The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight full coverage of the line item veto argument before the U.S. Supreme Court; a Jeffrey Kaye report on the exiles of Iraq; a conversation with the newly-arrived Chinese dissident, Wang Dan; a Spencer Michels report on the 150th anniversary of the California gold rush; and a Richard Rodriguez essay about stuff. It all follows our summary of the news this Monday.NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The U.S. Supreme Court heard the constitutional argument about the line item veto today. Congress granted the power to the president in 1996. It allows him to delete specific spending or tax provisions without vetoing the whole law. President Clinton used it 82 times last year before a federal district judge ruled it unconstitutional. Today's case was brought by New York City and a group of Idaho potato growers. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. On Wall Street today the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell below the 9,000 mark as last week's losses continued. The Dow lost nearly 147 points to close at 8917.64. The decline was blamed on a report the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates to slow the economy. The U.N. Security Council debated today whether to lift sanctions imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War. Russia and China said Iraq has fully complied on nuclear inspections and urged that some sanctions be removed. But chief U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler reported to the council today that virtually no progress has been made in chemical and germ warfare inspections over the last six months. President Clinton celebrated the 50th anniversary of Israel today. He did so at a White House event where he was given an honorary degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Mr. Clinton said the Jewish state remained a thriving democracy and a key ally, and he urged new efforts to establish peace with Israel's Arab neighbors.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: This is a time of reconciliation around the world. It must be a time to deepen freedom and raise up life in the Middle East. The 21st century can and must be a century of democracy, prosperity, and justice, and, of course, of peace. But it can be only if we learn not only to respect but to honor our differences.

JIM LEHRER: U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher released a report on minority smoking today. It said teen smoking among minorities is increasing, with the number of black high school students who smoked rising 80 percent over the last six years. It also said black men who smoke and get lung cancer are much more likely to die from the disease than white men. The study focused on the smoking habits of four minority groups that make up a quarter of the nation's population. Satcher spoke at a White House ceremony.

DR. DAVID SATCHER, Surgeon General: This new report leaves no doubt that cigarette smoking impairs and kills people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. It is my hope that this new report will help the American public to better understand how tobacco is holding hostage the hopes for a better life for millions of our four major racial ethnic minority groups. African-Americans, American Indians, and Alaska natives, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics.

JIM LEHRER: It was Satcher's first report since becoming surgeon general. The Senate began debate today on expanding NATO to include Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic. President Clinton has urged allowing the former Soviet Bloc countries to join the 16-member alliance. Secretary of Defense Cohen did so today with Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. Later on the Senate floor, Republican John Ashcroft argued against it.

WILLIAM COHEN, Secretary of Defense: We are here to support very strongly the commitment on the part of administration and, indeed, the NATO members to enlarge NATO for our security and for stability throughout Europe, Eastern and Central Europe, to be sure, and to increase the prosperity of those countries, as well as their security.

SEN. JOHN ASHCROFT, [R] Missouri: Right now, the administration is so willing to deploy U.S. troops and so unwilling to provide resources for the military that we are stretching our resources very thin. And if we want to put ourselves in real jeopardy, stretching them thinner, we should change the mission of NATO so that we become an international policing organization, effectively answering 911 calls anywhere around the world.

JIM LEHRER: A vote is expected later this week. A Roman Catholic Bishop has been murdered in Guatemala. Seventy-five-year-old Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi was beaten to death in his Guatemala City garage late last night. He had delivered a human rights report two days ago that blamed the government for widespread abuses during the country's 36 year civil war. A peace accord between the government and leftist rebels was reached in 1996. Human rights leaders called his death a political assassination. Prosecutors have not yet determined a motive. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the line item veto before the Supreme Court, the Iraqi exiles, Chinese exile Wang Dan, the California gold rush, and a Richard Rodriguez essay. FOCUS - DRAWING THE LINE

JIM LEHRER: Kwame Holman begins our coverage of the Supreme Court story.

KWAME HOLMAN: This is hardly the first time the judicial branch has been asked to resolve a separation of powers dispute between the executive and legislative branches. But in the case of the Line Item Veto the President and the Congress are on the same side. President Clinton signed the Line Item Veto into law in 1996 only after it was approved by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in both houses of Congress.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: For years, presidents of both parties have pounded this very desk in frustration at having to sign necessary legislation that contains special interest boondoggles, tax loopholes, and pure pork.

KWAME HOLMAN: The Line Item Veto gives the President greater authority to cut specific spending proposals from a bill without having to reject the entire bill. But even as Congress was designing the legislation opponents were warning the Line Item Veto violated the Constitution. Article I, Section One of the Constitution reads ..."all legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States." Section Seven reads..."every bill which shall have been passed...shall...before it become law...be presented to the President of the United States. If he approve he shall sign, but if not he shall return it with his objection."

CARDIS COLLINS: The Constitution didn't say only some legislative powers shall be exercised by the Congress. It does not say the Congress has to share its legislative responsibility with any other branch. Perhaps, most importantly, from the standpoint of this debate, the Constitution does not give the Congress the power to delegate its legislative powers to the President or to anyone else.

