The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington.

MR. MacNeil: And I'm Robert MacNeil in New York. After the News Summary we have a debate over the charges of ethical misconduct against FBI Director William Sessions, Charlayne Hunter-Gault reports on the new challenges to the United Nations, and we have a Newsmaker Interview with Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said today the recovering economy still faced some obstacles. They include weak real estate prices, cutbacks of military spending, and sluggish job growth. He testified before the Congressional Joint Economic Committee.

ALAN GREENSPAN: Although a number of economic indicators are distinctly encouraging, this is not to say that we have clear sailing ahead. As I indicated when I appeared before this committee last March, households and businesses have been struggling to redress structural imbalances unparalleled in the post war world. Sometime ago I likened these pressures to head winds of 50 miles an hour. Those head winds have now slackened somewhat. But they have not disappeared.

MR. LEHRER: Labor Sec. Robert Reich said today the Clinton administration is considering an economic stimulus plan involving fifteen to twenty-five billion dollars in new spending and tax breaks. He also said the administration would probably support an extension in unemployment benefits because of continuing layoffs by large corporations. President Clinton met with congressional economic leaders this afternoon. He said he didn't know yet if he could meet his deficit cutting goal without a tax increase. He said he would reveal his full economic plan in his February 17th speech to Congress. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: President Clinton plans to modify the military's ban on homosexuals tomorrow despite heated debate in Congress. Reuters News Agency reported the President would order that new recruits not be asked if they're gay. Spokesman George Stephanopoulos said new rules would include a strict code of conduct covering the sexual behavior of all troops. Mr. Clinton discussed the matter in a phone call to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn, who opposes lifting the gay ban. On the Senate floor today, he said the President should proceed carefully.

SEN. SAM NUNN, Chairman, Armed Services Committee: I advise both President Clinton and Sec. Aspin to seek the advice first and foremost of a broad range of military personnel, the people who will be most directly affected by any change in the current policy on service by homosexuals. And I've urged him to seek these opinions before making any final changes. It's in everyone's interest to see if we can resolve this issue through consensus rather than confrontation. There's always time for confrontation later if it cannot be solve by consensus, but perhaps it can.

MR. MacNeil: The newly elected chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Democrat Ron Dellums of California, said he saw no reason to wait. He spoke at a Capitol Hill news conference.

REP. RON DELLUMS, Chairman, Armed Services Committee: Frankly, I believe this whole matter is a tempest in a teapot. I believe that our nation ought to move beyond an adolescent view. I think we ought to move beyond our ignorance, beyond our fears, beyond our prejudices and beyond our discrimination and begin to deal with people as human beings. And I think that the ban ought to be lifted and we ought to move forward. There are many other pressing problems that this nation ought to be confronting and ought to attempt to address.

MR. MacNeil: The illegal alien who worked as a driver for Zoe Baird has returned to Peru. A statement from his lawyer said an Immigration Service investigation and media attention had prompted Viktor Cordaro to leave. Zoe Baird withdrew her nomination for attorney general after a public outcry over her illegal hiring of Cordaro and his estranged wife, Lilian. The Immigration Service last week said it was seeking both for a hearing on possible deportation.

MR. LEHRER: There was more fighting in the former Yugoslav republics of Bosnia and Croatia today. A United Nations spokesman said 21 of its peacekeepers were being held by Serb forces in the contested Krajina region of Croatia. There were also fierce battles in Sarajevo. We have a report from Colin Baker of Independent Television News.

MR. BAKER: According to Bosnia's government, these were the heaviest bombardments of the capital city for four months. The targets they claimed were civilians, victims because of ethnic origin, as the Balkan land grab continues. The Serbian shelling of this besieged city is now threatening to end the peace talks in Geneva. The Bosnian president arrived at the U.N. this afternoon and said that unless the attacks stop, his delegation would have to consider leaving the conference. There he said he'd come to an agreement with the Bosnian Croatians that both of their armies would order an immediate cease-fire. But the war in Bosnia is not the only threat. In Krajina, the battle between Croats and Serbs shows no sign of ending. As concerning Geneva, the Croatian army has not yet reached its objective and may still try and push forward. The village of Scabrinja was taken from the Serbs yesterday and shown to journalists today, barely a house left unmarked. This afternoon it was taken back by the Serbs. And despite Serbian promises not to officially intervene, paramilitaries in Belgrade are openly recruiting volunteers to send to Krajina.

MR. MacNeil: Hundreds of people today paid their final respects to the nation's first black Supreme Court Justice, the late Thurgood Marshall. It was only the second time a Supreme Court Justice was honored by having his casket lie in state at the court. Marshall died of heart failure last Sunday at the age of 84. His funeral will be held tomorrow.

