The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

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

MR. MUDD: And I'm Roger Mudd in Washington. After the News Summary tonight, we go first to the confirmation of Joycelyn Elders to be surgeon general. We have excerpts of today's Senate hearings and a debate. Then we look at the week in politics. Mark Shields is joined by journalist Suzanne Fields, and Elizabeth Brackett reports on the levee system along the Mississippi. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Dr. Joycelyn Elders finally got a hearing today. The nominee for surgeon general appeared before the Senate Labor Committee this morning following a week's delay. That was for investigators and Senators to look into some of her financial dealings. She had also received criticism from conservatives for her outspoken views on abortion and contraception. Today she told the committee her goal was to put prevention at the top of the nation's health priorities, and she said she would be the voice and vision for the poor and powerless. We will have more on the story right after the News Summary. The Senate Judiciary Committee wrapped up its confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg today. She met with committee members this morning behind closed doors to answer questions on personal matters. The meeting lasted just 20 minutes. The committee plans to vote on the nomination next week. Roger.

MR. MUDD: Heavy rains overnight kept flooded rivers of the Midwest at record levels today. The Mississippi was cresting for about 200 miles from Grafton, Illinois, to Cape Girardeau, Missouri. The Army Corps of Engineers said it could be weeks or even months before the Mississippi and its tributaries dropped below flood levels. The floods, which began six weeks ago, have killed at least 33 people and have caused an estimated $10 billion in damage. We'll have more on the flood story later in the program. A $3 billion flood aid bill has been held up in the House by a dispute over how to pay for it. The vote is not expected now until next week. President Clinton minimized the procedural problems in the House as he left Washington today to attend the Little Rock funeral of Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I don't think we should read too much into that. Let's wait and see what happens next week. There are people in the House that have very strong feelings about the procedures by which matters should be brought to vote and debated. And I think that's what's going on. I wouldn't read too much into that one way or the other.

MR. MUDD: Raging monsoon floods continued to spread across South Asia today, pushing the death toll to near 1800 in Nepal, Bangladesh, and Northern India. The northern region of India was cut off from the rest of the country for a fourth day as floods blocked roads and rails, and rain halted flights. Millions of people have been left homeless. At least 6 million have been forced into refugee camps in India alone.

MR. LEHRER: John Major is still the prime minister of Great Britain. He won a parliamentary vote of confidence today. Major called the vote a way to win the parliament's backing for ratification of the union -- of the European Union Treaty. The vote ended a 19-month battle for parliamentary approval of the treaty which must be ratified by all 12 EC nations to take effect. There was more heavy shelling in Sarajevo today. The Serb attacks on the Bosnian capital postponed plans to begin a new round of peace talks in Geneva. Those talks were supposed to begin today, but Bosnia's Muslim president said he would not attend until the Sarajevo fighting stopped. The U.N. Security Council last night also demanded an end to the bombardment which was one of the worst of the 16-month old civil war.

MR. MUDD: FBI officials today said they have arrested a fugitive wanted in the alleged plot to blow up the United Nations and other New York City targets. The man, an Egyptian, was arrested yesterday at a seaside motel in southern New Jersey. He was arraigned this afternoon and will be sent to New York, where he will join ten others facing federal charges in the conspiracy. He was identified as Madarowi Mohamed Saleh, but his role in the alleged plot has not been spelledo ut. A second man was arrested yesterday for harboring Saleh. Also today, the U.S. government offered a $2 million reward for information leading to the arrest of a fugitive in the World Trade Center bombing. A State Department spokesman said Rami Ahmed Youssef is one of six suspects charged in the case and is believed to have fled the country for the Middle East. The February 26th attack killed six people and injured more than a thousand.

MR. LEHRER: At least 53 people died today when an airliner crashed into a lake in northern China. A Chinese news agency said the domestic flight crashed shortly after take-off from an airport about 600 miles west of Beijing. One hundred and eight passengers and five crew members were on board. No explanation has been given for the crash. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the debate over Dr. Elders, congressional frictions and other analysis from Mark Shields and Suzanne Fields, and a report about levees. FOCUS - ON CALL

MR. LEHRER: The debate over the woman who would be surgeon general of the United States is our lead story tonight. Hearings on the nomination of Dr. Joycelyn Elders began today before the Senate Labor Committee. Dr. Elders was the Arkansas Health Commissioner, so appointed by then Gov. Bill Clinton. His desire to bring her to Washington has set off an effort among Republicans and others to keep that from happening. We will sample the debate about her fitness to be surgeon general after this set- up report on today's hearing by Kwame Holman.

MR. HOLMAN: When the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee convened this morning to hear from Joycelyn Elders, commitee chairman Edward Kennedy knew this first session would be a short one.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY, Chairman, Labor and Human Resources Committee: [9:37 a.m.] I've been notified by the majority leader just a few moments ago that there's been an objection to this committee meeting beyond the hour of 10 o'clock.

MR. HOLMAN: The objection was made by Sen. Don Nickels of Oklahoma, the head of the Republican Policy Committee but not a member of this committee. However, Nickles was able to invoke a rarely used rule that can prevent committees from meeting while the full Senate is in session. Chairman Kennedy clearly was angered.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: It's a shame for this institution to have that kind of a, a policy, but it does exist, and quite frankly, we're going to, to deal with it in the only way that we know how, and that is with fairness to the nominee, and so I would suggest to all of my colleagues on this committee that they cancel whatever plans they might have had through the afternoon, through the evening, and through tomorrow, because that is the way that we are going to proceed on this committee. I'm not going to be part of an effort to put this over for another week, another day, and to permit the scurrilous accusations to be made against this, this nominee.

