The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

GWEN IFILL: Good evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Jim Lehrer is off today. On the NewsHour tonight, a look at new recommendations for using vitamins; Paul Solman reports on the controversial proposal to forgive the debts of poor countries; Elizabeth Farnsworth talks with the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, Stacey Schiff; and the Emerson quartet showcases the music of Dimitri Shostokovich. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday.

NEWS SUMMARY

GWEN IFILL: The Miami relatives of Elian Gonzalez offered today to meet with the boy's father. In a letter, they suggested a neutral site in South Florida. They said the session could be followed by a second meeting that includes the boy. But they demanded a government promise in writing that officials would not use the meeting to remove Elian from their care. The family's lawyer spoke outside their Miami home.

MANNY DIAZ, Lawyer for Miami Relatives: This is a family matter that should be decided and discussed among family members as happens in this country every day around a kitchen table. It is imperative that the family get together and talk about the situation, talk about what has happened in the last four and a half months. It is imperative that at that meeting it be strictly family, that there be no government intervention from either government, that there be no lawyers and no media present.

GWEN IFILL: In Washington, Attorney General Reno held talks with two Miami-area mayors to discuss the situation. They said she told them she'd be willing to meet with the relatives in Miami. There were new signs today that President Clinton could face indictment when he leaves office. Independent Counsel Robert Ray told "The Washington Post" he is actively considering the question, weighing allegations of perjury, obstruction of justice and conspiracy in the Monica Lewinsky matter. His predecessor, Kenneth Starr, brought the initial case that resulted in Mr. Clinton's impeachment. The President was acquitted after aSenate trial. Israeli Prime Minister Barak arrived in Washington today to meet with President Clinton and Secretary of State Albright. The focus of their talks: Jump- starting Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and reviving efforts to find compromise between Israel and Syria. In Peru today, there was growing criticism of the vote-counting in Sunday's Presidential election. We have this report from Louise Bates of Associated Press Television News.

LOUISE BATES: Fraud was the hot topic of conversation for many Peruvians in the capital. They couldn't believe the announcement by election officials that President Alberto Fujimori was just shy of the majority of votes needed to win an unprecedented third term. Supporters of his opponent, Alejandro Toledo, had been jubilant when exit polls suggested he'd secured enough votes to force a runoff election. The polls were backed up by unofficial vote tallies from independent election monitors. Toledo, a U.S.-trained economist, said his party would refuse to recognize the election board's final count, no matter what the outcome, and he warned he would lead street protests if he lost. Fujimori said that the country would have to wait for the final official results before any decision about a second round of voting could be made.

GWEN IFILL: In Washington, a White House spokesman warned there would be serious questions if there was no runoff election. Back in this country, George W. Bush announced a plan today he said would help the working poor. The Republican Presidential candidate said he'd lower the bottom tax bracket to 10%. It's now 15%. His plan also provides tax credits for health insurance, and it would let the poor use rental vouchers to buy their own homes. Bush spoke in Cleveland.

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH: It is time for a new prosperity initiative, a plan to help remove object stack else on the road to the middle class, a plan to clear a path for all instead of helping people cope with their need, we'll help them move beyond it with the same energy and activism that others have brought to expanding government we must expand opportunity.

GWEN IFILL: Also today, "The New York Times" reported Bush had made health care a low priority as Texas governor. A campaign spokeswoman called the report "misleading and inaccurate." Part of a major HMO case was settled today in Texas. Aetna U.S. Healthcare agreed to stop rewarding doctors who keep costs down and to stop penalizing those who go over budget. But, it admitted no wrongdoing. Texas had accused Aetna and five other companies of using bonuses and penalties to limit care. The other lawsuits remain active. On Wall Street today, technology stocks tumbled again, while blue chips gained. The NASDAQ Index dropped 132 points to close at 4055, a loss of more than 3%. But the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 100 points to close at 11,287, its highest finish since January. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to vitamins, forgiving debts, the Pulitzer for Biography, and the music of Shostokovich.

FOCUS - TAKING YOUR VITAMINS

GWEN IFILL: Susan Dentzer of our health unit begins our report on vitamins. The unit is a partnership with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

SUSAN DENTZER: Many Americans have long believed in the helpful powers of substances loosely called dietary anti-oxidants.

MAN: Most of the time when I feel a cold coming on, I load up with Vitamin C.