MR. LEHRER: A gunman opened fire in a restaurant in Tampa, Florida, today. Three people were killed, two others injured. The five victims were employees of the Fireman's Fund Insurance Company. Police officials said the gunman was apparently a disgruntled employee. The suspect was later found dead, apparently from self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

MR. MacNeil: That's our summary of the news. Now it's on to the FBI director under fire, the United Nations at a crossroads, and U.N. Secretary General Boutros-Ghali. FOCUS - UNDER FIRE

MR. LEHRER: The spectacle of William Sessions is our lead story tonight. Sessions is the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The spectacle is the unprecedented way the outgoing attorney general accused Sessions of ethical misbehavior and Sessions' unprecedented public plea of innocence to keep from being fired by the incoming President Clinton. Twelve days ago on his last day as attorney general William Barr alleging Sessions had engaged in "a clear pattern of taking advantage of the government." It charged Sessions avoided paying taxes on personal travel in his government limousine, used government planes for personal flights to visit family members, installed the wrong kind of fence around his home at the government's expense, and allowed his wife to make personal trips on government transportation. Sessions went on national television this week to defend himself. Here are excerpts.

WILLIAM SESSIONS, FBI Director: [CNN, January 25] If I was traveling in a plane, I'm always required to travel in a plane, I'm always required to travel in a plane in a secure circumstance, always, wherever I go, any city in this country. Wherever I go, I'm traveling in an FBI plane. The fact that I may have a friend there, a daughter there, a relative there has nothing to do with my travel.

BERNARD SHAW: The flight would still go there?

WILLIAM SESSIONS: The flight would still go there. The fact that I travel in an armored vehicle, the fact that I am in a security envelope means that any time during the course of the day, whatever I'm doing, I am going to proceed in that circumstance with that envelope of security. If I stop by on the way home to go to the grocery store, to go to the drugstore, to go by the cleaner's, am I doing personal things? Obviously, I am. If I go to a movie, am I doing personal things? Yes, but I will be doing it in that automobile. Now, those are personal, whether I'm on the road, I will be doing the same thing, and the point is that both personal and official are mixed. And they're unavoidably mixed.

WILLIAM SESSIONS: [NBC, "Today"] The fence, itself, you'll recall, was a disagreement over what it should actually be, that is, whether it should be an eight foot iron fence all the way around the lot, all the way up to the front of the yard, with a gate and an automatic opener, or whether it should be something that is compatible with the neighborhood. And I, of course, wanted something that was compatible to the neighborhood and yet gave me the security. That ultimately was approved. They now believe that that was a sham or that, in fact, I was improper with it. It is fully documented, fully laid out, and it is what we needed and what we have.

WILLIAM SESSIONS: [ABC] ... Because when you take each one of them individually, they are basically small things. And there can be disagreement. If they had had a full investigation, if they had had a full and accurate report, if they had done their work, as they should have done it, many of those questions would have been answered and never would have been included.

DAVID BRINKLEY: [ABC, "This Week With David Brinkley"] You're saying that this is an honest difference of opinion as to how to construe the evidence?

WILLIAM SESSIONS: I think it may be, but I cannot say that it's an honest approach to what they've done, because the report, itself, released in an unprecedented fashion, done the way it's done, shows me that there is a contrivance. When you are called at a quarter till 4 on the day that the attorney general is leaving the office and told that he adopts a report, that you will get the redacted copy the following Tuesday --

DAVID BRINKLEY: Can you explain the word "redacted" for our viewers.

WILLIAM SESSIONS: Edited, which is blacked out, great portions of it, you get that the following Tuesday, and at the same moment I got it, the media got it. The following day was the Inauguration Day, all right? The following day I began to respond or prepare to respond, and I have responded, three days later.

MR. LEHRER: Director Sessions still has five years to serve of a ten-year term and only the President can dismiss him. A spokesman for President Clinton has termed the charges against Sessions "disturbing." We have two views of what's going on. Congressman Don Edwards, Democrat of California, is chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee which overseas the FBI. He's also a former FBI agent. George Terwilliger is the former deputy attorney general under William Barr. He oversaw the Office of Special Responsibility which wrote the Sessions report. Mr. Terwilliger, Mr. Sessions says these are basically small things he is accused of doing. Do you agree with that characterization?

MR. TERWILLIGER: Unfortunately, I can't agree with that characterization, Jim. What's really at issue here is how the taxpayer's money ought to be spent and what's proper and what's not. If these were isolated incidents and perhaps some isolated lapses in judgment, we might have a different situation. But what the OPR report found --

MR. LEHRER: That's the Office --

MR. TERWILLIGER: The Office of Professional Responsibility.

MR. LEHRER: -- of Professional Responsibility.

MR. TERWILLIGER: And it's important to remember that this investigation was conducted by career Justice Department employees, both in the Justice Department, itself, as well as in the FBI. These are the same people who have gone after high ranking officials of both political parties, including a former attorney general. What the report found was a pattern of abuse, and that's what's really at issue here, is what kind of judgment is represented by this pattern. For example, the report details the director taking several trips to the West Coast in the FBI airplane. Those trips cost about $20,000 apiece. And the report finds based on a very thorough investigation, interviews with scores of people, including many under oath and so forth, that part of the reason for these trips was, was not business. And, in fact, in one case, the director stayed for a long period of time, three or four days, and conducted no business. But even if there was business, the report found, the investigators concluded that the business was an add-on, that the basic purpose of the trip was personal.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Terwilliger, what prompted this investigation in the first place?

