The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

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

MR. LEHRER: And I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington. After our summary of the news this Tuesday, we have a congressional debate over what now for the US in Somalia, updates from Moscow, and a conversation with Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: US reinforcements headed for Somalia today. It made congressional criticism of the mission. Six hundred and fifty troops are going to the African nation to shore up 4700 already there. Flights began leaving from Ft. Stewart and Ft. Benning in Georgia early today. Going with them are 14 Bradley fighting vehicles and four Abrams M-1 tanks and other armor so the US force can better defend itself. Twelve US troops were killed and seventy- eight injured in weekend battles, and several are believed to be prisoners of forces loyal to warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. That brought calls today on the floor of the Senate for the mission to end. This afternoon, Sec. of State Christopher and Defense Sec. Aspin briefed the congressional leaders on the situation. Afterwards, the reporters asked Christopher whether there were similarities with US involvement in Vietnam.

WARREN CHRISTOPHER, Secretary of State: Well, the time period is far different from Vietnam. But we went into Somalia last December. It's a decision of the last administration to form a humanitarian mission. We were quite successful in that. Starvation has almost ended. I think the question is now how the United States forces should finish the job, how we should complete the job and get out. One of the things I want to emphasize tonight is that we have a very immediate problem, and that is that we had a number of men who were killed over the weekend, we have a number who are missing, an unspecified number who are missing. I think we must be very firm at the present time. We must make it clear to Gen. Aidid that he must return the Americans who are missing, he must not harm them. He'll be held responsible if he does arm them. The United States has a wide array of options if any harm come to them. That's the immediate problem.

MR. LEHRER: President Clinton summoned his stop national security advisers to the White House tonight to review the situation. Neither US nor UN officials would say today what was being done to secure the release of the UN's prisoners in Mogadishu. A Somali journalist close to Aidid said the warlord's forces had a total of eight prisoners and would use them as human shields. They were captured Sunday during a UN operation to arrest Aidid's military commanders. Their supporters celebrated around destroyed UN vehicles and a downed US helicopter after the fighting. We'll have more on the Somalia story right after this News Summary. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: President Clinton today ordered the Energy Department to prepare for the possible resumption of nuclear testing just hours after China detonated an underground nuclear explosion. Earlier this year, the Clinton the extended the US moratorium on such tests but said it might not hold if other countries resume testing. Similar positions have also been taken by France and Russia. After today's test, China issued a statement saying its nuclear weapons program was solely for self-defense. It also reaffirmed its support for comprehensive tests banned by 1996. Today the White House called on the Chinese to refrain from further testing. The issue could be raised next month when President Clinton will meet with China's president during an economic conference in Seattle.

MR. LEHRER: Russian President Boris Yeltsin continued to tighten his grip on power today. He dismissed the country's chief prosecutor, who was a frequent critic, and he also fired regional governors who had sided with parliament and their armed confrontation with Yeltsin. The tanks and most troops were withdrawn from around Moscow's burned out parliament building. Officials said 127 people were killed and 600 wounded in the two days of violence. Those figures were expected to rise as bodies were recovered from inside the parliament building. The city remained tense with troops at checkpoints and a curfew in effect. We'll have more on this story later in the program. Syria's President Assad has requested a meeting with President Clinton. The proposal to talk Middle East peace was delivered by the Syrian foreign minister in Washington today. He said Assad believed such a meeting would help Syrian-Israeli peace talks. Israeli Prime Minister Rabin and PLO Leader Yasser Arafat will hold their first official meeting tomorrow in Cairo. They will discuss the implementation of their peace agreement. They are also expected to discuss continuing Palestinian unrest and a new Israeli crackdown on Muslim activists in the occupied territories.

MR. MacNeil: President Clinton sought support for his health care reform plan today from a group representing the elderly. He spoke at an outdoor forum in Los Angeles sponsored by the American Association of Retired Persons. He talked about his proposal to finance the plan in part by tapping increases in Medicare and Medicaid spending.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Today, Medicaid and Medicare are going up at three times the rate of inflation. We propose to let it go up at two times the rate of inflation. That is not a Medicare or Medicaid cut. So when you hear all this business about cuts, let me, let me caution you that that is not what is going on. We are going to have increases in Medicare and Medicaid, and a reduction in the rate of growth will be more than overtaken by the new investments we're going to make in drugs and long-term care.

MR. MacNeil: Organizations representing health care providers offered their reaction to the plan in testimony before a Senate committee this morning. The President of the American Hospital Association was critical of the cap on Medicare spending.

DICK DAVIDSON, American Hospital Association: Medicare program spending growth is arbitrarily capped so that about $124 billion is squeezed out by the year 2000. These changes are not intended to fix what's wrong with the Medicare program. These changes in payments to hospitals and doctors are made solely for the purpose of financing additional benefits, and of course, we'd agree with the idea of providing expanded benefits, but we strongly object to financing them out of further payment cuts to hospitals who, in essence, provide a substantial portion of care to the nation's elderly.

