problem than it is for -- Tony Blair doesn't carry the same sort of baggage about. What I found most compelling, I have to admit, in Jim's interview and his other interviews and speeches in this country is Tony Blair makes a far stronger case for intervention and involvement and suppressing and stopping the brutality of Milosevic than has been made by any of the leaders of this country.

PAUL GIGOT: I do agree with that. The striking thing to me about this is that what we're seeing is Europe is leading right now. I mean Blair and France are now making the argument first for ground troops, not that they need to be introduced right away but that they are changing the policy slowly. The President is following on that. Blair, this week talked about getting rid of Milosevic. It's not firm policy yet but that was challenged by Secretary of State Albright. So you can see that Blair is setting the agenda here. And that's a reversal of what happened in the first 50 years of NATO. It was usually an American president leading a reluctant Europe to challenge the Soviet Union on missile deployments, for example, in Europe, that sort of thing; this is a reversal of that.

MARGARET WARNER: So how do you explain it, Mark? Do you think it's in their personal history, or just in their style? What is it?

MARK SHIELDS: I think, again, there is a difference between Vietnam and this. I mean, this is 19 nations. The United States is the big kid on the block and I think there is a certain tentativeness that Bill Clinton has shown in his public utterances for fear that the others in their own, all politics is local and every one of those leaders faces the charge that he is America's vassal, he's America's errand boy. So I think that's part of it. But I also think that what Tony Blair does is he casts it in moral terms. He talks about genocide knows no borders. You can't say that this is a matter of autonomous political activity and nobody has the right to intrude. He said that this brutality and murder must be stopped on the continent of Europe, that a dictator cannot use these tools to keep himself in power against his own people. That is clear. And what is interesting, politically why it works, is I talked to Peter Hart, the "Wall Street Journal" pollster and a long time pollster in this country and Bill Clinton had fallen in public favor since their last "Wall Street Journal" survey, of public support. And he pointed out to me, he said every time the war is thought of in terms of what is right and what is moral, the American people respond to it. When they start talking about Apache helicopters not getting there or 300 more sorties having been flown or can the 70-ton tank be transported, then we get into tactics. And you noticed that Tony Blair, even when Jim pushed him, went from tactics and came right back to this is our task, this is our mission. This is what we must face, history's mandates.

MARGARET WARNER: But, I mean, those are - the President strikes a lot of those themes, doesn't he, the humanitarian ones, the morality ones?

PAUL GIGOT: He does. I think he definitely tries to. It may be a question that he is not as forthright. It may be, as Mark suggests, some of the personal baggage that makes him less eager to do it. But there is no question that I think this is a case where the President's preoccupation with polls hurts him because it's clear that they are looking at -- they are polling this all the time, Margaret, as the President does on everything, and they are seeing that ground troops are not something that the country is dying for. Frankly, the public is moving a little bit ahead of the politicians on that. But the public is wary quite naturally and the President is not willing to lead to get out of ahead of that and make the case for ground troops. Now, what is interesting in the polling, as Mark pointed out, is that the President's dropped 8 percentage point over all, 10 percentage points on foreign policy in a month. And as those polls fall, I think because people believe that the war really isn't going that well, I think you may see the President decide he has to go to ground troops in order to salvage the war and salvage his Presidency.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think the politics of the ground troops issue has shifted at all in the last week, say in Congress?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, if Congress -- if Bill Clinton fails to lead, I mean, the Congress are invertebrate lumps, as far as I'm concerned. They've shown absolutely no courage. The Republican leadership, the Democratic leadership, they just haven't been there. They've disappeared. Margaret, we went through Vietnam and the Congress at that time preferred that it be known as Johnson's war, and then they preferred to be known as Nixon's war. Now this Congress is happy -- I'm not saying all Democrats are but the Republicans certainly are -- that it be Clinton's war. It is seen as Clinton's war, not seen as America's war. But I think what you are seeing is a lot of posturing, a lot of fudging, a lot of phony, a lot of backing and filling and it's just really unimpressive. I've seen no leadership from the Congress.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think it would be different -- speaking of generations -- if Bob Dole were still Majority Leader?

