The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

GWEN IFILL: Good evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Jim Lehrer is on vacation. On the NewsHour tonight, after the day's news: A look at the latest breach in airline security; an update on Afghanistan's three-day-old government; Haynes Johnson, Michael Beschloss, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Richard Norton Smith, and Roger Wilkins with perspectives on Presidential power; high school scientists reaching for a prize; and an essay on coping with grief. It all follows our summary of the news this Christmas Eve Monday.

NEWS SUMMARY

GWEN IFILL: A man who allegedly tried to detonate explosives in his shoes on a transatlantic flight made his first court appearance today. A federal magistrate in Boston ordered him held pending a bail hearing this coming Friday. The man was tentatively identified as British national Richard Reid. He was subdued Saturday on a flight from Paris. It was bound for Miami, but diverted to Boston. The incident caused new screening at airports in the U.S. and Europe. In Afghanistan today, interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai moved to shore up support for his three-day-old government. He named a prominent northern warlord, Rashid Dostum, deputy defense minister. Dostum had complained that key jobs went to rival tribes. In the East, a tribal commander said, his fightershad nearly finished searching the caves around Tora Bora. He said there was no need for additional U.S. troops there. The U.S. military said last week it would send in additional forces to intensify the search. Israel today barred Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from going to Bethlehem for Christmas Eve observances. The Israelis demanded he first arrest the men who killed an Israeli cabinet minister in October. An Israeli military blockade has kept Arafat confined to his headquarters in Ramallah. He said today the travel ban was criminal, and spokesmen on both sides blamed the other for the impasse.

RAANAN GISSIN, Israeli Spokesman: People must make a decision clearly. Are they for peace, for freedom or are they for terrorism? You can't have the freedom of going to participate in a mass and having the Christian world bestow legitimacy on you when you're harboring murderers and terrorists.

NABIL ABURDEINEH, Palestinian Spokesman: It's an illegal action, and the Israeli government is challenging the world community, challenging the religious community, challenging all the ethics.

GWEN IFILL: Later, Palestinian gunmen wounded a Jewish settler on the West Bank. A militia group said it was retaliation for the ban on Arafat's travel. And in Bethlehem, the mood was somber. Only a few hundred people turned out for midnight services in Manger Square, where tradition says Jesus was born. India and Pakistan exchanged mortar and machinegun fire along their border in disputed Kashmir today. Tensions have mounted since guerrillas attacked the Indian parliament December 13. India blamed militants based in Pakistan. And today, the Pakistani government froze the assets of two groups with alleged ties to terrorists. Argentina's interim President said today he would appeal to the U.S. and Spain for an infusion of cash. Adolfo Rodriguez Saa took office Sunday after rioting over economic austerity measures brought down his predecessor. The new government suspended payments on $132 billion in foreign debt. And it made plans to print a new currency, despite warnings that this would lead to hyperinflation.

FOCUS - SECURITY BREACH

GWEN IFILL: Explosives turn up on a transatlantic airliner. We begin with this report from Betty Ann Bowser.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Airports across America and around the world responded to this weekend's scare with tighter security today. Passengers waited in long lines while their shoes were screened by x-ray machines to detect the possibility of any explosives. That came after the Federal Aviation Administration ordered U.S. airports and airlines to be more vigilant when it came to screening shoes.

PASSENGER: Well, I bought my ticket at the check-in, and it's a one-way ticket, and since I bought it right when I was checking in, they took my bags down to the private screening room and x- rayed my bags, and they thought my boots were explosives.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The heightened security came one day after this passenger tried to ignite what may have been plastic explosives hidden in his shoes while traveling on an American airlines flight from Paris on Saturday. The Boeing 767 was carrying 183 passengers and a crew of 14 and was headed to Miami. Once the man was subdued on the plane, the flight was escorted by these two F-15 fighter jets, and landed safely at Boston's Logan Airport. The suspect was listed in his British passport as Richard Reid. He twice lit a match from his seat on the plane. Flight attendants told him to put the match out, and then noticed a wire sticking out from his sneakers. One flight attendant tried to grab the shoe, but was then pushed to the floor by the suspect. After he bit another flight attendant on the hand, a half- dozen passengers, including Kwame James, a Trinidadian who plays basketball in France, subdued Reid in his seat. Then two doctors who were also passengers gave him sedatives from the plane's medical kit.

KWAME JAMES, AA Flight 63 Passenger: He was trying to light a shoe. And then an Italian guy initially jumped in along with a flight attendant. They grabbed the shoe and stuff, got it away from him. He was so intent on what he wanted to do, he just kept on fighting. We just had to hold him down. It was almost like he was having a seizure. He was possessed, giving us a good fight.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Today, law enforcement officials said the improvised explosives in Reid's sneakers could have caused serious damage.

