The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, a Newsmaker interview with Defense Sec. Perry; Kwame Holman reports on airline safety hearings in the Senate; Elizabeth Brackett tells the story of geriatric medicine; and former Olympians talk about what it's like to compete in the Olympics. It all follows our summary of the news this Wednesday. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Secretary of Defense Perry said today a new program to protect U.S. troops abroad is being developed. He said it will be extensive and expensive. He also said U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia may be shifted to another location in the kingdom for security reasons. Nineteen American servicemen were killed by a truck bomb there in June. I spoke with the Secretary a short while ago about the new plans.

WILLIAM PERRY, Secretary of Defense: We believe that this most recent threat, this most recent attack by the terrorists in Saudi Arabia, is just the tip of an iceberg in a sense. There are--we're performing a mission in the Gulf that is very, very important to us, very important to the security of our country, but which is resisted by many other people. They want to get us out of the Gulf. So we expect more attacks, and the attacks may be bigger, they may be more fierce than the ones we have already gotten. They could involve chemical weapons, biological weapons--

MR. LEHRER: Chemical weapons, biological weapons?

SEC. PERRY: Chemical weapons are a possibility. They could involve bigger bombs. We want to get ahead of this threat, instead of always reacting to the last threat.

MR. LEHRER: We'll have the entire interview with Sec. Perry right after this News Summary. Federal regulators have approved Time- Warner's purchase of the Turner Broadcasting System. Today's announcement said the federal trade commissioners will take up final approval Friday. The FTC had been exploring possible anti- competition aspects of the $7.5 billion deal. It will create the world's largest media and entertainment company. Also today, the Fox Network's parent company, News Corporation, announced agreement to buy 10 TV stations from New World Communications. News Corporation, which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch, already owns 12 stations. The deal would make it the largest owner of TV stations in the country. The sale must be approved by stockholders and federal regulators. On Wall Street today, the stock market was more stable following two days of volatile trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 18.12 points, to close at 5376.88. On Bosnia today, Special U.S. Envoy Richard Holbrooke said his four hours of talks with Serbian President Milosevic in Belgrade were inconclusive. They spoke about forcing Bosnian Serb Leader Radovan Karadzic from power and turning him over to the Hague War Crimes Tribunal as required by the Dayton Peace Accords.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE, Former U.S. Envoy: We also went into some length about our feeling, our deep concern that the non-compliance with the Dayton Agreements of the Bosnian Serbs, the Republic of Serbska, in our view, they are in non-compliance in most of the political parts of the Dayton Agreements. Thank you very much. There's nothing else to say now. Sorry.

MR. LEHRER: Holbrooke returns to Belgrade tomorrow for another session with Milosevic. There were more Senate hearings today on airline safety. Transportation Secretary Federico Pena and FAA administrator David Hinson defended not grounding ValuJet Airlines after the Florida crash that killed 110 people. They told the Senate Commerce Committee there was not enough evidence to justify such action right after the accident. ValuJet was grounded last month. We'll have excerpts from today's hearing later in the program. CIA Director John Deutch today refused to rule out using journalists, clergy, or Peace Corps members for intelligence purposes. He told a Senate committee the CIA did not generally recruit journalists and others for espionage but needed flexibility to do so.

JOHN DEUTCH, Director, CIA: As the director of Central Intelligence, I must be in a position to assure the President and the members of the National Security Council and this country that there will never come a time when the United States cannot ask a witting citizen, knowledgeable citizen, to assist in combating an extreme threat to the nation. So I, like all of my predecessors for the last 19 years, have arrived at the conclusion that the agency should not be prohibited from considering the use of American journalists or clergy in exceptional circumstances.

MR. LEHRER: Rodney Page, a representative of the National Council of Churches, opposed Deutch's position. REV. RODNEY PAGE, National Council of Churches: We understand that the Central Intelligence Agency has for many years operated under a general ban on the use of religious workers as informants. We also know that the CIA's rules allow for waivering--waiving this ban under special circumstances. It is the existence of this waiver authority that places religious workers in jeopardy. Whether or not the waiver authority is ever exercised by the CIA, the possibility that it could creates the perception that it is or will be.

MR. LEHRER: Free cell phones will be given to members of neighborhood watch programs as a way to combat crime. President Clinton made the announcement today in Washington. He said the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association will donate 50,000 cell phones and pay for emergency calls. The President spoke at a ceremony at the Old Executive Office Building.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: These phones will be preprogrammed to local emergency numbers determined by local law enforcement officials. To get a phone, established volunteer groups will contact the local police chief or the local sheriff. A one-page application and seventy-two hours later, the cell phone should be on its way. Now when drug dealers wear pagers and gang members have cell phones, I think it's time we put high technology on the side of law and order.

MR. LEHRER: Bob Dole was in Minneapolis today. He spoke about education at a private Catholic high school. He said the current public school system has failed. He said if he were elected President, he would give parents, not special interest groups like teachers unions control over the children's education.

SEN. BOB DOLE, Republican Presidential Candidate: Our public schools are in trouble because too often they're no longer run by the public. Instead, they're controlled by narrow special interest groups who regard public education not as a public trust but as political territory to be guarded at all costs. Now the President says he wants reform, but I would say this to him. You cannot reform our schools, Mr. President, and at the same time reap generous campaign contributions from the very groups who have run our public schools into the ground. You can't do both.

MR. LEHRER: Dole will give another speech on education tomorrow in Milwaukee. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to Sec. Perry, airline safety, geriatric medicine, and competing in the Olympics. NEWSMAKER

MR. LEHRER: We go first tonight to the Secretary of Defense, William Perry, who's with us for a Newsmaker interview. Mr. Secretary, welcome.

WILLIAM PERRY, Secretary of Defense: Thank you, Jim. It's good to be here.

MR. LEHRER: First, the defense forces protection initiative you announced today, what all is involved in that?

