The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Thursday, China executed seven more demonstrators today and told the world to mind its own business. The Bush administration asked China to mute its criticism of China. The Senate approved a plan of federal subsidies for child care. We'll have details in our News Summary in a minute. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: After the News Summary, we have excerpts from today's round of hearings on the housing scandal, then come Pres. Bush's volunteer program with Sen. Sam Nunn and White House official Gregg Petersmeyer, an interview with Robert Ballard, the man who found the battleship Bismarck on the bottom of the sea, and essayist Jim Fisher on a special person. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: The Chinese government executed seven more people they called rioters in the wake of the pro democracy demonstrations. At the same time, authorities arrested 13 Taiwanese and charged them with fomenting unrest and the foreign ministry warned foreign governments it is unwise and futile to put political or economic pressure on China. We have a report from Beijing by David Rose of Independent Television News.

DAVID ROSE, ITN: Chinese state television carried these pictures last Saturday of the seven men who were executed today. This was their court appearance, accused of setting fire to military trucks, stealing military goods, and assaulting soldiers. Tonight's local Beijing news announced their deaths, saying they had been found guilty of serious crimes and their appeals had been rejected. They were all shown dressed in black. It looks as if a woman accused of the same crimes may have escaped the death penalty. An unspecified number of executions were also carried out in Nanjing. These executions were mentioned on tonight's main bulletin, which concentrated instead on revealing the capture of several alleged Taiwanese spies. Detailed surveillance pictures taken by secret Chinese agents during the pro democracy demonstrations showed the accused men playing prominent parts in the recent unrest. The commentary accused them of being members of Taiwan's Secret Service and encouraging the unrest. Copies of reports they made were shown on screen and two were shown confessing. Tonight's bulletin also carried a long statement of the Chinese government's top official dealing with Hong Kong. Clearly trying to reduce the fears in the colony, he said that all the guarantees would be honored. In particular, the capitalist system would be allowed to continue, though he warned that no activities against the Communist Party or against Chinese law would be permitted in Hong Kong.

MR. MacNeil: In London, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher saying she wanted to prevent panic in Hong Kong, rejected calls from the opposition to impose trade sanctions against China. In Washington, the Bush administration also heard complaints that it wasn't doing enough on China. The Democratic Senate Majority Leader, George Mitchell, called on George Bush as spokesmen for the American people to condemn the Chinese executions more forcefully. Mitchell spoke on the Senate floor.

SEN. GEORGE MITCHELL, Senate Majority Leader: I ask, urge the President to condemn these actions personally and in the strongest possible terms, to give voice to the feelings of the overwhelming majority of American people who are outraged and revolted at these executions in China.

MR. MacNeil: But Secretary of State Baker appearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee said Congress was too critical.

JAMES BAKER, Secretary of State: I think the United States should act, should speak with one voice and act in one, and act in a coordinated way in addressing this very very difficult foreign policy problem. Human rights has got to be a fundamental keystone and basis for American foreign policy but there are also other considerations in the formation and implementation of American foreign policy that must be taken into account and the geopolitical economic relationship between the People's Republic of China and the United States is important.

MR. MacNeil: The full House of Representatives gave Sec. Baker the one voice of consensus he requested. In an non-binding resolution, they condemned the crackdown in China. They also endorsed the President's call for clemency for the protesters. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: The Senate today approved the Democrats' version of child care. The vote was 63 to 37 in favor of a plan that would provide tax credits and subsidies for child care. It came immediately after a tax credit only Republican version voted by Pres. Bush was voted down. Under a procedural agreement, the Democratic bill remained subject to amendment until a final final vote tomorrow.

MR. MacNeil: Pres. Bush today called on all Americans to join in voluntary efforts to cure the nation's social ills. Speaking in New York, he said government funded social programs had not worked, adding, "Today more than ever we need community service to help dropouts, pregnant teens, and drug abusers, the homeless, and AIDS victims, the hungry and illiterate. We'll have more on the President's proposals later in the program. In New York, he also commented on the Supreme Court ruling that burning the American flag was protected by the first amendment.

PRES. BUSH: I understand the legal basis for that decision and I respect the Supreme Court and as President of the United States, I will see that the law of the land is fully supported, but I have to give you my personal emotional response. Flag burning is wrong, dead wrong, and the flag of the United States is very very special.

MR. MacNeil: Late this afternoon, the Senate passed a resolution expressing disappointment with the court decision. The vote was 97 to 3.

MR. LEHRER: On the economy today the Commerce Department reported the Gross National Product grew the first three months of the year at a 4.4 percent annual rate. That was slightly better than the 4.3 percent estimate put out earlier. The report said the increase was because of higher than expected exports. There was also a report on home ownership out today with some bad news. It was the work of Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies. It said, home ownership for young Americans has declined dramatically, creating the prospect of a permanent underclass of disadvantaged renters.

MR. MacNeil: The Bush administration has decided not to ban electronic equipment such as laptop computers and cassette players from U.S. airplanes. There had been cause for such a ban following the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. Investigators found that explosives had been concealed in a cassette recorder checked on that flight. In Washington this afternoon, Secretary of Transportation Samuel Skinner said he would order increased screening of electronic devices, but he said stronger measures were not necessary.

