The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening, and Happy Holiday. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight a look at the dangers posed by Iraq's biological and chemical weapons; a Tom Bearden report on an Arkansas community's coming to grips with change; a Charles Krause conversation with Poland's man of history; and for Presidents' Day a Robert Pinsky reading of a poem by Abraham Lincoln. It all follows our summary of the news this holiday. NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan pushed again today for a diplomatic solution to the standoff with Iraq. He met in New York City with the five permanent members of the Security Council. The U.S. has threatened to use force against Iraq unless U.N. arms inspectors are given free access. Annan spoke to reporters before the meeting this evening. He said he might go to Baghdad in hopes of preventing a military confrontation.

KOFI ANNAN, Secretary- General, United Nations: I think we are getting close to that. I think it is not excluded that I go. And I will have a better idea at the end of this meeting. We have been trying to discuss a common framework between the permanent five for me to be able to move onto Baghdad for that.

JIM LEHRER: President Clinton plans a major speech tomorrow on why he believes force may be necessary. In Baghdad, a U.N. inspection team continued to map presidential compounds. They want to determine which areas should be checked for chemical and biological weapons. The government-run newspaper said hundreds of thousands of Iraqi soldiers would risk death in order to protect the sites from attack. And Iraq's foreign minister warned it would be a "deadly mistake" for Kuwait to allow the United States to strike Iraq from Kuwaiti territory. We have an update on the situation in Kuwait from Mark Austin of Independent Television News.

MARK AUSTIN, ITN: Deep in the Kuwaiti desert American tanks are on maneuvers. This live fire exercise is taking place close to the Iraqi border. In the next few days a further 3,000 U.S. troops will deploy here, a move aimed at deterring any Iraqi aggression.

PRIVATE SCOTT REYNOLDS, U.S. Marine Corps: If Saddam Hussein wants to come down here, we got something for him. It's as simple as that.

MARK AUSTIN: The Kuwaitis they're here to protect are becoming increasingly anxious. New chemical protection equipment has arrived, even though Iraq has vowed not to attack its neighbor. And every day civil defense preparations are being stepped up. These women have volunteered to train as firefighters.

WOMAN: We are just worrying about if he's going to send any missiles from Baghdad to here, and any harm will reach us or our kids.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have more on the threat from Iraq later in the program. An airliner crashed near an airport in Taiwan early today, killing all 196 people on board. Four Americans were listed as passengers. Nine others on the ground were also killed. The Airbus 300 was on a scheduled flight from Indonesia for China Airlines, the official Taiwanese airline. It went down several hundred yards short of a runway and set fire to a residential area. It happened on the jet's second attempt to land in an evening fog. Peace talks for Northern Ireland resumed today in Dublin. But Britain immediately asked that Sinn Fein leaders be expelled. Sinn Fein is the political arm of the Irish Republican Army. Police have connected two killings last week to the IRA. That would be a violation of the seven-month- old cease-fire agreement. Following today's session, Sinn Fein Leader Gerry Adams said his group had not broken any promises. The talks are aimed at finding a way to govern Northern Ireland that works for the Protestant majority and the Catholic minority. It rained again today in California. Residents prepared for another wave of severe storms caused by the warm weather pattern known as El Nino. Twenty-two California counties have already suffered an estimated $300 million of damage. Another four and a half inches of rain were expected today, with more bad weather predicted for tomorrow. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the Iraq threat, change in an Arkansas town, a man of Poland's history, and a poem by Abraham Lincoln. FOCUS - ASSESSING THE THREAT

JIM LEHRER: The threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Phil Ponce begins with some background.

PHIL PONCE: Last fall chief United Nations weapons inspector Richard Butler presented a report to the U.N. Security Council describing what was still believed to be in Iraq's military arsenal. UNSCOM, the United Nations special commission, reported that Saddam Hussein possessed more than 2,000 gallons of the deadly bacteria anthrax--even a small amount of which can kill thousands. He also had 31,000 chemical warfare weapons and more than 600 tons of material to produce a deadly VX nerve agent. The report also said inspectors were unable to document the whereabouts of 4,000 tons of chemicals that could be used to produce weapons. Nor could UNSCOM verify Iraqi claims it had destroyed delivery systems, such as Scuds, airframes and warheads. A former U.N. weapons inspector gave one example of the vastness of the Iraqi arsenal that survived the Gulf War to Correspondent Betty Ann Bowser.

DAVID KAYE, Former Chief Nuclear Weapons Inspector: Probably easiest to describe it visually and in dollar terms. In chemical weapons the major chemical weapons storage site is an area larger than the District of Columbia, and as far as you could look, all you could see is chemical weapons laying on the ground in bunkers, leaking. It was the most astounding site I've ever seen in the world.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: And do you have every reason to believe that there are even more sites than that today?

