The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: A summary of today's news; some perspective on the escalating turmoil in Colombia; a report on fighting the terrorism war in Asia; some closing thoughts about the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City; and memories of Chuck Jones, the great animator who died over the weekend.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: There were new questions today about the fate of Osama bin Laden. The U.S. war commander, General Tommy Franks, would not confirm reports in the "Washington Post" and the "New York Times". They said U.S. officials now believe bin Laden survived the bombing assault on his hideout in Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan. The report said he could still be hiding along the Afghan- Pakistani border. General Franks addressed the issue at his headquarters in Tampa Florida.

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS: I really haven't made an assessment that bin Laden is alive based on interrogations of detainees or any intelligence information we've received. We simply don't know whether he is or not. And I've said before and I'll continue to say until I see evidence that he is not alive, then we'll continue to make the assumption that he is alive because that continues to focus our intelligence activity, and so that's what we'll continue to do.

JIM LEHRER: Franks also said U.S. forces have identified 120 sites in Afghanistan where al-Qaida or Taliban leaders could be hiding. He said they checked out nearly all of them now. He did not say what was found. Afghanistan's interim Prime Minister Karzai addressed Iran's parliament today. He praised Iran for helping his country battle the Soviets and, later, terrorists. On Sunday, he tried to reassure the Iranians the U.S. presence in Afghanistan is no threat to them. President Bush has said Iran belongs to an "axis of evil." U.S. officials have also accused it of trying to undermine the Afghan government. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld may close a Pentagon office that proposed giving disinformation to foreign media. A spokeswoman said that today amid criticism of the new "Office of Strategic Influence." Later, President Bush was asked if he had told Rumsfeld to shut it down.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I don't need to tell him this. He knows how I feel. I saw it reflected in his comments the other day. We'll tell the American people the truth. And he was just as amazed as I was about reading, you know, some allegation that somehow our government would never tell the American people the truth. I have got confidence having heard his statement, I heard him this morning talk about it, that they'll handle this in the right way.

JIM LEHRER: The President also said he's satisfied with Pakistan's response to the murder of "Wall Street Journal" reporter, Daniel Pearl. In Pakistan today, a judge ordered the chief suspect held another two weeks. And U.S. Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin confirmed the U.S. tried to extradite him for other crimes. That was at least two months before Pearl's abduction in January. The Ambassador will raise the issue again tomorrow with Pakistan's President. In Colombia today, a presidential candidate was being held hostage by leftist rebels. They abducted her Saturday near a town in southern Colombia. The government then received a communiqu asking to trade her for rebel prisoners. Last week, President Pastrana called off peace talks and began a military offensive against the guerrillas. We'll have more on this in a few minutes. The main opposition leader in Zimbabwe was charged with treason today. It came as he campaigned to unseat President Robert Mugabe in next month's presidential election. The challenger said the charges were designed to damage him. He was questioned and then released to face trial at a later date. If convicted, he could face the death penalty. In London, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan voiced concern about efforts to silence dissent in Zimbabwe.

KOFI ANNAN: I believe that the people of Zimbabwe should be given a chance for a free and fair election and when they have voted the voice of the people must be respected. It was unfortunate that the European Union monitors had to leave the country. But I would appeal to the government of Zimbabwe not to interfere with the process and allow the people of that country to express themselves freely and willingly at the next elections.

JIM LEHRER: In Washington, a State Department spokesman criticized what he called Mugabe's increasingly authoritarian rule. In the Middle East a brief lull in the violence ended today. At least one gunman opened fire at a bus stop in northern Jerusalem wounding eight Israelis. Police said the attackers was then shot and killed. In the West Bank, four people were killed, and two pregnant women were wounded. One was Israeli, the other Palestinian. Both gave birth later to healthy babies. On Sunday, another pregnant Palestinian was wounded. Today's violence came as Israeli tanks pulled back from positions near Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah. He remains confined to the city. The U.S. Supreme Court today decided not to decide a Ten Commandments case. The Justices refused to hear an appeal by Indiana Governor Frank O'Bannon. He wanted to build a monument to the biblical teachings at the statehouse. A lower federal court ruled it would violate the constitution by promoting a religious purpose. That's it for the news summary tonight. Now it's on to: The crisis in Colombia; terrorists in Asia; the winter Olympics; and remembering Chuck Jones.

FOCUS - CONFRONTATION IN COLOMBIA

JIM LEHRER: A kidnapping and more war in the South American nation of Colombia. Ray Suarez has the story.

RAY SUAREZ: As recently as a month ago, there was new hope that Colombia's four-decade civil war was moving toward peace. The government of President Andres Pastrana, who has long pushed for a negotiated settlement, agreed in January on a timetable for peace talks with Colombia's main Marxist guerrilla group. The Colombian revolutionary army-- or the FARC, as it's known-- has close ties with Colombia's cocaine traffickers, and is considered Latin America's wealthiest insurgency group ever. But in the last few weeks, the rebels stepped up their deadly attacks on law enforcement and civilians, even as their leaders were at the peace table. And last Wednesday, they were accused of hijacking a civilian jet and taking a Senator as hostage. Within hours, President Pastrana called off the peace talks, squarely placing the blame on the FARC, and he said would no longer provide the rebels with a safe haven in the Colombian jungle known as the demilitarized zone. The FARC demanded the zone three years ago as a condition for coming to the peace table.