KWAME HOLMAN: The President held off using his new executive authority while legal challengers pursued the Line item Veto all the way to the Supreme Court. Last summer, however, the justices said the new law couldn't be challenged until the President used it. And so he did.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: The actions I take today will save American people hundreds of millions of dollars over the next 10 years.

KWAME HOLMAN: Last August, President Clinton exercised his line-item veto authority for the first time, stripping from the new balanced budget agreement several narrowly drawn tax and spending provisions.One would have helped New York State, and especially New York City, by allowing the state to raise taxes on health care providers to finance its Medicaid program.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: No other state in our nation would be given this provision, and it is unfair to the rest of our nation's taxpayers to ask them to subsidize it.

KWAME HOLMAN: The other vetoed provision would have allowed agri-businesses to defer the capital gains taxes they would pay on the sale of food processing plants to farmer-owned cooperatives.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: It could have benefited not only traditional farm coops but giant organizations, which do not need and should not trigger the law's benefits.

KWAME HOLMAN: Soon after those vetoes, New York City filed a lawsuit against President Clinton, and the Snake River Potato Growers of Idaho sued Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, each believing the President's actions had, indeed, violated the Constitution. In February, Federal District Court Judge Thomas Hogan ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and struck down the Line Item Veto, saying it "violates the procedural requirement ordained in Article I of the United States Constitution and impermissibly upsets the balance of powers so carefully prescribed by its Framers. The Line Item Veto Act therefore is unconstitutional." Today, on behalf of President Clinton, Solicitor General Seth Waxman appealed Judge Hogan's decision before the Supreme Court. Lawyers for New York City and the Snake River Potato Growers argued in favor of throwing out the line item veto. Meanwhile, several interested members of Congress made the short walk across the street from the Capitol to watch the proceedings.

JIM LEHRER: And now for what happened before the Supreme Court today we go to Kenneth Jost, who covers legal issues for the CQ Researcher, Congressional Quarterly's weekly publication on current policy issues. Ken welcome.Now, the government went first, the solicitor general. What was his basic argument as to why this was constitutional?

KENNETH JOST, The CQ Researcher: Well, he insisted that in exercising the line item veto power the president was actually executing laws just as Congress had provided. Congress gave him the authority to cancel a spending provision or a tax break, and, in doing so, he was doing exactly what Congress intended.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Now, the plaintiffs who--who argued, first of all, for New York City, and what was their basic argument?

KENNETH JOST: Arguing for New York City was Charles Cooper, who is a Washington lawyer and a former Justice Department official during the Reagan administration. Arguing for the Idaho farmers was Louis Cohen, who is also a Washington lawyer. Both argued that the Constitution sets forth one way of passing a law. The House and Senate agree on what the law says. The president signs or vetoes in its entirety.

JIM LEHRER: Now, the justices--this went on for an hour, right, from start to finish? The justices questioned them. Give us a reading on what some of the justices asked and what their reactions were to these various arguments.

KENNETH JOST: Gen. Waxman, who's the Clinton administration's top Supreme Court advocate, went first and faced a barrage of very sharply critical questions from justices all across the ideological spectrum. At one point he was trying to minimize the impact of the law, and Chief Justice Rehnquist jumped in to say if we uphold the law here, it will apply to vast amounts of spending. There was another point where he was trying to insist that this was not--did not amount to a true veto, which everyone agreed would be unconstitutional. You can't give the president the authority to a true line item veto. And Justice--

JIM LEHRER: Now, wait a minute. Wait. Why would it not be a veto? It's called something else, right?

KENNETH JOST: Waxman consistently used the word "cancel" to describe what the law says in its title as a line item veto. A veto is something you do before a law becomes enacted. Waxman's argument is the law has become enacted and the president executes it by deciding whether or not to cancel an individual part.

JIM LEHRER: So he signs the bill into law technically and then he goes back--

KENNETH JOST: Within five days.

JIM LEHRER: And scratches this. He scratches Idaho potatoes. He scratches New York, whatever he dos, but it's in the context that the law has already been enacted.

KENNETH JOST: The law has already become enacted. The lawyer Cohen said at one point that a president with--could do it all in one breath.

JIM LEHRER: If he did it the other way, though, they conceded that would be unconstitutional.

KENNETH JOST: That would be unconstitutional.

JIM LEHRER: In other words, if he took the piece of paper, vetoed one part and did it--

KENNETH JOST: Signed the rest.

JIM LEHRER: -- then signed the rest--out of here.

KENNETH JOST: Can't do that. Can't do that. Everyone agrees that he can't do that.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. Is that a mere technicality?

KENNETH JOST: From one side of the case, yes, from the other side, no. Waxman insists that it's--that, as I said, carrying out the wishes of Congress, Congress said you have the authority to cancel one or more of these items according to certain conditions. The conditions are quite general. We'll reduce the public. That won't harm the national interest, and the other side said that those are just too general to constitute a delegation of power to the president.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. Go through what some of the other justices said and did.