MR. TERWILLIGER: There were two letters that were received early last summer, one from an anonymous source that was sent to the White House, and a copy to the attorney general, another from an author who was researching and doing a book on Director Sessions in the FBI who came across some of the allegations that are now addressed in the report. That was referred both to the criminal division of the Justice Department, which concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing, and to our Office of Professional Responsibility, which is charged with the duty of investigating these sorts of things, and they undertook a long and involved investigation. The allegation that somehow this was a late hit by an outgoing attorney general really doesn't wash for several reasons. One, the fact of the matter is that the director's own action delayed the completion of the investigation. He delayed the interview which spanned a period of days with him on a couple of occasions, so that added some time right near the end of the investigation. Secondly, it's somewhat ironic that, that some Democratic members of Congress would now be saying that this was a late hit by an outgoing attorney general on the director of the FBI and that there's some personal animus behind this when, in fact, the Democrats have been criticizing us for not adequately managing the Department. That point was made very strongly during Ms. Baird's confirmation hearings, that they needed strong management. Well, this was a management issue that the outgoing attorney general felt like he needed to deal with on his watch. And thirdly, the fact of the matter is that this investigation was not commenced by Attorney General Barr. It was not characterized by Attorney General Barr. It was commenced as a result of the letters I mentioned and done by career professionals, and the attorney general adopted the results of a thorough report.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman Edwards, you've heard what Mr. Terwilliger had said about this investigation. How would you characterize it, and what do you think is going on?

REP. EDWARDS: Well, Jim, I have a letter from a longtime African- American employee at the FBI today that characterized this report and the way it's been handled by Attorney General Barr as a lynching, and perhaps that is as close as I could describe it also. It's certainly a hit and run by Attorney General Barr, who on a Friday afternoon sent a letter and immediately released it to the press at the same time he delivered it to Director Sessions. And then on Tuesday he delivered this long report and to Director Sessions, and let the press have it, so he had no opportunity to respond for several days when over the weekend there had been leaks from the Department of Justice and from, apparently from Attorney General Barr so that the headlines in the Washington Post and other, other newspapers all over the country was that this letter was accusing the director of misconduct.

MR. LEHRER: Well, Congressman, what is your reading of the charges, the specific charges against Director Sessions? Mr. Terwilliger mentioned some of them. The one that he particularly outlined, for instance, the flying to California and other places but what he says was basically, according to the report, was basically personal business, and Director Sessions tacked on business onto that, each one of those trips costing the taxpayers $20,000.

REP. EDWARDS: Well, I have served in Congress under all the directors of the FBI, and Director Sessions is by far the best. I have always found him credible and the members of the Judiciary Committee with whom I serve have always found him credible. He says those charges are not true or at least need explanation. And I have no reason to doubt Director Sessions' assertions. All I am asking for is that President Clinton who apparently is going to make the decision provide Director Sessions with due process because he's certainly not getting due process with all of these accusations with no real opportunity to respond. You know, there are politics, a lot of politics over in the Department of Justice, and to some extent in the FBI. Director Sessions insisted on being an independent FBI director, which attorneys generals don't like. And Congress intended that the director be independent, and that's why a number of years ago we required a ten-year tenure so that the director would be outside of politics. Director Sessions moved ahead in a number of areas that ruffled feathers in the FBI and the Department of Justice, and it seems to me that they need exploring too.

MR. LEHRER: In other words, you think that's what's behind this, that he is independent, they didn't like the way he operated, so they set out to get him?

REP. EDWARDS: I'm only saying, Jim, that President Clinton should look very carefully at this, the background of this so-called "report," look at the, what the report alleges and at Director Sessions' responses, because he says they're not true and just because people at the Department of Justice say they are true, I say there are a lot of politics in it, and they ought to be examined with care.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Terwilliger, if, in fact, President Clinton and his people, which Mr. Newsbaum, who's the general counsel at the White House, is reportedly now looking at this report, and does exactly what Congressman Edwards says, look at what caused this to happen in the first place, what are they going to find?

MR. TERWILLIGER: They're not going to find any politics. What they're going to find is a thorough investigation. There's no personal animus on the part of the attorney general or me or anyone else for Director Sessions. I actually think the world of him as an individual and as a human being.

MR. LEHRER: Why is it that -- what is it that you would cite as evidence, Congressman Edwards, that there was personal animus?

REP. EDWARDS: Well, Director Sessions had been independent. For example, he didn't support the Crime Bill, the Crime Bill that President Bush wanted, with great enthusiasm, hardly any at all, because it, because in the original Crime Bill there was no gun control. Well, Director Sessions, like most sensible police people, are in favor of gun control because cops get shot. And I'm sure that there's evidence that there was animosity in the Department of Justice and in the White House because of Director Sessions' insistence on being independent.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Terwilliger, now that was well documented at the time, that you all really did not like Mr. Sessions' attitude on the Crime Bill.

MR. TERWILLIGER: I think we disagreed with him on a professional basis, but I think we disagree among ourselves within an administration on a professional basis routinely. Reasonable people reasonably disagree. But what that charge and what Chairman Edwards is saying, Jim, ignores is the facts that are in the report. And the facts really speak for themselves in this matter.