PRESIDENT ANDRES PASTRANA, Colombia (Translated): I have decided to end the demilitarized zone as of midnight today. I have given all the necessary orders to our armed forces for them to retake the mentioned area. I also reiterated my order to combat, all over the country, all illegal groups by conducting operatives not only of a defensive nature, but also of an offensive nature.

RAY SUAREZ: A day later, FARC rebels began moving out of the safe haven as the Colombian army moved in. The dashed hopes for peace coincided with a shift in U.S. Policy toward Colombia. Three years ago, the Clinton Administration provided Colombia with $1.3 billion in weapons and training under a program called Plan Colombia. 250 U.S. soldiers are there as part of the package. By law, the aid could only be used to fight the drug trade, not the rebels. But since September, the Bush Administration has viewed Colombia as another front in its terrorism war. Last month, the White House asked Congress for $98 million to fund a brand-new mission: Protecting oil pipelines owned by foreign companies from rebel attacks. The White House is also planning to provide Bogota with military intelligence to help it intercept phone calls and track rebels from the air. That's welcome news to Pastrana, whose term runs out this summer. Many candidates are campaigning to succeed him, including Ingrid Betancourt, a stinging critic of the FARC whose family has long been politically powerful. She's known overseas for her new book, "Until Death do us Part." It describes her return home after a comfortable life abroad. But over the weekend, the FARC said it kidnapped Betancourt as she was traveling in rebel-held territory. The insurgents want to trade her for rebel prisoners.

RAY SUAREZ: And for more on the fighting in Colombia, we turn to Luis Alberto Moreno, Colombia's ambassador to the United States; and Michael Shifter, senior fellow at the Inter-American dialogue and an adjunct professor of Latin American Studies at Georgetown University.

RAY SUAREZ: Mr. Ambassador, tell us the latest on the Betancourt kidnapping. Have there been any further communications from the kidnappers?

LUIS ALBERTO MORENO: Not different than some of the people that were released that were kidnapped with her when she was going into the area which was at the time being retaken by the government. This is a very sad moment, of course, for Colombia to see that somebody who is aspiring to be president of Colombia were kidnapped. But we don't have any latest information other than to know that she is in the hands of the FARC, as are, unfortunately, other members of the Colombian Congress. There's already with the Senator that was kidnapped last Wednesday a total of five members of Congress who are also being kidnapped and held hostage today by the FARC.

RAY SUAREZ: What's your government's general response? Will you negotiate with these people? Are you prepared to make a deal with them, given that they do hold such a large number of people?

LUIS ALBERTO MORENO: Well, President Pastrana won't really... not only was elected with a mandate of achieving peace with the FARC, he went as far as he could. He tried every possible avenue to negotiate a peace element with the FARC, but unfortunately to negotiate it takes two. The strategy that the FARC has developed lately and especially in the last month since the international community came and tried to broker a last-minute solution, is to invoke terrorist acts. They did in the last month alone about 170 terrorist acts. They, for instance, destroyed 22 electric pylons, 33 electric pylons in the last month alone. They put car bombs; they bombed a pipeline. They did more kidnappings. This is a continuously an offense that the FARC has taken against civilian society in Colombia.

RAY SUAREZ: Michael Shifter, how do you read the kidnapping? Is it just part of the back-and-forth of this very long civil war or because she was running for president, does it up the anti-some?

MICHAEL SHIFTER: Well, I think what it shows, the kidnapping, is the immense cruelty of the war in Colombia, not only the cruelty on the part of the FARC but on the part of all the violent actors that are involved in this terribly tragic situation. Senator Betancourt is somebody who has shown tremendous courage in her political life. I think this shows that even elections which have been the heart of Colombia's political system is at risk and democracy is at risk in Colombia. So I think this is really a metaphor for the tremendous cruelty and savagery and brutality of this conflict on all sides.

RAY SUAREZ: You mentioned her courage. Might there also have been an element of risk-taking that sort of was beyond what was perhaps prudent in this case? This was an area, if I understand this correctly, that was in dispute. Rebels were being chased out by government forces?

MICHAEL SHIFTER: Well, I think one could talk about the risk that she took and questioned whether this was the wisest thing. But the fact of the matter is that she is a presidential candidate, and she felt that she wanted to show support for the citizens of that community because of the end of the peace process and the possible consequences that they could suffer. And I think she wanted to show that she cared about them and she connected to them and that was her motivation.

RAY SUAREZ: Ambassador Moreno, maybe you could help Americans understand what's at stake here. This has been called one of the longest civil wars in the world -- pushing 40 years. What is it that the rebels want and what is it that the government is unwilling to give?