GWEN IFILL: Some of these substances include Vitamins C and E., found in fruits like citrus fruits and leafy vegetables, as well as the nutrients beta-carotene, found in carrots, and selenium, found in seafood and meats. Although these substances actually have a range of nutritional benefits, they're often also identified as antioxidants. That's because they also decrease the ill effects that certain highly reactive molecules of oxygen and nitrogen have in the body. Some research has shown that the resulting damage could play a critical role in illnesses such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. As a result, the reasoning went, consuming extra levels of antioxidants could actually thwart or reverse these damaging effects on cells. And it's provided a powerful boost to the $14 billion a year nutritional supplement industry. But for several years now, a growing body of evidence has cast doubt on the notion that antioxidants protect the body against illnesses ranging from colds to cancer. So today, a panel appointed by the National Institute of Medicine unveiled a new set of dietary recommendations. The Institute noted that the range of studies to date provide only limited support for the notion that anti-oxidants protects against illness. It added, however, that diets rich in fruits and vegetables are associated with lower risks of cancer and heart disease. But it said it isn't at all clear that the antioxidant property of these substances provides the benefits. What's more, the panel said people could generally obtain sufficient levels of these foods and the nutrients in them by eating a well-balanced diet. The panel also warned specifically against possible dangers of consuming very high doses of antioxidants. For ample, it noted a higher, not lower, incidence of lung cancer in smokers who were taking extra-high doses of beta- carotene. So the panel set new upper limits on the amounts of these substances that were safe to consume; in the case of Vitamin C, a total of 2,000 milligrams a day.

GWEN IFILL: Joining us now are Dr. Susan Mayne, an associate professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at Yale University; she was member of the committee that drafted today's report. And John Cordaro, president and CEO of the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a trade association representing 110 major manufacturers of dietary supplements and ingredients.

Doctor Mayne, in your opinion what is the most significant finding of the study?

DR. SUSAN MAYNE, Yale University: I think the most significant finding in my mind is that we reviewed an enormous amount of scientific literature looking at whether or not nutrients in high doses could protect again chronic diseases. And, as you've said already, I think our major conclusion is at there is not evidence at this time supporting a role for higher than average intake of these nutrients for the prevention of chronic diseases.

GWEN IFILL: Does it mean that it is hopeless to be taking these kinds of supplements assuming it's going to help prevent -- or does it mean that you just haven't proven that?

DR. SUSAN MAYNE: I think that is an important point. At this point the scientific evidence is mixed. For example for some of these possible indications there were promising findings, but certainly one study or one small indication was not enough to make any kind of a policy recommendation for the general population. So we did set out a number of a very important research recommendations to support further clinical trials and other studies to get a better hand hold on what these nutrients can and cannot do.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Cordaro as a representative of the vitamin supplement industry, what was the most significant finding for you in that report?

JOHN CORDARO, Council for Responsible Nutrition: I think the most significant find is that this was a positive step for consumers, because, number one, is that the evidence does show that there is some promise. We agree with the general finding that the evidence may not be conclusive enough to set what the specific amounts of the doses that one should consume are, and the Council for Responsible Nutrition would encourage our member companies, the federal government, and the research community to focus on those areas where we need to get more answers so we can provide more conclusive information to consumers.

GWEN IFILL: In your opinion, if a patient has been told by his or her doctor that perhaps Vitamin E would be a good way of insurance against Alzheimer's down the road, and had been taking Vitamin E, would you say that person should continue to keep doing that?

JOHN CORDARO: I would say if a doctor told a patient to do that, I certainly wouldn't stand in the way of what the doctor has said. I would say that for the general population, that one of the very significant findings of this report was the establishment of upper safe limits for these antioxidant nutrients.

GWEN IFILL: Which means what?

JOHN CORDARO: Which means that the National Academy of Sciences for the first time has provided an endpoint for consumers to understand that one should not consume these antioxidants beyond that level. It's not that they would necessarily be harmed, but that the data that is available suggests that there could be some risk.

GWEN IFILL: Dr. Mayne, the same question to you. If someone is taking these kinds of vitamins with the assumption that perhaps it will help and wouldn't hurt them, would you say they should stop taking them now, based on your findings?

DR. SUSAN MAYNE: I think it would depend upon what the person was taking it for, whether they were in consultation with their physician, and what the doses are. And again with regard to Vitamin E, we have an set an upper limit for Vitamin E. And the studies that you were referring to, these studies used doses greatly in excess of the upper limit. So if someone is simply taking doses with the hope of preventing some of these diseases, if they are below the upper limit of intake, I'm less concerned. If they are above it, then I would certainly want them to be doing that in consult with an physician even more ideally in the setting of a research intervention study.

GWEN IFILL: You talk about the upper limits for dosage. How do you know what is too much?

DR. SUSAN MAYNE: Well, that was part of the panel's report. What the upper limits say is what is the upper limit that people can routinely take, that is, on a daily basis without increasing the likelihood of having some adverse events occur? So this is a dose that is set on the probability of not having an adverse event occur.

GWEN IFILL: For example, what is an adverse event that would occur as a result of one of these vitamins that are part of your study?

DR. SUSAN MAYNE: For each nutrient there was a different adverse event. In the case of Vitamin E, it is the possible increase in the risk of hemorrhage or hemorrhagic stroke, so the upper limit was set for Vitamin E at 1,000 milligrams per day in order to avoid the likelihood of having hemorrhage be an adverse effect of too much Vitamin E.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Cordaro, another finding of the report was so much of the vitamins which are provided in supplements can be found in a regular average balanced North American diet, so why take supplements at all?

JOHN CORDARO: It's a good question, Gwen. The Council for Responsible Nutrition is recommending that the consumer look to food first to try to get the nutrients that they need. Unfortunately, most of us do not select our foods in a way that allows us to get the nutrients that we need. So we have always viewed supplements as exactly that, as a complement or as an adjunct to foods that we should consume.