MR. HOLMAN: What Kennedy called scurrilous included reports that Elders and her husband failed to pay Social Security taxes for a full-time nurse for his mother and that Joycelyn Elders had arranged to get a loan from a bank where she was a member of the board of directors. Sen. Kennedy charged the objection to the hearing was part of a Republican delay and harass strategy against the Elders nomination.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: There are Senators who are in the situation where on television they're raising questions and under the Senate rules, Dr. Elders won't even have an opportunity to make a presentation.

MR. HOLMAN: Kennedy's charge drew an immediate response from the Republicans on his committee.

SEN. DAN COATS, [R] Indiana: I would also object to the Senator saying that, except for Sen. Kassebaum, Republicans have some conspiracy going here to trash Dr. Elders. That's not true at all.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: I didn't say that members of this party --

SEN. DAN COATS: You said the Republican Party has vicious, scurrilous accusations against Dr. Elders, and that's not true.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: That is -- I said that the Republican Party --

SEN. DAN COATS: There's no party conspiracy to do this.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: -- member objected --

SEN. DAN COATS: You didn't say that.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: Well, I'm saying that right now.

SEN. DAN COATS: It sounds to me like your complaint is with a member of the Republican Party and not with the Republican members of this committee. To my knowledge, there isn't a Republican member of this committee that has objected to this hearing going forward this morning.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: Listen, I've been around here, Dan, a long time. You might believe that. Unless there's anyone else that would like to --

SEN. DAN COATS: Well, Mr. Chairman, I absolutely believe that.

MR. HOLMAN: Elders, flanked by supporters from both the Senate and the House, sat quietly through the commitee in-fighting and eventually was allowed to read her opening statement before the committee was forced to adjourn.

DR. JOYCELYN ELDERS, Surgeon General-designate: Many say that I'm a lightning rod. That's pin you see, but please know that my thunder is behind me. I appear before you today at a time when our entire nation is facing great challenges in health care. More than 37 million Americans have no health insurance. AIDS, violence, teen pregnancy, a drug resistant strain of tuberculosis, low immunization rates all indicate we've not done a very good job of protecting our nation's health. We must focus on prevention to health our nation. Prevention requires education. We can't educate people that are not healthy, and we can't keep them healthy if they're not educated. I would like now to explain what I'm about. But before I do that, I would like to address some of the issues about me that have been raised in the past few days. On the Social Security, it has been paid. My husband had power of attorney for his mother, and he handled her affairs. As to the bank, any loans I received were well below the maximum limit, they were approved as required, and made at the going rate of interest, and have all been paid. Should I be confirmed, I would like to work with each of you and all America to develop an action plan to improve the health of our country. I'm a hard worker. I'm willing to give my time and my talent. We have a great task before us, and I hope you will see fit to make me a part of your team.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: The committee will stand in recess subject to the call of the chair, and we will continue with this hearing today, this afternoon, tonight, and tomorrow until it is concluded. The committee stands in recess.

MR. HOLMAN: Soon after, Sen. Don Nickles, who forced the committee adjournment, took to the Senate floor to explain why he did so.

SEN. DON NICKLES, [R] Oklahoma: My request to Sen. Kennedy last night was not to postpone the hearing today but just to give us an additional day of hearings next week and to give us some documentation that has been requested by members of the committee and by myself. We haven't had that documentation, and in fairness to Sen. Kennedy, I don't think he has the documentation in some cases. We do not have a written FBI report. Now, it's no surprise to members of this Senate or anyone that reads the paper that this is a very controversial nominee.

MR. HOLMAN: The Senate finally recessed, and the committee was able to reconvene shortly after 1 o'clock. It was then the members' turn to question Elders about her health policy.

SEN. JAMES JEFFORDS, [R] Vermont: The question is to the effectiveness of your work with respect to teenage pregnancies. We have received the facts and information indicating that notwithstanding your efforts that there was an increase in teenage pregnancies and that, therefore, raising the questions as to the credibility of the claims that are made by your supporters that you had an effective program in teenage pregnancies. Would you respond to that, please.

DR. JOYCELYN ELDERS: Yes, sir. Thank you, Sen. Jeffords. I'd like to respond to that. I, like probably most people in America, we're all ashamed that the United States has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the industrialized world. And I'm not very proud that Arkansas has the second highest in the United States. I'm not bragging. I'm not proud about that. You see, we've not had in Arkansas a comprehensive health education program from kindergarten through twelfth grade. You know, we'd have to start it, and it would take twelve years I think to really say that we had true results. I'm not proud of my record, but I do feel that I've increased the awareness of the citizens of Arkansas. I feel they're committed to working with their children, and I feel that, you know, in that community that I talked about it was a commitment from the church, it was a commitment from the school, it was a commitment from the Health Department. It was a commitment to make a difference.

SEN. PAUL SIMON, [D] Illinois: One of the things that I like is you've been working on the prevention side.

DR. JOYCELYN ELDERS: Yes, sir.

SEN. PAUL SIMON: And you mentioned the school with 57 percent teenage pregnancy rate, and one of the criticisms Sen. Metzenbaum mentioned is that there were in the few schools where this was distributed condoms that were defective.

DR. JOYCELYN ELDERS: Yes, sir.

SEN. PAUL SIMON: How do you respond to that particular criticism?

DR. JOYCELYN ELDERS: The talk now is, you know, that why didn't we, you know, I guess notify the world. And you know, our feeling was, is that we had reported it to the FBI -- not FBI -- the FBA. The FDA was doing the things that they usually do in this regard, and the agreement was that there had been more breakages, we were having real trouble with, you know, getting our people all over to use condoms, and we felt that many of our young men would kind of, well, they break, they're no good, you know, rather than having a great big brubber about it, I think the decision was made at the staff level that what we would do is, you know, not just the FDA handle it in the way that they usually handle it, not go out and make a public announcement.

MR. HOLMAN: Despite Sen. Kennedy's assertions the committee might work through the weekend, he announced this afternoon the committee would adjourn but allow written questions from Senators. The committee is expected to vote on Joycelyn Elders next Friday.