MICHAEL SULLIVAN, US Attorney, Massachusetts: Preliminary evidence from the FBI lab concludes that there were functional explosive devices, improvised, in both of Reid's sneakers.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Federal officials initially said the suspect did not appear to be connected with the al-Qaida terrorist network, but said they still would investigate that possibility. At a preliminary hearing in federal court in Boston this morning on charges of assaulting a flight crew, the suspect showed little emotion. When the judge asked if he understood the charges against him, Reid said, "yeah." Much remains unknown about the suspect, including his motives, whether his name is Richard Reid, as listed on his passport, and whether he is a British national or possibly from Sri Lanka. French authorities said the suspect had tried to board a Miami-bound flight on Friday from Charles de Gaulle Airport, but was turned away after raising suspicions. Today they said they were investigating how he was able to board a flight the very next board a flight the very next day with only one bag and a one-way ticket. The news made holiday travelers even more jittery.

TRAVELER: You are looking at people and not trusting them. I don't like to feel this way, but you really don't trust people like before.

TRAVELER: Everyone is supposedly saying that now airplanes and airports are more safe than ever, and they do all these searches from head to toe, and they still let people in with explosives on them, so I think it's pretty scary.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The suspect was ordered held for a bond hearing on Friday. The FBI said more charges are likely.

GWEN IFILL: For more, I am joined by Kenneth Quinn, former chief counsel for the Federal Aviation Administration, where he chaired the Pan Am 103 task force that recommended new antiterrorism measures. He currently heads the aviation security practice at the Washington-based law firm Pillsbury Winthrop; and Michael Levine, a former executive at three of the nation's airlines. He teaches law at Harvard University. Mr. Quinn, what red flags does this whole incident raise for you?

KENNETH QUINN: Well, it points out that we still have technological shortcomings in getting at the improvised explosive devices whether it's going to be on checked baggage where Congress has mandated it to be in place by January 18. That's unrealistic. We probably can't get it in place until the end of the year 2002 but we also have to be mindful of carry-on bags and things that are going through magnetometers. It's very difficult to pick up plastic explosives as we have learned in Lockerbie and Pan Am 103. There are human factors challenges, both with respect to finding and interrogating individuals, making sure they can't board flights. I don't know why this gentleman couldn't board originally at Charles DeGaulle but obviously why he was able to penetrate the next day is a very important question they need to nail down.

GWEN IFILL: You talk about carry on baggage and checked baggage. This was in his shoes. How unusual is that?

KENNETH QUINN: Yeah. Well, magnetometers, themselves, what you walk through, are very difficult sometimes, imperfect technology, the calibration needs to be set just so, you need to be knowing what you're looking for. So you have to combine it with a very vigorous human factors approach, of making sure you know who it is -- in this case, it was a one-way ticket. That should have triggered more intensive interrogation, which I believe personally is far more effective in an Israeli-based approach to security than simply relying on a hand wand or relying on a magnetometer.

GWEN IFILL: Professor Levine, what red flags went on in your mind when you first heard about this?

MICHAEL LEVINE: What this reminds me of is that basically in aviation security, you are trying to balance three factors, and it's very difficult to balance them all correctly. You're trying to actually provide a screen that will prevent people who are intent to doing harm to airplanes to get on an airplane. You're trying to provide the appearance of security, both because passengers find it reassuring and also because it may deter terrorists a bit, if they visibly see a lot of security activity going on. But you're also trying to preserve the utility of air transportation. Obviously if you fully interrogated, stripped, ran a detector over every piece and every person that got on an airplane, you would dramatically reduce the risk of flying but air transportation would become unusable.

GWEN IFILL: Excuse me. Professor Levine, after September 11, with so much talk about profiling of passengers, this fellow, as Mr. Quinn pointed out, did not -- had a one-way ticket, didn't have any luggage that he checked -- according to people on the plane would have looked suspicious, whatever that means. Why didn't that stop him? He had been turned down for a chance to fly on the same flight the day before.

MICHAEL LEVINE: Well, I think that raise two very important issues. One is that we do not yet have very consistent procedures, airport-to-airport around the world. And people who will get stopped at one airport don't get stopped at another or who would be stopped by one person don't get stopped by another. That's a big problem. The second thing is that we need a way, I think, to separate the passengers who don't present much of a threat to passengers who are more likely to present a threat. I have favored issuance of a travel card that people could use and apply for and be connected to security databases that would help them identify themselves as people who aren't a threat. I think others should be interrogated and I think Ken Quinn is right. The use of Israeli-type procedures on those people would be entirely appropriate.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Quinn, you used to work for the Federal Aviation Administration. On December 11, only two weeks ago the FAA issued a directive saying look in people's shoes. Beware of the potential for bringing explosives on board. Yet, this happened two weeks later. How did this work?

KENNETH QUINN: And good for them for providing the warning because all too often in aviation security we seem to be battling the last battle and not anticipating the next. We've almost come full circle here with hijacking in the '60s and 70s and magnetometers and X-ray devices shut that down, an improvised electronic device in Lockerbie -- we tried to have full x-ray screening and bag matching of every passenger on international flights but ignored the domestic system. With September 11 you had suicidal hijackers. We've gone full circle with that and now we're back to improvised electronic devices. We need to get much more diligent.

GWEN IFILL: How good is a warning that isn't heeded, or is it just that no warning can be a complete lockdown?