SEC. PERRY: Well, the--we believe that this most recent threat, this most recent attack by the terrorists in Saudi Arabia, is just the tip of an iceberg, in a sense. There are--we're performing a mission in the Gulf that is very, very important to us, very important to the security of our country, but which is resisted by many other people. They want to get us out of the Gulf. So we expect more attacks, and the attacks may be bigger, may be more fierce than the ones we have already gotten. They could involve chemical weapons, biological weapons. They could involve- -

MR. LEHRER: Chemical weapons, biological weapons?

SEC. PERRY: Chemical weapons are a possibility. They could involve bigger bombs. We want to get ahead of this threat, instead of always reacting to the last threat. Now on that basis that we will be attacked again, it's critically important for us to stay in the Gulf, but we have to protect our forces as best possible, that we have announced today the force protection initiative, which are rather dramatic actions we will have to take to deal with this higher level of threat.

MR. LEHRER: What kind of actions?

SEC. PERRY: I should say first of all, they are more than the things we are--we have been doing the last six weeks.We've taken about 130 different measures just at Kobhar Towers alone since last November to protect our forces. Those measures have had, not withstanding the fact that we still had the casualties, they did succeed in the principal--in the principal mission that they were designed for, which is to prevent the penetration of the fence. Had that--

MR. LEHRER: This is around that U.S. Air Force facility in Dhahran.

SEC. PERRY: It's around the U.S. Air Force facility.

MR. LEHRER: Right.

SEC. PERRY: We were successful in keeping the bomber beyond the perimeter fence. Had he succeeded in his goal to penetrate that and set off the bomb that size next to a building or between several buildings, we would have had many, many more fatalities than we had, so we were partially successful in that. That's what we have to deal with, though, and we cannot deal with it just by moving fences, just by putting more mylar on windows. We're doing all of those things, but if the threat gets even heavier, bigger bombs, chemical weapons, we have to be prepared to deal with that as well. And see, we're trying to get ahead of the threat. That's what the force protection initiative is designed to do.

MR. LEHRER: How are you going to do that? What kind of measures are you talking about?

SEC. PERRY: It will involve in the first instance reconsidering the mission in all of the countries in the central command, which is what we think is the area of highest threat. We have already considered that quite seriously for Saudi Arabia, and have come to a judgment. The judgment is the mission there is so critical we have to stay. We must not be driven out by terrorist bombs, but we do not believe we can provide adequate force protection against this kind of attack--these kind of attacks for our forces in urban areas, so the first objective is to redeploy our forces out of urban areas so that we can protect them, so we can devise protective measures and we provide better protection forces.

MR. LEHRER: So there are 4,000 U.S. troops there in Dhahran. These troops are going to be moved out of there, is that right, away from this--

SEC. PERRY: I want to be very clear that we're in the early stages of planning this. The Saudis, first of all, a few months ago proposed to us that we consider moving out of the urban area. We have responded to that and I have asked--I have asked Gen. Peay, who is the commander in chief of Cen-Com, to send me a plan to do that. I have the first phase of that plan so far, which is more like a concept of how it would be done, and that would be involve moving several thousand of our troops into a remote air base that's in the South of Riyadh. So that is a concept we have. We're now working with the logistics, the costs, the details together. I think within a few weeks we'll have a plan, we'll have to consult with the Congress on that plan. We're already consulting with our allies in Saudi Arabia on that plan. It's going to be expensive, and it's going--

MR. LEHRER: Well, how's--why is it going to be expensive?

SEC. PERRY: Because it involves moving several thousand people to a base which does not now have all of the infrastructure required. It is a base that already exists but does not now have all of that infrastructure. We--we are doing our planning on the assumption that the Saudis will provide the kind of support force that they provide in other bases. In other words, it's their base we're going to. They provide the base. They provide the infrastructure. They provide a lot of the food, fuel, supplies, but we still have an expense in this operation.

MR. LEHRER: And if they're out--if the troops are out in the desert, that means nobody can drive a truck up there, as happened a month ago or so?

SEC. PERRY: That means we can provide very extensive perimeter protection, and, and it is--it is not impossible to attack a base in the desert. It's much more difficult. The things that we can do to provide force protection are both more extensive and less expensive because of that remote location.

MR. LEHRER: Now this initiative only involves Saudi Arabia? Does it involve other facilities?

SEC. PERRY: No, the force protection initiative is directed at our force deployments all around the world. The first priority that we are addressing ourselves to is Saudi Arabia and a priority almost as high as that are the rest of our forces in central command. That's the other--the other countries in the Gulf, Egypt, so the places where we think we have the highest threat of a terrorist attack.

MR. LEHRER: And those initiatives might--I mean, the end result might be similar to what happened in Saudi Arabia. I mean, the decision might be to take so many thousand troops out of an urban area in another country and move them out--in other words, the-- you are accepting the fact that, that U.S. troops cannot be protected from terrorist attacks in urban areas, is that a given now?

SEC. PERRY: I don't believe anybody can be protected with high confidence from car bombs in urban areas. The Israelis and the British have worked as hard on this problem for years as anybody can. They have not provided an adequate protection for their population against car bombs in urban areas. That's--that is a very, very difficult threat.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Secretary, are you concerned about the point that Sen. Nunn made at the hearings last week, and he made it on this program that same night, that the mission cannot become preserving the troops only, I mean, the safety of the troops? Are you worried about that?

SEC. PERRY: The--one element of our mission is force protection. Every time I visit one of our bases, every time I visit one of our deployment operations, I review their mission. Force protection is one of those missions. It's not something off to the side. It's part of the mission. The balance that has to be achieved is how much of that mission, how much emphasis can be put on that mission at the expense of other missions, the air sorties you fly, for example. We cannot conduct the rest of the mission if we spend 24 hours a day in a bunker. So that is the balance which the force commander has to make. As he makes that balance, then he recommends to me the sort of support he needs to carry that out sometime. It's going to involve more expense in some areas. It may involve reducing the number of air sorties he can conduct in some cases. In Bosnia, for example, when I visited there just a few weeks ago, Gen. Nash briefed me the way he has always briefed me, force protection was No. 1 listed in his mission, and he manifests that, for example, by having 1/3 of his forces set up in guard duty. When I visited him on the 4th of July, they had--it was--they were having a picnic, and they were having a barbecue and a rock band and foot races. Everybody was having a good time--not quite everybody--2/3 of them were having a good time.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

SEC. PERRY: The other 1/3 were out on guard duty.