DAVID KAYE: I think I have every reason to believe that we have not found all of the weapons and all of the material.

PHIL PONCE: That site was destroyed by UNSCOM. But inspectors believe they still haven't found everything the Iraqi government may be hiding. That's because they've been denied access to some government buildings and compounds. Here's what inspectors have been able to find and destroy so far: thirty- eight thousand chemical weapons, four hundred eighty thousand liters of chemical agents, forty-eight missiles, thirty special missile warheads for chemical and biological weapons, and hundreds of components used in chemical weapons production, an arsenal believed capable of killing every person in the world several times over. Last week, United States National Security Adviser Sandy Berger said the threat from Iraq continues.SAMUEL BERGER, National Security Adviser: Stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions and a small force of Scud-type missiles remain unaccounted for. And most importantly, Iraq still has the capacity to rebuild its production program for biological and chemical weapons and the missiles to deliver them. As UNSCOM has come closer and closer to ferreting out Iraq's remaining weapons capacity Saddam has become increasingly determined in his efforts to block the inspectors and end the inspection regime.

PHIL PONCE: Hours later, after watching the speech on CNN in Baghdad, an Iraqi spokesman rejected those accusations.

IRAQI SPOKESMAN: If they have any hint that Iraqi has developed a new weapon, why don't they put this in front of the Security Council, instead of speaking in front of the cameras and to the press? They can put it on the desk of the Security Council, and let them discuss it with UNSCOM people. It's nonsense.

PHIL PONCE: Whatever officials say in Baghdad in Washington, the countries in the Gulf region and Mideast continue preparations for a potential Iraqi strike with deadly weapons.

JIM LEHRER: Two views of this now: Raymond Zilinskas served as an UNSCOM inspector in Iraq in 1994. He's now at the University of Maryland. Neil Livingstone has written extensively on the proliferation and terrorism issues and operates a consulting firm here in Washington.Dr. Zilinskas, how serious a threat do you think the biological and chemical weapons that Iraq has are?

RAYMOND ZILINSKAS, Former U.N. Inspector: Well, it's a potential threat. I don't think they have any weapons really to go. They might have some smaller quantities of VX and mustard gas hidden away in some sort of bulk containers underneath the ground somewhere. And--but it's certainly not loaded into anything. They might have two totwenty Scud missiles also hidden away somewhere in the desert, and again they'd have to be set up. Biologically, I don't think they have any biological weapons. What they have are seed cultures sitting in refrigerators that could be used to start a program again very quickly, and, of course, they have the trained manpower that worked the program before, in other words, the scientists, engineers, and technicians. And, of course, all of those people are ready to go to work any time.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Well, let's take these things one at a time. First, in the chemical area, Mr. Livingstone, do you agree with his summation of what the potential threat is in the chemical area?

NEIL LIVINGSTONE, Security Analyst: Pretty much so, yes, indeed.

JIM LEHRER: So, help us understand what that means. They have the ability to destroy what with nerve gas, say?

NEIL LIVINGSTONE: Well, right now they do have the ability to load nerve gas into missiles if they have missiles left. If they have 20 Scuds left, which is the kind of top-end estimate of the number of Scuds they have, they could deliver those missiles--that-- by those missiles. Now, the concern is, is that they might find other more surreptitious ways of doing it.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. All right. Now, let's back up a minute. Nerve gas, what does it do to people, and how much does it take, and what's the extent of the damage that could be done?

RAYMOND ZILINSKAS: Well, a nerve gas like VX, which is the most toxic--shall we say organic substance--it takes less than, well, a pin prick, less than that to completely incapacitate a person. First, a person--it acts on the nerve system, and the way it works is that there's an enzyme which limits the nerve contractions. So it kills that enzyme, so you essentially go into uncontrollable spasms. So within two minutes you can die.

JIM LEHRER: And these Scud missiles would deliver it over what--what range? I mean, who would be in jeopardy? What countries would be in jeopardy from nerve gas attacks if, in fact, they have the 20 Scuds and if, in fact, they use them?

NEIL LIVINGSTONE: Well, depending on where the missiles are at this time--and they are mobile missile launchers, so--

JIM LEHRER: Mobile meaning they're on trucks and--

NEIL LIVINGSTONE: That's right. They can move around.

JIM LEHRER: Okay.

NEIL LIVINGSTONE: And so obviously all the potential targets are in the region, and Israel possibly Cairo are probably the extremes that they can reach right now, but they could reach into Saudi Arabia, into Kuwait, into other countries, into their immediate neighborhood.

JIM LEHRER: Now, is it--do you all, the two of you agree that they have enough--let's say the 20 Scuds--but let's say they have enough of this nerve gas where they could cause--I mean, thousands of people to die, millions of people to die? Is it guesswork, or is there any way to know?