KENNETH QUINN: Well, it is only as good as, number one, the sources and methods. It needed to be protected. So sometimes have you to be less specific than you would ordinarily not want to provide. But it has to be as targeted as you possibly can so people know exactly-- x-ray image, for example, pre-Lockerbie, a Toshiba cassette recorder with detonators and plastic explosives. What can we look for? But it's also only as good as the technology itself. And unfortunately what we have in explosive detection systems is state-of-the-art has not advanced much frankly. Since 1988, it is too big, too slow, unreliable and it's too darn expensive. We have to get far more of them out in the field and more effective and greater through points without as many false positives, otherwise we're going to shut down the system all in the name of trying to fight the last battle and not go after the next.

GWEN IFILL: And, Professor Levine, were you talking about how this flight originated in another country and maybe everybody is not as good or as cautious as the United States is right now about these things. Is there is any way to enforce that if, perhaps, someone is more likely to get on a plane in another country and fly into the United States?

MICHAEL LEVINE: Well, I think first we need to articulate very clearly what the processes are that we want imposed. They're not even imposed consistently at U.S. airports around the country. Then I do think we should make it clear that we are going to dispatch an airplane to the United States, the passengers have to have been through these procedures wherever it is they're coming from.

GWEN IFILL: You know, on January 1, there is supposed to be a deadline that is supposed to be met on a different issue but related on checked baggage screening, which even the Secretary of Transportation has said, Professor, it is not going to be met. Is that something that passengers should be concerned about?

MICHAEL LEVINE: Well, I think that the issue of baggage screening is something passengers should worry about but this goes back to what I said at the beginning of my remarks. Political pressures required the Congress to promise something that is physically impossible. The secretary answered in a candid way a question of whether it could be done in time and was roundly chastised for having been honest. And I think the fact is, it is going to take a while to get these procedures in place. We ought to be, in the meantime, trying to sort the passengers who represent a threat from the passengers-- or might represent a threat, from the passengers who clearly don't, because we can't get it all in place at once.

GWEN IFILL: We saw in Betty Ann Bowser's piece that in airports all across the United States today, people who were taking off their shoes and putting them through the magnetometers. Is that what an example of what you were suggesting, which is fighting the last war?

KENNETH QUINN: Yeah. And I think it's also important too that we're not discriminating against the United States and U.S. carriers either. I saw out of Switzer land today, they're directing new security procedures only against U.S. airlines. We've got to be very careful here. It is a global aviation system. Truly on September 11 those attacks were against the flag on the tail of the airplane, not necessarily against those great carriers. But security is only as strong as its weakest link. And so if they get on in a foreign air carrier or if they target a foreign air carrier, it is going to be-- could be a terrible tragedy again. So we need to make sure that there is a uniform raising of the level of security in a way that makes sense, and in a way that doesn't leave the gaps that will that my friend Michael is pointing out.

GWEN IFILL: But how do you guard against the next threat instead of the last one?

KENNETH QUINN: Well, good intelligence is a good place. We are talking about airport security and airline procedures and FAA procedures. Really what we're doing in Afghanistan and infiltrating terrorist cells -- and this is a great example again, too, of tracking people who are obtaining passports perhaps illegally or who have overextended their visas who are presenting a threat within the borders of a country of the United States, with 19 people overextending their visas. We have to get at better border control and better intelligence and law enforcement work. In many respects, the airport itself and the airline are the last line of defense and it's a weak one at that.

GWEN IFILL: Okay. Professor Levine, here's a question that everyone wants answered right now, which is: Should people feel more rattled now about traveling right here in the holiday season?

MICHAEL LEVINE: Well, I don't think so, but that's because in fact the risk to any individual passenger on any individual trip is very low, because people drive, for example, on Christmas and there are people on the road who have had too much to drink. But the fact is that there are people out there who do want to do harm to the United States and to passengers on airplanes. And if that concerns people to the point where they are prepared to exclude-- to basically all the enjoyment of life, I don't think we can do much to reassure them. On the other hand, the system does detect threats. It does deter people. We have tightened it drastically since September 11, and I think that although it's not perfect yet, it's pretty adequate.

GWEN IFILL: We're going to have to leave that debate here for tonight. Michael Levine and Kenneth Quinn, thank you very much for joining us.

UPDATE - RULING AFGHANISTAN

GWEN IFILL: The new government in Afghanistan, now three days old. Spencer Michels updates the story.

SPENCER MICHELS: In the streets of Kabul this weekend, Afghan men and women rallied together in support of their new post-Taliban government. On Saturday, as Afghan and British soldiers monitored the streets of Kabul, Afghan leaders from various tribes and ethnic groups convened for a peaceful transition of power, a rarity in recent Afghan history. Hamid Karzai, the new interim prime minister, formally took office from Burhanuddin Rabbani, the political leader of the Northern Alliance during Taliban rule. Karzai's term will last six months. The audience included women, members of the Karzai cabinet, and delegates from the U.S., Russia, and Afghanistan's neighbors in Central Asia, all with a vested interest in a peaceful Afghanistan. Later, Karzai said a key mission of his would be recreating an economy destroyed by 23 years of war.

HAMID KARZAI, Interim Prime Minister, Afghanistan: Afghanistan must go from an economy of war to an economy of peace. And those people who could earn a living by taking a gun must be enabled, through programs, through plans, through projects, to put the gun aside.