MR. LEHRER: And you're comfortable with that?

SEC. PERRY: I am comfortable with that. I am comfortable with the judgment that our commander's made. Gen. Nash has made his judgment. He briefed meon it. He told me the importance of the force protection in his mission. He fully understands the threat that he faces to terrorist as well as other threats in Bosnia.

MR. LEHRER: Speaking of Bosnia, tell us one more time why these- -Gen. Nash's troops--the American troops cannot arrest Mr. Karadzic and Mr. Mladic, both of whom have been indicted for war crimes.

SEC. PERRY: For openers, it's not their mission. Their mission is not something that Gen. Nash invents. It's not even something I invent. It is drawn up in the--by the North Atlantic Council-- NATO--which directed them there, and that is not part of the mission, unless they come across the criminal as part of their other missions. If they come across an indicted war criminal, they are authorized to arrest him and they will.

MR. LEHRER: But what could change the mission?

SEC. PERRY: The North Atlantic Council.

MR. LEHRER: But that--we're part of the--the United States is a huge part--

SEC. PERRY: We are, indeed.

MR. LEHRER: --of the Council.

SEC. PERRY: Yes, indeed.

MR. LEHRER: So if we wanted to arrest them, an initiative could be made through the Council to arrest them, could they not--could we--

SEC. PERRY: If we wanted to change the mission to go out and search out--started a mission to go and search out Mr. Karadzic, track him down, and find him, uh, we, we could take that initiative, we could propose that to the North Atlantic Council--

MR. LEHRER: But we haven't.

SEC. PERRY: --in my judgment--

MR. LEHRER: Right.

SEC. PERRY: In my judgment, Jim, that action is, is at best premature. We have not exhausted our diplomatic options yet. Uh, in fact, as you know, Mr. Holbrooke is over there as we speak working on a diplomatic option. The people who have the view that this is something we just snap our fingers and do, do not have a correct picture of this. This would be a difficult and probably a bloody operation. Our military forces are prepared to take on difficult and bloody operations but not if they're not necessary, and so the first thing to do is exhaust our diplomatic options.

MR. LEHRER: Well, what about--what do you say to those who say until these men are in custody, there cannot be really good elections, fair, reliable elections in September, there really can't even be a lasting peace?

SEC. PERRY: I'm sympathetic with what they say, and I believe we do not have a long time for that reason, we do not have a long time to work out a diplomatic options. I believe there's substantial urgency in the mission which Amb. Holbrooke has embarked on. Jim, one other point I wanted to make on this, we talked about the force protection--

MR. LEHRER: Right.

SEC. PERRY: --not only in Bosnia but in Saudi Arabia and the other areas of our central command. We talked about defensive things we can do, passive protection measures. None of those ultimately can be fully successful in dealing with terrorists. We cannot always cede him the advantage of where, when, and how he's going to attack, therefore, we must be active as well. We go on the offensive. That requires much better intelligence than we now have in these operations, and part of our force protection initiative, for example, is creating what we call a joint fusion cell, and it's an intelligence cell which we're going to set up in Saudi Arabia like the one we already have in Bosnia focused on pulling in intelligence, particularly now in support of the counter-terrorist operations.

MR. LEHRER: In other words, find out--spot the truck before it gets into the perimeter?

SEC. PERRY: Identify the--

MR. LEHRER: As it's driving down the road.

SEC. PERRY: Identify the terrorists, the plots, where they get the materials, who's supporting them, where are they getting their, their financial support. To the extent we can identify those, we've got a much better chance of preempting, disrupting before they do it. Even if we fail to do that, we're in a much better position to retaliate afterwards.

MR. LEHRER: Finally, Mr. Secretary, you've just returned with Vice President Gore from Russia.

SEC. PERRY: Yes.

MR. LEHRER: Is Boris Yeltsin--Boris Yeltsin in charge of the country right now?

SEC. PERRY: Well, Boris Yeltsin, as you know, is in a sanitarium right now on a two-week rest. The Vice President met with him yesterday. They had, as I understand, a good meeting. Unfortunately, I missed that meeting. I came home from Moscow Monday night, and we were scheduled to meet with him originally on Monday. I would have--I could give you a firsthand report if the meeting had happened on Monday. They met Tuesday morning. The Vice President reports it was a good meeting. I can--I can tell you that I talked with nearly every other official in the Russian government and--

MR. LEHRER: Including, did you talk to General Lebed, the new national security adviser?

SEC. PERRY: I did not talk to General Lebed.

MR. LEHRER: You did not talk to him.

SEC. PERRY: I talked with virtually every other official, including the acting defense minister, the prime minister, but two very strong impressions that I got from them--first is an enormous sense of relief and comfort that the election was well conducted, it was a fair election, had a big turnout. This is the second, the second election of a president in the democracy, is the really important election, and it was well done, and I think the Russians deserve a great deal of credit for that. Secondly, the people that I talked with were quite comfortable from the leadership they are getting from President Yeltsin. If I--if there were any real sense of dis-ease, I think I would have picked that up in this meeting, and they believe that the government is being formed now. It's not entirely formed yet. There are some positions not yet named, but the ones that have been named seem to indicate they're just pulling together a moderate and a reform-oriented government.

MR. LEHRER: So things are upbeat?

SEC. PERRY: Things are upbeat I believe, yes.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much.

SEC. PERRY: Thank you, Jim. It's good to talk to you again. UPDATE - UNSAFE SKIES?

MR. LEHRER: Now an update on federal oversight of air safety about which there was a hear today on Capitol Hill. Kwame Holman reports.