PAUL GIGOT: I think it would be. I do believe it would be. I also think it frankly would be if Newt Gingrich were still Speaker. I heard Newt Gingrich last week give a speech on, among other things, Kosovo. And he was forthright in saying that in backing an aggressive action and more or less with the John McCain position of now that we're in it, let's win it. So leadership does matter. But this group in Congress has decided that they are not going to take responsibility for this. And ground troops if the President asks for ground troops and makes the case for clearly having war aims, that he can justify, I think he can get that. But the Republicans do not want to have their fingerprints on it. They are not profiles in courage, that's for sure.

MARK SHIELDS: Margaret, it comes down too -- really, we've learned from painful national experience that the strength of any nation is reflected and determined by the willingness of that nation to show resolve and commitment and to stand, at the price of individual sacrifice, for the common good. I mean, that's the kind of debate we need. It's more than just whether Congress is going to be responsible. We need a debate on where we are as a country. I mean, are we willing to spend another dime a gallon for gas to pay for this; are we willing to forgo our COLA increases, or our tax breaks, or whatever else - what are we willing to do? Are we just going to stand on the sidelines and watch our planes? I mean, I think that's what we're talking about now.

PAUL GIGOT: This is a debate, though, that has to be led from the President. It has to be.

MARK SHIELDS: I agree but we need it in the country, not simply in the Congress.

MARGARET WARNER: But a mark of -- don't you think of these new leaders or this new generation is --and you even see it in Tony Blair's article say in "NewsWeek", they really want, if there either a casualty-free war or a very low casualty war. I mean, you can't imagine giving Churchill the answer to Jim's question about whether, you know, British families are willing to send their sons then to die that Tony Blair did.

MARK SHIELDS: Well, think yes, that is a part of it. I mean for one thing this is not a war of national survival. I mean Churchill was talking about a war of national survival. Franklin Roosevelt was talking about a war of national survival. But, I mean, I think what we have to face in this country and what has to be confronted is we all share the blessings of this country. Now are we all going to share the burdens? Or is it just going to be a few soldiers, a few Marines, a few Air Corps people, all of whom are enlistees and it seems to be a pervasively cynical attitude in this town about you volunteered -- shut up and go fight and maybe die. And, boy, that's a lousy, lousy attitude.

MARGARET WARNER: What do you think about the casualty-free -

PAUL GIGOT: It's a disconnect between ends and means. The President wants to make it a great moral cause. He doesn't want to use the means to achieve that end. In the "NewsWeek" article that Tony Blair mentioned he said one of the reasons we can't have ground troops is that the refugees would be at the mercy of Milosevic. What have they been thelast three weeks? But they don't want to bite the bullet of the political difficulty of the ground war. That's why, I think, John McCain, Chuck Hagel and some of these other people deserve credit for being forthright about what the costs of this are. And I agree with Mark that a debate on this is very, very welcome; it's necessary but the President has to lead this. There is no question about that.

MARGARET WARNER: But do you think it reflects that the President, that the political leadership doesn't really think the American public is ready to do this or is willing to sacrifice?

MARK SHIELDS: I think that's what it is and I think it has to be put in terms of sacrifice. Not that we're cheering for the home team or something, and we're going to waive penance, but just what are we willing to do, what are we willing to do as a people collectively in this case? By the way there is just one point that we kind of passed over. I don't know if the war is going that bad. I mean -- I think it's always sobering, as it must have been for Mr. Milosevic, to have a bomb hit where you keep your toothbrush. I think that's unsettling and I don't think it was totally disconnected in cause and time to the fact that we then got the peace feeler. And I certainly hope now that we don't, at this point, scurry to some totally unsatisfactory resolution.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Thanks very much. Have a good weekend.

CONVERSATION - PRIZE WINNER

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, the last of our conversations with winners of this year's Pulitzer Prizes, and to Elizabeth Farnsworth in San Francisco.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The biography award this year went to A. Scott Berg for his book about Charles A. Lindbergh. It begins with Lindbergh's 1927 non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic. "For more than a day the world held its breath," Berg writes, and then he unfolds, in a work of 628 pages, the story of Lindbergh in all his triumph and tragedy. Scott Berg has also written biographies of the editor, Max Perkins, and Hollywood's Samuel Goldwyn. Thank you for being with us and congratulations.