KENNETH JOST: Well, Justice Ginsburg--when Waxman insisted this was not a veto--said, well, you can call it a different word but it's the same thing, it's gone, the provision in question is gone. Justice Breyer, who had raised the same line of questioning during the arguments last year, was particularly troubled by the idea that the president could pick and choose which taxpayers were subject to specific provisions. He said, you know, how can the president decide Mr. Smith, Mr. Jones, you owe taxes and eighteen other taxpayers don't owe taxes.

JIM LEHRER: So, did you come out of there, out of that argument today saying, oh, oh, these guys and won and those guys have lost, or give us a feel.

KENNETH JOST: Certainly most legal experts had expected--do expect that when the Supreme Court-- if the Supreme Court reaches the merits of this issue, the line item veto will be struck down. That's been the expectation throughout the debate. The central question or at least the preliminary question going in to today's argument had been, will the court recognize that these two groups have standing, have the legal right, are the right plaintiffs at the right time to bring this case? The solicitor general said they're not; he said New York City hasn't lost any money yet, said the Snake River potato growers aren't the right people to bring this case because it's not their tax break. It would be a tax break that would be realized by the seller of the agricultural processing plant. I expected to hear a lot of questions about that standing issue. In fact, the Justices did not ask any questions on that to Solicitor General Waxman, and I thought their questions to the two lawyers for the plaintiffs were rather tentative.

JIM LEHRER: So that means maybe they're going to take it head on, rather than try to do it on--dismiss it--not dismiss it but judge it on the standing issue, rather than on the merits?

KENNETH JOST: It's always treacherous to make predictions by the Supreme Court, of course, but they did not seem especially troubled by the standing issue.

JIM LEHRER: Among legal experts is this seen as a major landmark kind of decision, or mostly a political thing in the final analysis?

KENNETH JOST: Oh, in terms of the constitutional allocation of powers it's a major issue. Presidents since Ulysses Grant have wanted to have this power. Ronald Reagan strongly asked for it from the Democratic-controlled Congress, which wouldn't give it to him. Now, the ironic result of the Republican-controlled Congress has bestowed it on a Democratic chief executive. In terms of resolving a constitutional argument about the balance of power between the president and Congress this is very important politically. And just in terms of the numbers, the dollars involved, it's less important. The president's--the items that the president has vetoed add up to only three or four hundred million dollars.

JIM LEHRER: When can a decision be expected?

KENNETH JOST: Last week of June probably.

JIM LEHRER: That's not far away. I mean, they've expedited this, have they not?

KENNETH JOST: They've expedited this, and the law that Congress passed specified that they speeded up--

JIM LEHRER: And when directly from the district court to the Supreme Court as well, didn't have to go through an appellate court.

KENNETH JOST: Bypassed the circuit court of appeals.

JIM LEHRER: So by the end of June. All right. Thank you very much, Ken.

KENNETH JOST: Thank you. FOCUS - EXILED PERSPECTIVE

JIM LEHRER: The Iraq sanctions story. The U.N. Security Council is debating the issue today and so are Iraqi exiles in the United States. Jeffrey Kaye of KCET-Los Angeles reports on those exiles.

JEFFREY KAYE: The sounds and sights are of Iraq, transported some 7600 miles to a suburb of San Diego, California. In a local mosque on a recent Thursday Shiite Muslims came to evening prayers. In a nearby park Iraqi Kurds danced to ethnic music. The Kurds and Shiites are among the 31,000 opponents of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who since 1991 have been resettled in the United States as political refugees. In San Diego, most are clustered in the working class community of El Cajon. For many, it's a struggle to adapt. While some have found work in their professions, others must rely on government assistance or menial jobs. Adil and Nazefa Rasoul, who are currently living on welfare, say they had to flee Iraq. Back home, Adil was a civil engineer who worked for a U.S. relief organization building houses in the Northern City of Erbil.

ADIL RASOUL: [speaking through interpreter] The Iraqi government announced everybody working with foreign relief groups would be considered CIA agents and would be punished. That's why we were brought to the United States.

JEFFREY KAYE: The exodus of Iraqi refugees began soon after the Gulf War. In March 1991, western allies declared victory. Then President George Bush called for a popular uprising against Saddam Hussein. Kurdish rebels in Northern Iraq and Shiite Muslims in the South rose up, but Saddam's forces crushed the rebellions. More than a million refugees fled to border areas or left the country. Western allies established no-fly zones in North and South Iraq to keep Iraqi military aircraft away from opposition strongholds. In 1996, there was another flood of Kurdish refugees after Iraqi troops moved into the no-fly zone in Northern Iraq. Iraqi refugees now in the U.S. are united by tragedy, hatred of Saddam Hussein, and fear for their families left behind. And they hold mixed feelings towards the U.S.. Kamran and Iptisam Hussain, for example, are Kurds who were evacuated by the U.S. in October 1996. They are grateful that the U.S. gave them asylum.