MR. LEHRER: Now to our debate about Dr. Elders. Dr. Walter Faggett is a Washington, D.C., physician who has been representing the National Medical Association, an organization of black physicians in support of Dr. Elders. Kay James is vice president of the Family Research Council, a conservative lobbying group in Washington opposing the Elders nomination. She was assistant secretary for public affairs in the Bush administration's Department of Health & Human Services. Ms. James, why should Dr. Elders not be the surgeon general of the United States?

MS. JAMES: Well, you know, interestingly enough, after attending and listening to several of the sessions today, I think there are even more problems than existed before. Going into the hearing there were some concerns about former statements that she made that were controversial. Well, during the hearings today she repeated those same problemmatic statements. There were questions about the finances, and I think that the Senators said they had additional questions, they had not received the information, and listening to the line of questioning that went on, I think there are even more questions than existed before.

MR. LEHRER: Could you be specific. What is it that she said today that, that you think disqualifies her?

MS. JAMES: Well, I think first of all that to have someone that is going to be the nation's top physician make such irresponsible statements in terms of how we're going to reduce teen pregnancy in this country by saying to the teenagers of America before you go out on a date, put a condom in your pocket book, to have her, again, not walk away from the statement that she made about putting prostoglandins in the arms of -- not prostoglandins but Norplant in the arms of prostitutes so that they could trade sex for drugs shows me that there is a wreckless disregard or misunderstanding about the drug crisis in America, about sexually transmitted diseases, not to even mention the moral implications and the lifestyle choices of the prostitutes. And I think listening to the line of questioning today with Sen. Coats on some of the financial issues, it was very muddled. It was not very clear. There were contradictions, and I think those things need to be answered. We have seen other nominees go down in flames because of some of the same issues, and I think that she deserves to answer very clearly and precisely on those issues.

MR. LEHRER: Dr. Faggett, let's take these one by one. First of all, her statements that she made today about teenage pregnancy, reiterating what she said before, how do you defend Ms. James' concerns about that? Or respond to her concerns.

DR. FAGGETT: I talked with Dr. Butcher from San Diego this afternoon. I, unfortunately, was seeing patients all day and did not hear the testimony, however, we're very firm in our support of Dr. Elders. She, indeed, did have a decrease in the rate of pregnancy in the state of Arkansas. I gave rounds, grand rounds at Howe University Medical School today talking to Howe staff about how, how fortunate we were to have her being confirmed as the surgeon general, because she's establishing a tone so that we can, indeed, decrease teen pregnancy.

MR. LEHRER: What -- excuse me -- go ahead.

DR. FAGGETT: The fact that she is having the parents in Arkansas consenting so that the teenagers can have access to comprehensive care in those facilities to us is the proper way to go.

MR. LEHRER: Well, what about Ms. James' specific thing, that she does not believe that the No. 1 doctor in the country should be advising teenagers to take condoms with them when they go on dates?

DR. FAGGETT: Today in grand rounds as we talked about it, HIV, AIDS transmission is now a sexually transmitted disease. And we talked about the fact that the sensus rate has gone from 12,000 in 1985 to 21,000. We're talking about a public health problem here which requires all factors to be brought to bear to stop it to include education, condom use, and in my clinic, if I don't give my patients counseling and availability of whatever means they can use to prevent either STDs or pregnancy, then I'm doing a disservice.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Ms. James, what is your objection to, to the idea of teenagers who are intending to have sex to take condoms with them?

MS. JAMES: Well, you know, first of all, I'd like to address the fact that Dr. Elders had an opportunity as the health director of the state of Arkansas to have an impact on these issues, and her record is very clear. Under her directorship, teen pregnancy, teen birth rates in Arkansas went up. The rate of siphilus and gonhorea went up, with her policies, with her programs. I think that my objection to telling teenagers to put a condom in their purse is that it simply won't work. Studies have told us and have shown us that distributing condoms to teenagers has nothing to do with decreasing teen birth rates. It's obvious based on the experience in Arkansas that it won't work.

MR. LEHRER: Dr. Faggett, what about her additional point that she made a moment ago dealing with prostitutes, how do you respond to that concern?

DR. FAGGETT: In terms of the prostitutes?

MR. LEHRER: Of giving --

DR. FAGGETT: Getting the Norplant?

MR. LEHRER: Yes, exactly.

DR. FAGGETT: Right. Again, as most statements, it's out of context. You have to look at the total statement as it was presented. Again, she was correct in stating that the Norplants used in patients would decrease pregnancy, however, her concern is not about the issue of terminating pregnancy but, however, preventing unwanted pregnancies, assuring that those children who are born are planned. She is pro family. She is in favor of abstinence. Again, those who oppose her take things out of context, use these kinds of innacurate misrepresentations for her views, but I think she's a, she's a board-certified pediatric endocronologist, not ignorant as some folks try to portray her. The AMA would not support a person who was not well qualified, who, indeed, as a scientist is bringing, again, research capability in the public health arena. And I think it's unfair to deny the credentials of this fantastically committed person to the public arena.

MR. LEHRER: Ms. James.

MS. JAMES: I would simply encourage the American public to watch the hearings. There is no need to take anything that Dr. Elders has said out of context. I would encourage people to watch it gavel to gavel. It's not necessary to misquote or misrepresent her views. And I think she does a very good job of explaining them herself today. The problem is that as she explains them, they are just out of the mainstream of America.

MR. LEHRER: Ms. James, how much of your obection to her ceners on her pro choice position on abortion?

MS. JAMES: I, of course, as a pro life advocate on behalf of unborn children have some serious problems with her position, but I'm here to tell you there are many people in America, many Democrats who are pro choice, who I would be in a position to affirm for that and could support. I think that Dr. Elders' disqualifications have much more to do with some of the intempered statements that she's made, some of the reckless disregard that she has shown for the public health, with the defective condom scandal down in Arkansas. My problems have more to do with that.