RAYMOND ZILINSKAS: Well, it's guesswork because it depends on so many conditions. First of all, the missiles that they had were not really designed to carry chemical or biological weapons, so there's a question about stability of the missile. And then--

JIM LEHRER: Excuse me. How would--a missile goes up in the air and it lands on a target, and then it would explode and this nerve gas theoretically would come out and fill the air, and whoever is around it would die, is that it?

RAYMOND ZILINSKAS: Well, it's a little more complicated because it falls down--first of all, the explosion destroys the major part of the payload, and then a part of the payload is driven into the ground. And the partthat's left can create a plume, but then it depends on wind. If there's no wind, it'll just contaminate around--the ground but if there's a strong wind, then you have a significant hazard to people downwind, and depending how much is delivered, it could be hundreds to thousands of people but not millions.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Yes.

NEIL LIVINGSTONE: I was going to say there was a World Health Organization study some years ago and they took a target population of say 150,000 people with a lethal dose, which is to ten milligrams were square meter. And they found that they would have 80,000 casualties immediately who probably would not receive any type of sufficient treatment before they died. Another 35,000--unless they received intervention right away and treatment--they would probably die as well--so you had a 120,000 of those 150,000 dead, most likely, and the other--the remaining 30,000 impaired. That's how lethal VX is.

JIM LEHRER: All right, now, specifically, both of you believe that it's possible or probable that Iraq has the capability of doing that, is that right?

NEIL LIVINGSTONE: Yes.

JIM LEHRER: Maybe to a place as far away as Israel, or Cairo, which is how many thousands of miles from say, well, we don't know where in Iraq they'd come from--

NEIL LIVINGSTONE: Exactly.

JIM LEHRER: We're talking about a thousand mile range, five hundred to a thousand mile range?

RAYMOND ZILINSKAS: No. The Scud missile had a 600 kilometer range, and the Al-Hussein, which is, I should say a modified version, that has about an 800 kilometer range, but with a smaller payload, so there's payoffs in each case.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. So in miles what are we talking about?

NEIL LIVINGSTONE: We're talking about four hundred to five hundred miles.

JIM LEHRER: Four hundred/five hundred miles. All right, now, let's move to the biological. Where does the biological capability fit into the Scud missile or the delivery system problem, and what is the potential for that threat?

NEIL LIVINGSTONE: Well, I agree with Raymond that it's a potential threat, more than a real threat today. The issue really is: Do we want him to have that threat in the future? It's arguable right now whether he really has biologicals in a sufficient number and with the appropriate stability in weaponized form that he can put them in the missiles, and so what we're really talking about here is we don't want him to have something in the future.

JIM LEHRER: What has he got? What do you think he has?

RAYMOND ZILINSKAS: Well, I think he has two to three hundred people that are very capable of starting the program. He has--

JIM LEHRER: Some of these things in these refrigerators you were talking about.

RAYMOND ZILINSKAS: Right. He has seed cultures to take out of the refrigerator that you can start production of anthrax and the clustered in-botulinum, which produces botulinum toxin. He has about twenty to thirty biological research development and production facilities that could be converted from civilian use to warfare use. And so--

JIM LEHRER: And quickly? I mean, how long would it take for him to do this?

RAYMOND ZILINSKAS: Well, I would estimate within six months you would have a militarily useful quantity, a shorter time than that for terrorist purposes.

JIM LEHRER: No evidence that he's done that thus far?

RAYMOND ZILINSKAS: Not with UNSCOM inspectors crawling all over these places.

JIM LEHRER: The UNSCOM inspectors are looking in the refrigerators; they're trying to find these things, is that- -

RAYMOND ZILINSKAS: Well, they don't go to private homes to look forthat, but there are these 80 facilities that Iraq has. Some of them are inspected on a daily basis, some of them on a weekly basis, some of them on a monthly basis, but they're inspected all the time. And the most threatening ones have video cameras and television cameras. They have 24-hour surveillance, so that keeps going. We might lose all that if we--

JIM LEHRER: I want to get to that in a minute, but the biological possibilities are that small. I mean, you could literally put them in somebody's private homes.

NEIL LIVINGSTONE: That's right. They could be in a very small container really that is portable, that can be really moved around on the back of a truck, and that's one of our problems in monitoring it. Now, I'm a little less optimistic than Raymond is. I think there are people in our defense establishment that believe that it's been over four months since we have had this problem with Iraq, and during that four-month period that they probably needed a week to ten days to get the program up and running again. And they might have been manufacturing agents during this period of time. That's debatable. We don't know for sure, and we may also have missed stocks that they did weaponize in secret locations that our friends from UNSCOM have not found yet, so that's the real issue.

JIM LEHRER: Based on your knowledge of the situation, could you eliminate or effectively stymie the development of both the chemical and biological weapons by air strikes?

