The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, an update of the TWA crash investigation, a Newsmaker interview with Bosnia negotiator Richard Holbrooke, a report on the new San Francisco Librarythat is more than a library, a "Where They Stand" speech by President Clinton in Denver, and a look at the Olympics as history by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Beschloss, Haynes Johnson, and Olympics historian David Wallechinsky. It all follows our summary of the news this Monday. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Four more bodies plus sections of the fuselage from the downed TWA 747 were located today. One hundred and five victims of Flight 800 have now been pulled from the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Long Island, New York. Fifty-five have been identified. Two hundred and thirty passengers and crew died when the plane went down last week. Families of the victims learned of the latest recoveries during a memorial service on the beach near the crash site. At a briefing later in the day, Robert Francis with the National Transportation Safety Board described today's underwater recovery.

ROBERT FRANCIS, Vice-Chairman, NTSB: I would characterize this as a major find because we're starting to get significant parts of the fuselage. I wouldn't characterize it--I mean, this is a big airplane, and, quite frankly, we don't know how big all these parts are and exactly how significant they are. So, you know, it's not, it's not a 35-foot piece of fuselage. These are smaller parts.

MR. LEHRER: We'll have more on the crash investigation right after this News Summary. A bomb exploded at the airport in Lahore, Pakistan today. Nine people were killed, twenty injured. The bomb slipped undetected through airport security in a briefcase and detonated in a departure lounge. Police have no suspects and no groups have claimed responsibility. In Canada today, at least eight people are dead, following weekend flooding in Southern Quebec about 200 miles north of Montreal. The Saganay River ripped through several towns, damaging buildings and causing mudslides. Thousands of people were evacuated to emergency shelters. More than 11 inches of rain fell on Friday and Saturday. The damage is estimated to be in the millions of dollars. Bob Dole turned 73 today. He had breakfast with his wife, Elizabeth, at a senior citizens home in Washington. Residents sang "Happy Birthday" and gave them a cake. Dole praised the staff for their work assisting the elderly.

SEN. BOB DOLE, Republican Presidential Candidate: It is a proud day for us. It is my birthday and Elizabeth's birthday is a week from today. Thank you for being here this morning. Thank you for all you do, Sarah Circle, for real people. This is what America is all about. It's about getting together and helping one another and making it work, and it seems to me that you've, you've set an example for groups all across America.

MR. LEHRER: Tonight the Doles go to his home town of Russell, Kansas, for an ice cream social with friends and family. Before leaving, Dole said his age didn't bother him. If elected, he would be the oldest President at the start of a first term. President Clinton was out West. He spoke to a crowd in Denver at the Performing Arts Complex. He said he wanted to sign welfare reform legislation as long as it did not impose hardships on children.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: What I'm doing now is working very hard with the Congress. I hope and expect to sign legislation that does move people from welfare to work and does support instead of undermine the raising of our children. This should not be a party issue. All Americans ought to want this system changed, and I hope very much that Congress will pass a bipartisan bill that meets those standards. If it does, I think it would have almost unanimous support from the American people.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Clinton has vetoed two previous welfare bills. He also announced today plans to use the Internet and the U.S. Postal Service to find deadbeat dads. We'll have excerpts from the President's speech as part of "Where They Stand" series later in the program. Former Congressman Dan Rostenkowski went to prison today. He reported to a federal medical prison in Minnesota to begin serving his 17-month sentence for mail fraud. He will stay at the medical facility until his recuperation from prostate cancer surgery in May is complete and then be transferred to another prison. Rostenkowski was chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee for 13 years. He's 68 years old. At the Olympic games in Atlanta, there was a big surprise today. Four-time gold medalist swimmer Janet Evans failed to qualify for tonight's 400-meter free- style finals. She is trying to become the second American woman ever to win five gold medals. Last night, swimmer Tom Dolan became the first American to win a gold medal at the games. He won for the 400 meter individual medaling, and South Africa captured its first gold medal in 44 years. Penny Haynes won it for the 100-meter breast stroke. We'll have more on the Olympics later in the program. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to a Flight 800 update, Richard Holbrooke, the San Francisco Library, "Where They Stand," and the Olympics as history. UPDATE - TWA- FLIGHT 800 - CRASH

MR. LEHRER: We do go first tonight to an update of the investigation of TWA Flight 800. Betty Ann Bowser reports from the crash site.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: It was the first day since Flight 800 went down that conditions were ideal for a search. Skies over the crash site were clear. The waters below were calm, and Coast Guard officials who are responsible for recovery efforts on the surface of the water were optimistic. They intensified their search near the presumed center of the crash site after the discovery of another body there late yesterday. Coast Guard Spokesman Jim McPherson.

LT. CMDR.

JAMES McPHERSON, U.S. Coast Guard: The Coast Guard's No. 1 priority is still recovery of the victims for the sake of the family. For the sake of the nation, our next priority is a recovery of all the surface debris. This debris is critical to the investigation.

MS. BOWSER: Even more critical is the substantial part of the plane that is still underwater. The Navy once again combed the ocean off the South shore of Long Island with sonar, hoping to get a better picture of what may be a 15-foot piece of the fuselage resting 120 feet below. [Bagpipe Music] This afternoon at a memorial service for the victims, New York Governor George Pataki announced a breakthrough in the recovery efforts.