SPENCER MICHELS: The next day, Karzai convened the first meeting of his cabinet to discuss security issues. And today he announced the appointment of Rashid Dostum, a prominent Uzbek warlord, as deputy defense minister. Dostum had complained that Uzbeks were underrepresented in the cabinet. The transition was not without controversy. Late last week, American air strikes attacked a traveling convoy, killing at least 50 people. This man survived the attack.

MAN (Translated): All the people in the convoy were elders from different tribes in the eastern part of the country who decided to attend the inauguration of Karzai. There were no Taliban among us. All the people were tribal elders.

SPENCER MICHELS: U.S. Leaders said then, and still maintain, that the convoy consisted of Taliban and al-Qaida leaders who had fired on American planes.

GEN. TOMMY FRANKS: The indications that I have right now tell me that this was a target that we intended to strike.

SPENCER MICHELS: Meanwhile the search for Osama bin Laden continued. On Sunday, U.S. Warplanes resumed air strikes, and planned to use bombs designed to suck the air out of the caves and tunnels in the region. Separately, local soldiers are combing the caves, retrieving ammunition and looking for any al-Qaida clues. For his part, Hamid Karzai said he had no new information on bin Laden's whereabouts.

HAMID KARZAI: I don't have precise information as to where he may be exactly. Two days ago I was given some indication of his whereabouts. We will work on that, and if we find him there he will be arrested.

SPENCER MICHELS: With the Afghan war drawing to a close, the new government is beginning its efforts to restore everyday life. Today, millions of Afghans still live in survival camps like these, both within Afghanistan and in Pakistan and Iran. Some are returning home through the snowy mountains after years of being on the run. This tunnel linking Kabul to northern Afghanistan was sealed off four years ago by anti-Taliban guerrillas, but was recently reopened, making the return home a little easier.

GWEN IFILL: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: The President in command, high school scientists, and an essay on grief.

FOCUS - HISTORICAL VIEWS

GWEN IFILL: Now, an end-of-the- year look at Presidential power, and to Ray Suarez.

RAY SUAREZ: Does an expansion of Presidential powers go hand in hand with war? Some historical perspective now from NewsHour regulars: Presidential historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Michael Beschloss; journalist and author Haynes Johnson; historian and director of the Robert Dole Institute at the University of Kansas, Richard Norton smith; and Roger Wilkins, professor of history at George mason University. Richard Norton Smith, is it almost automatic that power flows to a President at time of war?

RICHARD NORTON SMITH: It is almost automatic-- not always. The Constitution is quite specific and rather narrow in enumerating what a President's powers are, but in fact, the Constitution didn't anticipate events like September 11. And in fact, you could almost see the moment when George Bush's presidency was transformed, not only when it took on more power, but when it gained immeasurably in moral authority, and that's what any successful President needs, particularly to fight a war. And that was on that Friday after the attack. He spoke at the National Cathedral very movingly, but that, of course, was by its very nature a choreographed event. Then he flew to New York and he stood there on the rubble at ground zero, threw his arm around a firefighter, and he said that pretty soon those who had knocked down these towers would hear from all of us. And it was one of those extraordinary moments, which thanks to television, was brought into all of our lives, and I don't think our lives, and I certainly don't think this presidency, has been the same since.

RAY SUAREZ: Haynes, it sounds like rather than enumerated powers; it's perceived power, from Richard... From what Richard said.

HAYNES JOHNSON: It is. I mean, the presidency is a weak office inherently, except in a crisis, and not just war. When Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1932, the country was in a great Depression, and people feared that he was a dictator because he was assuming these great powers over the whole nation during our Depression. So the presidency does expand, and that's always been the problem. You need to protect your security, but the enumerated powers... the President can't declare war. He can't raise taxes. He can't raise standing armies. He can't even get his appointments through unless Congress sets it up. But in war, it becomes elastic and it grows out and expands.

RAY SUAREZ: With the support of the people, Doris?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Absolutely. I mean, I think one of the most important things that changes when there is a unity in the country after an attack like September 11, is the perception that the President is representing all of the people. And that public support not only gives the President power within the Congress, in the country at large, within the world at large, but it probably gives him confidence, which is so important for a leader. You look at the way George Bush is handling himself right now, and even though he may have had confidence from growing up, his temperament needed to be reinforced by experience. And to the extent, as Richard said, he did well in those early days and then kept building and building, he becomes a more forceful leader. And then even within the Washington community, to the extent that he's done a good job with the war, that means that the opponents are less likely to cross him. Think, even just four or five months ago, they were worried about Senator Jeffords and the fumbling on Capitol Hill. There was a perception that a quarter of the people only thought his agenda there was their agenda, and now he's got that confidence, that communication ability-- we're no longer joking about the way he talks-- and all of that is part of the sense of purpose and the unity that a crisis provides, if you handle it well, which he has.