GWEN IFILL: Is that so, Dr. Mayne, are we really not getting all the vitamins we should?

DR. SUSAN MAYNE: Again it depends upon the nutrient. It depends upon the population. With some nutrients we do quite well. For example, for nonsmokers, the vast number of the population consumes the RDA level of Vitamin C already. However, with regard to smokers, they actually have a higher requirement for Vitamin C, and the data indicate that many smokers in the U.S. do not achieve the required intake levels through diet and other supplements.

GWEN IFILL: Even though the headline seems that supplements may not be as necessary as we thought, you still recommend higher doses of E and C. Why is that?

DR. SUSAN MAYNE: The reasons for the two specific nutrients... With regard to Vitamin E, the data that has accumulated since the last time recommendations were issued -- which was in 1989 -- indicates that human requirements are higher than we previously thought. So you are correct. The Vitamin E RDA has increased and actually has increased rather substantially. With regard to Vitamin C, the RDA has gone up. The previously RDA was 60 milligrams and it's now up to 75 milligrams for women and 90 for men. There are increases, and the reason being that the evidence supports a slightly higher intake level as a target for the American population based on current data.

GWEN IFILL: And what does that mean, the higher intake level? Do you think that is good news for vitamin supplements, the fact that they are recommending any increases at all?

JOHN CORDARO: Yes, we do, because the Council for Responsible nutrition has tried to be a science-based association. And we believe that we should be able to follow the science, whether it is at one end, or talking about upper limits, or where it's talking about expanding or increasing the RDA's for individual nutrients.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Cordaro, there are so many health claims involving vitamins, Vitamin A to help eyesight, I think, and Vitamin E is supposed to prevent prostrate cancer and Vitamin C is supposed to help heart disease. Have all of these claims maybe outpaced the actual good that these supplements can do?

JOHN CORDARO: When we talk about claims and providing information to the consumer, a lot of the information that the consumer receives is either through... whether it's through television or print media, but the area that can be held accountable is the manufacturer of a dietary supplement. If a manufacturer puts a claim on a label or uses it in advertising, there are very strict regulations. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission requires that the manufacturer substantiate those claims.

GWEN IFILL: Dr. Mayne, the bad news for at least one vitamin supplement was beta carotene in that study. What is wrong with it? Is it just over-promised?

DR. SUSAN MAYNE: With regard to beta carotene we have lots of observational data that showed that people who eat more beta carotene from foods have a lower incidence of many chronic diseases. But beta carotene comes in the form of fruits or vegetables, and it's hard to know is it the beta carotene or the fruits and vegetables - other components? So there wereseveral randomized clinical trials done to test whether it was really the beta carotene or is there something else in the fruits and vegetables that maybe protected, and as you mentioned previously, two of those studies actually found that people who took high doses of beta carotene supplements and who are smoking have more lung cancer-prone, not less. So the clinical trials have not yet proven there is any benefit to supplementing with beta carotene. However, consuming more beta carotene, however, consuming more beta carotene from food, i.e., fruits and vegetables, was strongly endorsed by the panel.

GWEN IFILL: But as Mr. Cordaro just mentioned, people get their information about these kinds of supplements from so many sources, and beta carotene seemed to be one of the things we heard the best things about. Should people just be pulling back?

DR. SUSAN MAYNE: The recommendations from the panel is that beta carotene supplements are not advocated, and it's because of the findings of possible increase in lung cancer was seen in two major trials was not observed in a third but was seen in two -- countered by the fact that there hasn't been any evidence of benefit. So the recommendation is that beta carotene supplements are not advocated by the panel at this point for the prevention of chronic diseases.

GWEN IFILL: But Americans, Dr. Mayne, love the idea of a pill as a cure-all. Is this a caution flag?

DR. SUSAN MAYNE: It is a caution flag. I think it's a caution flag to the whole nutrition community. Most people always believe that a little bit of a vitamin helps, if a little helps you, a lot must be better. And these large intervention studies involving more than 50,000 people in total have clearly indicated that there may not be... that assumption may not be correct; that high doses may, in fact, cause them harm.

GWEN IFILL: At what point, Mr. Cordaro, do people not just take it because it can't hurt?

JOHN CORDARO: I mean on the point about beta carotene... I think that is a point that is worth underscoring. The responsible segment of the dietary supplement industry does not market single entity beta carotene capsules for the purpose of reducing a risk of disease. Beta carotene does have a useful role as a mixture, or as a part of a carotenoid package as a substitute for Vitamin A, so that does have a very special...continuing special role to play.

GWEN IFILL: But what about the notion that you can't hurt if you take too much?

JOHN CORDARO: Well, that is not a good notion. The reality is that the message that the American public should get is that they should look to food to try to get as much of a balanced diet as they can, to supplement with key nutrients, to help provide the extra nutrients that they are not getting, and that when they are using a dietary supplement, they should use the product in accordance with the label and they should not assume if a little is good, a little bit more is going to be better.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Cordaro and Dr. Mayne, thank you very much.