KAMRAN HUSSAIN: We asked them to do that and help us and bring us out. If they don't, maybe now we are in jail, or we are killed.

JEFFREY KAYE: But they are also disappointed that the U.S. military didn't stop Saddam's troops.

IPTISAM HUSSAIN: If we had any problem, that's because we didn't get enough support from United States.

JEFFREY KAYE: But you're here.

IPTISAM HUSSAIN: I am here, yes, but that not my dream to be here. My dream to save Iraqi's people from Saddam Hussein-- government.

JEFFREY KAYE: Shiites have similar feelings. Abdul Aljashaf and his wife, Iptisam, remember hearing President Bush's call to arms in 1991.

ABDUL ALJASHAF: When we rise against Saddam Hussein, he never, never helped. The United States force watched Saddam Hussein kill his people.

JEFFREY KAYE: Iraqis we interviewed agreed the only way to curtail Saddam Hussein's aggression and prevent him from using weapons of mass destruction is to remove him from power.

ADIL RASOUL: And you cannot get rid of the weapon with Saddam, but you can get rid of the weapon without Saddam.

JEFFREY KAYE: So you get rid of Saddam Hussein, you get rid of the weapons?

ADIL RASOUL: Yes.

JEFFREY KAYE: The Rasouls were both wounded during the Kurdish uprising after the Gulf War. Married in 1985, they led a middle class life, with Nazefa working as a math teacher and Adil in construction. Both have had family members killed by Saddam Hussein's regime, and both feel the U.S. could oust Saddam by better supporting a viable opposition.

NAZEFA RASOUL: [speaking through interpreter] The best way to remove Saddam is to support the opposition, provide heavy weapons to the Kurdish parties, and extend the no-fly zone, so Iraqi helicopters and planes cannot attack that area. That's the way to remove Saddam Hussein.

JEFFREY KAYE: That view echoes that of Ahmed Chalabi, president of the Iraqi National Congress, a coalition of Iraqi opposition groups funded by the U.S.. Testifying recently before Congress, Chalabi called on the U.S. to guarantee protected zones in the North and South, so his organization could establish a provisional government.

AHMED CHALABI, Iraqi National Congress: Give the Iraqi National Congress a base, protected from Saddam's tanks. Give us the temporary support we need to feed and house and care for the liberated population, and we will give you a free Iraq, an Iraq free of weapons of mass destruction and a free market Iraq.

JEFFREY KAYE: Kamran and Iptisam Hussain work for Chalabi's group, the Iraqi National Congress, and, like Chalabi, they believe that for the United Nations to negotiate and reach agreement with Saddam Hussein was a big mistake.

KAMRAN HUSSAIN: The agreement is--I don't think would be a good thing because Saddam, if he is still in power, there's always, there's problems. Maybe this problem's finished like this; next, we get next, next, next.

JEFFREY KAYE: Ali, a Shiite Muslim who fled after the 1991 uprising, agreed. He wouldn't give his full name for fear of reprisals against family members in Iraq.

ALI: There is no solution if Saddam Hussein stay in the power. So still we're going to have the same problem after three or four or six months, and we are going to keep doing that all the time, and like how you see, all the seven years, always Saddam Hussein, he always says he's the winner.

JEFFREY KAYE: But while some Iraqis talk about building a political opposition, others place more confidence in a surgical military strike. At an English class provided by the International Rescue Committee, a relief agency, Iraqi women learn survival skills for their new country. Women we spoke to were convinced there's only one effective means of dealing with the Iraqi strongman.

KARAMA AL-NIKELE: [speaking through interpreter] The snake can only be killed from the head and not from the tail. After the Gulf War, the United States did not go to Baghdad and kill the snake by its head. Go find where Saddam Hussein is, where he's located, and kill the snake by the head.

JEFFREY KAYE: Although U.S. law prohibits assassinations, many Iraqis say the U.S. should kill Saddam.

ALI: There is not--we do not negotiate with Saddam Hussein. What they need to do--just destroy Saddam Hussein and his group, but don't let Iraqi people suffer any longer.

JEFFREY KAYE: As we spoke to Ali outside the mosque, other members joined us to emphasize their belief that if the U.S. wanted to, it could easily force Saddam Hussein from power.

MAN: [speaking through interpreter] If America wants to get rid of Saddam, they can do it, just like they got rid of Noriega in Panama.

JEFFREY KAYE: And you think they should do exactly the same thing in Iraq and bring out Saddam Hussein, just like they brought out Noriega?

RESLAN ALZAYADI: [speaking through interpreter] That's the best way, but don't bomb Iraq, because Saddam will use human shields like before, and the Iraqi people will pay for that.

JEFFREY KAYE: But Kamran Hussain, who spent four years with the Iraqi opposition, said getting rid of Saddam is not so easy.

KAMRAN HUSSEIN: Kill Saddam Hussein, you know, there's more, more helps--or more tryers to do--to kill him--but nobody succeed to that. You know, he's very, very, very clever to keep himself safety, and he use all that peoples around him to make him safety. I think to kill him I think right now may be difficult.