RAY SUAREZ: Michael, how much of that power flow is inherent in the office and not in who the particular occupant is at a point in time during an American crisis?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Well, you know, it happens with Presidents, and Doris is absolutely right: It's almost the law of physics that when there is a war, the American people say, "we look to our President to defend us." There are certain things that a President can do that 535 members of Congress can't do, or other members of our government or our system. And the other thing is that the barriers to Presidential power are things like Congress has to say, "we will not pass your bills," and the American people who say, "we will not listen to you," or the courts that overrule the kind of things a President wants to do. In wartime, all of those forces are a lot weaker, and they're much more inclined to give Presidents the benefit of the doubt. The other thing is that Presidents always use this opportunity oftentimes to overreach. In the case of Dwight Eisenhower, during the Cold War, he said, "I want an interstate highway system. I'll justify it by saying, 'these things are needed for national defense.'" Even Kennedy and Johnson in the '60s, they argued for civil rights, as they should have. One of the arguments they used was, "unless we fix our racial problem in the United States, we're going to be at a disadvantage against the Russians because third world nations will say, 'we do not want to be like you.'"

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Roger, some people don't even like the sound of the phrase, "Presidential power." Implicit in its use quite often is the assumption that there is a problem with it.

ROGER WILKINS: Well, in the beginning, when they created the office, the Americans at the 1787 Constitutional Convention were terrified of creating a new King George over here. They had obsessed about overreaching tyrannical power, and I think probably the only reason that they were comfortable having a single President, not knowing how it was going to work out, was, "Well, George will do it and George will know what to do." And in fact, he did. But I want to go back to the point that Michael was making. Presidents do get a huge boost out of a crisis, but then they've got to keep it. We saw Lyndon Johnson with a crisis: Came in with a huge, huge backing of the American people after the death of President Kennedy. He lost it in the way that... That Dwight Eisenhower lost some of his authority, by not telling the truth. And as Eisenhower said, the thing that the President needs most is his credibility. That's what gives him power. If you don't level with the people, it starts to flow away.

HAYNES JOHNSON: That's a very important point because you remember Harry Truman, who was this popular President when FDR died. He comes into office, and then all of a sudden later on, Korea comes along, and it was not a popular war. And they ran against him, and it was the idea: Crime, Korea, and communism. And so the power... If you don't do well, or the public doesn't think you're doing well, or it goes on too long, or it's inconclusive, or somehow it doesn't feel right, then the President pays the price.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: If I could add to that... If I could add to that, it seems to me that when we look at the crisis of the Depression, it's important to remember that Herbert Hoover was President when the stock market crashed, and three years into that worst depression, and yet because of his firmly held beliefs against the government as a federal institution taking control and mobilizing the country, he was unable to deal with the Depression, the same Depression that gave the opportunity for Franklin Roosevelt to be remembered in history. The antislavery crisis that was turbulent in the 1850s provided an opportunity for Buchanan to do something, but he failed, and then Lincoln came along and was able to succeed. So crisis gives an opportunity for greatness, but it doesn't always provide it unless the President or the leader takes advantage in the right way of it.

RAY SUAREZ: So are there peaks and valleys? Is this a sort of a pendulum swing? If we assume that power comes from somewhere, do those somewheres-- institutions, Congress, the people themselves-- take it back when the crisis is passed? Richard?

RICHARD NORTON SMITH: Oh, absolutely. I mean, a great example of that is Woodrow Wilson. You know, the one law that war obeys the law of unintended consequences. Wilson was elected in 1912 on a reform program called the new freedom, and yet ironically, when we did go into the war, the man who was a great champion of self-determination overseas practiced something approaching one-man rule here at home. There was something called the Committee on Public Information that basically herded journalists. Historians were enlisted to write what were called "red, white, and blue" books. Filmmakers ground out such propaganda vehicles as "The Beast of Berlin." I mean, about the only people who were liberated were women. Wilson undertook a campaign to collect scrap metal, and so women were liberated from the steel corset. The result was that we built three battleships. But somewhere along the way, war fever became war hysteria. Eugene Debs, the great socialist leader, was thrown into jail. His crime was criticizing conscription. Emma Goldman, the anarchist, was deported for similar reasons. And in 1918, on the very eve of the armistice, the great American victory, if you will, Wilson appealed to the electorate to give him a democratic Congress, and they did exactly the opposite. They turned the Congress over to the Republicans, to Henry Cabot Lodge, and the rest was tragic history.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, what happens when the emergency passes? We have the example of Wilson. What about with the elder George Bush? His war was over well before his term was. Michael?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: It was. And the Cold War: Perhaps even more important, because the Cold War ended finally exactly ten years ago this month, December of 1991. And President Bush the elder has said the difference between being President in 1991 and 1992 was very great because once the Cold War was finally over, the Congress, the American people no longer looked at the President as someone who might be the one who could defend their lives. Once again, he was almost a President like those in the late 19th Century, dealing with mainly domestic issues. And much of Bill Clinton's frustration as President came from the fact that he didn't have the lift that gave about a dozen Cold War Presidents that extra influence.

HAYNES JOHNSON: This ebb and flow is absolutely fascinating. The power goes out, then it comes in. And what Roger was saying, when we set up this system, we didn't want a king, we didn't want an emperor, we didn't want anybody, any potentate in there. And the country and the politics and the whole... And the press, they checked them. When we were talking about the imperial presidency, back in... The worries, the fears about that-- Lyndon Johnson and so forth, Cold War-- all of a sudden, Johnson is out with the war, as Michael knows better than anybody. And it just... There it is, this give and take, give and take. That's built into the system.