GOV. GEORGE PATAKI, New York: God works in very strange ways. While we were here, a major part of the fuselage has been found. Additional bodies have been located, and we're hopeful that your agony and struggle will come to a quicker end. To all those whose prayers were here today, we thank you for this development.

MS. BOWSER: Late this afternoon, vice-chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, Robert Francis, went into more detail with reporters at a news conference.

ROBERT FRANCIS, Vice-Chairman, NTSB: As a lot of you probably know, we've got some positive news, and I hesitate to call it good news in the context of what we're doing, but it certainly is progress. Ships folks and the NYPD and the NOAA folks out there have found a wreckage field. It's in the original box thatthey were looking at that was targeted by us from the radar and from witness statements. It has not major pieces of wreckage but it does have pieces of wreckag--also, some of the victims. Recovery of the victims, as you all know, remains the first priority, and there are three bodies currently being brought in from there.

REPORTER: Can you say how many more?

ROBERT FRANCIS: One of the problems we've got out there is that once the divers start to operate on the bottom, the visibility becomes a major issue. It's sandy out there. It's very flat. It's a wonderful environment, except when you start working in it, you obviously are stirring it up, so that there is a difficulty in terms of them seeing so. They work for a while, then so--so the answer is we don't know the answer to that. We will be talking to you again tonight at 8 o'clock, and hopefully we will be able to give you an update at that time. We're going all--all the folks that are out there are now in the process of analyzing what data we have in terms of the wreckage field, and we'll be making a determination after the, the human remains are brought up as to how we deal with the recovery of the wreckage. We don't want to get quickly into the recovery of the wreckage. We want to do this systematically. We want to do it right. We don't want to--we don't want to risk destroying something, so we'll be working on this tonight. I would be surprised if we're recovering wreckage before tomorrow.

REPORTER: Divers have gone down, is that what you're saying? I say, sir, divers have gone down?

ROBERT FRANCIS: Divers have gone down and have brought up five- -four bodies--excuse me--four bodies.

REPORTER: Four bodies?

ROBERT FRANCIS: Four bodies, four bodies.

REPORTER: We heard--

ROBERT FRANCIS: Well, you know, we've heard a lot of things.

JAMES KALLSTROM, FBI Director, New York: Four bodies are en route.

ROBERT FRANCIS: It's four.

REPORTER: Mr. Kallstrom, can I ask you what you'll be hoping to look for when this stuff comes up. What can you look for?

JAMES KALLSTROM: First of all, I think this is a big step forward. You know, we talked last night about how we were a bit, you know, blue in the gills, about we had a day that we didn't do much, and we predicted today would be a good day, and it was. And that's how these things happen. So, you know, get the bodies, you know. We'll know a lot more tonight, I think, about exactly what this is. This just happened here, so we want to give it to you. You know, within the last three or four hours, this, all this happened. So obviously once the bodies have been removed and we have a strategy for removing the wreckage that the team agrees on, we want to get it up so we can look at it forensically.

MR. LEHRER: The officials said the searchers have so far not been able to locate the plane's data and voice recorders. NEWSMAKER

MR. LEHRER: Now a Newsmaker interview with Richard Holbrooke, who is just back from another mission to Bosnia. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has that story.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: After putting together the Dayton Accords in November, Richard Holbrooke returned to the financial world of New York, but last week, the Clinton administration recruited Holbrooke for another mission, to gain somehow the removal of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic have been indicted for war crimes by the International Tribunal in the Hague and warrants are out for their arrests. But so far, the international force in Bosnia has not moved to capture either. The Dayton Accords stipulated that indicted war criminals could not seek office in the September elections, but up to last week, Karadzic was still acting like a candidate. And as long as he remained on the scene, most officials said the elections would be in jeopardy. Last week, Holbrooke launched a new round of talks to gain Karadzic's departure. That included more than 10 hours of negotiations with Serbian President Milosevic and warnings of new economic sanctions unless Karadzic was removed as leader of the Bosnian Serbs. By Friday, Holbrooke was able to announce that Karadzic would give up his political power as president of the Bosnian Serb Republic and as leader of the Serb Democratic Party. Karadzic also agreed not to appear in public or on broadcast media.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE, Bosnia Negotiator: [July 19] I want to stress he knew what he was signing, knew he was signing the end of his political career.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But some other Bosnians were still worried.

EJUP GANIC, Vice President, Bosnia: Unfortunately we know that Karadzic will continue to act in informal way with the same degree of damage unless he's removed.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Last week's deal did not mention Gen. Mladic, or whether either would face war crimes prosecution. I spoke with Richard Holbrooke earlier today.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Richard Holbrooke, thank you for joining us. You said in Belgrade that you had successfully secured Radovan Karadzic's removal from power. What exactly did that mean?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE, Bosnia Negotiator: We want Karadzic and Gen. Mladic, indicted war criminals, to be in the Hague and stand trial for war crimes. That is our goal, and that's what's called for under the Dayton Agreement. Getting there since we can't use NATO force to carry it out, getting there is a step by step process. Last week, we got Karadzic to sign a piece of paper pledging that he will leave political life immediately and permanently, and giving up both of his jobs, No. 1, president of the Serb part of Bosnia, and No. 2, president of the party the SDS, which he created and controls. So we made a big step forward. If Karadzic does not fulfill every detail of these agreements, we retain the leverage to come down hard on the entire Serb movement in Bosnia.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What does that mean, come down hard?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: We still have sanctions that could be reimposed. Amb. Froic in charge of the elections can still disenfranchise the SDS Party. These threats, which were part of the negotiating effort, were not threats we gave up because we didn't feel we achieved enough to give them up.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And what would constitute a deal breaker? I mean, would this be a deal breaker?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Well, let me give you an example. Karadzic cannot appear in public. He can't give radio or TV or press interviews. If he violates these things, if they start running around with large posters of him like Big Brother behind Mrs. Plasic, who is now the acting temporary president of Serbska, behind her Big Brother posters of Karadzic, those are violations.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What about--