MR. LEHRER: And you have read the report, have you not, Congressman?

REP. EDWARDS: Yes. And Director Sessions denies the facts alleged in the report, and his credibility has always been 100 percent with us. So I'm not saying anything about the charges. All I say is that he deserves due process, and certainly the conduct of Attorney General Barr, who one of my good colleagues in the House of Representatives described it as throwing a stink bomb and disappearing, he hasn't been heard of since.

MR. LEHRER: Why did he do it? Why did your boss do it this way, literally on the last day in the office?

MR. TERWILLIGER: Jim, the investigation started in the summer. We all would wish for a variety of reasons that we were still around to deal with the completion of this matter. I think the attorney general felt obligated, and I certainly join him in sentiment, that we needed to finish the business that occurred on our watch. We did not ask that the Director be fired. The attorney general received a report, reviewed it and directed that certain remedial actions be taken, and I think the fact that the Director, at least as I understand it, has publicly said that he will comply with those remedial actions, must constitute some admission that some of these facts are, in fact, true, and that there is justification for some of the conclusions that the attorney general drew in making the direction for remedial action that he did. The fact that we couldn't complete the business in terms of whatever other action is appropriate is really just a function of the timing of the matter --

MR. LEHRER: The main complaint that Congressman Edwards and others have made and Mr. Sessions has made that he was given a copy of the report the same time, or the letter that Attorney Gen. Barr, which is a really hot letter by the way -- it's a very direct, accusatory letter to Mr. Sessions -- was released to the press at the same time it was given to Mr. Sessions. Why is -- is that normal procedure, or why was it done that way?

MR. TERWILLIGER: It's not normal procedure to, to have the Director of the FBI in the center of this kind of controversy so what's normal is somewhat irrelevant in these circumstances. But the fact of the matter is that the director was given a great deal of latitude and opportunity to answer these charges through the course of the investigation, including multi days of interviews. He has had more due process than any other Justice Department employee would get in these circumstances.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman Edwards, you heard that, that he's had more due process than anybody.

REP. EDWARDS: He hasn't had due process because he hasn't had the opportunity to refute the charges, and he says the charges are either false or erroneous, and that is what we're hoping that President Clinton will give him, and I'm sure he will. I have great trust in --

MR. TERWILLIGER: If the issue that Chairman Edwards is putting forth, Jim, is should President Clinton look at this and listen to the director, well, of course, he should. If I was his counsel, I would tell him to do so, but I don't think that addresses the issue of what are the facts that are in the report. And that seems to be what Congressman Edwards is disagreeing with, without apparently being willing to say so.

MR. LEHRER: Well, now just so everybody -- we have to end it here -- but I just want to make sure before we go that everybody understand -- this is strictly up to the President, right, Congressman Edwards?

REP. EDWARDS: That's correct.

MR. LEHRER: I mean, he is -- there's not going to be any public hearings or whatever. There's nothing you could do about it. If President Clinton decides to fire Sessions, that's the end of it, right? If he decides to keep him, that's the end of it?

REP. EDWARDS: That's correct. And incidentally, there is no criminal conduct charged. It's mostly charges of sort of impropriety which Director Sessions denies.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Congressman, Mr. Terwilliger, thank you both.

MR. TERWILLIGER: Thank you, Jim.

MR. MacNeil: Still ahead on the NewsHour, the U.N. at a crossroads and an interview with Secretary General Boutros- Ghali. FOCUS - AT A CROSSROADS

MR. MacNeil: We devote the rest of the program tonight to the new and expanding missions of the United Nations and its Secretary General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Founded in the closing days of World War II, the U.N. was often stymied by Cold War politics in the decades after. The end of the Cold War appeared to re-energize the United Nations, making active all over the world. But this brought controversy to the organization and to its Secretary General, Egyptian diplomat Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who took over last year. We'll talk to Mr. Boutros-Ghali after this report by Charlayne Hunter-Gault.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It has been the United Nations winter of discontent. At its epicenter U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali facing in recent weeks hostile reception in many of the trouble spots he has been trying to calm around the world. In Bonn and in Bosnia, where he was bringing a message of hope, he was assaulted with words like "murderer, murderer," as well as with tomatoes, eggs and lemons. The temperature rose when the Bosnian deputy prime minister was assassinated while under the protection of U.N. troops, this on the heels of Somalia in the capital Mogadishu, Boutros-Ghali had to be rescued by Marine helicopter after an angry Somali crowd attempted to storm the U.N. compound. Against this backdrop, some 13 U.N. peacekeeping missions around the world from El Salvador to Cambodia are fraying at the edges. After such a promising start following the Gulf War, the question is why. How much of it is due to the growing pains of the new world order and the U.N. role in it? How much of it is due to the nature of the blunt, outspoken Secretary General. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger echoes the widespread view that the problem is primarily the new complexities of a world order that is far from orderly.