MR. MacNeil: In testimony before a House committee today, Health & Human Services Sec. Donna Shalala said the administration was reviewing its estimates for financing the health care plan. She said, costs, spending cuts, and subsidies for small businesses were under review. She said the final legislation will not be ready for two weeks. The former sergeant at arms for the House of Representatives agreed to plead guilty today to felony charges of stealing money from the House Bank. Documents show that Jack Russ embezzled more than $75,000 by cashing checks at the bank when he knew his account was overdrawn. It is the first criminal case resulting from the House banking scandal.

MR. LEHRER: Pope John Paul II today ordered his bishops to enforce the Catholic Church's teachings on morality. He issued an encyclical which reiterated the Church's opposition to contraception, premarital sex, and homosexuality, among other things. The 180-page document criticized contemporary morality and instructed the bishops to take measures to ensure that the faithful are guarded from every doctrine and theory contrary to Church teachings. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the Somalia debate, updates from Moscow, and a Russian poet's view of things. FOCUS - MISSION IMPOSSIBLE?

MR. LEHRER: The debate over Somalia is our lead story tonight. It began 10 months ago as a military mission of peace to bring food and stability to a dying people in East Africa. But a warlord named Aidid has turned it into a war. Americans are dying, and there is new talk about pulling out and forgetting the whole thing. We sample that debate now with four members of Congress: Sen. Paul Simon, Democrat of Illinois, chairman of the African Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Sen. Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Sen. John McCain, Republican of Arizona, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee; and Congressman Robert Torricelli, Democrat of New Jersey, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and its Africa subcommittee. Sen. McCain, is it time to get out of there?

SEN. McCAIN: Yes, it is. It is, Jim. It's time to go, and we went in, as you mentioned, which most Americans supported, to keep a million people from starving. We went from there to some kind of warlord hunting, nation building, law and order mission, which is clearly not attainable, and it's time to go. First, obviously, we have to worry about those who are captured and tell Mr. Aidid we expect them to be returned, otherwise, consequences will ensue. But it's time to go.

MR. LEHRER: Time to go, Sen. Simon?

SEN. SIMON: I think we have to be very, very careful on this. I think we should shift to a more political emphasis. We ought to be meeting with representatives of Aidid's clan and others as President Carter and other leaders in that area have advised us to do and move away from this military desire or our obsession with grabbing Gen. Aidid. But to just pull out precipitously would not lend stability to that area and would send absolutely the wrong message to the United Nations and to the rest of the world. What would that message be, Senator?

SEN. SIMON: That message would be the same one frankly that we sent in Bosnia when we failed to respond to the Bosnian situation, and that is we are withdrawing from world leadership. We just can't do that.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman Torricelli, would that be the message of withdrawal?

REP. TORRICELLI: I think that withdrawal is proceeded by a statement of fact, and that is to declare success. We went to the country in order to assure that people were fed. We achieved that mission. If George Bush had announced to the country that we're going to Somalia to reform their government, this country never would have supported the operation. Classically, we're in a situation where we have a policy now in search of a rationale. We did what we set out to do. Now it's time to come home, though I agree with Sen. McCain. I wouldn't take the first step home until every American missing is accounted for. Until then, Gen. Aidid deserves some punishing blows.

MR. LEHRER: Sen. Lugar, what's your view of this?

SEN. LUGAR: Well, the mission obviously changed, and the United States Senate and members of the House really were never involved in the debate. Oh, we might have demanded the debates. But now we're in a situation which the administration has signaled that it wants to change to a political emphasis, and yet, a raid was conducted of a military nature over the weekend that led to the losses and the potential prisoners. So we are really in a bind at this point without really clear direction by the administration what the President's policy is, whether it's to move toward the political or toward the military . Now, in 10 days we are to hear of that because we requested that and by a vote of ninety to seven in the Senate. I think we ought to hear the President out but have a very prompt debate. My own judgment is that the American people do not want to reform the government and we ought to be rotating our forces and to be relieved really by other nations to pick up the slack.

MR. LEHRER: Sen. McCain, how does pulling out -- some people would say if we pull out that is essentially cutting and running under fire. In other words, if you have a military mission, people start shooting, what do you expect, a few people get killed, do we want to run?

SEN. McCAIN: Jim, we expected a humanitarian mission, as we discussed earlier. Second of all, as far as meeting with Aidid's people, I hope that Sen. Simon's not talking about meeting with people that desecrate American bodies, who we hear are using American hostages as shields. But I think that clearly a withdrawal such as we had to do because of the Beirut fiasco quickly passes from the scene. A failure to withdrawal and infliction of further casualties and further humiliations, which frankly Sunday's operation was, leads to further damage to the United States prestige throughout the world. Jim, when we insert U.S. military troops, it enhances the prestige of dictators like Aidid when they can put damage on Americans and capture Americans. Let's let other nations do this.