MR. LEHRER: Dr. Faggett, what is your view of whether or not she'd handled that defective condom problem correctly in Arkansas, the one that was from the tape and you heard what Ms. James just said about, the decision --

DR. FAGGETT: That's right on target. Right. We have studies. Dr. Conus and Dr. Levy in San Francisco have good studies published in the Journal in 1989 in which it's shown that common views consistently and correctly have 100, close to 100 percent efficacy. It depends a lot on how they are used. The studies that Ms. James quotes in some of her articles about 350 patients in Europe, very inconsistent use, so again, it's a flawed study, and it's this kind of misrepresentation --

MR. LEHRER: But what about the specific point that was raised at the hearings today? It had been raised before. It was raised at the hearings today, that some faulty, defective condoms were distributed to young people in Arkansas, the Arkansas Health Department under her leadership found out about it, did not make a public announcement about it, decided to go ahead because they - - well, you heard what she said. Do you think that was the right decision to make?

DR. FAGGETT: Knowing that the use of condoms has only a ten to fourteen percent efficacy to begin with, a 5 percent error rate is really within the range of acceptability. And I would, would commit that FDA has certified that female condoms are useful, but I think in this particular instance, it's an overstatement of a non-issue. I think the opponents are now really scratching for any issue they can, because as such there's no disqualifying elements present on the table at this time.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Now, Ms. James, you mentioned earlier that you also had concerns about the financial matters involving Dr. Elders. Specifically, what bothers you the most of these, of those matters?

MS. JAMES: Well, I think when questioned and when really pressed during the hearings today, some of the answers became very muddled and very confused, and I think, I don't have the, the opportunity to look at the records, and I should not. I think that the United States Senate should. I think that they should press in, and once having done that, if they feel satisfied, then we can move on from that. But the answers today were not clear.

MR. LEHRER: Do you think the fact that, for instance, that her husband did not pay the Social Security taxes on the nurse for her -- for his mother should disqualify her?

MS. JAMES: Well, it has disqualified some previous candidates. And I sort of don't believe that we should excuse this particular nominee based on that. If we are, then we should have the same standard for everyone. And if she gets through, then I hope every future nominee will as well.

MR. LEHRER: Dr. Faggett.

DR. FAGGETT: I think there are no disqualifying points that have been brought to bear. They backed off. They know that the abortion rate went down in Arkansas from twenty -- from two thousand eighteen to seventeen thirty-eight in 1992. So again, the inaccurate misrepresentations I think will be shown to be just that as the testimony proceeds.

MR. LEHRER: What about that, Dr. Faggett, what about these personal financial things? There's the Social Security thing. There's also the matter involving the bank on which she sat on the board of directors. Do you think those are disqualifying?

DR. FAGGETT: I certainly don't. In fact, we're a lot more confident now that they have to bring up those kind of issues. To hear Sen. Nickles, again, continue character assassination on the Senate floor using these kind of things, again, to me to have your mother-in-law being taken care of by a nurse paid for out of her father -- out of the husband's estate -- it's a non-issue. And, again, to try to use it against this extremely qualified, board certified researcher, scholar, and child of poverty who brings so much to the public health arena is unacceptable.

MR. LEHRER: Ms. James, finally, as a practical matter, how important is this job, surgeon general of the United States?

MS. JAMES: Well, I think under Dr. Joycelyn Elders, if she is, in fact, confirmed it will be a much larger job. They've already said that the secretary intends to put under her auspices not only the roles and functions of the surgeon general but also those of the Office of Population Affairs and other duties as assigned, so if confirmed, she will be one of the most powerful surgeon generals in the history of this country.

MR. LEHRER: Dr. Faggett, Ms. James says, "if confirmed." Do you think her nomination is in serious jeopardy?

DR. FAGGETT: No. I'm confident again -- they're really scratching for straws at this point, and we think that her qualifications will -- you know, cream rises to the top, and as Sen. Pryor said on the Senate floor, what you see is what you get. And I think Dr. Elders is going to be her own best spokesperson in this instance.

MR. LEHRER: All right.

DR. FAGGETT: And we're very excited about the possibility. We see here as another Everett Koop, and Dr. Koop supports her. And I think that's significant.

MR. LEHRER: All right.

DR. FAGGETT: The bully pulpit of the surgeon general I think will, will help a lot of children from this point on.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. Dr. Faggett, Ms. James, thank you bothvery much for being with us. Roger.

MR. MUDD: Still ahead on the NewsHour, the week in politics and holding back the river. FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

MR. MUDD: Next some analysis of the week's political news. We are joined by our chief political analyst, Mark Shields, and Suzanne Fields, a syndicated columnist with the Washington Times. One of our political reporters, Mary Jo Brooks, said Shields and Fields, kind of like Marks and Sparks, a clothing store. This has been a pretty big week in Washington, the gay, the gays in the military policy has been announced, the firing of the FBI director, the brief and uneventful Ginsburgh hearing, someone called it our second long national nightmare, the apparent abandonment of Bosnia, and the implication, presumed implication in the House Post Office scandal of Ways & Means Committee Chairman Rostenkowski. What does all this mean for President Clinton, Suzanne?

MS. FIELDS: Well, we no longer measure him in a hundred days. He seems to have settled in. I think that this may be to his advantage. He's also bringing his own men into the FBI. That's been a real problem, and the FBI hasn't looked so good, the bureaucracy's been fighting Mr. Sessions, so here we have Judge Freeh who looks as though he's going to be able to take charge, a perfect kind of candidate that the President nominated. So in that sense, he looks pretty good. But on the gays in the military, I think he has some problems that we ought to talk about.

MR. MUDD: Mark.