JOHN CORDARO: Thank you.

FOCUS - FORGIVING THE DEBTS?

GWEN IFILL: Writing off loans to poor countries. Our economics correspondent, Paul Solman, of WGBH-Boston, has the story.

(Song in background)

PAUL SOLMAN: The wind and chill of Washington this weekend probably cut down the crowds, but leaders of Jubilee 2000 still mustered troops enough to carry out their plan -- to encircle the Capitol,

symbolically protesting the chain of debt that supposedly weighs down the world's poor.

PAUL SOLMAN: Distinct from the anti-globalization protests, the Jubilee movement has a simple, targeted objective: to cancel the public debts of 52 of the world's poorest places, mostly in Africa. In all, these countries owe some $350 billion to institutions like the IMF and World Bank, countries like the

US. Around the once-extreme idea of "debt forgiveness," Jubilee 2000 has built a surprisingly broad-based movement, from left... to right. Alabama Republican Spencer Bachus -- a staunch conservative.

REP. SPENCER BACHUS, (R) Alabama: I mean we are talking about something that everyone from the Pope John Paul to Billy Graham to Pat Robertson have all come to the same conclusion.

PAUL SOLMAN: From the left come activists like Bono, the Irish rock star, who got close enough to the Pope on this issue to actually make a gift to the Pontiff of his trademark rose-colored glasses. Indeed, much of the impetus is religious. The Bible says Jubilee should be celebrated every 50 years, and include debt

forgiveness, as the Lord spoke unto Moses, on Mt. Sinai: "And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land...and ye shall return every man unto his possessions and ye shall return every man unto his family."

JO MARIE GRIESGRABER, Jubilee 2000 Coalition: God knows that relations among people are largely shaped by economics.

PAUL SOLMAN: Jo Marie Griesgraber leads Jubilee 2000 in the U.S. she says God ordered the canceling of debts to relieve the poor...

JOE MARIE GRIESGRABER: So that children who are sold into debt servitude and people who are in debt slavery would be free. Land that was held as collateral would be returned to the owner.

PAUL SOLMAN: Griesgraber, a former Maryknoll nun, says that Isaiah also suggested a Jubilee year, as did Jesus in the New Testament when he quoted the prophet to open his ministry.

JOE MARIE GRIESGRABER: So Jesus' whole mission is bringing about a year of Jubilee. It's a qualitatively different approach to justice. It's a justice where the poor have the first claim. Did we clothe the naked? Did we give shelter to the homeless? That is how we're going to be judged.

PAUL SOLMAN: While Griesgraber is a long-time liberal, Spencer Bachus has a zero rating from the American Civil Liberties Union, a 95 from the American Conservative Union, a perfect 100 from the Christian Coalition. But he too says Jubilee is key.

REP. SPENCER BACHUS: Particularly in the world today where the, where the difference in the haves and the have-nots is almost indescribable that for us to have so much wealth and for us to be able to save lives in another country by forgoing a Big Mac sandwich or a Sunday newspaper and be able to collectively save hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide, it simply is a clear example of something we ought to do out of the goodness of our hearts.

PAUL SOLMAN: Jubilee's proponents aren't all cut from spiritual cloth. Jeffrey Sachs argues in economic terms.

JEFFREY SACHS, Harvard University: I think by now it has become absolutely evident

to everybody that these debts are unpayable and that to keep them on the

books and to keep demanding repayment is utterly crippling these

countries.

PAUL SOLMAN: Sachs first talked to the NewsHour about debt relief 13 years ago when he'd just begun to fight, and had advised Bolivia to default on its private debts, to commercial banks.

JEFFREY SACHS: I must insist that in new, fledgling democracy struggling with incredible economic hardships should not jeopardize democracy, should not jeopardize the health and well-being of very poor citizens to make good on commercial bank loans.

PAUL SOLMAN: In 1989, much of the third world's debt to private banks was slashed through the Bush administration's so-called Brady Bond program. But the debt to countries like ours, and institutions like the IMF only grew. Today-- especially in Africa-- many places are actually poorer than in the 80's; in part, it's argued, because they have to use their money for interest on their debts, instead of the basic investments in health and education they need for economic growth. Consider, say Sachs and others, the case of Zambia, a nation of 10 million people, long a prized British colony prized for its one resource: Copper. And although landlocked, and stuck in the disease-ridden tropics, Zambia as recently as 1980 could still count on copper, valuable enough that I remember reporting on it being stripped from buildings in Boston back then, and selling it for a dollar a pound. But then came the world commodities glut, copper wire being replaced by optical fiber - no fault of Zambia, but copper plummeted, and today it sells for 76 pennies a pound, less, when you count inflation, than half of what it sold for 20 years ago. No wonder, say Jubilee supporters, that Zambia's government revenues - basically taxes --are only $600 million a year, while it debt payments due of nearly $300 million. By comparison, if the U.S. had to spend half its budget on debt service, we would be giving up the equivalent of Social Security, Medicare and every other entitlement program. So, the argument goes, Zambia's debts are forgiven, it can spend the lion's share of what it has on its people. And that brings us to a puzzling question. If debt service is such a no- brainer, why hasn't it already happened? Well, one answer is Congress. It has yet to appropriate the money needed to cover the forgiveness of poor country debts to the U.S., and other creditors are waiting until it does.