KWAME HOLMAN: Questions about the Federal Aviation Administration's ability to ensure air safety grew out of the ValuJet tragedy. Flight 592 flashed into the Florida Everglades on May 11th, killing all 110 aboard. That same day, Transportation Sec. Federico Pena went on television from the crash site and insisted the airline was safe.

FEDERICO PENA, Secretary of Transportation: And I want to emphasize that I have flown ValuJet. ValuJet is a safe airline, as is our entire aviation system.

MR. HOLMAN: Two days later on May 13th, Pena revealed that the FAA had been giving special scrutiny to ValuJet for two months.

FEDERICO PENA: Back in February of this year because of four incidences that ValuJet experienced and because they had gone through a rapid rate of growth, we launched a very intensive review of their operations.

MR. HOLMAN: On May 16th, the FAA released areport ranking ValuJet's safety record as the worst among 22 airlines studied. Still, that same day, Pena said of ValuJet, if it was unsafe, we would have grounded it. Then on June 17th, the FAA in a sudden turnaround asked ValuJet to shut down its operations immediately. Today Sec. Pena in his first appearance before a Congressional Oversight Committee since the crash defended the FAA's actions.

FEDERICO PENA: As you know, I went out to the site. I met with FAA officials, the southern regional director of all the flight offices, and I asked him the kind of questions that you would probably ask anybody in that situation. I went down a list of issues that the FAA had been addressing with ValuJet. He answered all those questions with the administrator and I present, and then I asked him this question: "Should ValuJet be grounded." And he said, "No. The FAA does not have the evidence or the basis upon which ValuJet should be grounded." I then took that information, went out to the site. I answered accordingly.

SEN. ERNEST HOLLINGS, (D) South Carolina: How do you explain-- that's what the public is interested in--you two appearing on national TV immediately saying everything is fine, everything is safe, everything is safe, and your own inspector general saying, look here, this thing is so rickety I wouldn't even travel on commuter airlines, how do you explain that?

FEDERICO PENA: Senator, I will not and cannot speak for the inspector general. I understand that she'll be presenting testimony later this morning, and she can speak for herself. Let me, uh, say what I indicated to the public when I went to the crash site. First of all, I did not say that everything was okay with ValuJet. The fact is I said to the reporters that because of problems that ValuJet had in January--and I specifically mentioned the incidents that ValuJet had in January-- SEN. ERNEST HOLLINGS: But, Mr. Secretary, you appeared on TV and said it was safe. I heard you myself. I watched you.

FEDERICO PENA: That's right, Senator, and--

SEN. ERNEST HOLLINGS: So you can move on from that particular point.

MR. HOLMAN: But FAA Administrator David Hinson explained there just wasn't enough evidence to justify grounding ValuJet before the crash.

DAVID HINSON, Administrator, FAA: It is easy to say looking back over twenty-four, forty-eight months that here this airline had a complete history of FAA violations and surely somewhere in there we should have shut it down. The carrier had not exhibited a systemic and ongoing pattern of issues which would have allowed our inspectors to reach the conclusion that the airline was no longer in compliance. In fact, after the accident, because as the Secretary said we accelerated our inspections, only then at the end of that four-week period, actually, did our inspector work force conclude that there were two areas where the carrier had not been able to demonstrate satisfactory compliance to assure that the airplanes were airworthy. And they then felt that they had enough in the way of demonstrated process and evidence to ask the air carrier to stop flying.

MR. HOLMAN: But Sen. Olympia Snowe disagreed, citing mounting evidence within the FAA that ValuJet had significant problems, especially in maintenance, before the crash.

SEN. OLYMPIA SNOWE, (R) Maine: The fact is a report that recommended grounding an airline was not even--it did--it said consider it--consideration--well, recommended, consideration--but you didn't even consider it because you didn't know about it. That's what we're talking about here. Now when you make the declaration that an airline is safe without knowing the facts, it is problematic.

FEDERICO PENA: First of all, I said that there were problems that ValuJet had, and that is why we started the special emphasis review back in February, and based on all that and when the question was to me about ValuJet, I made a statement I made based on the best knowledge, judgment, and evidence that the FAA inspectors had at that time.

MR. HOLMAN: Also before the Senate Commerce Committee today was Mary Schiavo, the former inspector general of the Department of Transportation and a major critic of the Department's safety inspection procedures. She came under fire from Democratic Senators, who said she should have brought her complaints directly to Sec. Pena before making them public.

SEN. BYRON DORGAN, (D) North Dakota: The IG is appointed by the President. You're independent. The Secretary of Transportation can't fire you just because he doesn't like you. You have independence. You have the capability of, of going to that desk and pounding on the desk and, and delivering these messages. And I'm kind of curious why that didn't happen.

MARY SCHIAVO, Former Inspector General, DOT: If I hadn't spoken out, would it have just been business as usual, would any of this come out, or would the same thing happen that happens all the time? It just gets brushed away, gets swept under the rug, and we're all expected to play the same role, and, and come and say the same things. I don't know how many people have said that, you know, we should all speak with one voice. It's not my job. It was not my job to speak with one voice, and frankly, I don't regret writing that article.

SEN. BYRON DORGAN: But, Ms. Schiavo, it was your job--it was your job if you believe that ValuJet was unsafe to fly on--it was your job to go say to the Secretary of Transportation, I believe this airline is fundamentally unsafe, I will not fly on it, and I think you ought to shut the airline down.

MR. HOLMAN: Schiavo also said transportation officials may have given ValuJet improper advance warning that the airline was facing special monitoring, a charge FAA Administrator Hinson later denied.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, geriatric medicine and what it's like to be an Olympian. FOCUS - ELDER CARE

MR. LEHRER: Now the science and the art of caring for the elderly. Elizabeth Brackett of WTTW-Chicago reports.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Alfonse Antoni has prostate cancer and coronary artery disease. They are two of the classic afflictions of a man of his age. But on this visit, Dr. Jason Karlawish was surprised to find that something else was on his mind.

ALFONSE ANTONI: Why am I going blind--I mean completely blind?