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: And I can assure you that Secretary Christopher, Secretary Perry, Ambassador Kornblum, my successor in the European Bureau, they're all prepared to act very swiftly if there is a violation.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, you know, there was a time when after the Accords were signed and everybody had returned, that they were, he and Mladic were on the ski slopes and sort of thumbing their noses at the NATO forces. I mean, does it--does he have to remain invisible, or just not engage in political activity?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Invisible. And I'm glad you asked that. The word is invisible.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And Mladic as well?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Mladic already is invisible. That ski slope incident back in March was practically an exception. He's appeared on a few other things but I am very concerned about Gen. Mladic, but on this trip I focused on Karadzic because Karadzic runs the political movement, and they were actively obstructing the political details of Dayton, including elections. Mladic, although he is a "hands-on" killer, is implementing the military parts of the agreement, and I put him in a different category temporarily- -and I stress that word--from Karadzic. Let me say one other thing, Charlayne. For those people who say it was a half-measure, they're right. We only did a half-measure. But at the same time, I want to be clear that the history of negotiating in the Balkans is a long and winding road towards peace. And each time we make a step forward--and there's no question last week was a step forward--we pocket it, announce it, make sure it's implemented, and move on.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But now you got this piece of paper signed by Karadzic. But you didn't deal with him face to face, right?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Right.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is it--How did that work?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: We went--we had four hours of talks with Milosevic on Wednesday. I was very--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That's President Milosevic, the president of Serbia?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: That's right. In Belgrade. I was very unhappy with these talks. I said I'm going to go to Zagreb and back to Sarajevo, I'll be back tomorrow afternoon, we're going to have to reach closure, or there are going to be very bad consequences. We returned on Thursday afternoon at 4 o'clock and he had moved the talks to a villa, and he produced the top two Bosnian Serbs from Pale after Karadzic, and that--at that point I knew we were in for a long night. We negotiated for 10 hours, and we negotiated a piece of paper. He then dispatched his security chief, Mr. Stanasic, to Pale, and Stanasic personally witnessed Karadzic and Mrs. Plasic signing the document which we had faxed to Pale. There were no changes in it in Pale, and we wouldn't have tolerated any. Stanasic then brought back the original, and I waited for him in Belgrade. And at about 2 in the morning, he gave me the original, and we had a long talk about the circumstances under which Karadzic ended his public and political career.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But you spent all this time with Milosevic and Milosevic also was in Dayton. He's been the pivotal figure negotiating with the United States and with the Bosnian Serbs, Mladic, Karadzic. He knew what the terms were. Why did you have to go and renegotiate them again? He signed onto this accord.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Well, you know, the Dayton Agreement said he should comply with and cooperate with the War Crimes Tribunal, which he's not been doing. But the Dayton Accords did not say that Karadzic had to give up his power in the SDS specifically. That is what we came to the conclusion was absolutely necessary, given the way Karadzic was behaving.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Oh, so this was a second thought? This was an after thought?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Charlayne, this is Dayton and Dayton plus, uh, but it's very important that that be understood as we move forward because we've got plans for the next week or two.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You mean, follow-up--excuse me--the follow-ups to what you achieved. You mean you're going to have to freelance the accord now, is that what you're saying?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Not me, but I do want to make clear what our- -what the plans are for my colleagues. I did this as a one-time effort at the request of the secretary of state and the White House and Amb. Kornblum. The next step which we are announcing today is that Amb. Kornblum, the Assistant Secretary for European Affairs, will leave for Belgrade this weekend, after stopping in Europe to talk to the Europeans. And he will see President Milosevic again, and he will pursue the next step in this process.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Which is--

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: The next step in the process is that Karadzic should leave Pale, the mountain stronghold which he really created. As long as he's in Pale, even if he's invisible, even if he's out of public and political life, I personally feel uncomfortable, and so do my colleagues. So Amb. Kornblum is going to go after that as the step, and then the next steps after that--

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Excuse me. Leave Pale and go where, to the Hague, to the War Crimes Tribunal?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: I'm going to let Amb. Kornblum work that out.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is that the goal?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: The long-term goal is unambiguous--Karadzic and Gen. Mladic to the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague. But the details of confidential diplomatic negotiations by necessity must remain confidential, and I'm not going to foreclose or foreshadow John Kornblum's negotiating tactics. I just want to be clear, since it has not been announced prior to this interview, that Amb. Kornblum is going to follow up immediately and vigorously picking up from where I left off.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Now what do you mean vigorously?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Uh, vigorously means vigorously. The leverage that we have is still in place.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You mean the sanctions?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Sanctions, the threat is available. The question of disbarring or disenfranchising the SDS is still available, and NATO is a very important factor in this. It's no accident that I began my shuttle last week by going to Brussels to see General Joulwan, the Supreme Commander, and Selana, the Secretary General. They're support for my mission was absolutely critical. So Kornblum is going to pursue a very vigorous, aggressive strategy next week.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is that because you're afraid that without the muscle of the United States, these agreements will be--they'll go back on these agreements--