SAMUEL SKINNER, Secretary of Transportation: This special screening process is being put in place in the major airports of threat throughout, as I said, the Middle East and Europe. It is a program that will allow people who must carry these devices in their work or on vacation to transport those devices. Yet at the same time will ensure us that those devices will not be hiding places for explosives or bombs similar to the one that destroyed Pan Am 103.

MR. LEHRER: This was another decision day at the U.S. Supreme Court. The court said it was all right for the government to confiscate money and property from criminal defendants even if those resources were going to pay defense lawyers. A 5 to 4 majority ruled in two similar cases that the profits of illegality could not be reserved for such purposes. In another 5 to 4 decision, the court ruled against a White high school football coach in Dallas who claimed he was transferred because he was white. The court said the 1866 law involved did not apply unless a city employee's civil rights were violated as a part of official city policy. That was not proven in the coach's case.

MR. MacNeil: Organized baseball finally stated its case against Pete Rose, the manager of the Cincinnati Reds. An attorney for the commissioner of baseball said today there was substantial and heavy corroborated evidence that Rose bet on baseball games, including some involving the Reds. The statement was made a judicial hearing in Cincinnati. Commissioner Bartlett Chimati has scheduled a separate hearing Monday on the charges against Rose who has denied them. Under baseball rules, Rose could be banned from the game for life.

MR. LEHRER: An American nun in El Salvador was shot in the head last night. Seventy-two year old Sister Mary Mackey runs a Catholic orphanage near the country's capital. She and two other nuns were driving to the orphanage when a man in a pickup truck fired into their car. Sister Mackey is in serious condition. In 1980, three American nuns were raped and killed by members of El Salvador's National Guard. It is not clear if yesterday's shooting was politically motivated. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to more HUD revelations, the Bush volunteer program, the battleship Bismarck and the faces of Alex. UPDATE - BUILDING SCANDAL

MR. LEHRER: We lead again tonight with the HUD story, the story of abuse and misuse at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Today's episode features the U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland, Philip Winn, and testimony about former Interior Sec. James. Watt. Here's an excerpt.

REP. LANTOS: Did you leave HUD of your own volition? Were you asked to leave and if you left of your own volition, why did you do so?

JOSEPH STRAUSS, Former Special Assistant to HUD Secretary: I perceived during my last year or so at HUD that there was a niche in the private sector for an individual who had an understanding of HUD programs, specifically how they worked, and since I didn't believe anyone individual had all that knowledge, I felt that if I could assemble a team of professionals, that is, lawyers, technicians, people with really significant housing experience and specific UDAG experience and experience in the other programs that I wanted to work, I could represent clients before that agency and probably do it in a manner that would be hopefully better for the agency and better for the clients.

REP. LANTOS: Did you review Sec. Watt as fitting into that top notch team of housing specialists?

MR. STRAUSS: No, sir, not at all.

REP. LANTOS: Well, in what context, did you wish to have him employed by you?

MR. STRAUSS: I felt that based upon his stature and influence and general recognition, it was a wonderful opportunity for me at that age to bring credibility to my business by being associated with a former cabinet member, at the same time enhance my ability to bring in clients, because people would --

REP. LANTOS: What was his stature in the housing field?

MR. STRAUSS: None in the housing field. This was not specifically related to housing, sir. It was an overall, I certainly did have in mind at the time that he would help us or might be able to help us within the Department of Housing and Urban Development, but my real overall reasons were much broader than that. This is a letter from me to James Watt. It was written at his request. He felt that he wanted to have some memorialization in writing of our general agreements. I'd like to read at least part of this for you.

REP. LANTOS: Go ahead.

MR. STRAUSS: "Dear Jim, you supply us not only with the actual hours of effort, but with a lifetime of experience, a finely tuned sense of what government agencies can and cannot accomplish within the bounds of the law, and a well developed flare for innovation often critical to success. Therefore, to balance the competing factors discussed herein and in our many enjoyable conversations.

REP. TOM LANTOS, [D] California: Could I stop you with that "well developed flare for innovation" because that's a little rich, that's a little rich. What particularly were you looking for in Mr. Watt's well developed flare of innovation to help you with, architectural flare?

MR. STRAUSS: No, no.

REP. LANTOS: Interior decorating flare?

MR. STRAUSS: No.

REP. LANTOS: You hired him to use his influence at HUD to help you push through your projects. Is that what this letter says in English?

MR. STRAUSS: That's what this letter says.

REP. LANTOS: Well, then let's not read the "well developed flare for innovation" business, because we're wasting the committee's time.

JOSEPH STRAUSS, Former Special Asst. to HUD Secretary: It was a widely known and widely accepted, if I could use that word for this conversation, fact that I could call very heavy hitter political consultants regularly involved in this program. And all I wanted was fair consideration, because I tell you now, Congressman, in every bit of sincerity, I would put up our projects against anyone's projects in the United States. Now I'm not going to tell you we would always win. Of course, we wouldn't always win, but we would certainly be up there in the ranking, sir, both by the objective criteria if the program is evaluated by Congress, that is these five criteria, and the specifics of that particular project.

REP. LANTOS: Is it your testimony that you had outstanding projects but without these very heavy hitters you couldn't have the projects approved?