JEFFREY KAYE: Besides the problem of removing Saddam is the question of replacing him. Some exiles fear that without a provisional government in place, chaos may follow his overthrow.

ADIL RASOUL: [speaking through interpreter] Assassination is a good idea, but there has to be somebody to replace him; otherwise, people are so frustrated and angry they're likely to fight each other, and there could be civil war.

JEFFREY KAYE: In the meantime, most refugees we met oppose the use of sanctions, saying they have hurt the Iraqi people, not their leaders. However, Mohamid Gozeh, a Kurdish engineer, says sanctions are keeping Saddam in check.

MOHAMID GOZEH: The sanctions--actually the contained--the politic of containing the government prove that it's a good one.

JEFFREY KAYE: Gozeh worked for a relief agency in Northern Iraq until he was forced to flee in 1996. He says he's looking forward to returning.

MOHAMID GOZEH: I wish to see an Iraqi democracy, a democratic Iraq, with an elected parliament and government, with total rights for the Kurdish people in the Northern part of Iraq, then I will go back.

JEFFREY KAYE: Most exiles who have left families and friends in Iraq say they also would prefer to return home than stay in the U.S..

HAIFA EL-ASADY: [speaking through interpreter] My country is dear to me, even though it has oppressed me and even though it doesn't care about me.

JEFFREY KAYE: In quoting the words of an Iraqi poet, Haifa El-Asady provided an emotional punctuation to a common sentiment. Iraqis told us that no matter how different they may be, ethically, politically, and religiously, they can all agree on one thing, the need to establish a democratic Iraq.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, a most famous Chinese exile, the California gold rush, and a Richard Rodriguez essay. CONVERSATION - STARTING ANEW

JIM LEHRER: Now, a conversation with Wang Dan, China's most prominent new exile to the United States. He was one of the leaders of the Tiananmen Square democracy movement in 1989. He was released from prison and sent to the U.S. last week. Phil Ponce talked with him this morning in New York.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Wang, first of all, thank you very much for being with us.

WANG DAN, Chinese Dissident: [speaking through interpreter] It's my pleasure.

PHIL PONCE: What has your life been like in the past week?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] Well, mainly, I've been resting, getting over jet lag, seeing some friends.

PHIL PONCE: Before we started talking on camera, you said that the past week had been something like a dream. What did you mean?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] Well, because only a week ago I was still in prison; I didn't have my freedom, and now I am in a free world. And I am with my friends. So the contrast is very huge.

PHIL PONCE: Is this what you thought democracy would be like, would look like, would feel like?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] Well, I hoped that democracy might be more orderly. I know that New York does not represent the whole United States, and democracy may not be represented by everything that I see in the city state here.

PHIL PONCE: I understand you spent some time yesterday with one of your fellow exiled dissidents, Mr. Wei Jingsheng. What advice did he give you about what his experience has been like and how you might learn from what he's gone through?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] I've always felt great respect for Wei Jingsheng's courage and his perseverance and stamina. And from him I think I will learn the spirit of courage and of stamina and perseverance.

PHIL PONCE: So, what is your plan now?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] Well, after coming to the United States, I hope to be able to study and accumulate some knowledge, and then to the best of my ability to do something for China's democracy and human rights and to exert my efforts in that direction.

PHIL PONCE: Now, when you say you want to study, what specifically do you want to learn?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] Well, personally, I have a strong interested in contemporary Chinese history, and there's a lot of material on that in the United States. So perhaps I can do more work in-depth in that subject.

PHIL PONCE: And how would the study of history prepare you for what your life will be like in the future?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] Well, I don't agree with saying that history is very rigidly patterned, but I think that, nevertheless, in history you can see some things. And so if we study history, then when things happen in the future we may have some psychological preparation for it.

PHIL PONCE: Last week you mentioned that you felt the need to atone. What did you mean?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] My main assessment was not the events of 1989. I was grading myself on what happened at that time. And I felt that I do have to assume some responsibility, because as students there were things we did not do as well as they could have been done. We could have done better, and we have to feel responsibility for that. But the democracy movement, if you talk about the bloodshed, then I think the responsibility for that should be borne by the government.

PHIL PONCE: Could you sort of summarize what you may have learned personally?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter]I think that in a political movement, in a political engagement, what level you approach from and what circumstances you ask the other side to accept, what do you want, how do you do that, I think we didn't know that much about these matters before. In the future in China when you have another political engagement of that sort, we should behave in a more mature way.

PHIL PONCE: And speaking of the future, you expect to go back?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] Yes, of course, I hope to go back to China.

PHIL PONCE: Do you think that will be sooner, rather than later?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] Well, I don't think it'll be in the immediate future but maybe not in the very distant future either, perhaps something in-between.

PHIL PONCE: What kinds of changes specifically would you like to see in China?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] The China I hope to see, at least, I think you need to see an increase in the level of civilization and democracy, certain levels of the caliber of the entire population. So one thing I believe in is that you need to have the same standards that you find in democratic countries in the West.