DR. JASON KARLAWISH, Geriatric Fellow, University of Chicago: Yeah. You've brought that question up before. I remember. It's the glaucoma.

ALFONSE ANTONI: Yeah.

DR. JASON KARLAWISH: It's pretty frustrating.

ALFONSE ANTONI: It is. To be blind, Jesus.

MS. BRACKETT: Karlawish probed for details, mostly listened. It was a classic doctor-patient encounter, yet subtly different. Jason Karlawish is a relatively new breed of doctor, a geriatrician, a doctor who focuses not on one organ or disease but on the multiple interacting problems of older patients.

DR. JASON KARLAWISH: Many specialties arose because they were able to demarcate an organ system and particularly be able to perform procedures upon that organ system. Geriatrics begins with the first notion of well, we're interested in aging, and then anyone who's honest should say, well, we have no idea yet really what is aging. I'm overstating my case. We know what aging is, but our definition of it is very fluid still. I mean, there's a lot more that we need to understand, and we may never fully understand what is aging.

MS. BRACKETT: Karlawish is actually a geriatrician-in-training. He's a geriatric fellow at the University of Chicago's Medical School. One of his weekly assignments takes him to a clinic that serves the elderly near the university. Fifteen years ago, only a handful of doctors had this kind of practice. That began to change as medicine gained new insights into the aging process. Dr. Martin Gorbien is a professor of medicine at the University.

DR. MARTIN GORBIEN, Professor, University of Chicago: When I was a resident in internal medicine and made the decision to go into geriatrics, there was really very little support from, uh, my faculty at the hospital where I trained, and what I heard was the common response, and that is, well all do geriatrics, so why do you need special training, but certainly in the last ten years, there's been a growth of writing in the science of aging. We need to teach medical students and young physicians that the nervous system of an 80-year-old, the liver of an 80-year-old, the kidneys of an 80- year-old are not the same and they require special attention, for example, in the way we prescribe medications.

MS. BRACKETT: But it was the post war baby boomers who were the biggest driving force behind the growth of geriatric medicine. Fifty years ago, the boomers first hit the medical system. In 1949, the American Academy of Pediatrics reported that America had a serious shortage of doctors qualified in child care. Time passed. The boomers thundered across the decades. Today the oldest are just 15 years away from Social Security. And not surprisingly, a non- profit research group called the Alliance for Aging Research, has predicted a shortage of doctors trained to treat them. The chairman of the Senate Committee on Aging said the Alliance report foresees a critical social problem.

SEN. WILLIAM COHEN, Chairman, Committee on Aging: Especially if you look forward to the baby boom turning into the senior boom, and that we're going to see that we're going to need over 36,000 physicians with geriatric training by the year 2030, almost 30,000 more than we currently have, therefore, 65 million older Americans.

MS. BRACKETT: The Alliance says just 10 percent of American medical schools have required courses in geriatrics for medical students. Professionals like Dr. Gorbien think they know why the whole field isn't popular with aspiring doctors.

DR. MARTIN GORBIEN: I think medical students and young physicians see geriatrics as happy medicine because so many medical students and new physicians only have the opportunity to see older adults in the hospital setting when patients are acutely ill. It sometimes, I think, is a deterrent to helping people to become more interested in the specialty.

DR. MARTIN GORBIEN: (talking to patient) Mrs. Decker, what do you think about all these things we're talking about?

MS. DECKER: Well, it's nice. My daughter stays by me day and night.

DR. MARTIN GORBIEN: She sure does.

MS. BRACKETT: Dr. Gorbien likes geriatrics for personal reasons. He says he's always liked being around older people even as a teenager. Many other doctors see only the negatives. It doesn't garner the big bucks like high tech medicine, and it's heavily dependent on the Medicare bureaucracy for payment. Two medical students at the university confirmed that view. Neither one plans to become a geriatrician.

JAN RICHARDSON, Medical Student: Many of the patients in the hospital are older, umm, but they tend to be very sick if they're in the hospital, and I think that many of us find that hard to deal with. Umm, not only, not only do they have maybe multiple problems that there seems to be no easy answer to, but I think we're all sort of faced with, you know, the fact that these--many of these people that are dying, it sort of reminds us that we're going to die someday too.

MS. BRACKETT: How much difference does it make that geriatrics don't fall very high on the pay scale?

SUJA CHACKO, Medical Student: Well, for myself, I don't think it's so much the pay that is a factor for me personally but there has--for me the respect that's given to different fields does play a role, and I think that for geriatrics to be more chosen among medical students, umm, we'd have to increase the institutional respect for the field, the institutional support for the field, and for research that's being done in that area.

MS. BRACKETT: Even the optimists in the field say that no matter what steps are taken to train more geriatricians, there still will not be enough, so they advocate turning in another direction, require more course work and residency training in geriatrics for all medical students.

DOCTOR: You have a severe obstruction in your neck and the problem would be--

MS. BRACKETT: At the University of Chicago, Dr. Bronner oversees residents who work one day a week at this teaching nursing home. All residents are required to have some hands-on geriatric exposure. Fourth year medical students can also attend rounds.

DOCTOR: Ms. Ramsey's a real interesting patient who came recently. She's--

MS. BRACKETT: Other residents, like Dr. John Shon, put in time at the geriatrics section of the medical center. Dr. Shon doesn't plan to be a geriatrician but he admits the extra training has changed his perspective.

DR. JOHN SHON, Resident, University of Chicago: It really did give me appreciation for the special needs that the elderly population needs, and I think it's really--it has changed my practice and my approach to these elderly patients, perhaps focusing more on the chronic conditions and, you know, things that we can do to help them to prevent them from coming to the hospital in the first place.

MS. BRACKETT: This kind of training doesn't turn doctors into full-fledged geriatricians, but it's considered enough for routine patient encounters. The fellowship program is for those few doctors who want to make a career out of geriatric medicine. Because there are so few of them, most will probably concentrate on specialized care, research, and training younger doctors. Dr. Karlawish has one of two fellowship slots at Chicago. The other one is vacant. Why do they do it? For Karlawish, as for Gorbien, it was finally a personal decision.