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Yes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: --even with Milosevic's assurance that it would go forward, and even with this signed deal?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Charlayne, I think the history of the last year has been very clear on this. We need to work in partnership with our European allies, but it is American leadership vigorously exercised that is what brings achievement. This is not a criticism of our European friends and colleagues. But it has to be American leadership.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Presidential Candidate Bob Dole criticized the deal that you struck this weekend, saying that you allowed this indicted war criminal to remain there, effectively leave him in control of Bosnia, and is it not the case that many of his--most of his deputies and top aides are all nationalists who do not want a multiethnic Bosnia.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Well, the second part of your question is undeniable. Krjsnic, Buha, Plasic, the people behind Karadzic, are as tough as he is. They haven't been indicted, and under the rules of Dayton and the mutual agreement that the Bosnians agreed to, they can participate in the elections. In fact, President Izetbegovic told me he was ready to, to try to work within the framework with these people if they haven't been indicted, even though he hates them. As for Sen. Dole's charge, I think he's a bit premature. We got half of what we wanted. Dole is correct when he says that Karadzic is still in Pale. That's why Amb. Kornblum is going out to Belgrade, but I think it doesn't help if Sen. Dole criticizes the agreement and predicts its failure at the very moment it's taken place. What I would hope Sen. Dole would do is join the administration in saying to Karadzic, Mladic, and company that full implementation of this and further steps are necessary, otherwise, there will be consequences.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Briefly, what odds do you give the September 14th elections coming off as scheduled under--with all of these things up in the air sort of?

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: The chances of the election taking place, very high 90's, 98 percent. The question, however, not to ask your questions for you, Charlayne, the question isn't whether they're going to take place. They will take place. The question is: Will they be a success or not?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Free and fair.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Free and fair. And that, the jury is out on that and will remain out on it until September 15th at the earliest.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: And you and your colleagues in the press will really have the determining vote on that because you will be the world's eyes and ears into this, that plus observer missions. I'm not going to predict how these elections are coming out. I've spent a lot of time with Krjsnic and Brouha and Milosevic in Belgrade talking about this issue and saying, look, Karadzic is gone now. They said, yes, he is, we promise he is. And then I said, but now the elections have to work, or else there will be consequences. Again, Kornblum's trip is going to pursue that very heavily.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: May I make one other point?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Briefly.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Vice President Ganic of Bosnia is going to Belgrade tomorrow. This was another part of our trip. It's very important. It is the highest level trip between Sarajevo and Belgrade since the war began.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: He's a Bosnian.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: The Bosnian vice president. He's going to see Milosevic. He's taking a trade mission with him. The American Ambassador, John Menzies, is going with him to make sure it works. It is a big deal trip, and in the Balkans, it was very big news last week when we announced it and arranged it.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Well, Mr. Holbrooke, thank you for joining us.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Thanks, Charlayne.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the San Francisco Library, "Where They Stand," and the Olympics as history. FOCUS - POWERFUL IDEAS

MR. LEHRER: Now the new San Francisco Library, which is much more than a place to keep books. Spencer Michels reports.

MAYOR WILLIE BROWN: Use the library for knowledge, us the library for enjoyment, but above all else, use the main library.

SPENCER MICHELS: This spring, Mayor Willie Brown inaugurated San Francisco's new library, a building designed for the future. [Band Playing] In a city which prides itself on its cultural icons, its opera, its symphony, its newly-opened modern art museum, a library might not seem like big news. But for San Franciscans, it was a long time coming. The previous library, an elegant, monumental structure, had been built after the 1906 quake. By the 1940's, it was filled beyond capacity. By the 50's, it was exposed as a disgrace, neglected and dark and the first target of budget-cutting mayors. When Ken Dowling arrived as librarian in the 80's, the collection was in chaos.

KENNETH DOWLIN, San Francisco Librarian: It was quite embarrassing to be a person with two masters degrees and a 30-year library director, and I couldn't find a book in the old main library because of the way it was organized and laid out.

MR. MICHELS: But for practical politicians, building a new library seemed out of the question. Even former librarian and historian Kevin Starr thought the voters would never approve the more than $100 million needed for a new building.l

KEVIN STARR, California State Librarian: I didn't think that we could jump from one of the most neglected public library systems in the nation and automatically overnight become one of the most, one of the best financed.

MR. MICHELS: Finally, in 1988, library supporters got a bond issue for library construction on the ballot. It passed with 78 percent of the vote, proving the politicians wrong. Construction took four years on a site at the heart of San Francisco's Civic Center, a site the library had fought to retain when the better- supported symphony wanted to build there. On the outside, the new 376,000 square foot building matches the Beaux Art style of the Civic Center, an ornamented, neoclassical architecture using California granite. Before the much more radical modern interior could be finished, more funds had to be raised. There was no bond money allocated for furnishings and computers. So library supporters went to a previously untapped source--the minority community. An additional $30 million was raised from African- Americans, Latinos, Filipino, and Chinese-Americans, as well as gay and lesbian groups and others. In return, the library created so- called affinity rooms in their honor. KENNETH DOWLIN: And the concept is those are places for focus and celebration, and a starting point to brag about our diversity, but those you can't add them up and have the library. The library as a whole is much greater than the sum of the parts.