MR. SHIELDS: I think piece by piece the week was a lot better than it was as a whole, Roger. I think, first of all, I think Suzanne's right, that Judge Freeh does look good. After Judge Sessions, the FBI director was found wanting, or less than wanting by two successive Justice Departments of disperate and dissimilar strife. The Bush Justice Department and the Clinton Justice Department. There was no question. Bill Clinton finally proved he could fire somebody.

MS. FIELDS: A little bit of strength.

MR. SHIELDS: Yeah. It was a little tough, but Judge Freeh looks great. He looks terrific. He's an ex-prosecutor, ex-FBI agent, himself. I just don't think judges make awfully good administrators.

MR. MUDD: -- have been administrators --

MR. SHIELDS: It's a solitary experience, a solitudeness experience to be a judge.

MS. FIELDS: That may be, but he is also coming to the FBI when they have to end this Cold War data bank. Right. They are now into crime and violence in this country, and he -- that's the hallmark of what he wants to bring. And so I think that's new energy. That's what everybody is focusing on. Will he be able to deliver? I don't know, but he's got a good shot.

MR. MUDD: It's been -- it's now been eight weeks almost to the night that our late lamented David Gergen left us and went on to the White House. What -- can you make a measure of his impact at the White House?

MR. SHIELDS: Oh, I think it's considerable.

MR. MUDD: You do?

MR. SHIELDS: I think there's a sure-footedness. I think there's a greater sense of confidence and direction. Just this week -- I'm not saying it wouldn't have happened without Gergen, but it did happen with Gergen -- where did Bill Clinton, President Bill Clinton choose to announce his gays in the military policy? He went to a military audience, the Army War College. It was a perfect setting. Now, it also had a practical setting. You weren't worried about Act Up coming in or any of those groups and causing a stir, because it was a military -- military people are responsive to the commander in chief, whoever the commander in chief was. It, it had a certain appearance to the viewer of gulling the cat, of going in and delivering tough news --

MS. FIELDS: That's right. That's right. That's all image, and that's what David Gergen does very well. He created a good image there. But we had the President -- there was a major loss to gays in the military for the President. So he speaks to the joint chiefs of staff, which have already had problems with the commander in chief as a matter of fact, and I think that what you had then was David Gergen creating an image and putting the best face on this loss, because I think that he, the President wanted to show himself courageous. And what he had was a courageous compromise. In Washington, that's an oxymoron.

MR. MUDD: So you say it was a loss for the military?

MS. FIELDS: I think it's a loss for the President.

MR. MUDD: For the President?

MS. FIELDS: And then the compromise is really very little different than what was there before, except an emphasis on conduct as opposed to just saying homosexuality.

MR. MUDD: Do you agree --

MR. SHIELDS: No.

MR. MUDD: -- that the policy is a loss for the President?

MR. SHIELDS: No. I think the President bailed himself out. I think the President was blind-sided going in, because the Republicans have not raised this issue during the campaign which was a potentially lethal political issue to be raised against candidate Clinton. So he was unprepared for the firestorm of public reaction --

MS. FIELDS: Absolutely.

MR. SHIELDS: -- that was going to greet it. But I think that first of all the policy, itself, of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" --

MS. FIELDS: May not work.

MR. SHIELDS: -- first -- first advocated by Northwestern University sociologist Charles Moscoz, probably America's greatest civilian authority on the military, endorsed by Sam Nunn, embraced eventually by Colin Powell, and Bill Clinton. I think it really meets American values which are we are tolerant people. We don't want people persecuted or prosecuted. At the same time, there is not will in this country or consensus by any means to endorse gay partnership housing on military bases at this point.

MS. FIELDS: No. I know, but it's all based on behavior, so you're going to have homosexuals who have to be extremely chaste or what kind of investigations are you going to have about their behavior, and I think --

MR. SHIELDS: Well, we've had homosexuals for a long time in the military.

MS. FIELDS: That's right. But they didn't openly say they were. Now they march in parades, and I think the real problem for the joint chiefs of staff was that of discipline and unity in the, in the groups of men living together. We're going to have to wait and see how this works out.

MR. MUDD: So what are the political losses or gains in the gay policy?

MS. FIELDS: Well, he lost his base. I mean, here the gays are very angry. He lost the base of homosexuals.

MR. MUDD: That was not a very big base, was it?

MS. FIELDS: Well, but it raised a lot of money for him, don't forget, and, you know, it's one of his supported base. He figured he could let them go, didn't he, and he did. They have nowhere else to go, but, nevertheless, you don't like to go against your base. So that's one loss for him.

MR. SHIELDS: I don't think, I really don't think he suffered a loss here. I think, I think the week, Roger, while he handled it - - in my judgment, he handled the gays in the military issue eventually well, after a lot of agonizing, anguish, and temporizing, before that I thought he handled it well. I thought he handled the Sessions matter well. But the problem was, Roger, this was the week he's supposed to be making the case for his economic package.

MS. FIELDS: And he hasn't had a chance to do that.

MR. SHIELDS: And this is -- events, including personal tragedies, but all who converged to intervene and disrupt, distract, and subtract attention both political and public from --

MS. FIELDS: And it still looks like tax and spend, and the Republicans still have control of that message. There was an AP Poll, I think, 58 percent said the President still broke his promises, they don't like that, and they're still, he hasn't been able to show he can control gridlock. Is he going to be able to change that now? I don't know.

MR. MUDD: One of the intervening events was on Monday when the former House Postmaster, Robert Rota, pleaded guilty to charges of embezzlement and in so doing implicated in this scheme the chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee, Dan Rostenkowski. What, what impact will that have on the White House and on what's going on on Capitol Hill? Mark.

MS. FIELDS: Well, that's very -- okay, go ahead.

MR. SHIELDS: I think, first of all, Roger, if, in fact, Chairman Rostenkowski is indicted by the Democratic rules in the House, not the Republican rules, because the Republicans don't have the same rules, if you're indicted as a Republican ranking member of the committee, you continue, as Joe McGade of Pennsylvania, he's continued to be the, the ranking Republican on Appropriations. But the Democrat House rules hold that a chairman who is indicted gives up his chairmanship. If that happens, Roger, I would say -- well --

MS. FIELDS: It depends when he's indicted.