MR. STRAUSS: That's what I felt, sir, yes. I think that people who were politically known, however you might use the word influential in this town, had an absolute entree in the way this program was being wrong and that's what I think was bad about this program, because if I had had an opportunity in some way to participate and not be looked at from politics at all, again, we wouldn't have won them all, but if we put in a hundred, we might have won fiftyor sixty or seventy. I mean, it was the methodology of going about it.

MR. LEHRER: Philip Winn, the U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland, testified this afternoon. He's a former Assistant Secretary of Housing and won several development contracts from HUD after he left the agency.

AMB. PHILIP WINN, Former Assistant Secretary of Housing: I've been gone from HUD for almost eight years. I would imagine that there has been probably six or seven hundred projects funded during this period, I don't know the exact number. I know during the five years there was 324. And I would think these seven projects, which is a very small percentage of the 700, maybe 1 percent, you would have a chance to compare these projects with all of the other projects that were out there. And as far as no competition, I don't, I did not deal with the housing agencies per se, and, again, this is not my expertise, but I understand in one of the projects, there were six bidders, so there was competition.

REP. CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, [R] Connecticut: No. We can't let you get away with that, sir.

AMB. WINN: You don't think that's true?

REP. SHAYS: No, that's not true. There was not competition. You had a number of units here that were locked in. There was no competition. If there was advertising, it wasn't competitive because your project had basically been selected by the central office.

REP. LANTOS: You apparently gave the impression to both my colleague and me that you are operating under the assumption that this was a bona fide, a competitive selection process, that you followed the rules and that's how you got the units. Is that still your testimony, Mr. Winn?

AMB. WINN: What I am saying, sir, is that I don't think my associates, who by the way dealt with the housing authorities, I did not, I don't believe that my associates violated any rules and regulations. Maybe there were no rules and maybe there were no regulations. I think, sir, we're on different tracks. All I'm saying is that I don't believe my partners willfully disregarded any rules or any regulations in this process. But as I stated a moment ago, perhaps there were no rules and regulations, perhaps the selection process was done without those, but what I am bringing out is I don't believe it's my partner's fault on this. We're not the ones that chose the projects or chose the Public Housing Authorities. We did apply, and we did contact, nobody's questioning that. I'm not denying that, sir.

REP. LANTOS: You used your influence and your influence was sufficient for the units to be awarded to you. That's the issue. Do you deny that?

AMB. WINN: Certainly from all the testimony that you have stated, it may very well be the case. But my point being, sir, is that when we option properties and we try to find the properties would fit in the certain parts of the country, and we worked with the Public Housing Authorities, believe me when I say this, we willfully did not violate any rules and regulations. That's all I'm saying.

MR. LEHRER: The House Committee has scheduled more hearings on HUD next week. FOCUS - HELPING HAND

MR. MacNeil: National service is next tonight. As we reported, Pres. Bush unveiled his points of light initiative to promote volunteerism in community service. We'll talk with the administration's point man and with a key Senator but first we have extended excerpts from the President's speech today in New York.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Too many Americans still endure a living nightmare of want, a living nightmare of isolation, and that must stop. Ladies and gentlemen, we must bring back those who feel unwelcome, we must reawaken their hope for the future. We know that government can't rebuild a family or reclaim a sense of neighborhood. We know that during the past two decades, we've spent more money on social programs than at any time in our history. And some problems aren't better. In fact, some are worse. I am here today to ask that both sectors, private and public, and all branches of all levels of government join this great movement to extend national service into every corner of America for it's a movement bold and unprecedented. This is not a program, not another bureaucracy. To every -- let me tell you the strategy of this movement -- first to issue a call to action and to claim problems as your own; second, to identify, enlarge and recreate what is working; and third, to discover and encourage new leaders. First, our call to action, it is individual and yet collective, and it begins this afternoon with you. So today I ask all Americans and all institutions, large and small, to make service central to your life and work. I urge all business leaders to consider community service in hiring, compensation, and promotion decisions. I call upon non-profit and service groups to open your doors to all those who want to help, irrespective of age, background or level of experience, and leaders of high schools and colleges, I urge you to uphold the values of community service and to encourage students, faculty and personnel to serve others. And to the youth of America, I issue a special appeal. Yesterday on the South law of the White House we held a kick-off rally for a key element of our strategy, the YES initiative, or Youth Engaged in Service to America. It was attended by thousands of kids, some of those points of light I like to talk about, and I challenged every young American to fight against self-absorption, and to emulate those leaders who have shown that there is no problem in America that is not being solved somewhere. And so that brings me to the second part of our strategy. And I'm proud to announce it now -- a new effort to identify service programs that work and then carry them to America. We call this catalyst the Points of Light Initiative, a foundation of which I will serve as honorary chairman and that will help make our movement a reality. I will soon ask Congress for 25 million annually to support this initiative which, in turn, will seek matching funds from the private sector. My friends, national service will succeed, it can make an infinite difference in the life of these United States, for a thousand points can light the lives of the people and a nation.