HENRY KISSINGER, Former Secretary of State: Totally new trouble spots all over the world, and many of them have been assigned to the United Nations, but the United Nations really has not yet developed a mechanism to indicate a political sense of direction of where it is going to go, so that Boutros-Ghali becomes a symbol for frustration in many places, rather than a symbol for hope, because the U.N. appears, it puts in sort of a makeshift operation, but neither in Bosnia nor in Somalia was it really able to dissolve the fundamental problem because that requires big power cooperation.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The break-up of the Soviet Union and thawing of relations between the two biggest powers has generally led to greater superpower cooperation at the United Nations but also to the predominance of the United States. Former U.N. Ambassador Don McHenry argues that the expectations created by the end of the Cold War have not been brought into line with political reality.

DONALD McHENRY, Former U.N. Ambassador: The U.N. today, just as yesterday, is no more than what its members will allow it to be. And when its members won't allow it to do certain things, you can't do that. It can't solve the problem about a single soldier, except those that are put at its disposal by its members. So if its members are reluctant to act, then the U.N. is incapable of acting. In Somalia, you have the same thing.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It was only after five months of delay and debate that the U.N. was able to deploy troops to Somalia, a delay many attributed to the United States. U.S. officials insist that the delay was only a debate over who would pay for the guards. Already the U.S. owes some $410 million in unpaid dues and peacekeeping costs. That's out of a total some $1 billion owed by other members. But some U.N. watchers argue that the biggest issue is not the big bill but the deployment of troops in new circumstances. Holly Burkhalter of Human Rights Watch.

HOLLY BURKHALTER, Human Rights Watch: I think that there was also a concern that this was new for the U.N., it is new. It's risky. The potential for failure I think is high. The world has never had to deal with imposing U.N. troops where there is no peace to keep.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Whatever the reason, the U.N. suffered the consequences. The five hundred Pakistani troops it sent in were confined to the Mogadishu Airport and almost casual duty, this in stark contrast to the arrival of a larger, more aggressive U.S.- led force. McHenry is among those who argue that this action underscored the U.N.'s powerlessness.

DONALD McHENRY: The U.N. force there gets a reputation of being a rather timid, inadequate force. That's -- that reputation is reinforced when we put in twenty-four or twenty-eight thousand Americans and other soldiers. They are the ones now who have power, strength. The U.N. is looked upon as rather weak.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But Ed Luck, president of the U.N. Association, says the U.N.'s problems have to do with much more than the fact that the U.N. has little muscle.

EDWARD LUCK, U.N. Association: The U.N. is going in before there's a peace treaty, before there's an agreement, while there's still fighting going on trying to make a difference. It's one thing if the U.N. has a more passive role as in the past where you would send peacekeepers after there was an agreement, after there was a treaty, after everyone was getting along. Then the U.N. would try to keep the peace. This is much tougher. They're going in where there are deep hatreds, where governments have collapsed, where there are really intractable problems, and the U.N. is bound to be controversial.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: At the heart of much of the controversy is the issue of sovereignty. The U.N. Charter draws the line at interfering in the domestic affairs of member states. Now cases like Bosnia, for example, present a challenge that is tearing at the heart of the U.N. Charter.

EDWARD LUCK: The member states have not wanted the U.N. to take a more muscular, a more aggressive, a more military approach there. They have not tried to reverse the aggression, so the U.N. in Sarajevo I think is caught between a rock and a hard place. And any Secretary General, they would have had a hard time.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But the U.N. doesn't have just any Secretary General. Seventy-year-old Boutros Boutros-Ghali is attempting to usher his organization into this new post Cold War era by overhauling the United Nations from within, by trying to streamline the cumbersome bureaucracy. He has also put forward a bold new blueprint for change, an agenda for peace issued last fall. It calls for a United Nations that would respond to the growing problems of the world before they become crises. He calls it preventive diplomacy. One of the supporters for some of Boutros- Ghali's reform plans is Olara Otunnu, a former U.N. ambassador from Uganda, now head of the New York-based International Peace Academy.

OLARA OTUNNU, International Peace Academy: He's also put forward another idea which is that there should be enforcement units belonging to the United Nations which would do something peacekeepers do not now do. When you have a cease-fire, the parties agree to it, and if somewhere along the line a cease-fire breaks down, what does the United Nations do, the Secretary General is proposing this time that there should be a unit of force which would help and force the cease-fire to which parties have agreed and not allow things to break down willy nilly.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The idea of having a standard force for the U.N. is not new. It was in the original charter but never activated. With such a force, the U.N. would be able to cross sovereign borders and enter into problem areas like Somalia early and hopefully avert a crisis. The force, quite simply, would allow the U.N. to take on the role of the world policemen. Mohamed Hakki, an Egyptian journalist and longtime friend of Boutros-Ghali explains.

MOHAMED HAKKI, Egyptian Journalist: And he's saying, for God's sake, we are facing the world where these problems are erupting at the speed of one every week or so. You have 52 problems every year. Who is going to take care of these? The U.S. has a domestic problem. We don't want your boys and girls out there in Somalia forever. But he says, okay, fine, I respect that. But we have to have someone to put this country together, back again. He used to tell me whenever we talked about one of these countries, he said, "Mohamed, it looks like a Swiss watch that has been broken all over the table." Who's going to put it back together.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The current approach, Otunnu says, is not working.