ROGER WILKINS: Well, even now, with the President doing as well as all of us have said he's doing, there are people who are saying, "don't overreach. Your military tribunals don't look fair to us. Your attorney general is... Looks panicky to us." And the people are talking back. That's the tension. And it's a correct tension. It's a wonderful tension. So that... And the President feels it. You can see the administration reacting to this.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Doris, what changes if the war becomes a low-level war with no clear end? Many administration officials have been warning the American people for months now that this could go on for a very long time. Does a presidency hold on to that added power, operate in its shadow? What happens?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Oh, it's obviously much harder. I mean, to the extent that we're close to the memory of September 11 and it mobilized us as a nation and created a sense of being Americans that we may not have felt as emotionally before, to that extent, that was part of the power that George Bush has. As time goes away from that, as we move perhaps away from Afghanistan, if he does try to move us into other areas, whether it be Somalia or Iraq, he's going to have to build that coalition in the country all over again. And I hope he realizes that that communication that he was able to succeed with in getting us to agree with the action that he did on Afghanistan has to be built from the bottom up if we go somewhere else. And the trouble with a low-lying continuation... I mean, one of the things that Johnson didn't prepare us for was that long war. There was that sense of a promised light at the end of the tunnel, so that as the war dragged on with no end in sight, then that's when the support started diminishing. This is different, I think, because September 11 is so powerful in our memory. But it doesn't mean that ten years from now, if we're still roaming around the world without much purpose, that that same sense of unity will still be there unless the President builds it.

HAYNES JOHNSON: That's going to be the test, because they're saying to us regularly, and I think rightly, "this could go on for years, maybe decades," as the struggle against terrorism. It's not like the Cold War exactly, because you have the specter of the nuclear holocaust; you had one enemy clearly defined, the Soviet Union. This is murkier. It's more difficult. So maintaining the presidency's power to appeal to the public to stay with it, and it's going to be many Presidents if they're right. That's an incredible challenge for leadership in the country.

RAY SUAREZ: And then more taxing, because we are not a patient people.

HAYNES JOHNSON: Yes.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: We're not, and the horrible reality is, god forbid that we should ever have future attacks anything like what happened in September, but if that is the case, it's going to be more difficult for George Bush because then you're not immediately welded together. People don't immediately say, "we're in an emergency. We're scared. Let's give Presidents the power." That's when we're going to see the test of his leadership.

RICHARD NORTON SMITH: But remember, we have all been through September 11 together. It's as if there has been this enormous foxhole conversion, and that is part of our collective experience, and I don't think subsequent events are going to change that. It's no accident, you know, that we're not debating the wartime leadership of James Madison or William McKinley. I mean, McKinley's war department killed more Americans in Cuba than did Spanish bullets. It's Abraham Lincoln, it's Franklin Roosevelt, who, along with, say, a Winston Churchill, demonstrated that the great war leaders have a touch of creative ruthlessness in them.

RAY SUAREZ: Richard, Doris, gentlemen, thanks a lot.

SERIES - YOUNG SCIENTISTS

GWEN IFILL: Next, the world of high-stakes science competitions. NewsHour education correspondent John Merrow begins a series on high school science students.

JOHN MERROW: For young scientists, this is the super bowl, the world cup, the Olympics all rolled into one. It's the Intel International Science and Engineering fair, once known as the Westinghouse, also known as ICEF. ICEF is the world's largest pre-college science fair where the top prize is a $50,000 college scholarship. In all, more than $3 million in scholarships and prizes will be awarded to high school students. About one million students from all around the world have spent months and months working on research projects for the competition. Let's meet some of these young scientists.

MARISA COHEN, Townsend Harris High School, NY: When I was in first grade, second grade, I was already entering science competitions, like growing rock crystals or whatever it was. But I mean that was the beginning.

SAMUEL JOHN, Plainview-Old Bethpage High School, NY: I remember in second grade we each like we got a box of crayfish and we used to pick one there. There were two people with the fish and you picked a crayfish, put a marker on it indicating it was yours. You watched it's eating habits and which one was dominant. That's what we were doing, seeing which was dominant, which one was stronger.

CHRIS LANE, Plainview-Old Bethpage High School, NY: I participated in a science fair in sixth grade and got to work with chemicals and plants. I really enjoyed using the chemicals and so I pursued any kind of science class could I take.

AKSHTA KALLA, Townsend Harris High School, NY: I just loved biology for some reason, just learning about the human body and, you know, all the other aspects, and the diseases and things like that.

OMAR GHANI, Plainview-Old Bethpage High School, NY: I remember studying about dinosaurs and dinosaur bones and some projects we used to do like the little poster boards like making fake dinosaur bones.

RIO MAY DEL ROSARIO, Townsend Harris High School, NY: Probably when I was younger flipping through the channels on television, seeing maybe an operation show where you saw the brain and they were doing an operation and I guess that's how I became interested in it.

LINDA TO, Townsend Harris High School, NY: In class my teacher talked about atoms how everything was made of atoms yet just seemed mind boggling like how can I be made of the same things that plastic is made of. That to me was just like unfathomable.