MR. MICHELS: The man responsible for the whole and the parts is the principal architect, James Ingo Freed. He also was the architect of the Holocaust Museum in Washington. Freed, who has Parkinson's Disease, learned to speak English at a public library after emigrating to America.

JAMES INGO FREED, Architect: There were free libraries and it was really remarkable. I was born in Germany, and I didn't have a free library. I learned English at the free library, going there and sitting in the stacks and hiding out till I could understand what this language was all about.

MR. MICHELS: Freed was intrigued by the challenges of planning seven stories of complicated space, how to integrate 300 computers with Internet connections, a million books, historic displays, and rooms for video watching. He worked on details as small as designing pencil drawers and as large as the mood in the library.

JAMES INGO FREED: Here you want this to be a happy thing, and this is--knowledge--knowledge is always good, even bad knowledge is good, because you want people to always experience new things, and you want them to think about those things, and you want them to use that. The thinking is never a bad process. It is always a good process. A building can make you think, it can make you smile. A building can be part of your life this way, and this way people will come in, look up with wonderment and say, wow!

MR. MICHELS: Natural light that penetrates throughout the building and especially down the center atrium is the quality that draws the most oohs and aahs. Architect Cathy Simon of San Francisco was Freed's design partner. CATHY SIMON, Architect: I like to think of the library as having many readings, like a poem or a wonderful piece of music, or any other work of art. And one of the important kind of metaphorical parts to me is the idea of light in the building. It has to do with actual real light or artificial light, but it also has to do with enlightenment, and the idea of going from darkness to the light. This building is about how light enriches our lives and how a library brings light to the world.

MR. MICHELS: Freed and Simon have placed bridges, another metaphor in a city of bridges, throughout the new library, part of the architecture of movement.

CATHY SIMON: This building is a bridge from ignorance to knowledge, from the dark to the light, from the past to the future. And in many ways, the architecture reinforces that. It's full of bridges, light, and you take a trip in it.

MR. MICHELS: Simon is satisfied that despite its immense size, the building does not overwhelm its users.

CATHY SIMON: It's a very big building. Each floor is about an acre and a third, which is a very big area. What's most pleasing to me about it is when I see a person in this space, that person looks dignified. It doesn't look like a small person. It looks like a big person, and in a way this is like the Renaissance where central-planned churches really were the idea that people are at the center.

MR. MICHELS: She believes that because it is people-centered, the building will not become obsolete, no matter how computer technology changes. The grace and feel of the architecture has San Franciscans and visitors trapsing through the library in record numbers, so many in fact that the staff is strained. Returned books aren't being put back on the shelves quickly.

LIBRARY WORKER: These are books that were returned in the last hour, and it's like this every hour.

MR. MICHELS: Long lines have formed to get new library cards and to check out books and tapes. Some library users are also complaining about the library's desiign, among them Grey Breckin, an architectural critic and teacher.

GREY BRECHIN, Architectural Critic: It was meant to contain this great amount of light, representing enlightenment. What it doesn't have is clarity. It's a cold and high-tech mess when you get on the inside. It's kind of big and glitzy in a Marriott Hotel kind of way, but, in fact, it doesn't seem to have been designed for books or even for people.

MR. MICHELS: Novelist and magazine writer Nicholson Baker is suing the library for allegedly throwing out books it didn't have room for.

NICHOLSON BAKER, Writer: What we ask libraries to do is preserve the printed past, and that's what they've failed to do in this case. They built a huge, big building, but they didn't put enough shelves in it. The estimate that I hear over and over again that at least 200,000 books were removed from this library since the time of the earthquake.

MR. MICHELS: Library officials say Baker's numbers are high and that librarians discard only duplicate copies and books not appropriate to the public library's collection. They cite the crowds of people admiring and using the library as evidence that the building is successful. Supporters, including State Librarian Kevin Starr, remain enthusiastic.

KEVIN STARR: San Francisco has gone in ten years from a neglected system to the cutting edge system in this country.

MR. MICHELS: In the months to come, librarians will have to work to solve the problems of space and staffing created by the popularity of the stunning architecture and the heavy usage of high-tech innovations. SERIES - WHERE THEY STAND