LUIS ALBERTO MORENO: Well, there's no question that the... this has changed over the years. I think one could argue that they had, you know, legitimate causes at the beginning of this conflict, which was 40 years ago but as a result of the change in the East-West conflict and the fact that they no longer were part of the military arm of the Communist Party, the FARC, because of drugs, really increased in size. And the minute drugs became an issue in Colombia and became kind of a platform for all violent actors in Colombia unfortunately the conflict in Colombia changed and it became worse as Michael was saying. Now it's really a challenge on Colombian democracy. How to go about resolving it will clearly Colombia needs to continue to invest in bettering the capacity of its armed forces to provide security throughout the country. Colombia is a country that really has a lot of frontier areas. Most of the population is concentrated in ten cities. You have about 70% of the population. So the real answer here is, one, strengthening the military in our country, making it bigger, making it more effective. Two, doing something about the production and the transport and the traffic of drugs. And this is at the heart of weakening all violent actors in Colombia. Three, it is really the promotion of human rights and the strengthening of human rights throughout the country. I think those are critical elements for changing this conflict around.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Professor, the Ambassador just suggested that drugs have sort of poisoned the FARC's original political program. Do they represent a strain of the Colombian public or does narcotics money keep them in the field long after they ceased to represent a part of Colombian life?

MICHAEL SHIFTER: The FARC, I think, is a very complicated organization. Clearly they commit terrorist acts. Clearly they're criminals and bandits that rely on the drug trade. They're also guerillas in their origins. So it's very, very complicated. They're all of the above. They don't enjoy populous support and sympathy because of the barbarous acts that they've committed so the task is, as the ambassador said correctly, to establish and assert authority in the country. This is a war about power and different factions with a lot of money, a lot of resources, a lot of military power, vying for power, claiming territory and a government that hasn't been able to establish complete control over its own territory. And that is the principal task. It's hard to see how this crisis will be resolved and how to turn around the decline without the government regaining some initiatives and gaining control of its own authority -- and its own territory. That's the fundamental challenge. That, I think, is what the Colombians have begun to do but they need a lot more support and a lot more time.

RAY SUAREZ: A lot more support from where? The Bush Administration has been in office 13 months now. Is there American governmental support for this tougher line against the FARC?

MICHAEL SHIFTER: Well, I think there is. I think we're moving in that direction. Clearly there is... the Bush Administration is concerned about this situation. The peace process has broken down which opens the way for greater involvement. I think the focus so narrowly for so many years on narcotics and drugs was misguided. If we eradicate coca and the state and the government can't function properly, then the problem is not going to deal with the fundamental problem. Now we're in the war on terrorism. That is a dimension and a problem in the Colombian context. But again the U.S. policy should be oriented towards trying to bring this conflict to an end. That should be the political objective, which includes strengthening the security forces in Colombia, making them more professional so that they respect human rights and are more capable of protecting Colombian citizens.

RAY SUAREZ: Ambassador, American aid was specifically meant to be part of the war on drugs. During the Bush Administration and since September 11, is there support... are you hearing support from American governmental sources?

LUIS ALBERTO MORENO: Well, there is no question, Ray, that ever since September 11 there's been a profound change not only in the way Americans think but I think the way the world thinks. In Colombia you have, as Michael was suggested, all of these expressions of terrorism, of drug trafficking, that have been really at the heart of this conflict. So therefore what we are seeing and what I think is important to see is to help resolve the conflict. How do you resolve it? There is no question, as I was saying earlier, with a stronger military. You need a social and economic component; economic security is critical here. It is critical to be able to protect a lot of the infrastructure in Colombia, which is now being targeted by the FARC, to be able to destroy the economic underpinnings of the country. We need to be able to react to that -- protecting pipelines, protecting the electric pylons, protecting the water systems and also to be able to enhance trade and trade possibilities between Colombia and the United States.

RAY SUAREZ: Do you want still more American aid to accomplish this?

LUIS ALBERTO MORENO: Yes, I believe that is necessary. I believe that not only is American aid necessary, American intelligence and all the resources the United States can bring to the table -- as well as what the Colombian people and the Colombian government must do. This is precisely what President Pastrana set out to do. This is why he came out with plan Colombia, which had a very important economic and social component. This must be part of the equation, as this goes directly at the root causes of the violence.

RAY SUAREZ: Mr. Ambassador, Professor Shifter, thank you both.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: Going after terrorists in Asia; farewell to the winter Olympics, and to the animated magic of Chuck Jones.

FOCUS - THE ASIAN FRONT

JIM LEHRER: Another front in the war against terrorism; special correspondent Simon Marks reports from two nations in Asia.

SIMON MARKS: Rush hour at the Yishun subway station in Singapore: Trains come and go every few minutes with the crisp efficiency for which this city state is known. Commuters, eager to help Singapore bounce back from recession, head to work. But our cameras aren't the first cameras to have filmed this location.

SIMON MARKS: This videotape of the Yishun subway station was found in Afghanistan. It's narrated by one of the leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian militant group supportive of Osama bin Laden. It's effectively an offer to attack Americans in Singapore on al-Qaida's behalf.

VOICE ON TAPE: You will notice it's how the boxes that are placed on the motorcycles. These are the same type of boxes which we intend to use.