A. SCOTT BERG, Pulitzer Prize, Biography: Thank you very much. A pleasure to be here.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: After Perkins and Goldwyn, why Lindbergh?

A. SCOTT BERG: I felt it was one of the great untold stories of the 20th century, and also it was about as far as I could get from Sam Goldwyn, I think. I've tried to find something different with each book, try to explore a different aspect of 20th century American culture with each biography, and Lindbergh, I thought, was a great window onto the 20th century, the great American century.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Why great untold story? I would have thought it's one of the most told stories.

A. SCOTT BERG: Well, I think it has been told a lot, but I think it's been told wrong, and that's largely because Lindbergh, himself, left hundreds -- literally thousands of boxes of papers that he asked be locked up for some 50 years after his wife's death, and she is still around. She's alive and well, thank you very much. And so I think the story had never been told really accurately, and basically all of the books that had been written about Lindbergh heretofore were really based on press clippings or just stories, just legends. And I wanted to pin down the facts, and --

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And you had access to those papers, right?

A. SCOTT BERG: I had access to Mrs. Lindbergh and their five children and the papers, and much of the other -- rest of the family -- Lindbergh family friends, and that, I thought, enabled me to fleshout the details and really get the story straight.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: All right. Let's go through the story. I was struck with your description of Lindbergh's grace under pressure in his earliest flying days. In fact, we have a picture from the book of those days -- the barnstorming days -- when he was really one of the earliest pioneers of aviation. Tell us something about that.

A. SCOTT BERG: Well, he was, and look at these airplanes. I mean, these planes were put together with spit, really. The early commercial aviation days -- the fliers were flying World War I surplus planes, some which were outdated by the end of the war, in fact. So it was a great adventure. It was really pretty thrilling stuff. There was a great camaraderie in the skies. Lindbergh, himself, these were the happiest days of flying for him, because it's before the planes were enclosed, and the pilots really felt they were at one with the air, and this was most thrilling for Lindbergh. In fact, as time went on and as airplanes got more sophisticated, aviation interested him less and less.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And you write that the instant when he landed in Paris, after his solo flight across the Atlantic, "Everything changed for both the pilot and the planet." Explain that.

A. SCOTT BERG: Well, it's true, because it was an amazing intersection of two revolutions actually -- this moment when Lindbergh landed in Paris in May of 1927 was not only a great moment in the revolution in transportation -- I mean, here was an airplane that for the first time could connect the two major cities of Europe and North America -- but also there was a great revolution going on in the world of communications. This was a moment when radio was everywhere in the civilized world, when newspaper syndicates could spread the word everywhere, when cable processes could send photographs around the world in a matter of minutes, and, indeed, for the first time, sound was being attached to motion pictures, so it's really the first time that the entire civilized world could share a single event instantaneously and simultaneously. And, there at the center of it is this 25 year old boy, the all American boy, looking 19 years old -- looking like a movie star.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And of course he became the first world celebrity, in a way, very, very wealthy, and this affected forever his relationship with his wife, Ann Morrow Lindbergh, a writer, somebody of fame in her own right but who had trouble finding her way in his shadow.

A. SCOTT BERG: Yes. I think that's true. When they met, Ann Morrow, an ambassador's daughter, was still in college; she was still attending Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and Lindbergh was the most eligible bachelor on earth, the handsome aviator. They had three or four dates quite secretly; they really had to go to great lengths to escape the press. And miraculously on the fourth date Charles Lindbergh proposed marriage and even more miraculously she accepted. And it was an interesting marriage. It was one of great contrast in some ways but some great similarities in others. I think they were both extremely modest and shy people, and I think that drew them to each other, and at the same time, Lindbergh had a great impact on Ann Morrow Lindbergh. I think it was he who really forged her into becoming a feminist.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And of course his -- I'm sorry for interrupting -- his fame and wealth cost them their firstborn child.