MR. LEHRER: Sen. Simon, the Vietnam analogy has been raised on this, particularly with a decision yesterday by the administration to send in even more troops. And they left today. We reported it in the News Summary. Does that make sense to you?

SEN. SIMON: Well, I personally think it may be a mistake to send additional troops, but I think the mistake that my colleague, Sen. McCain refers to on Sunday is we have become obsessed with getting Aidid and the loss of life has largely been because of that. I think we have to try and we ought to be listening to people like President Carter. I just came from a meeting with the president of Eritrea, just an hour ago, and he, he says we ought to try to work this thing out politically while we stabilize the situation.

MR. LEHRER: Well, what about Sen. McCain's point of talking to a man who is holding US military men? How do you respond?

SEN. SIMON: You don't need to talk to him directly though, frankly, if you want to get this resolved peacefully and not have more loss of life both for Americans and for others over there, if that's the only way to solve it, just as we've talked to Arafat and he talked to Rabin, and they didn't like each other, it wasn't a love fest, but they achieved something solid. And I think what we want to do is achieve peace in that area and get some stability so that we don't have a repetition of hundreds of thousands of people starving to death.

MR. LEHRER: Sen. Lugar, would you have a problem with the US negotiating with Aidid or his representatives?

SEN. LUGAR: Yes, I would. I'm not certain why we would be negotiating with him. I think the question is if it's a military mission, whether we have adequate force to be victorious. And to get back to the proposition of Gen. Powell and Sec. Cheney who said if you're going to fight a war, make sure you win it, have the forces that are there, we don't .We don't have any prospects really prevailing under those conditions. So it's not a question of negotiating with Aidid. We have to make a determination on our mission. Now if the mission is to conquer Somalia and rearrange the government, restructure it, that is one thing. I don't think that is what we want to do. And for that reason we ought to rotate out in behalf of other people who may want to do something else.

MR. LEHRER: Well, Senator, for the benefit of those who haven't been involved in briefings and all of that, put us in the picture on that. What would it take to do that mission, in other words, to carry out the military mission, as you've just defined it, what kind of U.S. commitment would that take?

SEN. LUGAR: I don't have any idea frankly, and I don't know anybody who has fleshed that out.

SEN. McCAIN: It would be sizeable.

SEN. LUGAR: Of course, it would be sizeable. We're talking about tens of thousands of people, and devotion I suspect to the budget in excess of a billion dollars, and maybe moving upward. That needs to be made clear by the President on October 15th that is our objective. Now, if the objective is not that, then obviously we should not have fighting forces there. They are totally inadequate, outnumbered, and in tactical situations that are impossible.

MR. MacNeil: Congressman Torricelli, has Sen. Lugar laid out what the real issue is here, from your perspective, if it's a military mission send enough troops in there to carry it out and get out, or if it's not a military mission, then get out now?

REP. TORRICELLI: Well, Sen. Lugar stated what is one of the tests that I thought we had arrived at as virtual consensus of this country for military involvement, and that is you do not enter a conflict unless you're prepared to win it. The other is that the nation should understand what it's doing, see a national stake, and be prepared to do it. I don't see that national will or consensus in addition to not seeing the forces to prevail. Jim, my other two problems that I think should be mentioned at this point is I hope we can get away from this idea that we can't leave because otherwise we're not a power and we're not showing resolve. The country that just prevailed in the Persian Gulf, the mission that just fought the Cold War and won, does not have its credibility at issue. No one thinks less of America as a world power because we declare success in Somalia and go home. And the second one is: What is the standard we're establishing here? I understand that responding to mass hunger and saying that it is unacceptable as a moral proposition, and we become involved. I don't understand if we find this government unacceptable and become involved, thereby for that standard we're inviting ourselves not simply into a few instances but potentially scores of them around the world where there are similar governments.

MR. LEHRER: Let me lay out this case, let me lay out this scenario then to you, Congressman. Let's say that the US Government does exactly what you want. They declare a humanitarian mission ended, pull out U.S. troops, and let's say the same thing happens again. In other words, Aidid and the warlords start fighting again, and people start starving again. Then what would be your position?

REP. TORRICELLI: Well, as Sen. McCain has suggested, I think that there are those that are much better suited by virtue of their visibility and the animosities they may center to remain to keep a pipeline open. The United Nations can remain and receive food deliveries. That is far short of accepting the mission of political reform in Somalia, a nation that has never had adequate political governments I think in any acceptable standard. There is a middle ground but that middle ground doesn't have to mean a continued, indeed, near permanent American presence, if our real goal is reform.

MR. LEHRER: Sen. Simon, when this mission first began 10 months ago, then Sec. of State Eagleburger was on this program, and he said that this mission is the kind that the American people will be proud of once it is over and be proud of from this day on. What went wrong?