SIMON MARKS: The plan presented to one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants: To plant explosives in a bicycle and park it at the station. The bomb would be detonated when busloads of U.S. military personnel were passing by. A separate attack was also planned against U.S. Naval vessels heading into port here. Documents recovered by U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan refer to a kill zone in these waters. 13 leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah are now in detention in Singapore. They were arrested shortly before the authorities received the videotape from Afghanistan. The hunt is on for other members of the group who remain on the run. Wong Kan Seng is Singapore's home affairs minister.

WONG KAN SENG, Home Affairs Minister, Singapore: I think many Singaporeans were shocked, very surprised that indeed we have a small group of Singaporeans trying to perpetuate this terrorism in Singapore. Fortunately the plan was not proceeded with.

SIMON MARKS: And do you have a sense of why the al-Qaida leaders did not authorize the plan to be carried out?

WONG KAN SENG: We don't know. Perhaps they could have other priorities at the time.

SIMON MARKS: Singapore's Muslim community has unreservedly condemned the plot to attack Americans here. In this Asian melting pot of diverse races and cultures, there was enormous surprise when the plot was revealed, and it's prompted a wide public debate about how Singaporeans can best strengthen an integrated society. It's also led the government to exercise continued vigilance in case other plots are being hatched.

WONG KAN SENG: We don't see the existence of any other group in Singapore for now.

SIMON MARKS: For now?

SIMON MARKS: The Singaporean government is proud of foiling the apparent plot to attack U.S. targets here. It's promising to continue working with U.S. authorities in the hunt for al-Qaida sympathizers who might seek to act in Osama bin Laden's name. But elsewhere in this region, the U.S. cannot count on similar support in identifying and eradicating groups that could act as al-Qaida's Asian proxies. Just 75 minutes by air from Singapore, in the sprawling Indonesian capital Jakarta, the war on terror has not been hitting the headlines. This has: The worst flooding in a generation to inundate Jakarta has left more than 60 people dead, communities destroyed, and a government under pressure, literally, to dig citizens out of the mud. But the monsoon isn't the only storm cloud gathering over Indonesia. The government is fighting to contain an uprising by rebels in one far-flung province. Violence between Muslims and Christians dominates another region to the East. And now the United States argues that this-- the world's most populous Muslim nation, home to 200 million people across an archipelago of 13,000 remote islands-- is a base for a growing number of al-Qaida cells and supporters. That's a contention vigorously denied by government ministers and Muslim leaders like din Syamsuddin, who heads an umbrella organization of Indonesian Muslim groups that advises the country's president.

SIMON MARKS: So when the United States says that it believes that there have been terrorist training camps on Indonesian territory, you say?

DIN SYAMSUDDIN, Indonesia Council of Ulema: We don't have any information about that. The American and the Indonesian governments have to prove it with hard evidence.

SIMON MARKS: U.S. officials say there's plenty of evidence available. This is as close as cameras can now get to the U.S. embassy in Jakarta, after al-Qaida was found to have obtained detailed plans of the compound. U.S. officials say they believe Osama bin Laden's organization operated at least one terrorist training camp on Indonesian soil. And under U.S. pressure, a string of Muslim leaders has been interrogated by the police here. This man, Abu Bakar Bashir, a 63-year-old cleric, runs a religious school where most of the Singaporean plotters studied. He's accused of being a leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, the group responsible for the plot in Singapore. He admits to "rejoicing" when he heard of the September 11 attacks, but has been freed by the Indonesians. Political analyst Kusnanto Anggoro says that's no surprise.

KUSNANTO ANGORRO, Indonesia Center for Strategic & International Studies: No, I don't think so. I think there are very complicated issues, especially dealing with the people like Abu Bakar Bashir.

SIMON MARKS: He argues that in response to September 11, the Indonesian government is navigating treacherous waters.

KUSNANTO ANGORRO: We condemn terrorism, and we understand that international terrorism is nonconventional threat to security and threat against humanity, and there is no other way than cooperate with other in combating terrorism. However, at the policy level, then it would be very difficult to expect that between the U.S. and the Indonesian government would have some common response.

SIMON MARKS: The government's difficulties were on display in Washington late last year. President Megawati Sukarnoputri visited president bush at the White House and spoke only in the most general terms about her reaction to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the pentagon.

PRESIDENT MEGAWATI SUKARNOPUTRI, Indonesia ( Translated ): After I heard and witnessed and saw what happened, the tragic events in New York and Washington, I immediately issued a statement which strongly condemned these attacks, which were very inhumane. And afterwards, I sent a letter to President Bush expressing my condolences. So this is the position of my government on this issue, so it's very clear.

SIMON MARKS: But what is not very clear is whether the President, now back at her palace in Jakarta, intends to accept $18 million in U.S. aid that she's been offered to help combat terrorism. For now, she can legitimately claim to be busy resolving the difficulties created by the country's floods, an issue nature has pushed to the top of her current agenda.

Even if the Indonesian government had the time or the inclination to see things Washington's way, it's under intense pressure not to cooperate with President Bush in his war on terror. And that pressure originates here, in the impoverished shantytowns of this country that serve as a natural breeding ground for Islamic militancy. Even the poorest of communities are marked by the minarets of mosques. The country's Islamic organizations have enormous influence over domestic Indonesian politics. At a newsstand outside Jakarta's largest mosque, we found literature accusing the United States of waging war on Islam and accusing Israel of being behind the September 11 attacks. Local religious leaders reject all offers of U.S. financial assistance. And in a further indication that the Bush Administration's options are limited here, they also reject any notion that the joint military exercises recently staged by the U.S. in Thailand or the ongoing U.S. military presence in the Philippines would ever be acceptable in Indonesia.