OLARA OTUNNU: We really can't have a situation which we begin to organize a hierarchy of human tragedy, you know, which should be tackled, whether it should be Somalia, or should be Yugoslavia, and which is more tragic. This is not the approach I think which should be taken. What we should seek to do is put at the disposal of the United Nations the political and organizational and financial resources to make it possible for the organization to respond to all major situations of armed conflict and human sacrifice.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It is widely agreed that the only power capable of meeting those requirements today is the United States, but it is a role some say the U.S. is ambivalent about.

DONALD McHENRY: We cannot on the one hand say when a situation arises that we're the only ones capable of projecting power, and on the other hand, say we don't want to be the world's policemen. If we don't want to be the only ones capable of projecting power and, therefore, have to be the world's policemen, we're going to have to do something in terms of building up the United Nations so that it can act in these situations. Otherwise we will always be as we were in Kuwait where we're the only ones who can project the power, as we are in Somalia.

EDWARD LUCK: Well, I think in an ideal world to have a division of labor, the U.S. provides military muscle and the U.N. provides the political legitimacy, but we're not in an ideal world. We're in a transition period. The U.S. is not used to relying on the U.N., for example, for military command and control, putting our soldiers in harm's way under a foreign commander. The U.N. is not used to large military operations. It doesn't really have the capability to oversee them yet. I think what you have right now is a very difficult situation where the U.S. is so much stronger, has so much more global reach than anyone else, that it's very hard for the U.S. to be just simply one among equals in the U.N. in a multilateral system.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: For Boutros-Ghali's new agenda for peace to work, he will need the United States. But can he secure that cooperation with what some see as the confrontational approach he has taken? In short, is Boutros Boutros-Ghali the right man for the right job at the right time? The Secretary General's supporters see him as a man with a clear agenda and the tools to accomplish it.

MOHAMED HAKKI: I don't think there is any man in the diplomatic let's say field, if you scan the whole spectrum of politicians from around the world, that you can compare to Boutros-Ghali's qualifications for the job today, and I'll tell you why. Personally, he is almost like -- he is someone that you can call a citizen of the world. They described him as personally a walking United Nations in himself. There is no one -- there is no other person that I can think of who has more friends among -- I mean, he probably knows a hundred presidents among the 166 countries, and he knows all of the foreign ministers on a first name basis. They all know him.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But others who have been watching him are not quite as taken with him. Journalist Josh Friedman argues that Boutros-Ghali got off on the wrong foot from the beginning of his tenure.

JOSH FRIEDMAN, Journalist: He didn't pay attention to a lot of the little niceties, meeting with the middle and the little people that you have to meet with, and so there has been a welling up of bad feelings about him in this building that has reached the point of intense rancidity.

HENRY KISSINGER: Boutros-Ghali seems to have a rather imperious way of proceeding, and he puts himself forward very often as the solution when he's really theoretically or practically the agent of a group of nations, and he makes proposals which my impression is he hasn't really discussed with the nations that have to carry them out and tries to stampede them into doing it. And he has to be careful not to get too far out in front of an international consensus. And I'm struck by the fact that when he makes his various declarations as he moves around the world, I don't find any government saying, right no, Boutros-Ghali. They're letting him hang out there, and that indicates that either he hasn't consulted them enough, which I think is likely, or they don't agree with him.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Last summer, Boutros-Ghali stunned the diplomatic community when he chided the members of the Security Council for being eurocentric because of their focus on Yugoslavia at the expense of Somalia. At a recent news conference, the Secretary General addressed some of his critics.

BOUTROS BOUTROS-GHALI: [December 1992] I'm trying to treat all the situation under equal foot. I don't pretend to be successful. It is not easy.

SPOKESMAN: And yet you consider the Bosnia situation as the rich man's war.

BOUTROS BOUTROS-GHALI: No, I never say this, but at this time I was trying to say we must not pay too much attention at the expense of Somalia. Tomorrow I will be -- in the case I will say we must not pay attention too much to Somalia at the expense of what is going on in other countries. This is my position.

HENRY KISSINGER: In fairness to him, he's caught in, in a tough problem. He sees these situations developing. He hears rumblings in the U.N. that something ought to be done, and in the end they don't do it. And so I'm not sure he has just struck the right balance between the degree of leadership that is needed and, and creating the consensus. But we are living now in a quite unprecedented world for which nothing in the previous 40 years prepares us. NEWSMAKER

MR. MacNeil: Now to our Newsmaker interview with Mr. Boutros- Ghali. He joins us from the United Nations headquarters. Mr. Secretary General, thank you for joining us.

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: Thank you.

MR. MacNeil: What do you think about some of these observations? Have you struck the right balance between leadership and creating consensus? Have you learned something about that in the last few months?

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: I am trying. You see, this is only my first year, and I still have four or more years, but what is important, as it was mentioned, there is a new situation, and this new situation needs new concepts, a new mechanism. And we are passing through a period of transition. But the very fact that the United Nations have been so much criticized and the Secretary General have been so much criticized, this is proof that the United Nations is active. A few years ago nobody was talking about the United Nations. Now, the United Nations is the object of discussion. The Secretary General is received somewhere in Mogadishu or is welcome somewhere in other countries, and this proves that the United Nations is active, is playing a new role.