DR. JASON KARLAWISH: My grandfather at 93 fell and broke his hip and died six weeks later, and though he had the best of care, he had the worst of care. And I'd seen it enough, I'd been part of it enough, and I realized it was time to be part of it.

DR. JASON KARLAWISH: (talking to patient) You feeling dizzy at all when you walk about?

MS. BRACKETT: Being part of it also means moving beyond pure medicine into the patient's personal life. Mr. Antoni with his multiple problems used to walk with a cane. Now for his own reasons he's more comfortable with a golf club. On this afternoon he was here with his son-in-law. That happens often. Younger family members bring in older patients. That turned out to be fortunate since the talk about glaucoma quickly turned into something more.

DR. JASON KARLAWISH: Are you able to move around the house okay, or-- ALFONSE ANTONI: No, not okay anymore--no--

DR. JASON KARLAWISH: Because the issue I brought up before we could have the people from the--I believe it was the Lighthouse-- come out and see if they could do anything with arranging the house so things were a little more easy for you to get around.

ALFONSE ANTONI: It's not my house. It's my daughter's house.

DR. JASON KARLAWISH: Right.

ALFONSE ANTONI: And I can't do anything but stay there and get the hell out of the way.

MS. BRACKETT: So where does the medical problem end and the family problem begin? Some doctors would shy away from that. For geriatricians, it has to be a part of the challenge. Dr. Karlawish had a talk with the son-in-law and promised to talk to the daughter.

MS. BRACKETT: Has it made a difference?

BENJAMIN CAROL: I believe it has, because my father-in-law had a lot of anxiety in him, a lot of , how do you put it, hostile emotions. He has developed an attitude of, uh, deal with his problems better than before.

DR. JASON KARLAWISH: For me, sort of the thing that finally had me interested in geriatrics was sort of coming to terms with uncertainty and I became just generally more interested in the question: What is aging? Because it's a question the more you probe it, the less--the more you know you don't know. The more you probe it, the more you know you don't know. And it also allows you to engage the patients, I think, in a broader realm than just the limited area of their particular disease because to the extent that aging is socially determined, which is greatly, it means you have to pay attention to those kinds of issues about family, environment, et cetera.

MS. BRACKETT: There were no earth shattering cures this afternoon at the clinic, just incremental changes that made Dr. Karlawish feel he made a difference in the lives of a few elderly patients. For many geriatricians, that's the real reward of their practice. FOCUS - OLYMPIC MOMENTS

MR. LEHRER: Now what it's like to compete in the Olympics. Elizabeth Farnsworth has that.

MS. FARNSWORTH: This is the centennial of the modern Olympic games. They begin this Friday in Atlanta, and they are very, very big, big in terms of national pride, international attention, and the number of athletes--11,000 men and women from around the world will complete during the games' two-week run. What is it like to compete in the Olympics? What does it do to the athletes who train for this one moment? We hear now from four people who experienced it firsthand. Nancy Hogshead won three Olympic gold medals and one silver medal in swimming at the 1984 Olympic games. She is currently a law student at Georgetown University and a motivational speaker. Mitch Gaylord won a gold, silver, and two bronze medals in gymnastics at the 1984 games. He will be reporting from Atlanta for a cable sports network. Pat Connolly competed in all three Olympics in the 1960's and the pantathalon and the 800 meters. Now a track and field coach, she has trained a number of Olympians. Al Joyner won a gold medal in the triple jump in Los Angeles in 1984. He also coached his wife, Florence Wirth Joyner, to her gold medal. Mr. Joyner was training to compete in Atlanta until an injury sidelined him. Thank you all for being with us. And beginning with you. What was it like in these days right before the Olympics? Could you train? Did you let up?

PAT CONNOLLY, Olympic Pentathlete: Well, you have to let up because the worst thing you can do right before the games is to overtrain because then you're left drained and flat. And in my case, I had a heightened sense of awareness. I would cry easier, laugh louder, and just the--have a hard time trying to keep myself calm, trying not to think about it too much.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Al Joyner, how did you keep yourself calm?

AL JOYNER, Olympic Triple Jumper: (Mission Viejo, CA) Umm, I kept myself calm because the--my event was right after the opening ceremonies, and so I wanted one more event to really make me focus, uh, to make sure that I was standing on one of those podiums and hopefully it would be the top podium, so I missed the opening ceremonies just to get--be mad at myself to say now I definitely got to win to close the ceremonies with a gold medal.

MS. FARNSWORTH: How do you stay focused, Mr. Joyner? How do you keep from just being so nervous it distracts you terribly?

MR. JOYNER: Umm, the reason I stayed focus was that I told myself all through training and practicing that every day was the Olympic games. I told myself at the Olympic games it was going to be one of my easiest practices because I only had to jump six times and only had to do one-- had to stay out on the track no longer than about a hour, two hours. Normally I'm on the track almost eight to twelve hours a day--it's a easy day at practice.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Nancy Hogshead, how about you? What did you do in these days right before the competition?

NANCY HOGSHEAD, Olympic Swimmer: (Jacksonville, FL): Umm, I was just--I was pretty obsessive. I mean, I used to know exactly how many hours I had before I was going to be competing and what I was going to do in-between all the time and what I was going to eat and when I was going to rest and everything.

MS. FARNSWORTH: That was your way of dealing with the anxiety, to obsess? It works, I know.

MS. HOGSHEAD: No. It was just what I naturally did. I mean, it certainly wasn't what I wanted to do. Umm, I actually worked with a sports psychologist for about four months, five months before the Olympics just so I could learn how to relax and how to, how to really focus, and I--I ended up getting a lot of out of the sports psychologist that I never thought I would. I mean, I ended up learning how to use mental gymnastics or mental techniques to be able to swim much faster than I ever thought possible.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And Mitch Gaylord, did you let up in your practice in the days before? MITCH GAYLORD, Olympic Gymnast: (Los Angeles) Absolutely. The few days beforehand you want to really remain focused mentally. That's the main thing. But I think a certain sense of normalcy is what you're looking for. You don't want to really get caught up in the overwhelming bigness of the Olympic games, so you try and do things that you do normally on a day-to-day basis.