DIN SYAMSUDDIN: They have to be careful. This is the largest Muslim country-- cannot be taken for granted, okay? Not only the radical, the fundamentalists, but the moderates will feel that this is kind of demeaning of the Muslims here in the country, in Indonesia.

SIMON MARKS: So Indonesian analysts say there's not much the U.S. can do to prevent the country becoming a secure haven for al-Qaida sympathizers. They say any attempts by Washington to impose a solution without Jakarta's consent would be doomed.

KUSNANTO ANGORRO: Do you think that would be possible? I don't think so. I mean, from international relation point of view, that would likely create some problem, especially because many people here in Indonesia still believe in the noninterference in domestic affairs, for example. So I think the U.S., if it would like to do so, then need an approval from Indonesian government. ( Music playing )

SIMON MARKS: 9,000 miles and 13 time zones from the World Trade Center and the pentagon, governments across Asia are facing their own dilemmas confronting the threat of terrorism. In places like Singapore, the U.S. can count on cooperation and support. But in other parts of this region, the associates of

al-Qaida may still find places to hide and places to plan, far from the reach of U.S. military might.

FOCUS - SCORING THE GAMES

JIM LEHRER: Now, a last look at the winter Olympics, and to Terence Smith.

TERENCE SMITH: The 19th winter Olympic games came to a spectacular close last night in Salt Lake City. As always, there were some great and sometimes surprising highlights as athletes from 78 countries competed over 17 days. Australia earned its first ever winter Olympic gold, thanks to Stephen Bradbury on the speed skating short track and Alisa Camplin's aerials in women's freestyle. Croatia's Janica Kostelic made Alpine history when she became the first Olympic skier to win four medals, three of them gold. Swiss ski jumper Simon Ammann soared to capture two gold medals in the men's 90-meter and 120-meter jumps.

NEWSCASTER: Canada, the gold is yours!

TERENCE SMITH: And yesterday, Canada's men's ice hockey team ended the country's 50-year quest for gold in their national pastime.

For the U.S., it was a record-shattering Olympics with 34 medals, one fewer than Germany's total, but more than double the previous U.S. winter high of 13. In women's ice skating, Sarah Hughes nailed a series of triple jumps to win the gold. On the ski slopes, Bode Miller's wild second-run comeback earned him silver medals in the combined and the giant downhill slalom. He's the first American male skier to win medals in either event. The U.S. swept the snowboarding half-pipe competitions with Ross Powers, Danny Kass and J.J. Thomas taking gold, silver, and bronze. In speed skating, Derek Parra's surprise performance on the long track earned him a gold and a silver medal. He's the first Mexican-American to medal in a winter Olympics. On the short track, Apolo Anton Ohno won gold in the 1,500 and silver in the 1,000. On the bobsled track, Vonetta Flowers became the first black athlete ever to win gold at a winter games. She snared the top award with her teammate Jill Bakken in the debut of the women's event. And, Jimmy Shea, the first U.S. third generation Olympian, hurtled headfirst to win gold in the skeleton's return to the winter program. But this year's winter Olympic games will probably be most remembered for the controversies. In the pairs figure skating competition, after a judging scandal, Olympic officials awarded a rare second gold medal to Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier. The first place honors were shared with a Russian pair. Both the Russian and Korean teams threatened to pull out of the games over a string of decisions against their athletes, but ultimately joined the closing ceremony. And just a few hours earlier, the IOC disqualified three cross-country skiers, stripping two of their gold medals for doping. An average of 34 million Americans tuned in to NBC's coverage of the games. The next winter games will be held in Turin, Italy, in 2006.

TERENCE SMITH: For more on the games in Salt Lake City, we're joined by Howard Berkes, correspondent for National Public Radio; and Richard Sandomir, a columnist with the "New York Times." He writes about television coverage of sports. Welcome to you both.

Howard Berkes, sum it up for us, what it's been like being in Salt Lake these last 17 days.

HOWARD BERKES: Well, it's been pretty exciting. There has been a lot of security, intensive security here. Everywhere you went, you went through metal detectors. I've had my car searched every day, but the security people were friendly, didn't seem to be overbearing. And the spectators I talked to, the athletes I talked to, and even some of the skeptical journalists I talked to all seemed to have a pretty good time and will remember, I think, these games fondly.

TERENCE SMITH: Howard, what do you think explains the extraordinary U.S. Performance, these 34 medals? Was it just home field advantage or was there something more than that?