REP. SONNY CALLAHAN, (R) Alabama: Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

PAUL SOLMAN: Congressmen like Alabama Republican Sonny Callahan, oppose outright forgiveness, because he thinks the debtors will repeat the sins of their past.

REP. SONNY CALLAHAN: When the people who borrowed the money that were running these countries at that time absconded, they didn't spent it on the bridges, they didn't spend it on health care; they took the money, and they put it in Swiss banks. So now they want us to forgive the debt. Well, maybe that would be the right way to go if they would agree not to borrow any more money.

PAUL SOLMAN: Economist Steven Hanke elaborated.

STEVE HANKE, Johns Hopkins University: These are corrupt tyrants in most cases that have gotten this money, and either put it in their own personal bank accounts or it's been squandered on unproductive investments. The pitch, of course, by these rock stars and whatnot as they're running around trying to promote this, is all the money is going to go into schools and hospitals, you see. The money will either go into private accounts of the politicians or the cronies, or military equipment. Those are the only categories that it is not going into-- schools and hospitals, believe me.

PAUL SOLMAN: This is the nub of the anti- Jubilee case: The money will be siphoned off by those in power, as it so often has been in the past. But to Jeff Sachs, that's a chance worth taking.

JEFFREY SACHS: When these broad-brushed arguments are made about Africa, I shudder at the ignorance of them.

PAUL SOLMAN: Sachs points to President Obasanjo of Nigeria, who's just inherited the ruination of military rule.

JEFFREY SACHS: Now he is a new democratic leader of the 120 million population that is suffering unbelievably, where public health spending is less than $3 per-person per-year right now. It is something even unimaginable for Americans, and yet then you hear opposition say, "why should we give it to the crooks?" And so forth. If people would actually look at the realities, we can save democracies, we can help consolidate fragile reform-minded governments in these regions.

PAUL SOLMAN: To advocates like Sachs, the list of Jubilee countries speaks for itself. The CIA rates most of them republics or democracies like Ghana, Nicaragua, Senegal. But Professor Hanke thinks most of the poorest countries are republics in name only, and says cases like Mexico and Russia prove that even so-called democracy is no insurance against corruption.

STEVE HANKE: There really aren't any stable rules in these places, and look at Russia. We went from communism to democracy, but we certainly never eliminated corruption. I mean, everyone knows what the situation has been in the 90's in Russia, or Ukraine. Right now we're investigating Ukraine. What in the world did they do with the IMF money at the central bank in the Ukraine? And that's only the tip of the iceberg. This is one example.

PAUL SOLMAN: To Hanke, debt forgiveness is foreign aid in disguise, and foreign aid, he says, breeds corruption, deeper dependency, deeper poverty. His answer is also simple: Free markets.

STEVE HANKE: If these poor countries have good projects and they want to invest in them, they can go to market and get the money. This is not a problem.

PAUL SOLMAN: There is enough money out in the world for almost any project?

STEVE HANKE: There is a huge pool of capital around looking for good projects. So if these countries could get their act together as you imply, get civil rights, get political freedom, get political freedom, get the role of law installed, have a sound monetary system, they could go to the market, and the market would be more than happy to lend them all the money they'd want for good projects that we're going to have a good, solid rate of return.

PAUL SOLMAN: The Jubilee folks think talk is well down the road, and that private markets will never lend them money for health and education in any case. But they do admit money without strings attached can be a recipe for corruption.

JEFFREY SACHS: I have always said from the first day, that I have advocated this from the early days of Bolivia through Poland, through this Jubilee 2000 initiative that it is right and fair to put the challenge on the other side, to say, "look, we don't cancel the debt so that it can be ripped off and taken to Switzerland; we cancel the debts because you are striving to recover from horrendous conditions. Show us how, in a monitorable way, in a realistic way, you could use whatever savings are achieved to get out of this horrendous disastrous horrendous disastrous situation.

PAUL SOLMAN: As one might expect the acting managing director of the IMF, Stanley Fischer, agrees that condition is crucial.

STANLEY FISCHER, Acting Managing Director, IMF: It's generally agreed that we should only forgive the debt reduction if it's going to be well-used, which means if the country is pursuing a reasonable set of policies and those policies are being negotiated and put into place.

PAUL SOLMAN: We leave the final exchange to our economists, both of whom are fervent believers in economic growth. But, says Steven Hanke, the religious tradition he finds relevant here is that of Father Flanagan.

STEVEN HANKE:You've seen the movie "Boys Town," and you know about Father Flanagan and so forth. Well, that's tough love-- he got the boys in shape with tough love, and I'll get these economies in shape with tough love, too. It's not foreign aid that has ever made some economy hum, believe me. The foreign aid leads to corruption and contaminates the whole system, because a lot of these socialist policies are actually put in place as part of the aid packages.