JOHN MERROW: These students are fortunate to go to public high schools that provide a rich and supportive environment in science. Townsend Harris High School enrolls 1100 students; it's on the campus of queen's college about ten miles from downtown Manhattan. The school offers advanced placement classes in chemistry and physics as well as a research class for independent study. This class is open to all interested students and contrary to national trends, it attracts as many girls as boys. Plainview Old Bethpage high school is 31 miles from Manhattan; it's a comprehensive high school with 1400 students. Like Townsend Harris, the class opens to anyone interested. It, too, enrolls boys and girls in roughly equal numbers. The science research classes are not traditional classes like chemistry or biology, but independent study classes, which are open to any student who expresses an interest in science. Students who take the class must develop their own research projects. Melanie Kreiger directs the program at Plainview-Old Bethpage.

MELANIE KRIEGER, Plainview-Old Bethpage High School, NY: It's a rehearsal for the real world, because most of the kids who really get into the science competitions and science projects then go on to become scientists. And some kids truthfully do all this science and they'll go off and they'll be politicians or lawyers or they'll be economists but they've learned some lessons, very valuable. Ask, say I don't know, get help. If you make a mistake or it doesn't work, that's okay. Life goes on. Let's move ahead.

JOHN MERROW: The scientific method-- trial and error-- is what the projects have in common. The subjects run the gamut.

SAMUEL JOHN, Plainview-Old Bethpage High School, NY: We're trying to get rid of carpenter ants. They're pests that shelter themselves in wood. We're doing this by biological control so we don't use pesticides, which is better for the environment. And so the biological control we use is nematodes, parasitic worms that go into the ant and slowly get into their digestive system and kills them.

MANDEEP VIRDI, Plainview-Old Bethpage High School, NY: We're trying to combine cancer drugs to try to make a new cancer drug that possibly would be better and hopefully try to help in the research that's been that's being done currently.

JOHN MERROW: So wait a minute, you're 16 years old and you're working on cancer drugs?

MANDEEP VIRDI: Yeah.

JOHN MERROW: How cool is that?

VITO DI LENNA, Townsend Harris High School, NY: Cow bacteria. I work with cow bacteria. Cows produce milk and milk is pretty much the most important product to South American farmers. So if a cow has, let's say an infection, with the type of bacteria that I'm studying, others are infected with the bacteria and the milk they produce can't be used, or can't be used at all, so then once we know that there's an outbreak, then that has to be treated with some sort of medicine or antibiotic.

YULEE JUN, Townsend Harris High School, NY: My science project is about focusing on the structures of blood vessels, different type of blood vessels and different types of blood vessels have different structures and different structures have different effects on the buildup of cholesterol. That buildup of cholesterol leads to arteriosclerosis and then what happens, it could cause stroke. If it's detrimental, people could die.

ALAN SALAS, Plainview-Old Bethpage High School, NY: I'm studying lines of fruit flies that have deficiency in their second chromosome and for some of them, it causes them to die very early once they reach adulthood, they begin to die or deteriorate very rapidly. Other ones, they have a deficiency in their muscles so once they reach adulthood, about two weeks after they're born, they begin to deteriorate because of a potential lack of protein. I'm trying to find out the gene causing this lack of the protein.

MARISA COHEN: The title of my project is the Effect of Drugs on Macrophage - and Macrophages are cells in the immune system which surround and engulf bacteria which help us fight foreign invaders such as bacteria and other diseases. And the role of my project was to test the effects the different concentrations of drugs on the Macrophages' capability of taking the bacteria. Basically I'm just showing the adverse effects drugs on on the immune system and how important it is for us to stay away from them.

JOHN MERROW: After deciding on research projects students from both schools must find the scientists and doctors willing to serve as mentors. Young scientists spent their summers working at labs and hospitals.

HAROLD METCALF, State University of New York, Stoneybrook: What I find is that students who are lively and ask questions very often are the very best ones because they're the ones who are going to have the gumption to start a research project and follow it through and be curious about what they're doing.

JOHN MERROW: Harold Metcalf is serving as a mentor for Stacey, a junior at Plainview Old Bethpage High School.

HAROLD METCALF: Hold them in front of your face.

HAROLD METCALF: She is going to come in here and fumble around the first couple of weeks and not know what to do. And then sooner or later we will she'll know what her project is and start working on it. Bet then will come that magic time when it's going to work tonight and she stays all night. And it doesn't work and she comes back tomorrow night -- and that magic time when the student spends 60 or 70 hours in a lab continuously for no reason except they want this to work and they know it's ready and then the great excitement when it does.

JOHN MERROW: Mentors hike Harold Metcalf supervise and give advice, but students do the research independently. The next steps, writing up the research findings and preparing oral presentations. It's total immersion into the world of science.

JOHN MERROW: I think most people think of science as you have to memorize periodic table and formulas-

SAMUEL JOHN: That's not what science is. Science is hands-on stuff. Most of the science is hands-on. I mean you learn it, but you have to apply it and the allying part is where the fun comes in.

TEACHER: You're not going to have a true experiment, right because we have chemical reactions going on.

JOHN MERROW: But many American students do not experience hands-on science. In fact, about 30% of high school science classes are taught by men and women who have not studied what they're teaching. The National Science Foundation just committed $100 million to attract more people into science teaching and to improve science education into elementary schools.