MR. LEHRER: Now, a "Where They Stand," our series of policy speeches by the presidential candidates. Tonight, President Clinton speaking this morning in Denver, mostly about welfare reform.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Let me say I have come here to Denver today as the governor and the mayor said to discuss the issue of welfare reform and specifically to talk a little bit about the child support issue. Welfare reform is about responsibility all right, but it's also about opportunity. What do you want for all these-- from all these poor folks that are on welfare? What do you want from them? They all have kids. Ask yourself, what do you want? You want them to have kids that turn out to be the mayor of Denver, right? Isn't that what you want? [applause] I mean-- [applause]--this is what I ask Congress to think about when they think about welfare reform. We want those families to be able to do what we want middle class families to do, and they're struggling to do as well, succeed at home and at work. That's what we want. Now it's true that I have vetoed two previous bills that had the label welfare reform on it because I didn't think they were welfare reform--[applause]--because--and it wasn't because they were too tough on work, it was because they were too tough on kids. And if you don't succeed at home, whether you're poor or rich or somewhere in the middle, then your work life won't compensate for it in terms of the impact on your own family and on society at large. But if you don't succeed at work, then it's very difficult to build a network of successful homes. And that's why this is so hard. So we decided we would take a different tact while trying to work with Congress and that I would use the power given to the President under the 1988 Welfare Reform Law to just waive federal rules and regulations for states that wanted to find new ways to move people from welfare to work in a way that helped them raise their children. But it's not enough. We would be better off if we could pass a welfare reform bill in Congress. And I want to explain why. No. 1, it would be good to end this waiver process and simply set up a framework to the states and say, here's your money, do these things, and you figure out how to do them. Don't come to us for permission; you know more about it than we do, figure out how to do them, but you ought to require strict time limits, you ought to require work, you ought to provide child support, and you ought to enforce the child support laws of your state better. Now that's what I think the--a framework would do. We are very close to this agreement on these basic elements, and we shouldn't let the opportunity slip from our grasp, but neither should we pass a bill that says welfare reform at the top but really winds up still being very tough on children, including children from already working families. There's no area where we need more personal responsibility than child support. The best provisions of the welfare bill moving through Congress are those that relate to child support because they would give us greater capacity to collect child support across state lines. About--well, slightly more than a third of all the child support cases where child support is delinquent in America today are cases that cross state lines. And that's one of the main reasons we need this national legislation. This is a big, hidden social crisis in America today. If every person in this country paid the child support they're legally obligated to pay and that they can pay, we could move 800,000 women and children off the welfare rolls today. We cannot talk about how we need more responsibility from all of our citizens when we've got a child support collection system that is a national scandal and people believe they can bring kids into the world and turn around walk off from them and never lift a finger to help them make their way through life. That is wrong, and we have to change that, and we can change it in the beginning by simply collecting the child support that is owed, that is payable, that people can pay that they don't pay. There's a lot more work we need to do with young parents, principally young fathers, by helping them understand what their responsibilities are and then structuring opportunities for them to fulfill it. This is a moral outrage and a social disaster. It is simply--and it's wrong when people say, well, the taxpayers will pick up the bill. Well, the taxpayers may pick up the bill to some extent, but it's rarely enough, and secondly, it is a cold, inadequate substitute for having a parent do the right thing. So--[applause]--let me tell you, this legislation would help us to make it easier to collect child support across national lines. It would require every state in the country to follow Colorado's lead in the revocation of a driver's license. It would give--get us employers' help when people change jobs and move across state lines because there'd be an employer registry that we could refer to for the collection of child support that's due across state lines. We are saying by these strong actions and our efforts to face welfare reform you have to behave responsibly and if you owe child support, you'd better pay it. If you deliberately refuse to pay it, you can find your face posted in the post office. We'll track you down with computers. We'll track you down with law enforcement. We'll find you through the Internet--not because anybody has a particular interest in humiliating someone but because we have got to find a way if we want to go into the 21st century as a great nation to succeed at work and at home. And it has to begin with parents doing their part. The government can never substitute for that. [applause]

MR. LEHRER: President Clinton speaking in Denver this morning. We'll have a Bob Dole speech later in the week. FINALLY - OLYMPIC HISTORY

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, a historical look at the Olympics now underway in Atlanta. For the last 100 years this competition between and among athletes has come to mean and stand for much more . We get a sense of that now from three NewsHour regulars, presidential historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Michael Beschloss, journalist/author Haynes Johnson. They're joined tonight by David Wallechinsky, a founding member of the International Society of Olympic Historians, author of "The Complete Book of the Olympics." I talked with them earlier today. Haynes, the Olympic games are much more than a sporting event.

HAYNES JOHNSON, Author/Journalist: They were supposed to be this Olympic ideal of peace and brotherhood and international goodwill going back to the Greeks 2,000 years ago, and even in our time, Jim, you go back and look at what the rules were, it was for amateurs only, and it was not to make money. You couldn't have profit. It was for pleasure of sports and all that, and it's become now international competition. It's become a fear of terrorism. It's become a commercial exploitation of a huge, massive number of commercials all over the place, and yet, at the same time, I have to confess--this is just watching it--I love the opening ceremonies. You see all those people coming in with those banners and flags and the countries, so I'm still a hopeless romantic in the idea maybe despite all the commercialization and terror that has existed at these things and fear, something still may come good of getting together and hoping to celebrate athletics and not international rivalry.

MR. LEHRER: Looking back through history, Michael, have they always been the potential for good that Haynes was talking about and result as a good--have they had good results for the world as a whole?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, Presidential Historian: Not consistently over this last century. You know, Jim, 1896 when the modern Olympic games revived, that was a time when we had very few international organizations, no League of Nations, no United Nations, and the idea was that you would have these games that would override national rivalries, and to an extent they have. Many times during the century you've had that Olympic ideal. But at the same time, you've seen moments during the century in which participants were about as nationalistic as they could have gotten. 1936, Adolf Hitler, when the Olympics were in Berlin, sought to use them as a demonstration of Aryan superiority, very much part of his philosophy. That was when the great African-American Jesse Owens succeeded, won some medals, was able to flout that. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union spent an awful lot of money and other resources developing Olympic athletes because they felt that if they won at the Olympics, that was a demonstration, particularly to the third world, that the Soviet Union was a rising power. So here are some examples of nationalism. I think in a way the amazing thing is that for so much of this century you've really had gains that did in many ways exemplify the Olympic ideal.