RAYMOND ZILINSKAS: No. You can't reach--the most important component are the workers, and you can't reach them, and then in order to reach the civilian facilities that conceivably could become--to the other--you have to keep on all of them, and they're sitting in urban centers, and that's not going to happen. I mean, it is unreasonable because one or two can be converted-- even bomb all of them and destroy all the civilian populations around them. It doesn't make too much sense, so I don't think so. In the chemical, I don't think there's anything to bomb. Maybe--Neil knows more about this than I do--but maybe the pesticide factors that are producing pesticides for civilian purposes eventually could be converted to chemical weapons production, but it would take quite a while.

JIM LEHRER: But as far as anybody knows, there are no factories right now manufacturing chemical weapons?

NEIL LIVINGSTONE: Well, there may be but they're certainly in reinforced positions. They may be underground; we may not have found everything that is producing weapons right now, but the issue is that if we do bomb them, this is only a temporary respite anyway because even if we got everything today, they could put the program back together again in the future, so it doesn't make any sense to have a four-day bombing campaign, where we essentially run up to a bear with a sharp stick and jab him a few times, and then go home again. It--all we're going to do is make Iraq all the more bitter and angry.

JIM LEHRER: But if the administration thus far has explained-- they acknowledge--it's not, well, you help me on this--they acknowledge they're not going to be able to destroy all of these things for all the reasons that you all have just laid out, but they can deliver a message, and the message can get harsher and harsher and harsher and get the inspectors back in.

NEIL LIVINGSTONE: Well, that's their rationale for doing it. I think I belong in that camp that suggests that if we're going to say that as a matter of U.S. national policy that Iraq should not have weapons of mass destruction, then we have to makesure that they don't. And that's going to require perhaps air support for any elements of the Iraqi military that would revolt against Saddam Hussein; maybe a no-fly zone over the entire country. We're going to have to do a lot more than a pin prick attack that's going to go in there for a few days and then go home again and say, well, maybe he learned his lesson this time. I don't think he's learned his lesson.

JIM LEHRER: But both of you agree that there is no way if this thing comes to it, and these planes take off and it's announced that the United States is going to bomb Iraq, forget it if anybody believes these individual weapons possibilities, potentials are going to be eliminated by bombing, is that what you're saying?

RAYMOND ZILINSKAS: That's right. I'm saying they cannot be eliminated that way.

JIM LEHRER: And so what do you think of Mr. Livingstone's approach?

RAYMOND ZILINSKAS: Well, I agree that there has to be more of a comprehensive view on--you know, it's more than just bombing weapons of--so-called weapons of mass destruction, targets--but what I fear most of all is that the--keeping bombing up, making it tougher and tougher, is just going to coalesce the Iraqi population behind the leadership even more than now, and furthermore, on the other hand, the Iraqis will take this opportunity to kick out the inspectors from the international atomic energy agency and UNSCOM so all this monitoring work--remember, 200 facilities are being covered--plus all these surprise inspections. What we're hearing about, as far as the so-called sensitive or sovereign sites, is only about 5 percent of UNSCOM's work. 95 percent of the work proceeds unhindered.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. All right. Well, we'll hear from the administration on the program tomorrow night. Thank you both very much. FOCUS - MOVING IN

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, change in an Arkansas community; Poland's man of history; and a poem by Abraham Lincoln.

JIM LEHRER: Tom Bearden has the Arkansas story.

TOM BEARDEN: To paraphrase the local newspaper, things aren't like they used to be in Northwest Arkansas. For example, not far from the Hog's Breath Restaurant and the Hillbilly Smokehouse is the Acambaro Restaurant and La Mexicana fast food. The population of Rogers, Arkansas, once almost entirely white, is now 12 percent Hispanic. That's 4,000 new people in just the last six years, people like Oscar Corona and his family, who fled first Mexico and then California to come here.

OSCAR CORONA, Mexican Immigrant: [speaking through interpreter] This is a good place to live for the children to grow up. There are more opportunities here.

TOM BEARDEN: Both Oscar and his wife, Irena, work for Tyson Foods processing chicken. She's on the day shift; Oscar works nights. These jobs in the poultry factory began drawing a steady stream of people from Mexico and Central America in the early 90's. But as their numbers swelled, some people began to object, like Jason Riggins and his wife, Mandy. They also work split shifts. He works by day, and she works in the theater at night.

JASON RIGGINS: This country doesn't belong to Tyson or any other corporation that makes their money on cheap labor. The American citizens of this country own this country, and they should be consulted before massive demographic changes are put in place.

TOM BEARDEN: But the immigrants are already here, and employers like Tyson say they're very glad to have them.

BARBARA BERRY, Tyson Foods: We are grateful, for they're loyal; they're on time. Our absenteeism has gone down. Turnover has gone down.