HOWARD BERKES: Well, the U.S. Olympic Committee says that it's been years of preparation and funding. The USOC has increased the funding for individual athletes and for sports. There also probably is... it's due in part to the building of the winter sports facilities that now exist here in Salt Lake City. You have to remember that when Salt Lake City was initially bidding to host the Olympics it first had to pass muster at the United States Olympic Committee before it could go on to the International Olympic Committee. And the U.S. Olympic Committee required Salt Lake and the other bidding cities to promise to build facilities even before they would be named the Olympic hosts. Salt Lake City put up... the state of Utah put up $59 million to do that. And so some of these facilities have been here for ten years. That enabled young athletes in the western United States to have a place to train where they didn't have that before, especially for bobsled, luge, and skeleton, and for speed skating and ski jumping. And I think some of what we've seen in the past two weeks comes from that, as well as what is clearly an increased level of funding for athletes from the United States Olympic Committee.

TERENCE SMITH: Richard Sandomir, most people, of course, watched this on television. Was it a good show?

RICHARD SANDOMIR: I think it was an excellent show. In Sydney, a lot of viewers tuned out. A lot of viewers weren't interested in Sydney, and you could see that in the ratings. But in the ratings for Salt Lake, NBC was up 18% over Nagano, which were shown by CBS, and it was 14% better than the rating that NBC guaranteed to its advertisers. I think in pacing, in cutting down the number of features and showing as many events as possible, NBC did a far better job than it did in the past summer Olympics.

TERENCE SMITH: Well, you mentioned cutting down the number of features, some of which many people found to be a bit sappy. What did you think of the mix, as it was played out in these Olympics, between actual sports events and other coverage?

RICHARD SANDOMIR: You know, you could almost not even notice some of the other features. Some of them were so short - maybe less than two minutes - sometimes a minute and a half - they were blended much more seamlessly into the events. They didn't intrude on the events. They introduced an athlete before he or she was supposed to go for the... go compete. And it really was not intrusive. It really wasn't a problem. In Sydney, people were mocking NBC for the way they were doing this. That was an old format pioneered by ABC Sports when Roone Arledge was running things there. That has had to change. They also had to appeal to younger viewers who were totally turned off in Sydney. So with the coverage of skeleton and aerials and snowboarding, NBC appealed very heavily in both production and promotion to 18- to 34-year-old viewers, and the ratings in that group were way up.

TERENCE SMITH: Howard Berkes, most-- or many, anyway-- of the headlines out of Salt Lake City had to do with protests, challenges, controversies over the figure skating judging. How much did that affect the games?

HOWARD BERKES: Well, it's interesting because, yes, we journalists certainly were immersed in those stories. And in fact the very final moments of these games, when Canada was beating the United States in ice hockey and we all probably were wishing that we were sitting in front of the TV watching that, or in the arena, most of us... many of the journalists covering these games were in a press conference room at an International Olympic Committee news conference on these doping issues that you've talked about. It certainly was something that required our attention and deserved our attention, but in talking to athletes and to many spectators, I'm not sure they cared about it that much. Athletes I spoke with yesterday at the end of the games, in trying to get some sense of their view of the games, said that what they do is they concentrate on what they have to do, and that is compete and win and do the best they can. And when they're not competing, they're cheering on their teammates. They told me they didn't pay that much attention to the doping scandal or the skating scandal.

TERENCE SMITH: Howard, will things be different in the future as a result of some of these scandals? For example, will there be different rules and means by which to judge figure skating?

HOWARD BERKES: There's already a plan that still has to be approved by the International Skating Union, which will dramatically change figure skating judging. But this scandal has brought to light what some have been troubled about with not only figure skating, but other judged sports in the Olympics. In the summer games, boxing is rife with problems of this sort, and I think there will be more attention to judging and how you can somehow remove politics and personal preference from the sports. And we know that the International Skating Union says it's going to look into this more deeply, and by April we'll have some more detailed reports on what happened here in Salt Lake City and what can be done in the future to prevent.

TERENCE SMITH: Richard Sandomir, in a perverse way, did those scandals and headlines draw audience for the games?

RICHARD SANDOMIR: Well, there's nothing perverse about it. I think any network that has the Olympics hopes for at least one good scandal. The best scandal was not the doping stuff for NBC because that really happened later, but it was the pairs figure skating scandal that erupted on a Monday, didn't go away until the following Sunday, when the duplicate gold medals were presented to the Canadians. So for six days there were huge headlines about figure skating. Now, figure skating is already the biggest sport in the winter Olympics, but by doing this about the pairs, which usually doesn't generate as much interest as women's or men's figure skating, this propelled interest up through the men's competition began, and really just created a halo effect on the ratings for NBC. I don't know if pairs figure skating has ever had this kind of interest, and may never again, but it really did help.

TERENCE SMITH: And these ratings were up, were they -- the biggest ever?

RICHARD SANDOMIR: The ratings for the winter?

TERENCE SMITH: Yes.

RICHARD SANDOMIR: No. The winter Olympic ratings were higher in Lillehammer eight years ago, but bigger than Nagano. Eight years ago in Lillehammer we had the Tonya-Nancy story. The ratings for the nights that Tonya and Nancy skated were in the mid-40s. Nobody will probably ever get that unless somebody else gets attacked again for the sake of good ratings.

TERENCE SMITH: Howard Berkes, you referred to the security arrangements at the very beginning, but of course in the end there were no security problems. There were no incidents. What does that tell you and what did these games tell you about the way Olympics are going to be held in the future in terms of security?