SEN. SIMON: Well, first, I think when we look back at it in terms of history, we will be very proud of it overall. What we did in saving two million plus lives is something every American can be proud of. What went wrong was some internal clan fighting, and then we got obsessed with trying to get Gen. Aidid, and we converted it over into a military operation. We have to back off of that. What we ought to do is to try and see that there is some stability in the country, get other countries involved, and we now have at our invitation 30 other countries in Somalia. There was no government there before. It was just chaos. There was no parallel anywhere in the world with that situation. We don't want to return it to chaos.

MR. LEHRER: What about Sen. Lugar's point though that if you have a military mission, then the military mission must be to go in there and win, there's no half way or minor way to do it?

SEN. SIMON: Well, if the mission is to eliminate Aidid and his supporters in that one quarter or so of Mogadishu, then he is right. I don't think that ought to be our mission. We ought to try and see if we can get a political resolution of this thing. I think we are preoccupied with the military side on this, and we have had needless American casualties, plus how many innocent Somalia children have been killed in the process of all this?

MR. LEHRER: Sen. McCain, is the message here, or the lesson, I guess, from your perspective that we shouldn't have gone in there in the first place, that US military, US military forces should not be used in missions like this to begin with?

SEN. McCAIN: No, Jim. I think we should have gone in for the specific mission that we accomplished, and I agree with Congressman Torricelli, we should declare victory and go home. Let me just make a couple of additional comments. Militarily, if you're looking at a military solution, Aidid poses an obstacle. People, UN troops are in enclaves right now, so you can't just ignore Mr. Aidid's presence. The question is, is do you want the United States to get into a military enterprise. I think the second point of view that may be more important we ought to look at is: What is the administration going to do now and in the future? The President made a very strong speech at the United Nations, where he laid down certain criteria for US military involvement, and if he had matched his actions with his rhetoric, he would have announced the withdrawal of American troops from Somalia.

MR. LEHRER: Why?

SEN. McCAIN: Because none -- our military presence in Somalia meets none of the four criteria that he laid down.

MR. LEHRER: But it did when -- but you said it did when it started 10 months ago.

SEN. McCAIN: From a humanitarian standpoint to feed people.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

SEN. McCAIN: Now we are there in a military mission, and that military mission meets none of the criteria that the President laid down in his speech to the United Nations.

MR. LEHRER: But what would you say to those who would argue that if you followed that criteria, then you're always at the mercy of somebody else? In other words, Aidid is calling the American mission rather than the American government.

SEN. McCAIN: Exactly, because we have changed from feeding people to now a military mission, nation building, law and order, et cetera. And now we are in a military mission, not a humanitarian mission, and the military mission does not meet the criteria laid down by the President in his speech last week to the United States.

MR. LEHRER: Sen. Lugar, what do you think would be the message, the fallout, the negative, whatever, any way you want to put it, of a US withdrawal at this point?

SEN. LUGAR: Well, clearly, the United Nations Secretary General would feel that he has been undercut. We got under this predicament in a way because after American fighting forces left Somalia, and 2500 logistics people were left. The Pakistanis were massacred one weekend, and we lost four Americans another weekend, and before long, the Security Council was passing resolutions that we ought to retaliate. It is Aidid who we held responsible for this. and that's sort of the genesis of this business now. This seems to me that to the extent that the Secretary General feels that the American mission is a different one from his own he'll be very unhappy about it. But I thought the President tried to address that at the UN the other day in saying that the UN ought not proceed so rapidly into so many peacekeeping operations before all of are aboard and agree on the mission. I think the President's headed in the right direction. I think we all regret that even in the face of that, this military operation over the weekend was a throwback to the old situation.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree with that, Sen Simon?

SEN. SIMON: And let me just mention one thing that happened a few hours ago, and that is CARE, the international organization that provides assistance in so many places, issued a statement in which they said it would be a great mistake for the United States just to pull out and the United Nations just to pull out but that we ought to move away from our preoccupation with the military side of this. I think that is correct, and I think to the extent that the President and Sec. Christopher and Sec. Aspin are trying to move in that direction, they need encouragement on that.

MR. LEHRER: Sen. Simon, let me ask you just a very direct question. How do you move away from the military situation if your peacekeeping troops, your humanitarian troops, are being shot at by other people?

SEN. SIMON: Well, I don't think that they're going to be shot at if we -- we went in to try and seize some people. That has happened twice now. And we went in thinking maybe we would get Aidid and some of his key people. It didn't happen, and we suffered great loss of life. What we ought to do militarily is secure the port, secure the airport, secure the road. Beyond that, we ought to be trying to get a political solution.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree, Sen. Simon, that there was a vote today -- Sen. Graham said, a Republican from Texas, said earlier today if there was a vote in the Senate at least today, the vote would be to get out right now, that that's the sentiment?

SEN. SIMON: That may very well be the case. I think it might be a close vote. I think it would not be the right message to send to the rest of the world.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree, Congressman, in the House that vote would go that way too if it were today?

REP. TORRICELLI: I think the vote has to be overwhelming to withdraw from Somalia, Jim, and I suspect the American people would insist on it. Think of what is going through their minds even listening to this discussion. Twelve Americans are dead over the weekend. Some are captured. Others are engaged in combat, and we're trying to find a rationale for our presence.