PHIL PONCE: How would you go about establishing those standards in China?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] Well, a personal ideal of mine as a free and independent intellectual, is that I could be able to use my ideas and my actions to influence a group of people and together to spread some of our ideas so that the society can move forward in a healthy way.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Wang, if you could have a dream job when you return to China, what would that job be?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter]Well, maybe I have a little ambition of my own. I would like to become the president of Beijing University, because that's my alma mater.

PHIL PONCE: And what would you do as president of the university to promote your ideals?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] Well, a university produces ideas more so than technically skilled people. And Beijing University is a bastion of liberal thinking in China. And so if it trains these people and they go out to serve as important people in every sector of society, that would be an ideal of mine.

PHIL PONCE: Now, your father teaches at Beijing University. This must be a difficult time for the two of you to be apart.

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] Well, it's not just my father. My mother also graduated from Beijing University. So my whole family has very close connections to Beijing University. And, of course, they would also, therefore, hope to see me at Beijing University.

PHIL PONCE: Have you been in touch with your family at all?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] Many times.

PHIL PONCE: Recently?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] Yes.

PHIL PONCE: And what are they telling you?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] Well, of course, they hope that I study well and achieve things.

PHIL PONCE: How are you different from the person you were when you were a 20-year-old student back in 1989?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] I think my enthusiasm is the same as before, and I still hope to move democracy in China forward. But now--how shall I say it--I may be more practical. At least, personally I think I have the wherewithal to do something.

PHIL PONCE: As you look back at what happened in 1989, do you feel it was worth it?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] The episode in 1989 had an effect on Chinese history that cannot be replaced by anything you know in China. I could say that without what happened in 1989, we would not have what is happening in China today or in the future.

PHIL PONCE: So, you think there have been some positive things that have evolved from Tiananmen Square?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter]The last few years there have, indeed, been very tremendous changes in China. But the greatest change has been in social life--because--of course, politically the change has not been so great. But, of course, in the economic and social changes, a government cannot control everything, and that trend already is set, and it's forming the foundation for future democracy in China.

PHIL PONCE: Some of your fellow dissidents in exile have gotten very involved in the free market system here in the United States. One is studying to get her MBA at Harvard; another is starting an investment company. Do you see yourself doing anything like that?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter]Well, I would like very much to take advantage of the excellent educational opportunities in the United States to enrich my own knowledge.

PHIL PONCE: In addition to studying, are there other things that you would like to do to have an influence back in China while you're still here?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] I think if I were to have any influence left, I would like to use it to hope that the international community stay concerned about democracy and human rights in China--and to urge the Chinese government to be more responsible for its record in these areas. And I would like to be more concerned about the people who are still in prison for political beliefs and to do something for them. And I believe there's a lot of space to do things like that abroad.

PHIL PONCE: What kinds of things do you think you can do to help those people, who are still imprisoned, from this country?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] I think at least we want to do enough so that every person who is in prison will at least be known about abroad, and I hope to get involved in that.

PHIL PONCE: Do you think it might be hard to be effective from the--from this vantage point, from the United States?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] I don't think it's that difficult because information exchange is becoming freer and freer, and so I stay in close contact with China. And we want to let the political prisoners there to be known by people outside China.

PHIL PONCE: Do you plan to go to Washington? Will you attempt to have a meeting with the President or with members of Congress?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] If President Clinton is willing to meet me, then, of course, I would be delighted.

PHIL PONCE: And what message would you make to the president, or what message would you make to other leaders of the government here?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] I have three things I'd like to say to the United States about its China policy. First, as I understand it, the United States represents the interests of the American people. And so when determining China policy, I understand that you want to take into consideration the interests of the American people. But, second, as a Chinese people, I hope that America's China policy will stimulate China's overall development, including social, economic, and political. And the third thing I'd like to say to the president is that I hope America's foreign policy maintains its own moral standards and does not lower those standards.

PHIL PONCE: Ultimately, what is your dream, what is your dream, is your dream for China?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] I hope that China will be able in a rather peaceful way to make the transition, to accept the rules of the international community to become a democratic, healthy, and strong country.

PHIL PONCE: And, is there any message you'd like to give to the American people?

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter] I've always felt that we all live in the same global village, and every country's circumstances affect every other country. So if the people of the United States are concerned about their own futures and their own interests, then they should also care about China's future, because we are all citizens of the world.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Wang, I thank you for joining us.

WANG DAN: [speaking through interpreter]Thank you for interviewing me. FOCUS - AFTER THE GOLD RUSH

JIM LEHRER: Now, the 150th anniversary of the California gold rush. Spencer Michels reports.

SPENCER MICHELS: The South fork of the American River in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains looks much like it did on January 24, 1848. That's when John Marshall, who was operating a water-powered sawmill on the river looked into a ditch and saw something shiny. "I reached my hand down and picked it up," Marshall later wrote. "It made my heart pump, for I was certain it was gold." Matt Sugarman, superintendent of the Gold Discovery State Park at Coloma, California, visits the site often.