HOWARD BERKES: The International Olympic Committee actually says that this wasn't much different than past Olympics in their mind. This was my fourth, and it has not been this intense in my experience, including in Sydney two years ago. We'll probably see this kind of security in the future. We had no-fly zones above the city. All commercial air traffic was stopped during opening and closing ceremonies. Multiple fences that you had to get through to get to any place; metal detectors, x-ray machines, searches-- I think that's part of Olympic life now. And I have to say, while it caused some delays in people getting to their seats-- some people, you know, it took 45 minutes, an hour or to get through the metal detectors-- I didn't hear very many people complaining except a few journalists on deadline. Most people felt reassured by it. And I think that's another reason why we'll continue to see it as long as the host city and host country can afford it. You know, this was a $320 million effort, and I don't know whether everyone can afford that.

TERENCE SMITH: Was there a great sigh of relief, Howard, when it was over?

HOWARD BERKES: I think at the stadium last night while the fireworks were going off I sort of felt maybe spiritually perhaps this great sigh of relief here that nothing really terrible had happened. You know, we had a little bit of a melee down here in downtown Salt Lake City. There were some traffic jams, but not major ones. And there was no terrorist incident to speak of. So, yeah, I think everyone here is quite relieved that nothing terrible happened.

TERENCE SMITH: Richard Sandomir, from a television point of view, what was the highlight? What was the great moment of these games or moments?

RICHARD SANDOMIR: Well, for me just watching it, I have to think Jim Shea, Jr., winning the skeleton was a wonderful moment. Vonetta Flowers and Jill Bakken winning the first women's bobsled competition in the Olympics. I thought some moments of the opening and closing ceremonies were wonderful. Some of them were incredibly goofy. But I think the image of Jim Shea holding up the NASCAR picture of his grandfather, who won in the Olympics in speed skating in 1932, was probably the most moving moment for me.

TERENCE SMITH: And very infectious as well. Do you expect NBC to do things differently, or have they learned some lessons, do you think, from this time around?

RICHARD SANDOMIR: I think they learned some very big lessons. Not all of them can be carried over. "A," they can carry over the promoting and producing with the young viewers in mind. They can do more live coverage maybe in the afternoon, and a lot on their cable channels. But when they go to Turin in 2006 and Athens in 2004, they're still going to do a lot more prime-time taped coverage because of the time difference. Their ratings benefited heavily from a domestic location, from the U.S. team doing extremely well. There's no guarantee of those two things happening again in the next two or three Olympics that they have. But I think they learned as much as they can provide live coverage, as much as they can increase the pace, they will do that. I think that was the lesson learned out of Sydney, where nothing but the final men's basketball game was live.

TERENCE SMITH: Richard Sandomir, Howard Berkes, thank you both very much.

FINALLY - IN MEMORIAM

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, remembering Chuck Jones, the master of movie animation. He died at age 89 of congestive heart disease Friday night at his California home. He worked on more than 300 animated films over a nearly 70-year career. In 1995 he received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement. The characters he created, drew, or wrote became part of American culture. Here's a sampling. (Band playing "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" )

ELMER FUDD: Wabbit tracks.

ELMER SINGING: Kill the wabbit kill the wabbit... kill the wabbit

BUGS BUNNY: Kill the wabbit?

BUGS BUNNY SINGING: Oh, mighty warrior of great fighting stock might I inquire to ask what's up, doc?

NARRATOR SINGING IN "Grinch That Stole Christmas:" You're a rotter Mr. Grinch

you're the king of sinful thoughts

your heart's a dead tomato squashed with moldy purple spots

Mr. Grinch you're a three-decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich...

...with arsenic sauce...

(Speaking French)

CHARACTER: ( Speaking French ) Leaping lizards, le pew!

PEPPIE: Flattering, yes?

ROAD RUNNER: Beep, beep. Beep, beep. Beep, beep. ( Crash )

(Band Playing "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" )

JIM LEHRER: And joining us now is John Canemaker, director of the animation program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. His latest book is "Walt Disney's Nine Old Men and the Art of Animation." John Canemaker, welcome.

JOHN CANEMAKER: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

JIM LEHRER: What was there about Chuck Jones that made it possible for him to create the kinds of things we just saw?

JOHN CANEMAKER: Well, I don't know. There was a certain kind of childlike quality to Chuck in many ways. He grew up in Hollywood at a time when he could watch the silent movie comedians actually doing their work on the streets of Los Angeles. And I think he got that feeling of physical comedy from them that later went into his work. He also was an excellent draftsman. And he could draw anything that he wanted to. The drawing of his cartoons is very exact and perfected in terms of conveying the sort of psychological interior of the characters.

JIM LEHRER: So the number of skills that are involved in being a good animator are many. You have to have a story line to begin with.

JOHN CANEMAKER: You have to have a story and... but you need to be an actor. You need to be able to convey the emotion of the actors. Chuck was able to do that with the minimal movements and the expressions of the characters. It was really a phenomenal job of acting, I would say.

JIM LEHRER: How did he get in this business?