MS. FARNSWORTH: But, Mr. Gaylord, I know you and all the other athletes here have won many sporting events before you all got to the Olympics, but it is bigger than all the rest, isn't it? What did it feel like to you to be there?

MR. GAYLORD: It's really an overwhelming feeling because we know going into those games that billions of people will be watching us on TV, not to mention the live crowds that are actually there. So walking into the Olympic stadium and realizing that this huge event has started is really something that is overwhelming. So you really got to remain focused on what you're there to do, which is to compete to the best of your ability.

MS. FARNSWORTH: That must be so difficult to do, though, Pat Connolly.

MS. CONNOLLY: Well, Mitch is right about overwhelming. I remember I was 16 when I walked into the Olympic stadium to run the 800 meters in Rome.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Sixteen years old?

MS. CONNOLLY: Sixteen years old, and I walked into this stadium full of people and I heard cheering, "Come on USA, come on USA," and what was going through my mind was I was worried that I wouldn't take my shorts down when I took my sweats off. So, you know, you don't know. You surprise yourself.

MS. FARNSWORTH: I bet. I think that's the way it is when you're anxious, isn't it. You just worry about little things.

MS. CONNOLLY: Yeah.

MS. FARNSWORTH: I guess that's not so little. (laughter) Al Joyner, Al Joyner, what about you? Was this so different for you from these other sporting events where you'd been a winner too?

MR. JOYNER: Uh, yes, it was definitely the biggest thrill of my life to know that you train really for four years, you know one day that it's all going to come down to one day, and for me one jump and hoping that that would be the perfect jump in your career, and if I looked at it any other way, thinking that, well, I trained four years, eight to seven hours a day for just one jump, it would have shared the living daylights out of me, so I had to put that out of my mind and think about the positive things, what kept me- -what kept me going and the things that I had to accomplish to try to--to be the best in the world on that given day.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Nancy Hogshead, how did it feel to you to be at the Olympics?

MS. HOGSHEAD: I thought that the Olympics were going to be just like every other swim meet. You know, I had been world class for eight years, and been to world championships and world games, and this was right at the height of the Cold War, and I missed the 80 team because of the boycott. And when I got to the Olympics, it made me realize what we had missed by not going to the 1980 Olympics. And in 84, it was, I mean--

MS. FARNSWORTH: Let's remind people we didn't go in 1980 because of the Russian--

MS. HOGSHEAD: Because of the Olympic boycott.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Yeah.

MS. HOGSHEAD: I sort of , I got to see what I had missed. I mean, at the world championships it's basically the same people. I mean, it's, you know, all your competitors that you've been in many cases trained with for years and years. And--but I tell you, there's just something about the Olympics, it is--it's really--sort of shows you how good people can be. I mean, the Olympics, the aura and the atmosphere there is, it's, it sort of pervades the specters; it pervades, uh, the competitors. I mean, I'm sure everybody else will agree, I was very good friends with most of my toughest, hardest competitors, and, umm, I don't--you know, there's just something about the Olympic spirit, you know, that I wish we could capture more often.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Al Joyner, what was it like to win?

MR. JOYNER: Uh, it was like a dream come true. It was like I always tell kids--they always ask me this question--I say it's like getting everything for Christmas and a little bit more because that was my biggest dream, to be an Olympic champion, just to be an Olympian, to meet the other athletes, and, uh, meet all the other- -from the other countries--and I still tell everybody that the 1984 team was the best team. (laughing)

MS. FARNSWORTH: Mitch Gaylord, how about you, what was it like to win? I mean, compare it to winning at any other kind of normal event, Mitch Gaylord.

MR. GAYLORD: For us, we were not projected to win in 84.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Yeah.

MR. GAYLORD: At best, we were projected to take third place. So for us--

MS. FARNSWORTH: The Chinese were projected to win, right?

MR. GAYLORD: Absolutely.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And at the very end, you were very close to them.

MR. GAYLORD: We were going neck and neck all the way to the last event, which set it up for quite a dramatic finish, but it was a surprise for us to be standing up there, so we were a bit in shock, and a tremendous amount of pride as we saw the American flag being raised and the National Anthem goes up because that is a dream that every Olympic athlete has for years before they actually compete.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And you had to make a difficult decision, didn't you, at that moment? There was a difficult routine, the Gaylord 2, I think it's called.

MR. GAYLORD: Yes.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Which you might have not done and had a more assured win. Tell us about that.

MR. GAYLORD: Yeah. Well, we were so close with the Chinese going into the last event, for us it was high bar, and I had a very risky skill on that event, the Gaylord 2. Without the skill, I could probably have still scored a 9.8 and the U.S. could have won, but the coach, A.B. Grossfeld, knew how important it was to me, as well as USA gymnastics, because it put our name in the history book as a gymnast who had a trick named after him. So we kind of had this little stare-down before the actual event occurred, and he gave me the nod to go for it, and I went up there, and there was no way I was going to miss that bar.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And you didn't miss it.

MR. GAYLORD: I did not miss it.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And this was an event that you--or a routine that you didn't even like to practice that often it was so difficult, right?

MR. GAYLORD: Well, it's a very risky skill, and the thing about the Gaylord 2 is when you miss, you land on the bar, so it's the kind of thing that you really have to be very mentally focused and you have to be totally concentrated.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Nancy Hogshead, what was it like winning? You won three gold medals and a silver.