TOM BEARDEN: Barbara Berry is the manager of human services at Tyson Foods, the giant poultry company headquartered in Springdale. She says Tyson would have been forced to close several plants without the new workers.

BARBARA BERRY: There have been other plants and manufacturing and retail businesses and construction that have come in and soaked up an unskilled labor population that was very scarce here to begin with. And with a fluctuation of a 2.3 to a 2.5 unemployment rate, basically everybody that wants to work is working.

TOM BEARDEN: What's happening in Rogers reflects a trend being repeated elsewhere. Immigrants are moving beyond the border states and into the heartland and dramatically changing the face of towns like Rogers. The population shift was a surprise to Rogers Mayor John Sampier, who first noticed it coaching a youth soccer team.

MAYOR JOHN SAMPIER, Rogers, Arkansas: I noticed two complete adult Hispanic soccer teams scrimmaging each other on one of the adult fields. And I commented to the other coach, I said, must be traveling teams. And he said, no, no, John, they live here.

TOM BEARDEN: Not long after, Sampier found himself grappling with unfamiliar big city style issues: reports of racial tension, gang activity, increased drug usage, a housing shortage, and increased demand for health services, and schools suddenly brimming with children that didn't speak English--from forty to over twelve hundred since 1991. So the city launched a coordinated effort to try to make the transition easier on everyone.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT SPOKESMAN: There's a lot of talk about gangs, violence, and tension.

TOM BEARDEN: Sampier hired Puerto Rican-born Al Lopez as a special consultant. One of his first projects was this public service announcement that ran on local TV stations. It was designed to bridge cultural gaps.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT SPOKESMAN: Let's be friends--

TOM BEARDEN: Soon after, the school district also hired him as a student relations coordinator to defuse clashes between whites and Hispanics.

AL LOPEZ, Special Assistant to Mayor: When I started three years ago, it was often; it was everyday, and I would like to see more interaction, but it's a matter of us as grownups maybe creating situations where they can interact. If we go to the Walton Arts Center, for example, to see a play, why just take all Hispanic kids, why just take all Anglo kids, why not take the group together?

TOM BEARDEN: The business community is also trying to help the immigrants adjust.

SPOKESMAN: [speaking through interpreter] This class is for you to learn how to buy a house and qualify for a loan.

TOM BEARDEN: Roland Goicoechea is a vice president at a local bank. He is himself an immigrant who came to the U.S. as a 10- year-old Cuban refugee in 1962. He's volunteered hundreds of hours conducting seminars in the poultry plants, teaching people how to handle their finances. It's strange new territory for people who have never had a checking account before, much less try to qualify to buy a house.

ROLAND GOICOECHEA, First National Bank of Rogers: These people all have dreams, the great American dream of owning a home. It's simply in trying to overcome that fear factor of I'm not worthy of owning a home, these people are extremely timid and shy, and you virtually have to have an aggressive outreach program. You almost have to go out to their homes and drag 'em into your sessions. But, yes, I believe that the city has gone to great lengths to provide those types of programs. I think that we just can'ttake it for granted.

TOM BEARDEN: Goicoechea says the seminars are also good business for the bank. He says the new immigrants have been astonishingly good customers.

ROLAND GOICOECHEA: Our experience here in the home-loaning area, we've made over 200 home loans to Hispanics without any defaults whatsoever.

TOM BEARDEN: Mayor Sampier says city leaders are proud of their efforts to reach out and assimilate the newcomers.

MAYOR JOHN SAMPIER: I think that there has been a lot of effort at preventing stresses from occurring, rather than reacting to stresses after they occur. And I think we've been pretty successful at that.

TOM BEARDEN: But there are some who disagree with Sampier's assessment. Ten years ago Dan Morris and his family were living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a city that also had a large and growing Hispanic population.

DAN MORRIS, Americans for an Immigration Moratorium: We left the area in '88 because crime was increasing, and the sense of security was declining, and there had been a lot of break-ins around our--where we lived.

TOM BEARDEN: Morris chose the Rogers area because, to him, it looked like Norman Rockwell country. Back then, most newcomers were white retirees from the Midwest who were attracted by the area's scenic beauty and recreational amenities. But by last spring Morris was fearful the new Hispanic population would depress wages and real estate values. Then he read a newspaper story that mentioned Tyson Foods had met with city leaders in the early 90's to prepare them for the influx of immigrants.

DAN MORRIS: It just really sort of enraged me, and I went down on the spur of the moment to the city council meeting and had my chance to stand up and say my piece, which I did. And I basically said that if that story's true, Mr. Mayor, you've sold us out. The mayor totally overreacted.

TOM BEARDEN: Sampier called Morris's statement a "personal attack" and ruled him out of order. Later, in a letter, Mayor Sampier told Morris that if people were "discontented for Un-Christian, racist attitudes and choose to leave for such reasons, then I believe my city will be the better for their departure."