AKSHTA KALLA: It's so big. There's so much to know, there is so many things to see and learn. It's like a journey. I mean for me, that's a lot of-- it's an adventure for me. So when I'm going through this process, it's like, okay, one adventure after another. One experiment is one small adventure and these adventures keep going. And they get bigger and bigger as you go along.

OMAR GHANI: It's just like it's something you can always look to, to understand.

JOHN MERROW: I don't understand that.

OMAR GHANI: I can always go to science and understand something that's there and given to me. It gives like a sense of almost comfort of understanding things in the world, like when things are mixed up.

JOHN MERROW: Can you give me an example?

OMAR GHANI: Like now with the World Trade Center. I can always look to science to understand certain things, but you'll never be able to understand what was going through people's heads when it was happening.

JOHN MERROW: The ICEF is one of many science competitions. Students enter in local, state and regional science competitions sponsored by Intel, Siemen's, Dupont, NASA and others. That means more chances to win, although winning does not seem to be at the top of these kids' priorities.

VITO DI JENNA: I always think to myself, why am I doing this? Why am I here? Winning would be nice, but then I realize, I just sit back and realize everything I've learned and that's more important than actually winning itself.

RIO MAY DEL ROSARIO: I would be jumping up and down, of course. I mean everyone loves to win. But in a sense, it can't consume you. I can't be your reason to do a project. It can't be what you live for.

LINDA TO: If I won? Hopefully I would be accepted to MIT.

JOHN MERROW: These young scientists don't seem to be motivated by money, but they do want to succeed. Right now they're rushing to complete their projects, but they can't relax once the entries are in the mail because they have to begin preparing for round two: Explaining and defending their research before an audience of scientists. Some of them may not make round two, but each one has to be ready.

ESSAY - LIVING WITH GRIEF

GWEN IFILL: Finally, tonight, essayist Anne Taylor Fleming with some thoughts about how we cope with grief.

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: It might be my imagination, but suddenly, in the wake of September 11, these ads were everywhere: In Magazines or on TV tucked between football games, or between old movies. "Here, America," the theme was, "you need not live with your anxiety and uncertainty. Take this little pill--Zoloft or Paxil or Prozac, you name it-- and the darkness will lift. You will return to normal." None of the ads actually mentioned the attack, the World Trade Center, the thousands dead, but behind the benign and smiling images of just plain folk feeling pharmaceutically soothed, that reel was running over and over, behind their eyes, behind our eyes. There was a tacit connection. The TV and newspaper shrinks, though, went right at it, at the anxiety disorder suddenly plaguing us. Yes, it was a shock, what had happened, but we should try to go about our lives. The "pol's" and President said this too. We should walk, talk, eat, shop, fly. But if we got too wound up, too scared, then yes, we could seek out professional and/or chemical help. A certain amount of fright and emotional discomfort was to be expected, but prolonged distress or sorrow that could and should be dealt with. After all, there was an economy to support, terrorists to rebuke, a war to be fought. The message was clear: Anxiety is un-American, and grief has a shelf life. Time to move on. Time to seek closure. Time to pop a Paxil, if need be. But is there really such a thing as closure, that strange, wishful word? And do we truly want it for ourselves or for our country? Wouldn't that consign us to a strange false innocence, a willful blockage of memory, of feeling? Never mind that closure, as any and all of us know who have ever experienced a deep grief, is folly. What game is this we play then, what form of denial? Something wrenching happens; you lose someone you loved; you move on. But there is no real, final closure, no end to the loss, no matter how many pills you take or how fast you run. And we do tend to run fast in this country: Up ladders, across continents, into cyberspace and back again, a fury of activity and achievement aided and abetted by daytime stimulants-- a coffee house on every corner-- and nighttime sleeping potions. We live in a world now where pills are proffered for everything from excess weight to excess sorrow, from impotence to menopause, from unruly kids to terrorist attacks. It's a never-ending, heart-and- mind-mending pharmacopoeia. Yes, we all know people who have benefited from taking a pill-- even perhaps, ourselves. But there is a sense that as a country, we are in danger of overmedicating ourselves, quieting our children before they learn how to quiet themselves, short-circuiting our sorrow before it has a chance, not to work itself out, but to work itself in to the marrow of our memories, the lines on our faces. Of course, we can erase those, too, can't we? Why shouldn't we grieve at this moment, this first Christmas after, for the bereft families certainly, but also for the country itself, knowing that it is fragile in ways we had never imagined, and we with it? There is no magic pill, no end, no closure for this recognition, and we would be fools to seek it. Better perhaps to bypass another mall and head to some beautiful spot atop a mountain, next to a coastline or frozen cold lake, or here beside my beautiful Santa Monica Bay, and grieve openly, in celebration and gratitude, for what was lost and all that remains. I'm Anne Taylor Fleming.

RECAP

GWEN IFILL: Again, the major stories of this Christmas Eve Monday: A man who allegedly tried to detonate explosives in his shoes on a transatlantic flight had his first court appearance in Boston. Israel barred Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from Christmas services in Bethlehem. And at the Vatican, Pope John Paul celebrated midnight mass in St. Peter's Basilica. He said hearts around the world were anxious about war and violence. But he told thousands of pilgrims that Christmas Day brings hope and light amid darkness and evil. We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Thank you and good night.