MR. LEHRER: All right.

REP. TORRICELLI: It'll appear to them that we have this process a little bit backwards.

MR. LEHRER: All right. We have to go, gentlemen. All four thank you very much.

MR. MacNeil: Still ahead on the NewsHour, update reports from Moscow and a conversation with Yevgeny Yevtushenko. UPDATE - THE DAY AFTER

MR. MacNeil: We devote the rest of tonight's program to the aftermath of the second October Revolution in Russia, the one that ended yesterday in the flames of the Russian parliament. President Yeltsin emerged as the winner of a bloody power struggle with his opponents in parliament and their allies on the streets. Today Yeltsin was consolidating his hold on power. We go first to an update report from Moscow. The reporter is Ian Williams of Independent Television News.

IAN WILLIAMS, ITN: First light this morning revealed the full extent of the devastation inflicted on Russia's parliament building. Five floors blackened and charred. Barely a window left intact, a wall undamaged, some rooms still smoldered. Firemen had brought the blaze under control overnight and now sought to dampen the last of the fire. Outside the building bodies still lay where they fell. There was still no official estimate of the number killed inside, though the city medical authorities said nearly 500 had been treated for injuries. A ring of soldiers stood around the building, and tanks remained in position. Many troops were relaxing after 24 hours of fighting. Others satisfying the curiosity of young children who explored the hardware that had so effectively blasted the White House yesterday. One group of Oman interior ministry troops posed for a group photograph in front of the devastated building that housed the mayor's office and which they helped to recapture from the rebels. Entry to the parliament building is still being restricted but this amateur video shot today shows how the defenders built barricades inside to try and slow troops storming through the building. It also shows the scale of the devastation caused by the attack and the clutter from two weeks under siege. Also, the offices of Ruslan Khasbulatov, surprisingly undamaged. These are the lower floors, however. Nobody knows how many bodies remain on the upper floors, which drew the heaviest fire. The area around the White House is calm. The city is quiet. The army had been successful in restoring order, and President Yeltsin has his full power restored. His immediate move was to reinforce the state of emergency. There were armed guards outside the offices of two conservative newspapers, Pravda and Soviet Skya Rosia. Both have been shut down. A few Soviet Skya Rosia staff did turn up for work today but the editorial rooms were empty. Articles and photographs on yesterday's events have been prepared but lay unused. The paper was almost ready to go to press, but now the printing room was deserted and the equipment lies idle. Even moderate newspapers like Izvestia and Neta Vimaya Gazetta suffered under the new measures. This morning's editions were censured, here an anti-Yeltsin address by a regional leader was blanked out. Some political parties have been banned, including the National Salvation Front. The coalition of Communist and right wing parties, many of whose supporters were holed up in the parliament, and some of their leaders are now in hiding. Yeltsin has also disbanded all district councils in Moscow ahead of fresh elections. Their offices are to be closed down, and their property repossessed. And leading politicians from center parties who had been allied to Mr. Rutskoi now backed the president but urged him not to behave like a dictator.

ALEXANDER VLADISLAVLEV, Civic Union: From my point of view we should immediately invite some political organizations, public organizations, industrialist entrepreneurs, some new parties which are standing on positions of civilized oppositions and have check with them about how we work together. Everything what happened yesterday, two days, three days ago, is history. Now we should think bad, tragic or good, it doesn't matter, it's history, we should think about future, about tomorrow.

MR. WILLIAMS: Back at the White House this evening and still hundreds of people gathered to look at the burnt out shell of parliament. There were arguments over the rights and wrongs of what the president had done. But the consensus here was that Yeltsin had to bring the siege to an end.

WOMAN: [speaking through interpreter] I think it was justified. Things will be better in our country.

MR. WILLIAMS: By dusk, much of the heavy armor had been removed around the White House and was rumbling out of the city. Convoys of lorries carried troops back to their bases.

MR. MacNeil: Yesterday's battle outside the White House ended almost two years of political conflict between President Yeltsin and his parliamentary opponents. The confrontation entered its final phase two weeks ago when Yeltsin suspended parliament. Independent Television News Correspondent Nik Gowing reports on the final strategy of Yeltsin's opponents.

NIK GOWING, ITN: Andrei Fedorov, a leading adviser to Alexander Rutskoi, who was once a Russian deputy foreign minister. Fedorov had left the White House half an hour before yesterday's assault. This morning, he returned to look at the charred shell of the Russian parliament he'd struggled for two weeks to keep under Rutskoi and Khasbulatov's control. The politics of battling against President Yeltsin's original decree dissolving parliament two weeks ago had failed. Now was the time to concede why former Vice President Rutskoi's first response and his subsequent tactics were fatally flawed.