PAUL SOLMAN: Jubilee's reply comes from Professor Sachs.

JEFFREY SACHS: Tough love is right, but it has to come with love, and what that means, in a practical financial sense, is reforms absolutely, but real help absolutely-- reforms will not pay their own way when you are utterly bankrupt, even starving, and without the most basic human needs being met, and you need the help, alongside the reforms.

PAUL SOLMAN: That, in essence, is what the debt forgiveness movement is all about.

GWEN IFILL: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, a Pulitzer winner, and music of a tragic past.

CONVERSATION - WINNER

GWEN IFILL: Now we begin a series conversations with winners in the arts categories of this year's Pulitzer Prizes. Elizabeth Farnsworth has the first.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The winner for biography this year is Stacey Schiff for her book "Vera: Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov." It's a portrait of an unusual literary marriage. Vladimir Nabokov was the author of "Pale Fire," "Speak Memory," and "Lolita," among other works. His wife, Vera, was his muse, editor, driver, typist, agent and much more. Stacey Schiff is a former book editor who has also written a biography of the French aviator and author, Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Thanks for being with us and congratulations.

STACY SCHIFF, Pulitzer Prize, Biography: Thank you, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Why does Vera Nabokov merit a biography? She was famously reticent. She threw away the letters that she herself wrote. She didn't want attention. Why write a biography about her?

STACY SCHIFF: I have to say, Elizabeth, that all of those reasons, more or less qualified as open invitations to me. The more she tried to back away, the further I thought I should flush her out from the bushes. Every time she denied any involvement in her husband's life or work, there was evidence that she had had enormous involvement in her husband's life and work, to the extent that even their son admitted she was a full creative partner in everything his father had done. So the more the lady protested, the more, I'm afraid, I was egged on.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You have a wonderful line about her becoming larger and larger the more she tries to minimize her role. Why does she try to minimize her role so much?

STACY SCHIFF: Well, I think natural feminism modesty to some extent. This was a woman who was born in pre-Revolutionary Russia in a Jewish family and somewhat constrained by the circumstances, so I think there was a level of discretion as well with everything that Mrs. Nabokov did. But I think there was an old world sense that one stays behind the scenes, and basically tips one's hat to genius. And in this case genius was what she was married to.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I want to come back to some of the things she did, but first tell us about their love story. They felt they were fated to be together.

STACY SCHIFF: There is a real sort of wonderful Russian sense of this was meant to be about the Nabokovs, which immediately is conveyed upon their meeting in Berlin in 1923 in his poetry, and immediately starts talking about fate and the two of them coming together. And it's pretty much carried through throughout the life, so that almost after 50 years of marriage when Nabokov is asked what would have happened to him if he and his wife wouldn't have met, essentially cut the interviewer short, and said "we would have met under other circumstances." It was almost inconceivable to this man, despite his Protean imagination, that anything else could have happened in his life than meeting Vera Nabokov, so there really was this wonderful sense I think on both of their parts that this was destined to be.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You quote an interesting exchange between Vladimir Nabokov and an interviewer where he asks, could you say how important your wife has been as a collaborator in your work?" And Nabokov answers, "I could not," so she was that important. Tell us how.

STACY SCHIFF: Well, she basically began simply as his typist. I guess you would say his typist-slash-editor. Every word that Nabokov wrote after the two of them meet is put on paper by Mrs. Nabokov, by Vera Nabokov, even before she becomes his wife, and as she sat at the typewriter. I suppose this is what we would say was the most crucial aspect of the relationship, she would essentially say from time to time, "no, no, you can't say it this way," and Nabokov would come up with a better solution, or she would say "isn't this a better solution?" -- and suggest something and he would take it. So there was that sort of elementary editing aspect which isn't so elementary. In many other ways she contributed observations that she had made to what we know as the final pages of "Lolita," it was she who suggested certain works, which we know in their published forms. Nabokov's lectures on literature, which are the brilliant imaginative flights of unscholarly and scholarly fancy, include lines and research done by Mrs. Nabokov. So there is a really a contribution at many, many levels.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Wasn't she sort of his way of dealing with the outside world? In your book he is pictured as being someone incompetent. He won't drive. She drives with him. She even carried a gun for his protection when they were butterflying. They were both avid butterfly - in fact he was really a great scientist of butterflies.

STACY SCHIFF: He was a very great scientists of butterflies. She was really only his adjunct in this capacity, but happy to join him. They were always a little competitive in that lovely sort of married way of, "but darling I saw it first." I sought -- I caught it more easily. But yes, in the sense one of them had to learn to drive, Elizabeth, and the job fell to Mrs. Nabokov so she would chauffeur him across America on their butterfly expeditions. And it was in the course of those expeditions that he writes "Lolita," much of it in the back seat of a car. While she had parked under a lovely tree -- as Nabokov describes it -- it was his favorite place to write. It was quiet. There was no draft. He could concentrate. And what Mrs. Nabokov did at those moments of course is something we'll never know, but probably read a book herself, or went for a walk, but the driving and dealing with the outside world when he was a professor, the dealing with all of the administrative functions fell to Mrs. Nabokov.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What did she think of Lolita, this older man's sexual obsession with a very young girl?