MR. LEHRER: But Doris, politics has always been a part of it, has it not? I mean--

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, Presidential Historian: No question. I mean, the ideal and the reality I think have lived side by side right from the beginning. Even the baron who created the modern games in the 1890's wanted it to be an exemplar of French loyalty, French sportsmanship, French character that would show itself through Olympic sports. But that doesn't mean to say that the ideal doesn't still plunge itself in as much as possible, even in the 36 games that Michael mentioned. It wasn't just the Jesse Owens and the black Americans flouting Hitler's hope for the white supremacy, but there was an incredible moment there where the Germans' long jumper saw that Jesse Owens had missed his first two jumps because of foul, and he put a white towel on the foul line, so Jesse Owens would get a better look at where the foul line was. He then saw-- he made that jump. He wins the long jump, and at the end of it, they walk off arm in arm much to Hitler's great dismay. So every now and then you're going to have nation states. They're going to be competing. You've got team sports which even intensifies the emotion. You've got medals being counted on both sides of the Cold War. But every now and then that spirit of what the Olympics was supposed to stand for really comes out. So I think they'll always be side by side. Nothing we can do about it.

MR. LEHRER: David Wallechinsky, how do you read the whole history in terms of balancing the ideal, the Olympic ideal, with all the politics that has always been part of it as well?

DAVID WALLECHINSKY, Olympic Historian: I think most of what everybody else has said is right. I would like to correct one thing. The ancient Greek athletes were not amateurs. Although they might only get a laurel wreath at the Olympics, when they went home, they were fatted for life. And even the ancient Greek medical colleges had scholarships in a way to support their athletes.

MR. LEHRER: And they never had to work again, right?

DAVID WALLECHINSKY: That's right. They never had to work again.

MR. LEHRER: All right.

DAVID WALLECHINSKY: And the code of amateurism was really created by upper class English to stop the working class from being able to compete against them because if you couldn't afford to--if you weren't a rich person, then you had to take time off from your training to work, or you had to become a professional, and, thus, not allowed to be in the Olympics.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. David, what about the--of course, we're all familiar with then President Jimmy Carter's decision in 1980 to boycott the Olympics because of the Russians and all of that. How common has that been through history, where a nation would use the Olympics to make a national statement of some kind?

DAVID WALLECHINSKY: Well, the first--there are actually boycotts in the ancient Greek games, but the first boycott in the modern games happened in 1956. There were three countries that boycotted to protest the Soviet invasion of Hungary, and three countries that boycotted to oppose Israel and the Suez Canal. So it really goes back to 1956. Then in 1976, you had the black African boycott and Jimmy Carter got the idea from that in 1980.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. As a practical matter, Haynes, does boycott using the Olympics that way, does it work? Has it been successful?

HAYNES JOHNSON: Oh, South Africa is a good example, and I think they took a terrible price by actually because of apartheid, the policy of racism down there, and then they were banned from the games, and now they wanted to get back, and now you see--you're seeing on the street again that they are back in the Olympics. So nations pay a price if they don't participate in these things. The other thing I think we haven't talked about yet, Jim, is the one moment in 1972 that cast a pall over everything that's so ominous now with the Atlanta games, and that was the terrorism of the Israeli athletes--

MR. LEHRER: All right.

HAYNES JOHNSON: --being slain, the 11 where you had on the screen--the first time--I think it was the first time we actually saw as a world the hooded figure of the spectral figure of terror--could penetrate the Olympic games--supposedly pure as that.

MR. LEHRER: But that also goes to the idea that if you really wanted to strike at the heart of something--

HAYNES JOHNSON: Right.

MR. LEHRER: --that was the symbolic way to do it, with something in the Olympic games.

HAYNES JOHNSON: The whole world was there.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

HAYNES JOHNSON: And you had this audience, and everybody--what 3 billion--billion people were supposed to be watching these things--what better place if you have this in your mind to want to make a horrifying statement that we can blow you all up than taking on the Olympic games.

MR. LEHRER: You mentioned commercialism at the very beginning, Haynes. Does that offend you? Is that--does that run counter to-- to the ideal of the Olympics?

HAYNES JOHNSON: It does to me, Jim. I mean, I know that we have sponsors, we all are paid by advertisers in one way or another in our lives as journalists or whatever, but I, I must say the overwhelming sense that you--everything you see on there--uniforms are decals for this and for that commercial and their shoes and so forth. I'd feel a little better if it weren't quite so much, frankly.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Doris, how do you feel about that?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Well, I don't know. I agree with what David said earlier. I think the problem with undoing commercialism is it might mean that only people who have the wherewithal to run for these sports on their own are going to be able to participate. Avery Brundage, as I understand it, wanted commercialism out so much that he didn't even want skiers who were coaches in the wintertime to be able to participate and undid an--

MR. LEHRER: Brundage was head of the Olympics for years and years.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: He was head of the Olympics for years and years and years.