MAYOR JOHN SAMPIER: The Chamber of Commerce committee, of which I was a member, assured them, as we assure employers all the time, that whatever the challenge is, the community will do what it can to meet that challenge. That has been misconstrued into even, I believe, reported in the press that virtually I and the Chamber of Commerce were driving buses down to Latin America and loading people up and bringing them back up here.

TOM BEARDEN: Dan Morris says that whatever happened it created a terrific recruiting tool for the organization he founded a short time later--a local chapter of the Americans for an Immigration Moratorium, or AIM.

DAN MORRIS: I think we've all gone through the complaining aspect, the kind of muttering under your breath, what's happening in our community, and that's kind of the way our AIM got started was what we found out was that we weren't all alone, that other people were also tired of seeing our community being colonized and seeing the results of an out-of-control immigration policy really transform and forever possibly alter the nature and character of our community.

TOM BEARDEN: AIM meets monthly at the town library, usually drawing between a hundred and a hundred and fifty people.

LEROY HOBACK, Americans for an Immigration Moratorium: I think the gravity of the situation is getting to be where we are going to have to start taking sides. We're starting to show signs of unity and banding together, and I think we need to continue this.

TOM BEARDEN: The group has also gathered 1200 names on a petition to support a new federal immigration bill that calls for a five-year moratorium on new immigration. Charles Fuque is an attorney and Republican state legislator from Springdale.

CHARLES FUQUE, Arkansas State Legislator: If you keep the constant influx of immigrants that have come from a third world country that are hungry, starving for the American way of life, you can always continually drive down the wages of the American workers. And that's what it's all about. We cannot open our borders to all those people. We just can't do it. The issue is: Is there going to be a United States of America?

TOM BEARDEN: Some people in the area have branded AIM and its members as racist. Jason Riggins belongs to the group, and he says that's not true.

JASON RIGGINS: I'm not a racist. I just don't want to be outnumbered in my own country.

TOM BEARDEN: Riggins and others are afraid the culture of Northwest Arkansas is in the process of being submerged by an alien way of life. They point to Spanish language signs and gas stations painted in Mexican colors as proof.

MANDY RIGGINS: I've gone to the grocery store and other places on more than one occasion and had 'em get in line behind me and speak, you know, rattle off just, you know, gobs and gobs of Spanish, and I've just felt like I was in a completely different country, and they were making fun of me for not being like them. And it really is uncomfortable. And I don't want my kids to have to feel like that in their own town.

TOM BEARDEN: What rankles them is their perception that city leaders are kowtowing to the new immigrants at the behest of the rich businessmen who run the poultry plants and want cheap labor. Riggins claims hate crimes against Hispanics get lots of publicity, while hate crimes committed by Hispanics are ignored.

JASON RIGGINS: Just like this story here. It makes the news when a mattress gets spray-painted, but if one of the regular U.S. citizens is victimized by a Hispanic, it's not talked about.

TOM BEARDEN: Riggins has photographs of graffiti he says Hispanic teens sprayed on the wall of his apartment building, which he says the local paper declined to publish. Riggins says he moved his family here from Memphis specifically to get away from racial tensions and crime. Ironically, so did the Corona family.

IRENA CORONA, Mexican Immigrant: [speaking through interpreter] In California, I could not allow my sons to go outside and play and feel secure. There is much violence there, plenty of gangs, many things that we don't see here yet.

TOM BEARDEN: But, unlike the Riggins family, the Coronas say they feel quite at home in Rogers.

TOM BEARDEN: Have you felt any opposition to your being here? Has anybody caused any problems for you?

OSCAR CORONA: [speaking through interpreter] Not at all.

TOM BEARDEN: The Coronas and other Hispanic families we talked to seemed unaware of any antagonism from their white neighbors, but Oscar Corona says he understands their concerns.

OSCAR CORONA: [speaking through interpreter] In fact, they are right to be concerned because they are the natives here.

IRENA CORONA: [speaking through interpreter] Well, they have their ways. I am not going to change them, and I don't believe they are going to change the way I am. Here, we are just trying to get ahead.

TOM BEARDEN: And the Coronas believe they are getting ahead. They're very proud of the new home they recently purchased and the progress their three boys are making in school. Al Lopez says they're living proof that Rogers can avoid the kinds of problems between the races that states like California and Florida have experienced.

AL LOPEZ: Why make the same mistakes like let's say California or other places, where it's a division, and you have a Hispanic community there, and you have the Anglo, the African-American? Why can't we see this as an opportunity of people that are arriving here? They want--they want to assimilate. They want to integrate. So it's--for me, it's a matter of time. But every day it's a little better.