STACY SCHIFF: That is where she truly astonishes. Here was a woman who had herself a young son, and when he was young wouldn't let him read Mark Twain because she was afraid he might be corrupted by it, yet as her husband in the late 1940's is writing this sexually explicit novel about a young girl, is happily typing away, and thinking this is a work of genius -- never had any doubts about it, had doubts that could be published but it was really Mrs. Nabokov that pursues publication. And in those moments of greatest doubt when Nabokov actually tries to burn the manuscript of "Lolita," it is Mrs. Nabokov who fishes it out of the garbage can into which her husband has set it, stomping on the pages, to say, "we'll not be throwing this away. We are keeping this."

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And you actually met somebody who saw that happen, right? You found an eyewitness to that?

STACY SCHIFF: That's one of those wonderful, I thought it was an apocryphal story that she saved the manuscript from the flames but after a great deal of research I found her admission that she had done so. Then about a year after that through a complete coincidence I did meet a Cornell student who walked into the yard that very day, and saw the fire burning in the yard, and saw mars. Nabokov come out the back door, and begin to fish the pages from the flames, which is one of the moments for which the biographer lives.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: One of the most - the strangest parts of the book are the most interesting parts to me -- comes when you describe how she sits in the front row of his class at Cornell where he is giving these lectures, he introduces her as his assistant. She writes on the board, she replaces him if he is sick. Tell us about that. Why was she doing that?

STACY SCHIFF: She, I think, had her own reasons for doing that. I think mostly he wanted her there. I think this was a sense of him thinking that he was to some extent greater than or lost on the audience in front of him... Knowing that his wife would appreciate him for w was worth -- because what he was saying is really extraordinary... his manner of teaching literature was truly extraordinary -- and she was there as the sort of the great appreciator in many ways. What the Cornell students for whom this act was performed made of it was of course much more interesting. None of them, not all of them were sure it was his wife. Some thought it was his mother, some of them thought it was a Russian countess, some of them thought it was a German ballerina, some of them thought she was there to protect him with a gun. Some of them thought she was a ventriloquist, I mean, every possible theory as to what Mrs. Nabokov was doing in the classroom day after day after day.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: They furthered that, didn't they? They very much enjoined wearing a mask, both of them?

STACY SCHIFF: That was the beauty for me of putting together the book and prying apart the marriage. There is an enormous amount of mutual leg pulling of trying to fit difference masks on to different faces, of trying to project some kind of illusions to the world. Finding out what was really underneath all of that was not always easy, but it was greatly gratifying.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: He died in 1977 and she lived on until 1991. Right?

STACY SCHIFF: That's right.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What did she do after he died?

STACY SCHIFF: Enormous amount of work. Essentially, the work for two is what remained to her. Every translation, every new edition of Nabokov's needed to be checked. She was often found translating. Finally in her 80's in that amazingly heroic tour-de-force, she helps to translate, and ultimately, herself translates "Hell Fire," one of Nabokov's most difficult books, into Russian, and stayed on top of all the legal things, the copyright issues, continued to be her husband's agent, as she had been in his lifetime, but added to that much of the creative work as well.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, Stacy Schiff, congratulations again and thanks for being with us.

STACY SCHIFF: Thank you, Elizabeth.

FINALLY - COMPOSER OF TRAGIC TIMES

GWEN IFILL: Finally tonight, a composer of his tragic times. Senior producer Jeffrey Brown has that. (Cello playing)

JEFFREY BROWN: At the start of a new century, the world-renowned Emerson string quartet is honoring Dmitry Shostokovich. He's been called the 20th century's most tragic composer, and one of its greatest. Known more for his symphonies, Shostokovich also wrote 15 quartets during his troubled life as both a hero and, as he's widely seen today, a victim of the soviet totalitarian state. The Emerson has recorded the quartets live, and is now performing them in concerts throughout the country and around the world.

DAVID FINCKEL, Cellist: These quartets are really, just now being discovered as a major body of literature, and to be a part of that, to be helping that to happen through the performances and recordings is really a great thrill. I don't imagine that happening again in my lifetime with any other music.

JEFFREY BROWN: To many, the quartets are Shostokovich's most personal musical statements. Above all, number eight, written in 1960 during a visit to the City of Dresden, in what was then East Germany. The eighth was dedicated to the victims of fascism and war, ostensibly to the millions who died at the hands of the nazis during world but through layers of meaning embedded in the music, the members of the Emerson Quartet believe the piece tells other stories as well.

EUGENE DRUCKER, Violinist: It is dedicated to the victims of fascism and war, and that gave him an opportunity to express great grief, violence, and sardonic humor in this work. But we feel that it is also about the situation in the Soviet Union itself, and he could always use the atrocities perpetrated by the nazis as a metaphor for something much more controversial that he was trying to express about his own country.

JEFFREY BROWN: And about himself. In a letter to a friend, Shostokovich wrote of the eighth, "when I die, it's hardly likely that someone will write a quartet dedicated to my memory. So I decided to write it myself." The clues are there, beginning with the very first notes.