MR. MacNeil: Highlights of the President's Points of Light Initiative include the establishment of a national advisory committee, which has a 45 day deadline to draft legislation, governors and local leaders would be encouraged to develop state and local working groups to promote volunteerism, through the so- called "ServNet Project", businesses and other organizations would be asked to denote the services of their employees, volunteer centers would be found in every neighborhood. The ServLink Project would connect those who wish to serve with those who are in need in that community. A final key component would be the YES Initiative, Youth Engaged in Service, the President's call to young people to volunteer in community service. We examine the President's proposals now with Gregg Petersmeyer, the Director of the Office of National Service in the White House, and with Sen. Sam Nunn, Democrat from Georgia, who earlier this year proposed a $5 billion national service program, which would allow young people to earn housing or education vouchers in return for civilian or military service. Mr. Petersmeyer, in other words, this idea goes a lot further than just a youth volunteer service.

MR. PETERSMEYER: That's right. It does.

MR. MacNeil: The wire reports say that the $25 million the President is asking for annually would largely be spent on public relations to sort of get people aware of the problem and of what is desired. Is that true?

GREGG PETERSMEYER, White House: No, I don't think that's accurate. I think we've not, I think the advisory committee that's going to be headed by Gov. Kean that was announced today will propose how that budget might, in fact, be spent. But the President made his statement that currently every problem in America is being solved somewhere was really the lynch pin of his speech. He believes and many others believe that the basic problem in America is not that there are not solutions to problems. It's that these solutions are isolated, not known to people in groups outside, often of a limited area, and so what needs to happen is these solutions need to become much better known and to do that, many people need to become involved in discovering them and then carrying them to groups who can implement them places that they're not.

MR. MacNeil: Well, tell me in simple terms, how is volunteer effort going to rescue, to use the President's word yesterday, all those people, and he listed the homeless and the hungry and people on drugs and teenage pregnant girls and so on, how are volunteer efforts going to help those and rescue those people?

MR. PETERSMEYER: I think as a matter of fact that is the only thing that will rescue those people. We have talked in my office since the inaugural to probably 450 or close to 500 individuals. It doesn't really matter whether you talk to someone who has spent many years dealing with teen pregnancies or with kids who've dropped out or people who have had trouble reading. Almost all of them say that these are essentially good human beings who are living in communities that have essentially disintegrated around them. This morning the President was at Covenant House in New York, and he went around in an open discussion with eight or nine young people, and he asked them what do they really want and almost to a person they said, we really want to have someone care for us. The problem is not programs. The problem is relationships and the problems of this country now which have been long in coming and take a long time force to solve are by and large good people who are, to use the President's phrase, free falling with no one who really wants to help them. Adm. Watkins, who is the Secretary of Energy, told me yesterday that one of the things he learned from being chairman of the AIDS Commission was that the kinds of things the President is talking about today and what he said to those 3800 young people on the South lawn yesterday is what Adm. Watkins calls very important to the solution to AIDS. If individuals can find more meaning in their life because they have people who care about them, who think they have value and meaning, they're not going to be groveling around in garbage cans looking for needles. And this is, Adm. Watkins is very articulate on this subject, this movement is central to the future of solving many of these problems in this country.

MR. MacNeil: You said in an interview a couple of months ago that your aim was that by the end of four years of the Bush administration you hoped that the average number of hours that Americans volunteer in community service would be increased by 15 percent after four years. The base line you were taking was that Gallup I think it was survey that said at present 20 billion hours a year are donated. A 15 percent increase would be 3 billion more hours. If 20 billion hours now donated do not make a dent in the problems that the President pointed out, how are 3 more billion or 15 percent more going to solve all those problems?

MR. PETERSMEYER: I was misquoted. You quoted me correctly but the interview misquoted me. If you go to Covenant House, for example, where there are hundreds of volunteers, that is making a dent. In other words, I think dents are being made, but when I made that comment, it was before frankly that we recognized that there was far more potential in this country to harness the efforts of volunteers in community service than we had imagined. Many of the people we have talked to and many of the people that have visited with the President, including Gov. Kean, including Father Ritter, including Jim Rouse and others who have done marvelous things in the housing area, say the problem is not good ideas. The problem is finding leaders who currently are investing almost all of their leadership talent in ways other than in their communities. And if these ideas can be replicated and reproduced elsewhere, that will make a big difference. One thing the President said today which you quoted, when he said he is calling on all companies, large and small, to consider volunteer activities when making hiring decisions, compensation decisions and promotion decisions, this is very significant. There are billions and billions of hours that he believes can be invested in the lives of other people and its relationships which are being cried out for by the people who are in the midst of many of our most serious problems.

MR. MacNeil: Does he think that Americans who he calculates politically are not willing to have these taxes raised to do these kinds of things are going to donate those hours of their own time to solve these problems, homeless, poverty, all the problems you mentioned?

MR. PETERSMEYER: I think there's no question about it. And I think the President does recognize that the government has a critical role in problem solving, but I think again what he said today a great deal of money has been spent and problems are getting worse in many areas. What he's talked about today and what he said to these young people yesterday is that all Americans have gifts to give and he needs those gifts now in the communities in which people live. It's a very important movement.

MR. MacNeil: Okay, let's bring in Sen. Nunn. Sen. Nunn, you know we know about your program, $5 billion, a program of national service for young people, if they gave their time they would get credits in the form of vouchers for college education or housing. What do you think of the President's proposal?