ANDREI FEDOROV, Adviser to Alexander Rutskoi: The main mistake was done when Mr. Rutskoi declared himself acting president. We all, all of us were strongly against it, and they came to the studio, and we were trying to report his message and we said that it's better not to do this thing because it's a mistake but he decided to -- he said that I discuss this issue with Khasbulatov, it's my decision, and I'm taking all the responsibility on my shoulders.

MR. GOWING: You advised him against it?

ANDREI FEDOROV: Not only me, all, all.

MR. GOWING: Led by Rutskoi and Khasbulatov, parliament's defiance had been in the name of upholding democracy and the existing constitution dating from Soviet times. But the gathering of rag tag voluntary military forces at the White House signaled themore fundamental reality, a bitter power struggle between Yeltsin and his former political allies, Rutskoi and Khasbulatov now sworn enemies.

ANDREI FEDOROV: I think yes there was some personal element, very strong personal element.

MR. GOWING: Hate.

ANDREI FEDOROV: Yes, hate. They hated each other. It was clear. It was visible.

MR. GOWING: So it wasn't just about democracy and preserving parliament?

ANDREI FEDOROV: But it started with the idea to preserve democracy and to preserve the parliament.

MR. GOWING: By design or by default, Rutskoi and Khasbulatov soon realized they had created a monster they did not fully control. By the time Yeltsin ordered interior ministry troops to seal off the White House after seven days, hard-line political groups with an extremist agenda were taking advantage. They were bypassing Rutskoi.

ANDREI FEDOROV: The things which started after 28th of September, many of them were organized outside of the White House, even sometimes without any connection with the White House, with parliament, with Khasbulatov, with Rutskoi.

MR. GOWING: Who was organizing it then?

ANDREI FEDOROV: This is extremist groups, extremist groups.

MR. GOWING: They were trying to capitalize on the situation?

ANDREI FEDOROV: Yes.

MR. GOWING: On the parliament side there was growing nervousness. A sizeable number of deputies found themselves marooned away from the White House. Strike calls were failing, but the radicals were determined to organize demonstrations for last weekend to show off the public support they were sure they did have. Rutskoi though already knew the reality.

ANDREI FEDOROV: It was told by us, both Mr. Rutskoi and Khasbulatov, after this idea of having strike, et cetera, on the 27th, 28th, failed, September failed, it was clear that there will be no method of support.

MR. GOWING: No public support?

ANDREI FEDOROV: No public support.

MR. GOWING: The two demonstrations last weekend were proof of the power of extremist groups like the National Unity Movement beneath the Rutskoi-Khasbulatov umbrella. Before Saturday's violence, Rutskoi had feared it would happen. His appeals to demonstrators not to assemble were ignored, but Fedorov says extremists came from other regions.

ANDREI FEDOROV: I've seen some people from this labor Russian movement, from Patastan, from Rozan, from other cities who are known as quite extremists.

MR. GOWING: And again on Sunday, the hard-liners hijacked a second demonstration for their own confrontational agenda. The interior ministry has admitted openly its troops were ill prepared, ill trained, and their officers had no orders on whether or not to stop the demonstration, and whether to open fire as the crowd passed forward towards the foreign ministry on the Ring Road, site of the previous night's battle. The extremists had planned it well. They congregated around this enormous ready supply of weaponry and waited for the march and for the security forces. The authorities' failure to control all this is what eventually led to the bloodshed on Sunday evening and finally to fall of the White House. But when Alexander Rutskoi heard of the violence unfolding and the numbers involved, he believed it was the mass public support he had long hoped would back him, even though he wanted negotiations that evening at the Danilov Monastery to produce a compromise. Having watched the siege of the White House broken by the mob, Rutskoi miscalculated fatally. He appeared on the balcony and ordered them to seize the mayor's office and then the pro- Yeltsin or Stankenow Television Center.

ANDREI FEDOROV: He was thinking that it will -- hundreds of thousands who are supporting, who are ready to fight, who are ready to bring law and order according to his visions.

MR. GOWING: And now you're suggesting that at that moment essentially he flipped?

ANDREI FEDOROV: I think that's the key moment for the understanding of the situation.

MR. GOWING: He miscalculated?

ANDREI FEDOROV: Yes.

MR. GOWING: He misread the situation?

ANDREI FEDOROV: Yes. But when you are sitting for two weeks in the White House you are not able to calculate everything, and you are not able to see the real picture.

MR. GOWING: Today Andrei Fedorov was phoning around to find a lawyer to defend Alexander Rutskoi. Everything in the White House had been a massive miscalculation, even the belief that there would be a safe sanctuary on the other floors. President Yeltsin had won decisively this round, but Andrei Fedorov still hopes to be a candidate in December's new parliamentary elections. CONVERSATION

MR. MacNeil: While events were unfolding in Moscow, one interested spectator in New York was a Russian poet, Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Two years ago, he was with Yeltsin, Rutskoi, and Khasbulatov, defending the White House against the armed coup against Gorbachev. We end tonight with a conversation with Yevtushenko.