MR. SHIELDS: I don't know. I really don't. I think Jay Stevens, the former U.S. attorney, ought to be hung by his thumbs for saying on "Nightline" this week that he's going to be indicted. I mean, he is --

MS. FIELDS: I'll give you good odds that he'll be indicted.

MR. MUDD: So what happens to the process --

MR. SHIELDS: What happens is this. I think what happens is that the prospects for national health, the prospects for welfare --

MS. FIELDS: Welfare.

MR. SHIELDS: -- reform, and North American Free Trade Agreement are all undermined. I don't think the reconciliation tax, I think the reconciliation passed, it will be reached, I think a consensus will be reached. I think it will be passed, but you'll recall in the late years of Jimmy Carter's lamented administration he did not have a strong Ways & Means Committee chairman. He didn't have Wilbur Mills. He didn't have Dan Rostenkowski. He had Al Ullman of Oregon.

MS. FIELDS: No. And Sam Gibbons will be the one that will take over and nobody knows how he will do by comparison.

MR. MUDD: Let me, let me interject here just with an observation that it seems that in the last 24 hours Washington has lost I think much of this political civility and comedy that characterizes the place. We've already seen Sen. Kennedy explode at the Elders hearing, but there was also a string of other short fuses in the past few hours. Yesterday morning about 11:15 during the Ginsburg hearings, Democratic Senator Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois suddenly lashed out at Republican Senator Hatch for linking the Dred Scott Slavery decision with the Roe Vs. Wade abortion decision as examples of bad constitutional law.

SEN. CAROL MOSELEY-BRAUN, [D] Illinois: The line of questioning I find to be personally offensive, and I'm very sorry to break the train of thought and the demeanor of this committee, but I find it very difficult to sit here as the only descendant of a slave in this committee, in this body, and hear a defense, even an intellectual argument, that would suggest that there is a rationale, intellectual rationale or legal rationale for slavery.

MR. MUDD: Then after lunch, the House of Representatives blew up in clouds of acrimony and vituperation over whether to release documents in its year old investigation of the House Post Office scandal.

REP. VIC FAZIO, [D] California: Can't we put aside the politics, can't we put aside the hot words, the dirty, little secrets, the cesspools of corruption, the clouds of suspicion, the hush-up and the coverup, can't we put the purple rhetoric aside?

REP. ROBERT WALKER, [R] Pennsylvania: Now, I would suggest to you that that's a reason why the public does have some right to know. The real question we face here is: Who does tear down this institution, those who attempt to expose corruption, or those who coutenance corruption?

REP. TOM FOLEY, Speaker of the House: I find this entire debate distressing, distressing because it is rare, I think, fortunately rare, that we have so divisive and personal debate as has been carried on today on this issue.

MR. MUDD: At about the same time on the Senate floor, Moseley- Braun of Illinois was at it again, this time objecting to a routine vote approving a 14-year patent renewal for the insignia of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

SEN. CAROL MOSELEY-BRAUN: But I say to you, Madame President, on this issue there can be no consensus. It is an outrage, it is an insult, it is absolutely unacceptable to me and to millions of Americans, black or white, that we would put the imprimatur of the United States Senate on a symbol of this kind of idea. I was appalled. I was appalled at a segment of my own Democratic Party that would go take a walk and vote for something like this.

MR. MUDD: Finally, Republican Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, chief sponsor of the amendment, rose after its defeat to skewer those colleagues who switched their votes as turn coats.

SEN. JESSE HELMS, [R] North Carolina: But the Senate rose above principles this afternoon when the specter of race was entered into the debate, and race should never have been introduced because it's not fair, except by political action and political oratory. And that's what happened here. It was not those of us on this side who introduced race into this debate.

MR. MUDD: So, Suzanne, are these just the dog days of summer, is Congress anxious to get home, or is something going on?

MS. FIELDS: Well, I think that it's a little bit of both. People are anxious to get home, go home, and they want August to come here, and they want to recess. But I think that the Carol Moseley- Braun outburst was really a cheap shot. She's look at a symbol, and she's trying to draw racism in a symbol. This is a confederate flag that the United Daughters of the Confederacy have as their symbol for the last 95 years. You don't fight racism with a confederate flag. I mean, and so I think Sen. Danforth was really rather powerful when he said he objected to being, to having to say that he didn't like racism by voting against a little logo for these little old ladies, so I think it's a cheap shot, and I think that the Senators just curled up and went home with that one. I think that was too bad.

MR. MUDD: Are the tempers abnormally short this time, Mark?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, I think, I think probably so, Roger. I think there's a couple of factors. First of all, the House and on the House side, the House Republicans, it's been 39 years, Roger, since any House Republican has been addressed by any lobbyist, colleague, journalist, or elevator operator as Mr. Chairman. I mean, that's 39 years in the wilderness. That's 39 years of impotence, 39 years of rage. I think we're hearing the shrieks of the unics on the House floor, quite frankly. There's a sense at least when there's a Republican President there's an institutional and social aspect to being in power even though you're in a minority in the Congress. With a Democratic President in Democratic control of the Congress, there's almost a sense, I think, of frustration that has built. Add to that the, the reality that they've got an issue here where the Postmaster of the House was appointed by the Democrats, Democratic leadership, confirmed by the Democratic membership, so they see this as kind of a way in, they haven't been really a party to the whole economic debate. They can't stand on the sidelines. This is a way, they feel, going into '94 -- I'll tell you the big beneficiary, in my judgment, of what went on in the House floor yesterday is Ross Perot.

MS. FIELDS: Good question, right.