SEN. SAM NUNN, [D] Georgia: [Capitol Hill] Well, I'm encouraged that the President has come out with his proposal. I believe he has added a very important voice to the voices that have been heard a lot in the last couple of years asking young people and all generations for that matter to begin to really help their fellow human being. I believe that he's correct also in pointing out that we have a very huge social deficit in this country and that conventional programs that simply involve more money from the federal level with the old fashioned way of dishing them out and not going to work. So on those two points I agreewith the President and I think that there are ways that we can work together with him to mold a more or less pilot project on his proposal and on other proposals, including my own in the next year. I hope we can get together in the next few weeks.

MR. MacNeil: Does this meet your goal of motivating, in a particular case of your proposal, young people?

SEN. NUNN: Well, I don't want to be negative in any way on the President's proposal because what he has said here today indicates he's going to be vitally involved in this as a leader. As you recall, Pres. Reagan made several speeches about volunteerism and he did not follow through with anything tangible in this area. Pres. Bush I believe is going to be more involved from a leadership area and he's got some meat on the bones here, but to put it in perspective, the $25 million, certainly that will help in providing funds for a clearing house and exchanging information about programs that work but it does not address the critical areas that we address in our overall national service legislation. We believe that what we have is an offer of a civic compact between young people. Society would say to young people we need to help meet these social needs, if you'll volunteer for a year or two, not simply a few hours, but a year or two, either in the military or in some civic endeavor, we'll help with your education, so we address the social needs in our proposal but we also address the critical need of educating America's young people and not just those going to college. We're also talking about the 50 percent of our young people who don't go to college who need to acquire not only a basic skill but a method of bringing that skill up to date with the dynamic changes in our economy and we address finally America's competitive position in the world. If we do not have a much better educated work force, we're going to have an erosion in our competitive position. So the President addresses one of those points. He does it with a method that I think needs to be greatly beefed up as we go along, but his proposal here is welcome, his voice is welcome, his leadership is welcome, and I hope we can work with him to frame some legislation in the form of an experiment. I do not believe that our proposal, as much as I'm dedicated to it, should be implemented overnight. It would be too sweeping and too broad. We need to start off slowly and see what works best. We need to involve our retired people in America. We need to get the people who have so many skills that have already been in the work force and have been in leadership positions. We need to get them involved in this to help train the young people. And many of these jobs, Robin, it's going to take a period of four to eight weeks to train young people and we want to make sure that once they're trained we give real service here. The best estimate I've heard is that we could use another 3 million full-time people out there simply trying to meet our social deficit. That deficit has grown, is continuing to grow.

MR. MacNeil: Well, but can all that be done through volunteerism, or in the case of your proposal, do people need some incentive for it? Do they need to be paid for it?

SEN. NUNN: I think that the best way to look is at the volunteer force, itself. We framed that force back in the mid 1970s. There were a lot of thoughts that the volunteer military service was going to sort of take care of itself. We saw a huge deterioration in the volunteers, in the quality, in the reenlistment, and so what we had to go to was a very large increase in pay and very significant bonuses and also a very large advertising budget. To put the President's $25 million in perspective, we spend over a billion dollars a year, over $1 billion a year, advertising out of the military budgets asking people to join the military. We spend almost another billion dollars, beyond pay, in bonuses to get young people to go into certain parts of the military or to reenlist. So we're spending about $2 billion simply promoting and adding bonuses for military service. Maybe I should put it in that perspective. So incentives are needed, particularly if we're going to get people other than the wealthy involved here. I think the wealthy should be involved but the wealthy are usually the ones who have the time and do not have to have part-time jobs, so they're able to volunteer but it's crucial that we get the lower income people involved and the middle income people involved in America in helping meet our social needs.

MR. MacNeil: The President said yesterday that young people don't need to be bribed with incentives or threatened with penalties. Was he talking about the Nunn plan? Let me ask Mr. Petersmeyer first.

MR. PETERSMEYER: Well, I think he was talking about bills on the Hill, of which there are quite a few, that require that the government pay people to do what millions of people are already doing.

MR. MacNeil: Well, what about Sen. Nunn's example of the military?

MR. PETERSMEYER: Well, I think it's a very different case.

MR. MacNeil: You don't think they need incentives, in other words, other than the thrill of doing it, or the field of public service?

MR. PETERSMEYER: No. I think that asking someone to go into the military for two years, which is the normal route, is very different than asking someone to contribute a couple of hours a week to a big brother or big sister program. When the Senator says his analysis shows a deficit of 3 million volunteers to make up for what he called the social deficit, I think that that is an appallingly low number. We have 30 million people in America who can't read. We have 3600 a day who drop out of school, but tutoring that needs to be done one on one --

MR. MacNeil: Do you think these people will do it without the incentive of some kind of pay or reward?

MR. PETERSMEYER: Absolutely. What the reward is is the satisfaction of having a meaningful contribution in the life of another person, and it's happening all over the country.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Nunn, you don't agree with that?