MR. LEHRER: And years.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: And here's this guy who was a skier and he was coaching to make some money. He was kicked off the team, went back to Austria as a hero. That doesn't seem fair because winter sports cost so much money. Something's going to have to support them. But I think once the foot got in the door where they agree that you needed some support, I agree with Haynes on the other end, that it's become so overwhelmingly commercial right now that you feel like it's even taken the place of the politics in a certain sense.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: But the only thing--I'd like to just go back--

MR. LEHRER: Sure.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: I think there's a distinction in the boycott. Maybe I'm not being fair with this, but it seems to me the Africans had a right to boycott against those countries who would not allow South Africa in, because South Africa had apartheid. It was discriminating against any kind of black athletes who couldn't participate in equal basis, and so the other African nations were supporting the IOC should not allow such a country to be allowed in when it was discriminating against its own athletes. That's different from using the boycott against the invasion of Afghanistan or even Hungary as a political gesture because there's a charter, a clause in the charter that says that these countries should not be allowed to discriminate. If they violate that charter, they should not be allowed in the Olympics, in my judgment.

MR. LEHRER: Michael, politics and, and commercialism, though, they are, they are--it doesn't matter what any of us or anybody else says, they are essential--an essential part of the Olympics, are they not, whether they're in Atlanta this year or four years from now, or four years go or whatever?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: They're always going to be, and the poignant thing even above and beyond the tragedy that Haynes mentioned of 1972, the killing of those 11 Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorism, that was an effort by the West Germans at the time in holding those Olympics in Munich to have an Olympics that overcame the memory of 1936 and Hitler, and the poignant thing is that what it is now remembered for is something that is extremely tragic. Another point I think that Haynes touched on I think is very important, and that is that in a way, the idea of 1896 was that you would have the entire world's attention on these athletes honoring them. That's happened largely because of television in a way that they never could have dreamt in 1896, but at the same time, the down side of all that is that it is a horrible temptation for some terrorist or someone else who wants attention for his or her political cause to use this as an enormous backdrop to make that message.

MR. LEHRER: David, the politics of it aside, has there ever been a time in history where it mattered in terms of the end result of a given athletic contest, or had they always been more or less pure? The best athlete--the best swimmer won--the best basketball team won--the best sprinter won, et cetera, et cetera.

DAVID WALLECHINSKY: Well, sometimes. Again, when you use the Nazi example, there was an incident in 1936 where the Germans, the Nazis, so desperate to win a gold medal, removed the Jewish--the best high jumper in Germany in the woman's event was a Jewish woman--they did not allow her to compete--and instead, they substituted for her a woman named Dora Ratchin, who finished fourth. Well, years later, it turned out that Dora Ratchin was really Herman Ratchin, yes, really a man, yes, and the Nazi youth organization had convinced him to be dressed up as a woman. That's how desperate they were for a gold medal. I'd like to point out one other good that came out of the, the Olympics in terms of politics, sometimes forgotten, is the 1988 games were given to Seoul, South Korea, which at the time was a very stern dictatorship. There was so much pressure from the world and really threats to take the Olympics away that South Korea became a democracy because of the Olympics and is still a democracy today.

MR. LEHRER: And speaking of democracy, Haynes, this point that you were talking about, what ever you may think about some parts of it, there are still athletes competing at the peak--the finest athletes in the world--and nobody can take that away.

HAYNES JOHNSON: I don't think the commercialization, no matter how bad it may be, can detract from that, and something else--it's just subliminally--I went back and looked up and maybe I'm wrong about this, but I think in 1900 in Paris, the games there were the first time women were admitted into the games to play at all, six women, six women, only six, and now, you're looking at the screen, there are women and races of all kinds together. It seems to me that's a positive.

MR. LEHRER: David, did the progress of women athletics, did it come out of the Olympics? Did the Olympics leave that, or did it follow?

DAVID WALLECHINSKY: Well, first of all, Baron DuKubertand was absolutely opposed--the founder of the modern Olympics--was absolutely opposed to having women in the Olympics. He felt that this was for the good of males. But yes, they slipped in, in croquet, in tennis, and golf, and eventually in all the sports this year we're seeing about 36 percent of the athletes are women. There were women sports before that. Wimbledon was already--

MR. LEHRER: Sure.

DAVID WALLECHINSKY: The Wimbledon Tennis Tournament was already taking place.

MR. LEHRER: But what I was saying, have the Olympics been a leader of, of the growth in women athletics, or have they been following just what's already happened?

DAVID WALLECHINSKY: Slowly it's been a leader. Recently it's definitely been a leader, and you know, we're now seeing athletes starting to compete from the Arab nations, and I think that's mostly because of pressure from the Olympics. For example, Pakistan has been in the Olympics since 1948. This is the first time they have ever entered a woman, and if there wasn't pressure from the Olympics in--the international movement, I don't think that they ever would have allowed women's sports.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. All right. Well, David and Doris, Michael and Haynes, thank you all very much. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday, search teams recovered four more victims from the downed TWA Flight 800. They also found pieces of the Boeing 747's fuselage submerged in the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island, New York. And a briefcase bomb exploded at the airport in Lajore, Pakistan today. Nine people were killed, twenty injured. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.