MR. SHIELDS: You look at polls, and you say, wait a minute, we've got real problems in this country. We've got the economy. We've got all the things. We've got all kinds of questions, and what are they doing in Washington?

MR. MUDD: Snarling.

MR. SHIELDS: Snarling. And Carol Moseley-Braun learned a pretty profound question -- lesson yesterday, i.e., if you picka race issue in the Senate and you're on one side and Jesse Helms is on the other, you're probably going to win.

MS. FIELDS: Yeah.

MR. SHIELDS: And probably win three to one.

MS. FIELDS: Listen, 18 percent of the American people said that the floods and the drought was brought by God against sinners. They're wondering what's going on in the rest of the country too. And it's very interesting, this is not Sodom and Gomorrah, right, Noah hasn't built his flood, but you're feeling, you know, things are going wrong. You had the President's good friend kills himself, so it seems. That's very frustrating and despairing about the mean city, Washington, so that I think that affects the, the Congress. And then you have the floods and the representatives don't know what to do for their people. They've got to vote a lot of money. We're trying to bring down the deficit. Where's that money going to come from? And then there, it's hot, it's summertime, and the ideologies are just separating everybody.

MR. MUDD: Well, you mentioned the apparent suicide of Vincent Foster and, of course, the whole city was not only shocked but saddened. Does that tell you anything? I mean, he's been here six months, is the top of his profession, he's in a 17 acre concentrated hot house, and he's at, he's at the top of the world. Does something about the city we live in or the government that he works for bring him down?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, the terrible part of any suicide is, well, it obviously ends the anguish for the person who commits suicide, for those who are left afterwards, they're left with all these questions, all this sense of guilt and, and just bewilderment and all the rest of it. There was no note, so the question is: At what point does personal tragedy become sort of a public property? I mean, because this man was very close to the President. The questions are, are raised that way.

MS. FIELDS: It's like the beginning of a novel, isn't it, of what happens in Washington? The President's best friend, the friend that's killed by a gun. So I think also we see that people from Little Rock didn't really know how tough Washington was going to be. I think this becomes emblematic of that feeling that Washington is a tough, nasty town.

MR. MUDD: Well, on that, that --

MR. SHIELDS: Elevated note.

MR. MUDD: -- we'll thank you, Shields and Fields, we'll see you again. FOCUS - DOWN BY THE LEVEE

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, a flood control story. Coverage of the great flood of 1993 often focuses on people fighting to save a levee somewhere. Those river embankments made of concrete, earth, or just sandbags are often all that saves a house or a farm from being flooded. Elizabeth Brackett looks at how well they work, and what happens when they don't.

MS. BRACKETT: As the floodwaters of the upper Mississippi River Basin continued to roll over hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland and drive thousands of people from their homes, questions are being asked about the flood management polices in this country. The levee has been the primary method of controlling the rivers. Fourteen percent of the levees in the upper Mississippi River Basin are privately owned. 18 percent belong to the Army Corps of Engineers. The majority are quasi-public levee districts, built and paid for by the communities protected by the levees. By and large, the Army Corps levees have held. It is the private, largely agricultural levees, and the ones owned by levee districts that have failed more often.

SPOKESMAN: It's just risin' slowly, and we got a few loads -- just put the bags in so it don't wash the levee out.

MS. BRACKETT: Ray Machens knows the impact of levee failure. He and his son, Gary, spent many long hours maintaining the levee that protected their 2,000 acres of farmland in West Alton, Missouri. Once it was private and called the Machens levee. Now it is part of a consolidated levee district that protected 35,000 acres and 6,000 residents. When the floodwaters began to rise, the Machens knew their levee would probably be overtopped. Gary Machens, and his wife, Elizabeth, worked frantically to move their furniture out of their home.

ELIZABETH MACHENS: I just want to make sure we get everything out before the roads get blocked off where we can't pass through. That's -- once I get my furniture out, I'm not going to worry.

MS. BRACKETT: The Machens lost their home and fields when their levee was breached two weeks ago. Despite their experience and preparations, the Machens were still amazed by the power of the river as they took their daily boat trip to their town's main street.

MS. BRACKETT: When it first started this time, did you have any idea it would get this high?

RAY MACHENS: No. Couldn't possibly dream we could ever have this much water. And I think that holds true, you know, all the way up and down the Mississippi, but I don't know how -- I guess it's getting awful close to one we can consider a hundred year flood. I'm sure it is in some areas.

MS. BRACKETT: Gary, what are your thoughts as you come up to your house?

GARY MACHENS: I -- it's just unreal. I never dreamed of anything like this.

MS. BRACKETT: Do you think you will get back in?

GARY MACHENS: I just don't know. I don't know if it's over yet, you know. A couple of more feet of water, the roof might float off. I mean, and I don't think we're talking about things that are, you know, impossible to happen with the additional rain we're having right now and all over the Midwest.

MS. BRACKETT: What really upsets the Machens is that they have not been allowed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, to build their levees high enough to give them the protection they need.

GARY MACHENS: There's no problem farming these flood plains if you have adequate protection and you only flood once every twenty, twenty-five years. That's why we keep saying to the Corps of Engineers, please let us have, you know, what you consider a forty or fifty year level protection, something that we can live with. We're not asking to have levees higher than the flood walls of St. Louis. We're not asking that at all, but give us something we can live with, because we can't live with this. FEMA doesn't mind spending millions to fix up all these places, but if they would just give us adequate levee protection, you know, to me they'd save money in the long run. Every three years you come in and repair, you know, all these homes with flood insurance money and federal money. It's just crazy the dollars we see pumped into a community when we know how we could fix it.

MS. BRACKETT: FEMA works with the Army Corps of Engineers in establishing guidelines for levee building. Col. James Craig directs the Army Corps in a district that stretches from Hannibal, Missouri, to Kayro, Illinois. He says there are many considerations that go into allowing those in a levee district to raise the height of their levee.