MATT SUGARMAN, Park Superintendent: It just really, really sends chills up my spine to realize that at this site a nugget about half the size of your pinkie fingernail was picked up out of the river began a migration that literally hasn't stopped since it started 150 years ago.

SPENCER MICHELS: This quarter ounce nugget at UC-Berkeley is reputed to be the original one that Marshall fished out of the mill tray. It started a rush that brought 100,000 miners to sparsely populated California the first year and many more in the next decade. The discovery of gold changed the face of California physically and in spirit. And California, in turn, inspired dreams of opportunity across the nation. J. S. Holliday is a leading historian of the gold rush.

J.S. HOLLIDAY, Historian: Suddenly, California is a place where you have something for nothing, suddenly you can have it in a hurry. There is a sudden opportunity to make a fortune, not just make a living.

SPENCER MICHELS: In hundreds of canyons like this, where rivers tumble down from the mighty Sierra Nevada mountains, the newcomers set up camp and began to mine for gold. That quest is the main focus of the Oakland Museum's commemoration of the gold rush. On display are the most extensive collections of photographs and artwork of the gold rush ever assembled, works that shed light on a major world event. Curator Drew Johnson put on display an old Daguerreotype camera, which had been invented a decade before gold was discovered. Such cameras and the men who operated them quickly made their way into the gold field.

DREW JOHNSON, Oakland Museum: Everybody thinks the Civil War was the first major historical event to be photographed by the camera lens and, in reality, it's the California gold rush.

SPENCER MICHELS: For a dollar or two a lonely miner who had traveled months to get to California could have his Daguerreotype taken--metal photographs encased in beautiful frames. Sent to families back in the states, they evoked great emotion and presented a personal look at this important event.

DREW JOHNSON: They were aware that it was a historic event, and they had this wonderful medium, photography, that could record their presence and their participation in it.

SPENCER MICHELS: The pictures tell a thousand stories. 92 percent of the new migrants were male; 48,000 Chinese came to look for gold. For everyone, mining was a tough life. While gold was plentiful--$128 million worth had been mined through 1851--success eluded most miners. But failure was part of the excitement.

J. S. HOLLIDAY: While your mine is failing and while your river dam is washed away, just as your hole in the ground has turned out to be a great disappointment, you hear a shout and you hear a scream, and my God, they're drinking, and some jumping up and down because somebody hit it rich. So there's a constant sense of renewal.

SPENCER MICHELS: Life in the mines was romantic as captured by artists in the 19th century whose work is on display in Oakland. The paintings show, sometimes fancifully, the new, strange life being lived in California. Not everyone liked it, but the freedom it afforded convinced some of the hundreds of thousands of newcomers to stay.

J. S. HOLLIDAY: People began to like the freedom. Aside from making money, they liked the freedom--you don't have to bathe; you don't have to shave; you don't have to listen to the sermon on Sunday--so California changed our--not only our economic expectations--it changed our social values, and that's why California is looked upon and has been for so long as sort of an oddball place, isn't it?

SPENCER MICHELS: Mining changed its nature after the early days of the gold rush, leaving new legacies for California. Large companies, heavily financed, took over, digging into hard rock far under the surface of the earth for veins of gold, as here at the Empire Mine in Grass Valley. Gold mining became an industry. The miners, no longer free spirits, earned just $3 a day right up through World War I, a far cry from the fortunes possible earlier. Yet, the owners became rich--6 million ounces of gold came out of this mine alone, found in quartz rock and painstakingly brought to the surface from as far as 8,000 feet underground. Other mining companies did well also, using hydraulic techniques. The small crew aimed nozzles a hillsides. It eroded the dirt and rocks so the gold would come loose. The result was an environmental disaster. And the state of California has remembered that part of the mining story as well. Near the old mining town of North Bloomfield California has created the Malikoff Diggins State Park, a hydraulic mining site, as an example of ruinous technology. Donna Jones is a state park interpreter.

DONNA JONES, State Park Interpreter: This is the result of hydraulic mining for many years. It did so much damage because that hillside isn't isolated; that hillside is part of the system. And, of course, that water and all the debris they washed down went downstream and created a lot of damage, destroyed good farmland, created floods.

SPENCER MICHELS: The water flowing through the mine site is still yellow in color and unfit to drink. Downstream from this and hundreds of other mining sites the California environment has been degraded by mining according to David Rubiales, who teaches gold rush history at Yuba College in the city of Marysville, which is surrounded by levees to protect it from two rivers.

DAVID RUBIALES, Yuba College: The city also now faces danger every year because of the gold rush, and now the streets or the city of Marysville are barely above the level of the river.

SPENCER MICHELS: Environmental damage is only part of the story. The toll on the native population and on other minorities has historians debating to this day. Before the gold rush this rock at Sutters Mill was used by native Americans to grind acorns, but according to Frank Lapena, who teaches Native American History, once the miners arrived, the Indians and their way of life were no longer welcome here.