MS. HOGSHEAD: Umm, you know, I've thought about that moment a lot, and there's--there was a big potential for having it not live up to, you know, how I thought about it for all those years, and without a doubt, it was a thrill of a lifetime. I mean, it's something I'll never forget as long as I live, and if you don't remember, I tied for the first gold medal in Olympic history, so it was myself--my teammate, Kerry Steinsifer, also from America-- and just a tremendous amount of pride. You know, when I training, I was not saying for America, but when I got there, that really was true. Umm, just so proud to be an American, and then I actually had people from Japan come up and say, wow, you really did it for us. I remember kind of wondering, how well they speak English, but what they're really acknowledging is what people are capable of. I mean, I loved watching Mitch do his, umm, do his routines when I was in-between swimming, and I watched him and teammates, Peter Goodmar, Bart Conners, and, and just thinking, like what--I just can't believe a human being is capable of doing that, and the same thing with Al Joyner. You know, I watched him compete many times, umm, and it's just neat. I mean, that's one of the great things about the Olympics, is it shows us all how good- -what people are capable of doing.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Pat Connolly, you did not win a medal, although you were at three different Olympics. Was that terribly disappointing, or was it enough to bethere?

MS. CONNOLLY: It actually is a wonderful experience to just be there, to be in the Olympic village. When they talk about the height of the Cold War, we really were against the Russians, and I had gone there with the idea of beating a Russian, but once I started dancing with them, it didn't seem so important, and that's what the real Olympic spirit is about. It's bringing all the people in the world together, and learning respect and mutual admiration, and of course no one really savors that victory as much as the one who didn't get it, and it helped me analyze and understand that more and I guess I became a better coach because of that.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Would you say that's how--how did it change your life? I would imagine it's changed everybody's life. How did it change your life?

MS. CONNOLLY: Well, first of all, it allowed me to become a coach and understand what it takes to become an Olympic champion. Umm, you're--once you're an Olympian, you're always an Olympian, and they can't say former Olympian. It's just something that you've experienced that, that separates you and makes you different than everybody else.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Al Joyner, what about you, how did it change your life?

MR. JOYNER: It changed my life because I wasn't the best athlete growing up. I wasn't a stand-out, and let me know that if you keep believing in your dreams, train hard, that anything can, anything is possible, you can go all the way to the Olympic games and you take that same attitude in business and being a parent and being anything you can be as long as you just keep nourishing dreams and believing in yourself.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Was there any down side for you?

MR. JOYNER: The biggest down side is that I had the pleasure of knowing what it feels to make the Olympic team and knowing what it feels not to make the Olympics.

MS. FARNSWORTH: So had hoped to make it this year, hadn't you?

MR. JOYNER: Yes, and, and I'm still--I still think I have a little bit ability left in me, and I'm going to take each year at a time, but I know what those athletes go through just to be called an Olympian, and that, uh, it's hard when you put in four years and then it's four years is gone and you have to train four more hard years and you keep asking yourself, can you do it.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Mitch Gaylord, how about you, what was--was there any down side?

MR. GAYLORD: Well, so much happened after the Olympics that when I look back upon it, there's a big period of confusion, let's call it, where I kind of got off the path and got off track, but I thank God for that Olympic experience, and what it made me as a person, that whole journey of training to the Olympic games, and I've really been able to draw upon that, like what Al was saying, you know, the belief in yourself and the fact that we were able to do something like that, that we set out for ourselves. You never ever lose that. So if you can apply that to your life in a different area, you've got yourself going in a very good direction.

MS. FARNSWORTH: So that's the way it changed your life?

MR. GAYLORD: Absolutely. There was a lot of opportunities after the games, the movies, television shows, commercials. I went on that path, and I found it to be very unfulfilling when compared to the Olympics, of that incredible journey and the character building and reaching goals, uh, that's what I treasure. It's not standing on the victory stand. It's really the process, and that's what I've tried to learn from and apply to my life now.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Nancy Hogshead, what changed in your life after the Olympics? How did it change you?

MS. HOGSHEAD: Well, about a year and a half before the Olympics, umm, actually I guess about three years before the Olympics, I was raped, and I quit swimming for a year, and by going through the process of going and getting an Olympic gold medal, it sort of gave me myself back. It made me, you know, like that I was in control of my future, and that I was strong and, and that I sort of was back in the driver's seat. I got so much out of --exactly what Mitch just said--going through the process of really putting yourself on the line. I mean, like he said, it's not the victory stand really; it's the going for it, it's the having a really big goal, and so, umm, so after the Olympics, knowing how much I had gotten out of my sports experience, Donna Deverona came and talked to us, um, about women being able to participate in the Olympics, and I went on to become the president of the Women's Sports Foundation out of that. It gave me something out that I felt just as passionate about and just as good about, and now I'm going to be an attorney with Smith, Halsey, and Bussey here in Jacksonville, Florida.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Thank you, Nancy. We have to go now. Thank you all very much for being with us. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Wednesday, Defense Secretary Perry said there would be a new plan to protect U.S. troops worldwide from terrorists. On the NewsHour, Perry said the government expected bigger and more fierce attacks against U.S. military installations in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. And an agreement on federal approval of Time-Warner's purchase of the Turner Broadcasting Corporation was announced. FOLLOW-UP - PRIMARY COLORS

MR. LEHRER: Before we go tonight, a follow-up. Last spring we were among the many who wondered about the identity of the anonymous author of "Primary Colors," the best-selling political novel with strong illusions to the 1992 primary campaign of President Clinton. Anonymous revealed himself today in New York after the "Washington Post" compared handwriting on the book's galley proofs with that of "NewsWeek" Magazine's chief political writer.

JOE KLEIN, Newsweek: My name is Joe Klein, and I wrote "Primary Colors." I did it by myself , with no help, no secret sources. And I want to tell you, it was great. It was a lot of fun. In fact, it was the most fun I ever had with a keyboard. Umm, I wrote it anonymously for a lot of different reasons they evolved over time. In the beginning, it was a combination of cowardice and whimsey. You know, I've been covering politics for nearly 30 years. And I felt that no one had really ever really captured in fiction the hilarity and the intensity and craziness of a political campaign.

MR. LEHRER: Until today, Klein had repeatedly denied he was the author. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.