A. SCOTT BERG: Well, I think it did.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In a sense, I mean.

A. SCOTT BERG:I think in manyways. She, in fact, grew up with a great deal of money, Ann Morrow Lindbergh. Charles Lindbergh, himself, made about a million dollars after his flight -- this is in 1927 when you really could keep all of it and it really bought you a lot. And, indeed, the money and the fame, the fact that the Lindberghs' new dream house, photographs were being published in the newspapers, maps how to get there were published; they became a really easy target. So I think -- I know Lindbergh always blamed his fame, always blamed the press to a great degree for the kidnapping and subsequent killing of his child.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Much of your book is about Lindbergh's relationship with Germany, pre-war Germany. We have a picture actually of him with Hitler's number 2 man, Hermann Goering, from the book. Tell us a little bit about his relationship with Germany in that period and what led to his -- his being such a spokesman for what was called the America First Movement, which was a movement to stay out of war with Germany.

A. SCOTT BERG: Yes. I think this is the most interesting aspect of Lindbergh's life, and, indeed, of the book.

The Lindberghs, after the kidnapping and the trial, there was so much hysteria surrounding them, they just had to leave America, especially when they began to receive death threats against their second child, and they traveled all over Europe. They lived in England on a little island off the coast of France, they traveled around Czechoslovakia and Russia, they went as far as India, and everywhere the world was falling apart. It was the depths of this great economic and indeed emotional depression around the world, and then Lindbergh arrived in Germany, where everything seemed to work, where they were -- industrialization was up, unemployment was down -- they were building this fabulous new air force, the Luftwaffe. What most people didn't realize at the time and which many people don't realize to this day is that Lindbergh was actually there at the invitation of the American embassy.

The US embassy in Berlin was so anxious about this growing Luftwaffe, but we had very few details. And they had a great idea. They thought, "I'll bet if we bring somebody like Charles Lindbergh over here, the Germans would be so eager to show off what they have, Lindbergh, or whomever, could really send back detailed reports." And that's exactly what Lindbergh did. He paid six visits to Germany between 1936 and 1939, and during that time, he was able to inspect not just the aircraft, but the factories themselves, and send very detailed reports back to Washington on the strength, on the power, of the Luftwaffe.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You include many quotes in your book from Lindbergh that leave little doubt that he was, it seems to me, anti-Semitic. He talks about a "western wall of race and arms--" speaks of inferior blood. He refers to Jews as -- American Jews -- as having interests different from "ours." Did you end up with the belief that he was anti-Semitic?

A. SCOTT BERG: Well, I do believe he was anti-Semitic in ways that even he didn't realize he was anti-Semitic. I ask a lot of Jewish friends and a lot of my own family what their definition of an anti-Semite is, and some of them just very readily say "Somebody who hates Jews." And I say "if that's your definition, I don't believe Charles Lindbergh was an anti-Semite." I don't believe he hated Jews. Indeed, he did help some Jews get out of Nazi Germany, and indeed he did have some Jewish friends. At the same time, I think he was guilty of that other, more genteel kind of anti-Semitism, which is in some ways more insidious, because it is covert. And Lindbergh really was one of those who didn't realize he was anti-Semitic, but he did believe they were different from the rest of Americans. He believed they controlled the media and the government in this country. He believed they had their own agenda that was different from the American agenda. And that's just -- that's just anti-Semitism, neat and clean.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Berg, the rest of your book-- I wish we had time to discuss it all-- but you go through his rehabilitation after the war, the way that he won people's respect during the war, and as an environmentalist, one of the world's leading environmentalists before he died. In the end, I was very conflicted about him. I found that I was very drawn to him in some ways, and that I disliked him intensely in other ways. And I figure that must be because that's the way you felt yourself, and I picked that up. Is that true?

A. SCOTT BERG:I think that's entirely accurate. I think one has to be conflicted about him. Heretofore, I think most people have felt he was either this great god, or he was the devil. I think he's something in-between. I think he was a very flawed human being, who, at the same time, lived an utterly unique, fascinating life. I don't know of a soul who packed more living into 72 years than Charles Lindbergh did. I mean, he really spanned so many interests and so many movements in this country, across the century.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, Mr. Berg, thank you so very much for being with us, and congratulations again.

A. SCOTT BERG: Thanks.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Friday: Leaders of 19 NATO countries marked the 50th anniversary of the alliance in Washington. They held talks on Kosovo and vowed to fight until Yugoslav President Milosevic yields to their demands. And in Littleton, Colorado, investigators explored whether Tuesday's shooting and bombing assault at a local high school was a conspiracy. Tapes of emergency 911 calls from the school were released. We'll see you online, and again here Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.