TOM BEARDEN: But others say that's nonsense; that this little Arkansas town is only just beginning to confront the serious problems that lie ahead. CONVERSATION - EYEWITNESS TO HISTORY

JIM LEHRER: Now, a conversation with a man at the center of the drama that was Poland's recent past and to Charles Krause.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Poland's foreign minister, Bronislaw Geremek, was in Washington meeting with the president and also congressional leaders, trying to win approval for Poland's membership in NATO. A 65-year-old historian, Geremek became foreign minister just last fall, but he's been at the center of political life in Poland for nearly two decades. In 1980, Geremek became an adviser to Lech Walesa in the early years of the Solidarity Trade Union movement. In late 1981, he and others in Solidarity were jailed after Poland's communist government declared martial law. But even underground Solidarity remained a potent political force, forcing the Communists in 1989 to enter into so-called "round table" talks with Walesa. Geremek became a key Solidarity negotiator. And as a result of the talks in June of 1989, the first free parliamentary elections in any of the communist-controlled Central European countries were held in Poland. Solidarity won those elections overwhelmingly, sending shock waves from Warsaw to Moscow. A month after the elections the NewsHour first interviewed Geremek at Solidarity headquarters. At the time there was much speculation whether the Communists would honor the election results, or reimpose martial law.

BRONISLAW GEREMEK: During the round table we obtained this kind of common philosophy that the real choice that we have in Poland is to change the system through civil war and revolution, or through a slow evolution, and we decided that the slow evolution was acceptable for them and for us, for the Communist Party and for this Polish society.

CHARLES KRAUSE: History would, in fact, prove Geremek right. In the fall of 1989, Solidarity took effective control of Poland's government. And just two months later the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. The Cold War was over, but the transition to democracy and free markets was just beginning. In Poland, Walesa was elected president in 1990, but Geremek was not included in the cabinet, in part of because of anti-Semitic attacks that seemed to preclude his elevation from parliament to a higher post. But last fall a coalition of non-Communist parties, many of them affiliated with the original Solidarity movement, regained control of the parliament and named Geremek foreign minister. In that capacity his most important objective is to secure Poland's membership in NATO, a policy supported by all of Poland's political factions, including the former Communists led by Poland's current president, Aleksander Kwasniewski. Along with Hungary and the Czech Republic, Poland was formally invited to join NATO last summer in Madrid. The treaty adding the new members must now be ratified by the U.S. Senate and by the parliaments of other alliance countries. I interviewed Geremek at the Polish embassy in Washington.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Mr. Geremek, it's good to see you again. Tell me, looking back at that election nine years ago, did you think at that time that was what happening in Poland would have such an enormous impact, not only in Poland but in the rest of Central Europe?

BRONISLAW GEREMEK, Foreign Minister, Poland: The politician should answer it that simply that he knew it very well, unless he be honest--I couldn't imagine that this evolution will be so rapid and that Polish experience will matter so much for other countries in the region. For the first time the Communist regime appeared a mass phenomenon, resistant to the totalitarian regime, no more dissidents marginal, but the civil society. That was the essence of the Solidarity movement, and I think that the system--and I mean the Soviet Union, the Soviet leadership--had to accept this evolution we have.

CHARLES KRAUSE: You have talked about Poland's normalcy of becoming a democratic country, but there have been attacks on you and others of Jewish descent in Poland. How significant is anti-Semitism in your country, and why does it still exist?

BRONISLAW GEREMEK: I have very often to answer such questions, and they are dramatic. Being in Poland I will always say that we have to fight against anti-Semitism, but I cannot accept the stereotype, and I had a very simple argument, you know. I was attacked. But when you see the man who is a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto becoming foreign minister of Poland, how one day to speak in the Polish anti-Semitism?

CHARLES KRAUSE: I've just come from Cuba, and, as you know, the Pope was there recently, and there were many people talking about the parallels between Cuba and Poland, some saying there are parallels, some saying there are not. To what extent was the Pope instrumental in changing or influencing events in Poland?

BRONISLAW GEREMEK: I had the feeling that without the Pope, without the Polish Pope, the evolution of Poland would be unimaginable. One cannot see Solidarity movement and in 1980-81, the resistance of the civil society to the introduction of the martial law without the presence of the Polish Pope and Vatican. In 1979, I came back from the U.S., from Washington, and I had seen the impact of the Pope's visit to the Polish society. Something changed. It wasn't the political phenomenon. It was something deep, and when I watched on the TV screen the last Pope's visit to Cuba, I had the feeling to see something deja vu, something which I had seen 20 years ago, and I suppose that in the history one cannot see simple repetitions. I'm not sure what will be the impact of the Pope's visit to Cuba, but I am absolutely sure seeing what happened in Cuba that something will change.

CHARLES KRAUSE: I understand that you were in the Vatican just a few days ago, and you actually spoke with the Pope about his trip to Cuba. What did he say? Did he feel it was a success?