SEN. NUNN: Well the next time a Pentagon official comes over to our Armed Services Committee and asks for a big new bonus, and we have three of them pending that have been requested by this administration this year, a big new bonus to get people already in the military to either stay longer or go into some other field in the military, for instance, nuclear service or for instance, submarine service, we'll see if they call it a bribe. I don't think that the people who have supported the volunteer force would believe that that is a bribe and I remember very well in the 1970s, early '70s, we heard that the volunteer force was going to take care of itself, and that we were simply going to get people to come over and volunteer and work that way, and we had a very severe deterioration, so I would hope that we would not use terms like that because it may very well be that the President decides there has to be some incentive later on. I also think --

MR. MacNeil: Senator, I hate to cut you off, but I'm afraid we've run out of our time here. And I think we understand the point you'remaking. I think we understand yours. Thank you, Mr. Petersmeyer, Sen. Nunn. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the Newshour tonight, the discovery of the Bismarck and a Jim Fisher essay. FOCUS - DENIZEN OF THE DEEP

MR. LEHRER: Next tonight the battleship Bismarck. The famous German World War II ship was found at the bottom of the North Atlantic two weeks ago. The man who found it is with us. We will talk to him right after Judy Woodruff tells us the story of the Bismarck and why finding it is considered such a very big deal.

MS. WOODRUFF: The sinking of the Bismarck was headline news around the world. The giant warship was sunk on her maiden voyage, a mission to disrupt British Naval operations in the Atlantic. The Bismarck was considered the most powerful fighting ship in the world, weighing more than 41,000 tons and heavily armored. In her very first skirmish at sea, the Bismarck took just six minutes to sink the pride of the British fleet, the HMS Hood. The Hood went down so fast only three of her crew survived, adding to the Bismarck's growing legend as the world's most feared battleship. Naval historian Jack Sweetman.

JACK SWEETMAN, Naval Historian: Well, her crew, of course, were enormously impressed with her. One of the men aboard called her floating life insurance, because she had the most complete set of armor. She had underwater compartmentation, which means she's divided into little cells like a beehive, so if you get a hit in one place, the water can't spread in another. She has this powerful battery of 18 inch guns. She was as powerful a warship, surface warship, as there was at that day.

MS. WOODRUFF: The Bismarck was key to the Third Reich's surface naval strategy. At her launching, Adolf Hitler needed control of the sea lanes as part of plan to blockade Britain. But Britain was determined to meet the German challenge. The dramatic and violent journey of the Bismarck began May 18, 1941, when she sailed from the Polish Port of Gdynia to Bergen, Norway. From Bergen, the Bismarck broke out into the Atlantic, following a route that carried her up and around Iceland and then through the Denmark Straits. There the Bismarck engaged and sank the British battleship Hood. Afterwards, Prime Minister Winston Churchill deployed every British warship in the Atlantic in what became one of the greatest sea hunts in naval warfare history. The royal navy had a fleeting encounter with the Bismarck in the Denmark Straits, but then the British lost her in foul weather. Cruising toward more friendly waters some 600 miles West of the coast of German occupied France, the Bismarck was spotted again by a royal air force sea plane. Carrying only one torpedo, the vintage biplane attacked the Bismarck, hopelessly jamming her rudder. The seemingly invincible battleship could only turn in large circles. With the Bismarck unable to get closer to France for protective cover, the British battleships caught up. The ensuing conflict was one of the greatest naval battles of World War II. Nearly 2,300 German sailors perished. Only 100 survived. According to one survivor, the captain of the Bismarck was seen saluting the German flag as he and his ship slipped beneath the sea. Forty-eight years later, the famed battleship sits upright in more than 15,000 feet of water in the Northern Atlantic off the Coast of France.

MR. LEHRER: And now to Robert Ballard, who led the expedition that found the Bismarck. He's a senior scientist and the director of the Center for Marine Exploration at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. It was his team that also located the Titanic three years ago. Congratulations, Mr. Ballard, on your latest find.

MR. BALLARD: Thank you.

MR. LEHRER: Let's start at the beginning. Why did you set out to find the Bismarck?

ROBERT BALLARD, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution: Well, actually we had a 60 day campaign this last spring which actually began in the Mediterranean. And the purpose of our initial program was to take young children on a voyage of discovery. It was called the Jason project. And over a 14 day period we filled the Super Bowl three times with junior high and high school kids and took them on an exploration of discovery actually in that particular case looking at a Roman ship of the 3rd Century, and it was on our way home back to England, where we had rented the Star Hercules, the ship that we used, that we knew we were transiting past the site that the battle took place, and National Geographic and Turner, which are doing a program on the Bismarck, asked us if we would mount a search. Actually we began it last year and then this year we picked up the hunt where we left off. Then the Titanic search, when --

MR. LEHRER: How big an area was it?

MR. BALLARD: About 120 square miles and it's deep, in 16,000 feet of water as opposed to 12,000 for the Titanic, and then right in the middle of the search area is a small mountain range and the Bismarck actually came down inside a mountainous area.

MR. LEHRER: You mean a mountain range in the bottom of the sea?

MR. BALLARD: In the bottom of the sea, and the ship we now know came down on the side of a mountain and literally triggered one of the largest avalanches I've ever seen by its impact. And we tracked it, went into the avalanche, searching inside of it, and that's where we found the ship.

MR. LEHRER: And what equipment did you use to find it?