MR. MacNeil: In his poetry [20th Century Russian Poetry, Silver and Steel by Yevgeny Yevtushenko] and politics, Yevtushenko has often been a rebel in and out of favor with the former Soviet authorities, speaking out against varieties of persecution, from Soviet Jews to Soviet writers. Internationally renowned, the author of more than 50 collections of poetry, he's also a novelist, filmmaker, and actor. Yevtushenko's just published work, 20th Century Russian Poetry, Silver and Steel, is the first comprehensive anthology of poetry from that period. The work of Yevtushenko, himself, and 250 other poets, he calls it a secret history of the Russian soul. The anthology begins just prior to the 1917 Revolution and ends with a poem by a 28- year-old poet killed during the attempted overthrow of Gorbachev in 1991. Yevtushenko is currently teaching Russian poetry at New York University.

YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO, Russian Poet: [teaching] Today, poetry is more than good advice. Poetry is always great one --

MR. GOWING: In this class, he and his students recited a poem about the Russian Revolution. His students read the English translation. Yevtushenko followed with the original Russian.

YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO: So you have to be, to feel yourself in the blizzard of Russian silver in 1918. John, you are beginning -- by Alexander Block.

MALE STUDENT: Darkness and white snow hurled by the wind, the wind. You cannot stand upright for the wind, the wind scouring God's world.

[YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO READING RUSSIAN]

FEMALE STUDENT: The wind ruffles the white snow, pulls that treacherous wool over the wicked eyes. Everyone out walking slips, look, poor thing!

[YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO READING RUSSIAN]

MALE STUDENT: From building to building over the street, a rope skips nimble, a banner on the road. All power to the constituent assembly.

[YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO READING RUSSIAN]

MR. MacNeil: In his apartment at New York University, I spoke with Yevtushenko about events in Moscow and his new anthology.

MR. MacNeil: You say in the introduction, "In our century, the only material for a Statue of Liberty is Russian poetry."

YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO: Yeah, because Russia was 300 years under yolk, 300 years under the czars, and morethan 70 years under the dictatorship of Communist Party, so we have not any kind of traditional democracy. Always we were under the iron foot of the censorship, and so poetry was metaphorical language, literature in general. It was only way to express our feelings, our thirst for freedom.

MR. MacNeil: You say that not one poem in this anthology has been compromised by history.

YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO: Yes, but this, they are, these poems, they are pieces of real history. Some of them are written by blood, with the blood of the poets, not only symbolically with blood but real. The last poem was written -- he used his own blood instead of ink.

MR. MacNeil: You said the primary principle for selecting this was the degree of pain of these poems, poets experienced and expressed. If this is the, the poetry of political oppression, can a spirit of liberty in Russia nourish the same flower in the poetic genius?

YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO: Yeah. I think it's, it could be like this. But if you connect, combine your freedom with the responsibility for freedom, responsibility for spirit of your country, your people, I think if they could hear some warnings of our past, then Russia could be different now. For instance, may I quote you some lines from Mcsimian Velotian poem, "Civil War." He was wonderful poet. He lives in Crimea, and when Russian red troops were in Crimea, he was hiding so called whites and when white troops were invading Crimea, he was hiding the reds. And he wrote, "Both here and there among the rungs, without one and same wars, who is not with us, is against us, no one is indifferent. Truth is with us. And I stand one among them in the towering flames and smoke, and with all my strength I pray for them." I think it was a great, you know this poem I was always repeating this day of turmoil in Russia when we were on the edge of a civil war, and you know one thing, each war is anti-reform, but especially civil.

MR. MacNeil: Civil war.

YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO: Civil war, especially civil war.

MR. MacNeil: Do you hear that same intolerance today in the voices today, if you're not with us, you're against us?

YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO: Yes, some -- if -- unfortunately always they are for victory, and you could see, in all victors you could see some vindictiveness, and vindictiveness is destructive. I think we have to work now together, and we have to, to find courage to forgive things. You know, without forgiveness, you couldn't be, it couldn't be christianity in action. I don't like christianity of the words. I think christianity of the actions.

MR. MacNeil: So you fear that that spirit of vindictiveness that follows victory may obtain, may besmirch Yeltsin's victory now. Are you concerned about that?

YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO: I just. No -- of course I'm concerned about it, but, you know, I have, for instance, I have personal, very different feelings because I was together with Yeltsin, with Khasbulatov, with Rutskoi. We were fighting shoulder to shoulder on the very tapes two years ago when the times of the past surrounded White House of positive -- it was absolutely impossible to imagine that they could be enemies. It's a tragedy for all people of Russia, and I think the politicians, they have to forget sometimes about their personal ambitions. Then you ask on which side I am. I could tell you, I'm on the side of Russian women who each morning again line up for piece of bread. I'm on their side. Does that mean that I'm completely neutral? I'm -- I'm indifferent man. Even I, in my manual I foresaw what could happen, what could happen, andI wrote in this manual don't die before your death. It's just published in Russian and translated already, waiting for publisher. I warned I don't have that much trust for the ones inside the parliament either. I voted for democrats. But before they were in mousetrap. Now they're inside the cheese fighting over how to share it. They tunneled all these new corridors of power in the cheese. They're like mice that have turned into cats. Their whiskers are heavy as cream. I once read a book about the French Revolution, and it said, revolutions are thought up by utopians, realized by fanatics, and exploited by squanderers -- scoundrels. If that's true, then it's terrible. But it doesn't leave room for playing on this table, and that's not right. The main thing is to be able to say that we have done everything we could.