SPOKESMAN: It's like a fugue -- in the beginning, those four entrances playing basically four or five notes, which spell the initials of Shostokovich. They sound like this. (Playing cello)

JEFFREY BROWN: The notes, in German notation, spell out "D-S-C-H," the composer's initials, and they're played throughout the piece.

SPOKESMAN: It even appears in the fast movement.

JEFFREY BROWN: Born in 1906, Shostokovich was just 20 when his name became known worldwide. His first symphony, a student composition, was hailed and performed in the west. But in the soviet union, the only critic who mattered was Josef Stalin. The only standard for great art, that which served the party. In 1936, the state-run press denounced Shostokovich's work as "crude, muddled, vulgar," and warned that things "could end very badly." It was a time when millions were being imprisoned or executed. Do you get the sense that his life was literally hanging on the notes that he wrote?

PHILIP SETZER, Violinist: I think it definitely, I mean, literally, did. Art in this kind of totalitarian system takes on a tremendous importance, and it's fascinating to look at the fact that they were so obsessed... That the powers that be were so obsessed with what Shostokovich was writing... But he took that and he made that into an art form. (Strings playing)

JEFFREY BROWN: In the second movement of the eighth quartet, the members of the Emerson hear the century's greatest upheaval, World War II. (Staccato)

LAWRENCE DUTTON, Violinist: You can hear the guns. You can hear the explosions. (Staccato) I think we are actually the artillery over here, you know, we're exploding away.

JEFFREY BROWN: Later in the second movement, a Jewish-sounding theme suggests more of the war's tragedy, the Holocaust. (Playing second movement)

SPOKESMAN: Larry said that the cello and the viola provided a lot of the artillery, but there is also a lot of screaming going on in this movement... (Playing passage from second movement) ...The sound of people being killed, being exterminated.

JEFFREY BROWN: In a memoir published four years after his death, Shostokovich, who was not Jewish, is quoted as saying, "Jewish folk music is close to my ideas of what music should be. There should always be two layers in music. Jews were tormented for so long that they learned to hide their despair"

SPOKESMAN: It's a very important quote, because it really is a clue to not just to why he uses Jewish sounding music, but why he uses this layering aspect.

JEFFREY BROWN: The passage on Jewish music ends, "they express despair in dance music." (Waltz begins in third movement) And dance music-- a waltz-- begins the eighth quartet's third movement. For the Emerson, it's a dance macabre.

LAWRENCE DUTTON: This is bizarre and strange. It's a twisted waltz. There's a kind of ugliness about it, because we're really relentless in how we, you know, how we play our rhythm against a violin that's repeating and it's a kind of, a bit of a battle.

JEFFREY BROWN: During the war, Shostokovich's stock had risen as a composer contributing to the great national war effort. And in 1949, he was sent by Stalin to the U.S. on a so- called peace mission. He performed before 19,000 in Madison Square Garden. (Playing piano) But the Cold War brought out protesters in New York, and a new round of repression in Moscow. Shostokovich was again denounced. His music was mostly banned from public performance until Stalin's death in 1953. (Playing beginning of fourth movement) The fourth movement of the quartet, three loud knocks suggest the terror of the police state.

PHILIP SETZER: At one point he knew he was in a lot of trouble, and he knew that one of his neighbors was in a lot of trouble, and in one of the letters he talked about hearing them come in the middle of the night, and not knowing which one they were coming for, and then hearing them go to the neighbor's door.

JEFFREY BROWN: They, of course, are the KGB. What we're hearing, in this interpretation, is the knock on the door in the middle of the night, and the sadness that follows. (music playing) Later in this passage, the cello takes the lead. (music playing)

DAVID FINCKEL: It's a magical place. It always... I always feel very... Like I'm in another world in a concert at this moment.

JEFFREY BROWN: With the stakes so high, the composer himself seems to have lived in two worlds. In 1960, the very year the eighth quartet was written, Shostokovich shocked his friends by joining the Communist Party. To what extent he was pressured is not known. For the rest of his life, he would play the public role of the good Communist, while private letters, the writings of friends, and the memoir, "Testimony," show a tortured soul. (music playing) However Shostokovich saw himself in the end, others had no doubt. In a 1985 PBS broadcast, the great cellist and conductor Mislay Rostropovich performed his friend's "Fifth Symphony" and spoke of his legacy.

MTISLAV ROSTROPOVICH: I'm sure he coming off as one of the greatest composers of 20th century. Shostokovich very human composer.

JEFFREY BROWN: Shostokovich himself did not live to see the breakup of the Soviet Union. He died in Moscow in 1975. His eighth quartet ends quietly, hauntingly, without resolution. The Emerson quartet will perform it and other works by Shostokovich throughout the year.

RECAP

GWEN IFILL: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday: The Miami relatives of Elian Gonzalez offered to meet with the boy's father in South Florida, and Independent Counsel Robert Ray said he is actively considering an indictment of President Clinton after he leaves office. It involves allegations from the Monica Lewinsky scandal. We'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Thank you and good night.