MR. BALLARD: We used a robotic system called Argo which is an unmanned search system, using very sensitive camera systems with 200,000 ASA sensitivity.

MR. LEHRER: What's that mean?

MR. BALLARD: It means that you can see with very very little light. It has about 14 F stops, another way of looking at it, over a traditional film camera.

MR. LEHRER: The same one you used for the Titanic, wasn't it?

MR. BALLARD: With more advanced video, but fundamentally the same system we used on the Titanic.

MR. LEHRER: You brought some tape with you. Let's put it up and you take us through it.

MR. BALLARD: This is the British ship we used, the Star Hercules, and inside the ship is our control room. We have a very sophisticated, very much like a television production studio in a major studio facility.

MR. LEHRER: That's you, right?

MR. BALLARD: That was me. And we're now coming in on the what turns out to be the starboard side of the Bismarck. You can see the armor plating. And we looked along for damage and it was interesting. You could see where the shells hit the armor plating. It was very reminiscent of a bug hitting a windshield. There was absolutely no dent --

MR. LEHRER: I'm not sure what I'm seeing. What angle?

MR. BALLARD: You're looking at the very side of the ship.

MR. LEHRER: The side of the ship.

MR. BALLARD: Coming in on right on the starboard side, that white surface, is the actual hull of the Bismarck, and it's 13 inches of armor and then up to the left is the actual deck of the ship. We're now rising. You're looking straight down at the deck, and then that's one of the four inch guns. Almost all of the secondary armament is still sitting on the ship. The main gun turrets, the main four large guns fell off when the ship rolled over, but all the other secondary armament is still situated on it. We're now rising up. You can see a gun in the background on the left, a gun in the lower foreground, and then that cylindrical object is actually the ranging instrument. Here you can see it.

MR. LEHRER: On the right.

MR. BALLARD: On the right. And now this is the gunnery control station in the after portion of the ship. It was here that the surviving officer, Baron Von Mulenheim, directed the fire of the after guns, what was called Caesar and Dora. We're now traversing the axis of the ship. You're looking at what used to be the funnel, the main funnel of the ship, mid ship, and the very central portion of the ship.

MR. LEHRER: What we would call smokestack.

MR. BALLARD: Smokestack. It had one large funnel and now we'll traverse forward. You're looking straight down at the bridge. In fact, in the lower lefthand corner you'll see a little flying wing there. The bow would be to the bottom and the stern to the top and so we're backing down, looking at the reinforced bridge and now you're looking straight down one of the large gun turrets called Bruno, the second gun forward, and now we end up this particular traverse directly above the bow of the ship looking straight down at the bow and surprisingly, all the wooden deck is still there.

MR. LEHRER: Why is that? Why has it not deteriorated?

MR. BALLARD: Well, in the case of the Titanic, it did. We think it's because of the type of the wood, the pine of the Titanic. Also, we're pretty sure that the decking of the Bismarck was treated with preservative and evidently sufficient to protect it for this many years.

MR. LEHRER: You brought a model here too that as we continue to talk you can show us. This is what's on the bottom of the sea now.

MR. BALLARD: This is what the ship looks like now. In fact, the run you saw, we came up on this hull right in here, came up over this gun, and this is the ranging site. There used to be a big super structure here, the main part of the bridge. This is where the funnel used to be but by and large it's much like it was when it went down. I was surprised, given the amount of -- it took between two hundred and three hundred hits from the British fire and yet it was very hard to see that much damage.

MR. LEHRER: Can you tell -- and the word was that -- and Judy told the story that -- this British airplane with a torpedo gummed up the stern section.

MR. BALLARD: Lost steerage.

MR. LEHRER: Can you tell from your pictures what caused the ship to actually sink?

MR. BALLARD: Well, there is still a controversy, when we came ashore a few days ago in England, we were met by the British press and the first thing they asked was could we prove that the British sunk it, or was it the fact that the Germans scuttled it? We know that both was going on, that the Bismarck lost its fire control very early in the battle, and then quickly lost its four main guns. And at that point, about 10 o'clock, the captain of the Bismarck made the decision to scuttle the ship.

MR. LEHRER: You're sure of that?

MR. BALLARD: He definitely gave the order to scuttle it. Now at the same time that he's trying to scuttle the ship, the British are trying to sink it. And at the same time the Dorchester came in and torpedoed the starboard side then came around and torpedoed the bow side. Now I've looked at a number of ships in the deep sea that have either scuttled -- I've looked at scuttled ships -- and I've looked at ships that didn't want to go down, like the Titanic and other ships. Scuttledships arrive on the bottom in one piece, with absolutely no evidence of an implosion.

MR. LEHRER: Because they come straight down?

MR. BALLARD: They're fully flooded. They open them up and all the air gets out and there's no reason to implode. A ship like the Titanic was trying not to sink and its whole after compartments were buttoned up, and so they had encapsulated all this air.

MR. LEHRER: Fighting it.

MR. BALLARD: Fighting it. And it's carried down and at about 1,000 feet catastrophic explosions go off which rendered the stern section of the Titanic almost unrecognizable. So here you are, looking at a ship that's very recognizable, with no implosions. You're left to the conclusion that it was scuttled.

MR. LEHRER: What happens now? Is this ship left alone?