MR. MacNeil: Is it so active that it's very overextended for its resources and can't do any one job really effectively and decisively and thus, may gain a reputation not only for activism but ineffectuality? Is that a danger?

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: It is a danger, but I disagree about the fact that we have not been successful. We have ups and downs. In many cases we have been successful. We have been successful in Salvador. We have been successful in Cambodia just because we have been able to bring back 360,000 refugees. We have been successful in Angola until the first of November, and then an accident happened. So we must accept that we will have ups and downs.

MR. MacNeil: But in Cambodia, which you just mentioned, the Khmer Rouge is thumbing its nose at the United Nations.

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: Yes.

MR. MacNeil: And has captured some of your, repeatedly, some of your people.

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: Yes. They have been released, and we are continuing the operation, and we will have the election next April, and furthermore, there is no war. You cannot compare the situation in Cambodia before the presence of the United Nations and after the presence of the United Nations. So I agree with you. We have failed in many cases, but we must not underestimate the successes.

MR. MacNeil: Just on the personal notes again and then go on to some of these other issues, how do you respond to the criticism - - you heard Mr. Kissinger again mention it -- that you're considered imperious in your manner, not as diplomatic in the way you've gone about things as your predecessors have been, and that you've alienated people that way?

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: One, the situation is new, and secondly, I believe that according to the charter of the United Nations, the Secretary General is an organ of the United Nations. He has his own will according to Article 99. He can just give his opinion, and he's asked daily by the members of the Security Council to write reports, to provide basic information. So I believe that the role I am trying to play is in conformity with the charter. Furthermore, nothing could be decided without the agreement of the members of the Security Council.

MR. MacNeil: Do you think the new world situation calls for the Secretary General to be not just a passive servant and executor of Security Council votes and wishes but the Council's motivator, prompting it to act when he sees it necessary?

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: Yes, certainly.

MR. MacNeil: More now than in the past, do you think?

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: Not necessarily more now than in the past, because it depends on each situation. Supposing that the International Community is not aware in a situation somewhere in Country A. The role of the Secretary General is to create this awareness, is to obtain the mobilization and the sensitization of the international public opinion on what is going on in Country A. But the final decision will be taken by the general assembly or by the Security Council.

MR. MacNeil: Turning to some of the cases, you mentioned some failures, would you say that the Somalia situation was a failure for the United Nations?

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: No, no, it was not a failure. The proof that you are able to distribute the food, the proof that you have been able to have an international conference at the beginning of the year in Adis Ababa. We are preparing the transition. The unified command will be replaced by the United Nations. We are, we are being successful in a good cooperation within the unified command and the United Nations here in New York and in Washington, on the ground, we have been able to, in spite of the absence of government -- there is nothing in Mogadishu -- everything had been destroyed -- we have been able to organize the coordination between the different non-governmental organizations. It will be, it will be a very long and difficult operation. It will take, I will say openly, years before we'll be -- we'll be able to contribute to the reconstruction of the country, the formation of a new government, a reconciliation between twelve or fourteen or sixteen factions.

MR. MacNeil: Some would say, looking at the record over the past few weeks, that the U.S. Special Envoy, Mr. Robert Oakley, backed by the U.S. and other troops there, has been more effective than your special representatives in getting the factions together and in securing situations under which there can be truces and the food can move in.

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: No. It is agreed, I believe, but both of them are cooperating and each of him is doing his own work, one with the unified command. Our special representative is preparing for the future, whichis the reconciliation of tomorrow. There is a difference between an institution of reconciliation and an ad hoc reconciliation between two factions for the next few days.

MR. MacNeil: All right. Mr. Oakley today said that the U.N. is dragging its feet in taking over from the United States.

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: No. I disagree with him. On the contrary, you have to ask Washington, who know better than their men in Mogadishu.

MR. MacNeil: Well, when will your force be ready to take over from the U.S. troops and other troops?

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: We are negotiating now with the unified command, and I hope that in the next few weeks we will be able to find -- first of all, we will have to agree on the transition, because the withdrawal of the unified command will not happen -- it will happen on the step by step approach -- and we will have to work together for a period of transition of four, five, or six months, and then I hope that we'll still have an American presence in the future when the United Nations will replace the unified command.

MR. MacNeil: You hope that the American presence will be part of the United Nations force?

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: I hope so, certainly.

MR. MacNeil: Has Washington agreed to that?

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: We are still negotiating with Washington. All the information I have that I hope that we will be able to obtain the participation of the United States.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Oakley also said the U.S. and some other countries are urging you to appoint a senior and respected figure for Somalia as represented say by former Secretary Vance and Lord Owen in the Bosnian situation. Are you -- are you going to do that?