JOHN CANEMAKER: Well, he actually kind of fell into it. He did study art. He went to the Chouinard Art Institute early on, and so he had a background in terms of draftsmanship ability that some of the other animators didn't have at that time. But he started by doing odd jobs around Hollywood. He was actually drawing caricatures at one point in downtown Hollywood for a dollar - a buck a throw. And he kind of fell into animation, began at the very lowest level, which was as a cell washer.

JIM LEHRER: What's that?

JOHN CANEMAKER: They used to paint the characters and paste them on to celluloid acetate and then place them over opaque backgrounds. Chuck's job was to take these cells and to wash off the drawings so they could be reused again. So he kind of worked his way up from there.

JIM LEHRER: He worked with Disney, did he not?

JOHN CANEMAKER: He worked very late in his career briefly with Disney. It was just when "Sleeping Beauty" was going on and there was a layoff at Warner Brothers. For most of his 30 years, he was a Warner Brothers director.

JIM LEHRER: In his... what is your favorite character that he created? What do you think was his greatest achievement?

JOHN CANEMAKER: Well, I think the psychological quality that he got into the characters. I like what he did with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and all of the famous characters, but some of the other characters that were less known were some of my favorites. For example, the bulldog and the little kitten in "Feed the Kitty" -- today in my class at New York University, I was showing that to the students. It's just amazing how much information he gets across to you very succinctly. The poses are very strong in the characters. But there's a hierarchy in terms of the drawings that animators use.

JIM LEHRER: What do you mean?

JOHN CANEMAKER: Well, the most important drawing are the storytelling drawings. These are the drawings that really convey what the animator wants to say in a particular scene. And then the other drawings are like signposts along the way. They also tell you more about who the character is and what the story is. But the in-between drawings go in the middle there, and they kind of create that flurry of motion. But the most important ones are the extreme poses or the storytelling drawings, and Chuck was a master of that.

JIM LEHRER: You knew him very well. What was he like?

JOHN CANEMAKER: I knew him for about 30 years. He was an absolute delight as a person. As you can imagine, a great sense of humor; he loved wordplay. He always liked puns and double entendres. In fact I spoke to him a couple of weeks ago when I was in Los Angeles, and I said, "Are you ambulatory, Chuck?" He said, "Well, I'm spending most of my time in bed now." Then there was a slight pause-- you know, great timing that he always had-- and he said, "But some of the best moments of my life have been spent in bed."

JIM LEHRER: If you had to... and it's a very difficult question, but if you had to sum up what his legacy is, what... you're an animator yourself. You're a student of animation, you also do it yourself; you've done it for a living. What is his greatest contribution? How should we remember Chuck Jones?

JOHN CANEMAKER: I think as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, not just as an animator. But if you look at his films, I mean, they're extraordinarily funny, but if you really start to study his films, you'll see a great filmmaking director at work here. I mean, the way he stages things, the way he will cut, the way he will stay on a character and just have a minimal bit of movement... he was an extraordinarily intelligent man, a very gifted man and sensitive man, and all of that went into his work. And I think he extended the emotional parameters of animation.

JIM LEHRER: It wasn't just fun to him, then?

JOHN CANEMAKER: Oh, it was great fun to him. I think that's part of the secret of Chuck Jones' work, is that it was so much fun to him. He said he made those films for himself, not for other people. So I think that sense of fun and having a good time and being serious about the work as well was in there, in all of those films.

JIM LEHRER: Is animation hard? Is it hard work?

JOHN CANEMAKER: (Laughs) Yes, it's the hardest work in the world.

JIM LEHRER: I knew you were going to say that.

JOHN CANEMAKER: Actually it's not hard. People always say, "Gee, don't you have to make a lot of drawings, and isn't that tedious?" Well, no it isn't, because it's fascinating. And if you do try to create characters that can live on the screen, I think then it really becomes an obsession of sorts.

JIM LEHRER: An obsession. You're doing a series of drawings, and then they all have to fit together to make movement, right?

JOHN CANEMAKER: Right, right. Well, Chuck Jones was a master of a particular type of animation, which is indigenously American, actually. Personality animation, it's called. And it's where a character doesn't just move, but it expresses an intrinsic personality. It becomes a persona. It has a soul. It thinks. It appears to think. This is a very special American kind of art form. It's as indigenous to America as jazz.

JIM LEHRER: Okay.

JOHN CANEMAKER: He was a great master of it.

JIM LEHRER: My favorite was the Roadrunner. I loved him.

JOHN CANEMAKER: Beep, beep.

JIM LEHRER: Thank you, John Canemaker.

JOHN CANEMAKER: My pleasure.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major developments of the day. The commander of the U.S. war in Afghanistan stopped short of confirming reports Osama bin Laden may be alive. And President Bush said he's satisfied with Pakistan's response to the murder of "Wall Street Journal" reporter, Daniel Pearl. And a follow-up before we go tonight: Last month, we reported on thedispute over a 1987 book by historian and "NewsHour" regular Doris Kearns Goodwin. Over the weekend, she told the "New York Times" her use of passages from other writers, without credit, was more extensive than originally thought. She said again it was unintentional. Her publisher will now destroy all its paperback copies of the book "The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys." It will publish a corrected edition this spring. We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.