MR. BALLARD: Well, unlike the Titanic -- see, the Titanic was a commercial ship sunk in high seas, became basically finder's keepers. That's not the same with warships. Bismarck is still owned by the German people and it's against the law to take anything from it.

MR. LEHRER: What's your own view of what should happen to it?

MR. BALLARD: It should remain where it is. It's a war memorial. It's to me very much like the Arizona and Pearl Harbor. It should be left where it is. In fact, we're keeping the position of where it is a secret, and we're giving the position to the German Government and it's up to them.

MR. LEHRER: Because you don't want any clowns going in there on their own?

MR. BALLARD: I think that would be really unfitting.

MR. LEHRER: Why do you do what you do?

ROBERT BALLARD, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution: I'm an undersea explorer. Quite honestly, most of my work does not meet the public eye. I mostly explore the natural phenomena. I love the mountains of the sea. And I would say that 90 percent of what I do is basic research and exploring mountains, but periodically you bump into some human history. And one of the interesting things that this new technology, this new robotic technology that we've introduced in the deep sea, has fundamentally thrown open the doors to the deep sea. There's probably more history preserved in the cold dark waters of the oceans than all the museums of the world and the social question that we're now faced with is does man go through those doors to appreciate the history that's preserved there or to plunder it. And that's sort of your problem now and the problem of society.

MR. LEHRER: It must be very exciting for you when you first saw the pictures of this.

MR. BALLARD: It's always very gratifying to accomplish a long sought goal.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Ballard, thank you very much.

MR. BALLARD: A pleasure. ESSAY - FACES OF ALEX

MR. MacNeil: Finally tonight, Jim Fisher, Kansas City Times Columnist and our regular traveler through the Midwest, goes to Hutchinson, Kansas, where he finds there's truth to the old adage, "You can't tell a book by its cover.".

JIM FISHER: Look at the crowds on any big city street. If you stop to think about it, most of us classify people by their looks, a businessman there, a clerical worker, a delivery guy. We do the same thing here in Hutchinson, Kansas. See that rancher, that housewife, that construction worker? It's common to pigeonhole people, to figure what we see is what we get. But that's too easy. People do more than get born, die, and do a little something in- between. They have their dreams, their hobbies, their private pursuits, their many dimensions that make them human. Take J. Alex Potter who lives in an ordinary house in the little Arkansas River Changesville, North of Hutchinson, with her husband, five cats, and two ducks. She looks to be pushing 30. She's 43. There's a purple swatch in her air, a personal statement, she says, ditto her clothes. Alex is an artist working in the trailer beside the house, doing portraits, still lifes, and other representational studies. She's won national competitions. Currently, she's being handled by a prestigious gallery out in Scottsdale, Arizona, where her work is selling, no small feat in the art world.

J. ALEX POTTER: I studied painting 20 years ago but there's been a relative period of 20 years in the interim in which I've not been active with my own work. I'm a believer in trusting timing. I was busy doing other things. I was traveling. I was working in other areas, meeting people that all became the accumulation of what I'm doing now.

MR. FISHER: Then there's the Alex that's changed, who was an anti-establishment type, serious enough about her opposition to the Vietnam War to take herself off to Canada in protest, who's worked as a draftsman, a tobacco picker, and a television studio camera technician. For a lot of years, she cast a cocked eye at authority. But guess what? Alex is married to a deputy sheriff.

J. ALEX POTTER: Sometimes I get up in the morning and look out the window and there's the patrol car and it can be startling.

MR. FISHER: And there's the Alex who a couple of times a week hears the clang of prison gates, the echoes inside the Kansas State Industrial Reformatory, a maximum security institution here. There she stands up before a group of mostly young men and teaches courses in drawing, color theory, and art appreciation.

J. ALEX POTTER: I enjoy teaching at the prison. I'm not there to make judgments about them. The men who are in there sometimes for the first time are enjoying the opportunity to really see themselves develop and learn and be different.

MR. FISHER: And finally there's this Alex, Alexandria the belly dancer, who for the past eight years has delighted Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas farm wives, schoolchildren and members of civic groups with her costumes and swords and veils.

J. ALEX POTTER: From the first time that I really saw the dance performed, I thought, yeah, I knew that it was something that I needed to pursue. I think it has to do with a kind of strength and power and authority that women have maybe more through the ceremony of dance rather than the physical posturing. I have found extremely receptive audiences in Kansas, which is kind of unexpected or surprising.

MR. FISHER: Which brings up again how we routinely pigeonhole each other, seeing only what our eyes tell us. Think about Alex, an artist, a teacher of those from the underside of America, a belly dancer in the midst of all those beautifully flowing veils, and swirling skirts and flashing sabers, or maybe a woman who is more than all these roles combined, who looks back with wonder at the twists and turns of life that have brought her to this particular destination.

J. ALEX POTTER: Even though there might be some things along the way that I'd be tempted to change, I wouldn't because they have all been parts that led me to where I am now and they all needed to be there. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, the main points in the news, China executed seven more people arrested after pro democracy demonstrations and told other countries that political and economic pressure was futile. The Senate Majority Leader called on Pres. Bush to criticize the executions more forcefully, but the administration asked Congress to mute its attacks. The Senate passed a bill providing federal subsidies for child care. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.