MR. MacNeil: How did you feel seeing the tanks, possibly even the same tanks that were there two years ago, shooting at the parliament building?

YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO: I didn't feel any kind of joy. I just -- it was again -- it was a tragedy but I hope we will now -- we will now very wise -- not repeat our mistakes in the past. You know, we could -- we have to divide the people who was inside White House. Some of them were criminals but some people was given orders to assault our TV station, but some people were innocent. And you know, some young people, sixty and seventy years old, some militia men, for instance, I've seen a doctor who beat up some militia men who were defending White House, but if you are militia man what you could do if you were inside, it's ordered to you by so-called acting president to defend White House? It's very difficult, you know, so we have to divide them.

MR. MacNeil: You -- in the book you say the struggle between westerners or westernizers and Slavofiles began and continues to this day. Does that struggle explain a bit of what's going on?

YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO: In a way, in a way, yes. But, you know, I think there's a symbol of our nation, the best Russian in all the history of Russia was Pushkin, our greatest poet was a father not only of Russian language but father of Russian spirit, and this, he gave us wonderful example that's possible to be at the same time a slavofile and western. Pushkin was a child of Russian folklore, and he absorbed all the Russian -- in spite of he belonged to family of landlords. But --

MR. MacNeil: And he had African blood.

YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO: He had African blood too, and he wrote first article in Russia about nocturnal book, and in the same time Pushkin was a very highly educated man. He knew English, Italian, German. He was translated from -- he absorbed all the best from western culture, so it's possible.

MR. MacNeil: And you think it's possible today to be, to remain a slavofile and, and absorb from the West.

YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO: I'm -- I'm slavofile but I hate Russian chauvinists. You know, for instance, I feel slavofile when I see now Russia the flood of very cheap American films and when I, I call it Americanization of Russian culture, so I am slavofile in this moment, but if some people will -- is trying to establish again censorship or ban some western books or something, I will fight again.

MR. MacNeil: So how important is this resentment among the extreme nationalists -- how -- against the western and American influences, is that going to remain a big force in Russian politics, or is that, is that going to die out quickly?

YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO: We -- our freedom is a very clumsy -- our democracy sometimes is a very undemocratic democracy. We are learned now, and so we have to give to the example how to convert democracy into prosperity. And if we will give this example so democracy will, really will win in Russia.

MR. MacNeil: You, you quote the young woman poet, Nina Ishkrenko saying -- and she's referring to a poem many years ago -- said, "We are the children of Russia's terrible years." She's saying, "We are the children of Russia's boring years." Did she say that too soon?

YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO: No. I mean, she -- this poem was written in Brezhnev's years. They are really boring years. And some people, you know, some people from Brezhnev time, they prefer boredom, so - - but calm boredom -- but you know the boredom is always pregnant with future bloodshed. The boredom is the mother of fascism too, the -- boredom is a mother of civil war. So I -- she was right. She wrote this beautiful poem. They are children, but they, the future belongs to them, to this young poet, and we will see what kind of world they'll create.

MR. MacNeil: It interests me that the same soil of oppression that produced these poets, the soil, the same cultural soil that is drenched with blood and pain and everything else, is now expected to let democracy flourish. Can that same cultural soil grow democracy?

YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO: Unfortunately, the history was also -- a writer who writes who used the blood instead of ink, but I hope that this victim of this, unless this turmoil is -- will be last victims. I think Russia now is in the crossroad, or we will have chaos or we will have dictator, but I think -- I like -- I do believe in the other order, in the order dissolve dictatorship, and that will have to be -- this has to become prosperity.

MR. MacNeil: So you don't think Russia is past the crossroads? It's still at the crossroads between chaos and --

YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO: I'll just explain you what I feel now about Russia, just to quote one of my poems. "Russia has lost Russia in Russia. Russia searches for itself like a cut finger in the snow, like a needle in a haystack, like an old, blind woman madly stretching her hands in fog, searching with hopeless incantation for her lost milk cow, already looked through the same fog, in the glass the hour kneels. Forgive us. Pity us, Lord. Is it true that we no longer exist, or are we not yet born? We are birthing now. But it's so painful to be born again." That's what's going on now in Russia. It's a rebirth of a nation. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major story of this Tuesday, US reinforcements were dispatched to Somalia as the forces of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid continued to hold a number of American prisoners. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour tonight. Join us tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.