COL. JAMES CRAIG, Army Corps of Engineers: The determination for us as a Corps on how high you build it up is really three factors. One is, is it engineeringly feasible and practical to build it up? The second one is, is it environmentally sound to build it up? And the third one is, will building it up higher provide a positive benefit-cost ratio from a national viewpoint? Will the benefits outweigh the cost of raising it.

MS. BRACKETT: But every time you build your levee up, your neighbor downstream may have more trouble.

COL. JAMES CRAIG: That's absolutely true. And that's one of the reasons that I think it would be helpful to take a national look at the entire upper Mississippi system.

MS. BRACKETT: Environmental activist Roger Pryor agrees that a new national policy must be developed. He says man's attempt to control the rivers has in many cases made the flooding worse. He is particularly concerned about the big concrete levee built by the Corps like the one that has kept the floodwaters out of downtown St. Louis.

ROGER PRYOR, Environmentalist: It effectively constricted the river to a very narrow, fast channel, and it created a long, long bottleneck, and the flooding we're seeing upstream from St. Louis and up the Missouri River is in large part due to some of that constriction.

MS. BRACKETT: And also due to the sea wall right in St. Louis proper.

ROGER PRYOR: Sure, and the levee, the urban levee across East St. Louis.

MS. BRACKETT: Well, what do you do about that now? Can you tear the sea wall down in East St. Louis?

ROGER PRYOR: No, you can't. You know you can't. And the only solution there is to try to avoid any more development in the flood plain upstream that could be damaged. You're going to have flooding upstream from now on, because of all this development down here, and the most prudent thing to do is keep people out of the flood risk area. You can't move the flood somewhere else. You can move people.

MS. BRACKETT: As the photo shows, the rivers in the Mississippi Drainage Basin are now at full flood stage. Geologists say this is all part of the natural functions of the river. The problem is there has been a great deal of development on the flood plain. That lessens their ability to absorb water and creates more flooding.

MS. BRACKETT: Should there be any building allowed on the flood plain now?

ROGER PRYOR: No new building. I mean, if some things that have to go in flood plains, if you cross the river, you had to build a bridge. When you build a port facility, you have to be down by the water obviously. Golf courses, parks, farmland, those are things and that sustained relatively small amounts of damage even though it's serious to the farmer, it's relatively small, those are okay, and they fit in with the scheme. But new buildings, new structures, new developments like this will only make the problem worse in the future.

MS. BRACKETT: How much pressure is there to develop a flood plain?

ROGER PRYOR: Well, in some places, it's very -- in St. Louis County, where we're standing today, this county government for the last 25 years has promoted flood plain development. And they still do today. I'll be curious to see if they do tomorrow, if this flood goes down.

TAMMY BRINKLEY, Flood Victim: [talking to daughter] Want to help me pack some of your toys onto the big truck?

MS. BRACKETT: Tammy Brinkley knows the price people pay for living on a flood plain. She lived in one of the many trailer parks in St. Charles County just north of St. Louis before rising waters forced her to flee.

TAMMY BRINKLEY: [talking to man as her son in wheelchair is helped out of vehicle] Okay, guys, we'll see you in the morning.

MS. BRACKETT: She is now trying to cope with her two year old with a broken wrist and her handicapped son while living in a truck paint shop owned by her former in-laws. She says caring for her children in this situation has been tough.

TAMMY BRINKLEY: It's hard on them, very hard on them, a lot harder than I thought it was going to be on them. You know, they're looking and they're saying, this isn't our home, we want to go home. And right now, they have nowhere to go.

MS. BRACKETT: Did you know it was a flood plain?

TAMMY BRINKLEY: No. When I talked to the lady that, like the manager of the mobile home park, and she says, we're out of the flood plain, we didn't get flooded in '73, you have nothing to worry about here; everybody in this park can get flood insurance.

MS. BRACKETT: Do you think people should be allowed to live on flood plains?

TAMMY BRINKLEY: I don't know how to answer that. I will never live on another flood plain. As far as people being allowed to, I guess they have to. I was seven miles from the river. I didn't think that the water was going to be over my head in the street.

MS. BRACKETT: In addition to constricting the river with high levees and building on the flood plain, the flow of the upper Mississippi has also been affected by the 27 locks and dams the Corps has built. They essentially divide the river into a series of lakes from Minneapolis to St. Louis. The locks and dams are essential to navigation along the river. Over 80 million tons of cargo passed through this lock and dam at Alton, Illinois, last year. But farmers and others say since silt builds up behind the dam and since the dams do impede the natural flow of the river, they actually make the flooding worse. The Corps says it must balance the needs of the big shipping industry on the river with the needs of farmers and the necessities to protect already existing urban areas from flooding. Building more huge reservoirs like this one on the Des Moines River just above Iowa City, rather than constructing higher and higher levees, may be one answer to the problem.

COL. JAMES CRAIG: What we need to do here is provide the highest -- I'm getting a little philosophical now -- but you've got to provide the highest quality of life that you can. And you can't do that at the expense of nature, and you can't, you can't do that at the expense of people. You've got to balance it, and I think there may be smart ways to do that, because I think the solution is a combination of reservoirs and levees and temporary storage areas. You can provide non-structural solutions. You can take part of that land out there and designate that land as temporary flood storage, which means you allow the river to flood into that area.

MS. BRACKETT: One thing everyone has learned from the flood of 1993 is that a long running attempt to control the force of the mighty rivers of the upper Mississippi River Basin is a lot harder than anyone imagined. RECAP

MR. MUDD: Again, the main stories of this Friday, a Senate committee opened hearings on the nomination of Joycelyn Elders to be surgeon general. Dr. Elders said her top priority will be preventive medicine. And the Senate Judiciary Committee ended four days of hearings on Supreme Court Nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg. If confirmed, as expected, she would become the second woman on the Supreme Court. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Roger. We'll see you on Monday night. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.