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: Yeah, but I believe the special representative is a senior figure. He was the former president of the general assembly. He has worked as director of the cabinet of the former Secretary General of the United Nations. He knows the United Nations. You see what is important is to find somebody who belongs to the United Nations, because you will do a work of coordination with the different agencies. You will have to do work with the different programs of the United Nations. If you bring someone who has never worked in the United Nations, this will certainly complicate the whole work, because it is a team work. What we will do in Somalia will be de-militarization, will be rehabilitation, return of refugees, reconstruction, the formation of a new local police. This will be the result of the cooperation between five, six, seven agencies and programs of the United Nations.

MR. MacNeil: And do you think Mr. Gatani, your present special representative, has the authority and the confidence of other people to carry that out?

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: Oh, yes, certainly, without a doubt. And furthermore, he speaks Arabic and he knows to speak to the people of the region.

MR. MacNeil: Turning to Yugoslavia, the one success for the United Nations has been the relative peace in Croatia for the past year overseen by Mr. Vance and a U.N. force. That has now broken down with the Croatians' offensive. Do you think the time has come where some additional outside force, U.S. or other countries, is going to be needed there as in Somalia to enforce U.N. resolutions?

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: I believe that -- we discussed this this afternoon at the formal meeting of the Security Council, and I believe that in the next few minutes or the next hour, we will have a presidential declaration. But this has to be discussed by the Security Council. Certainly we welcome additional troops on the ground, and we need additional troops. We want to maintain peace and at least we want to maintain the cease-fire in ex- Yugoslavia.

MR. MacNeil: Do I understand you that, you're talking about, referring to the president of the Security Council --

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: Yes.

MR. MacNeil: -- will make a request to member states to provide additional troops?

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: No, no, I am not saying this. This has to be discussed by the Security Council.

MR. MacNeil: I see.

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: But you have already asked additional forces a few weeks ago, and we will welcome additional forces, but this again has to be coordinated with the existing forces and maybe we need a new mandate, because the mandate we received is a mandate of peacekeeping forces and not peace enforcement.

MR. MacNeil: Do the signals you get from the Clinton administration suggest that they would be more sympathetic to providing U.S. forces than, than the Bush administration was?

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: I still have not met the Secretary of State. I hope to see him in the next few days and at this time I will be able to give you an answer.

MR. MacNeil: What hopes to you have of the Clinton administration generally regarding support for the United Nations?

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: One, more support to the United Nations and secondly, to accept that the United Nations will have to play an important role because you have a new situation in the post Cold War and this new situation needs new actions, and this new action of the United Nations will need new support and financial support, military support, and, above all, political and diplomatic support. And without the United States, the United Nations will not be able to play this new role.

MR. MacNeil: Do you expect American backing for your plan to create this quick response force, this enforcement unit that Charlayne referred to in her, in her report?

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: I have already received the backing of certain European countries, of France, of the Scandinavian countries. I was in Germany. I discussed with the Germans. They still have constitution problems. And I hope to obtain the backing of the United States, which will be very important. And after all, what they have done in Somalia is a proof that they have backed the operation in Somalia. But what I need is to have, to know this in advance.

MR. MacNeil: As you see it, would they remain a national force, on call from the various nations, or forces seconded to the United Nations, sitting there, under U.N. command, wearing blue helmets and waiting for your orders to send them.

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: First of all, they will not be my orders. They will be the orders of the Security Council. The decision is taken by the Security Council. But I believe that each member state will earmark certain forces which will be at the disposal of the Security Council or at the disposal of the United Nations, rather than to begin a long negotiation and to compose international forces and then to find the way to do the transport of these international forces on the ground, which would take between two to four or to five months. If everything could be prearranged, then the whole operation could be done in a few days, and each member state will have among its own national forces a certain regiment of certain rapid deployment forces which will be trained to participate in United Nations operations.This will not change dramatically the situation which exists today, but the difference is that we will be able to do an operation in few days or let us say few weeks, rather that we are compelled to do it now in three, four, five and six months.

MR. MacNeil: Is there a danger that this window of opportunity that you and many see to the United Nations, the end of the Cold War, the new situation in the world, may be lost because it is -- until you have the mechanisms you're talking about, it's so difficult for the United Nations to look decisive and effective and therefore people may just lose faith in its efficacy?

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: I disagree. The United Nations have been very much decisive in many operations. The difficulty is not the fact that the United Nations had not been decisive. The difficulty is that we need more technical, financial and military assistance. And after all, the United Nations is -- what is the United Nations -- is the member states of the United Nations. So if the member states of the United Nations, and among them the important member states of the United Nations, are ready to give a new role to the United Nations, then the United Nations will have this new role. If for many reasons they are not interested and they prefer to solve the problem outside the frame work of the United Nations, then the United Nations will not be able to play this new role.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Mr. Secretary General, thank you very much for joining us.

SECRETARY GENERAL BOUTROS-GHALI: Thank you. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the economy was recovering but there were still obstacles. Labor Secretary Robert Reich said the Clinton administration was considering a fifteen to twenty-five billion dollar economic stimulus plan as well as an extension of unemployment benefits. And, as we just heard on the NewsHour, U.N. Secretary General Boutros-Ghali said it might take another four to six months before U.S. troops in Somalia can be replaced by U.N. forces. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.