FRANK LAPENA, Sacramento State University: Indians began to suffer under the pressures of the new people but also under the pressure of the loss of their land and the pollution of their streams and the taking of their women and the fact that they began to retaliate.

SPENCER MICHELS: So at that point what happens?

FRANK LAPENA: What happens is the people are moved out, the Indian people are moved out, they are slaughtered in some instances.

SPENCER MICHELS: Lapena says that between 1850 and 1910, the Indian population dropped 90 percent. Those facts and the discrimination in the gold fields against Chinese, African-Americans, Mexicans, and Chileans have prompted Park Superintendent Matt Sugarman to call the gold rush a holocaust.

MATT SUGARMAN: When they organized hunting parties, went out on Sunday afternoon and hunted Native Americans for sport, to me, what else do you call it? You don't celebrate a holocaust. You commemorate it; you honor it; you understand it; and hopefully not repeat it.

SPENCER MICHELS: Sugarman says documents prove there was a pattern of violence against Native Americans throughout the mother lode. Historian J. S. Holliday agrees there was racial discrimination but not of the magnitude alleged and not peculiar to the gold rush.

J. S. HOLLIDAY: Most people never saw an Indian, and if they did, the Indian was running away. The Indians had already suffered abominably before the gold seekers got here. I don't think you can look upon the gold rush as a period of destructiveness.

SPENCER MICHELS: While historical controversies continue to swirl, tourists still flock to the towns of California's gold country. Charming old mining towns like Nevada City, remnants of towns with names like Rough and Ready and You Bet--they come to soak of the ambiance of the gold rush. And for the next two years those towns, plus museums and state parks, will commemorate, if not celebrate, what all agree was a seminal event in the nation's history. ESSAY - STUFF

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight essayist Richard Rodriguez of the Pacific News Service considers stuff.

RICHARD RODRIGUEZ: I come often to this huge building to do much of my shopping. It's called Costco. There are warehouse stores like this all over the country where you can buy most anything you need and you buy it in bulk cheap. A revolution is going on in American shopping habits. Two generations ago Americans went to their corner store where everyone knew the name of the man behind the counter and where toward the end of the month our grandmothers would ask to charge the milk and the bread, and then the suburbs created the supermarket with its Musacs and its wild aisles and its 20 varieties of breakfast cereal. Now we don't go to the corner drugstore with a small nursery run by the lady who knows all about roses. We shop at places with names like Drug Barn and Plant World and Shoe Universe. Every choice is available to us, and the prices are low, but no one knows your name and there is no Musac. It's wonderful coming here to Costco. The well-to-do shop here along with immigrant families. Everyone's basket is full. You don't get a bottle of mineral water; you buy a case. You don't get a roll of toilet paper; you get a gigantic package that will last most families several months. You can buy tires at Costco, as well as Pampers and bananas. So people buy and buy and buy. And, yet, despite all the buying there is something oddly unmaterialistic about shopping in the places plain as a warehouse. We Americans often criticize ourselves for being materialistic. In fact, we take little pleasure in things, preferring to fill our lives with stuff. Only rarely do we dare a materialism that delights in the sensuality of the material world. In the 1950's, for example, we gave the world wonderful, wide-bodied cars with lots of chrome and fins like angels--the rare American instance of the materialism of the senses. We leave it, however, to other cultures to teach us about materialism. I remember years ago in London a friend of mine urging me to go into Fortnum and Mason's, the fancy food store, go in and buy just one piece of chocolate, he said, and think about that chocolate all day, and when you eat it tonight, eat it slowly, very slowly. Americans don't eat slowly. We taught the world how to eat on their own, and we treasure food, convenience food, that doesn't take much thinking about, which is why in the end we don't have very much to say about the smell of the piece of chocolate. To this day I remember the weight and the smells of the first books I ever owned. I can still remember the texture of paper in the first novel I ever got from the library. Now we can order our books on the Internet without first holding them in our hands or fingering the paper. Now Americans watch TV and order jewelry or dolls or whatever on the 24-hour shopping channels. People buy from catalogs without first trying the sweater on and testing its color against one's skin. There are no windows at Costco. In an earlier, more sweetly materialistic America, our parents used to window shop. People would stop on a busy street, peer at the mannequins in the shop windows. Here in San Francisco there are still downtown department stores where one can see elaborate window displays, but who has the time to window shop? Despite the many dollars we spend, I think we are less materialistic now than at any time in our history. We are not much interested in the shape of an orange or the weight of a book, or the dark sense of a chocolate. We buy appliances of a rack and we throw them away when they no longer work. Nothing gets repaired in America. Nothing we own grows old. We buy in bulk. We are surrounded by choices. There is little we desire. We end up surrounded by stuff and regret. We take the huge bag of chocolates home, and we end up eating too many. I'm Richard Rodriguez. RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday, New York City and Idaho potato growers challenged the president's line-item veto power before the U.S. Supreme Court. Surgeon General David Satcher said teen smoking among minorities is on the rise, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 147 points on a report the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates. We will be with you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.