BRONISLAW GEREMEK: I cannot say what the Pope felt to me, but I can say what was my impression when I said to John Paul II that I had such a feeling that it was a repetition of something wich I have seen, I had the feeling that that was also a message of the Pope to his Polish visitor, and the Pope was very happy in Cuba, because that was one of the last pieces of the Communist regime in the framework of the Christian civilization, and I had the feeling that the Pope hopes that something will change, and that's my feeling and my opinion, maybe with the participation of Fidel Castro.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Let's turn now to the reason you're in Washington, which is the NATO expansion. Why is that important for Poland? Why does your country want to join NATO?

BRONISLAW GEREMEK: The answer to your question--I should change the language. I am no more historian intellectual involved in the resistance movement but I'm a politician, member of the government and in charge of the foreign policy. But I see a very simple bridge between these two roles played by me. I have the feeling that if I am involved in politics, it's not because of the attraction of power, because I want to see my country in-rooted, anchored in western civilization, in the good security lives and I have the feeling that we owe to America this revival of Polish attachment to the West and to say very simply we owe our freedom to the United States. And it is in the logic of this American commitment to freedom and origin to accept now Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, NATO. We are bringing to NATO something very important--lesson of stability, political stability economic transformation, a very dynamic economy--economic--for the last five, six years--some 6 percent of economic growth--GDP. So we are bringing our political will--the attachment to spiritual values and also the normalize state, a stable state--it's in the interest of American taxpayers--interests of United States.

CHARLES KRAUSE: All right. Just playing devil's advocate, there are many people in Washington who wonder if by bringing in Poland and Hungary and the Czech Republic Europe isn't being re-divided yet again--how do you respond to that argument?

BRONISLAW GEREMEK: I think that there are two questions in this very important issue--we wouldn't like to see enlargement of NATO as a factor of division, and so my first foreign visit was to Ukraine, to Lithuania--after that to Romania and Bulgaria because I had the feeling that we have to explain to these countries that it's in their interest also if the Madrid decision will be realized; if Poland will become member of NATO, their feeling of security could be stronger, and I'm very happy that I was well understood. But the second question concerns Russia. That's a very different question. I had the feeling that Russia was unable to accept enlargement of NATO because that was a factor of frustration to this former superpower. It's a question of national frustration, but I had the feeling that Russia is at the crossroads. Russia can become a market democracy, can become enormous democratic country, but under one condition, that Russia will cancel forever its imperial past. These countries, and Poland first of all is creating a temptation for Russia, a temptation to rebuild the empire, and it's better for Russia to see a stabilization of the region and to see Poland as member of western--the western alliance. I don't think that it's creating problems for Russia. It's rather creating conditions for a normal democratic evolution.

CHARLES KRAUSE: A last question. You have lived through the last 65 years of your country's history, tragic years in many ways, although now much more hopeful than perhaps just a few years ago. Do you think that by joining NATO Poland's history of being something of a football caught between Russia and Germany, the great powers on either side, will that allow your country not to repeat the history that has marked its life for so long?

BRONISLAW GEREMEK: I hope that one can change geopolitics. One cannot change geography, so Poland is between Germany and Russia, as it was during thousands of years. But the new geopolitical situation of Poland is connected with our membership in NATO. I hope that this--will change the history of Poland. Thousand years ago at the beginning of the Polish state, Poland decided to join the western community with the Catholic Church and was only also with the western empire. In the year 2000, joining NATO, Poland can be anchored for centuries, and a good alliance and in the solidarity of civilization.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Mr. Geremek, thank you for very much for joining us.

BRONISLAW GEREMEK: Thank you. FINALLY - A PRESIDENTIAL POEM

JIM LEHRER: Today was, is the holiday known as Presidents Day, a fairly recent creation aimed primarily at honoring George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, two presidents whose birthdays were in February. We mark it with a poem by Lincoln, chosen and read by the Poet Laureate of the United States, Robert Pinsky.

ROBERT PINSKY, Poet Laureate: Part of Abraham Lincoln's greatness is that he was a great writer--pretty unusual in a head of state. He was a great prose writer, but he also did sometimes write poetry. This poem, "My Childhood Home I See Again," is in a way on a characteristic Washington subject; it's a poem of nostalgia for Lincoln's home in Illinois. Halfway through, the poem becomes more complicated than that. Here's how it begins: "My Childhood Home I See Again": My childhood home I see again,/And gladden with the view;/And still, as memories crowd my brain,/There's sadness in it, too./O Memory! thou midway world/'Twixt earth and paradise,/Where things decayed and loved ones lost/In dreamy shadows rise,/And freed from all/That's gross or vile,/Seem hallowed, pure, and bright,/Like scenes in some enchanted isle/All bathed in liquid light.

ROBERT PINSKY: He recalls: The friends I left that parting day,/How changed as time has sped!/Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray,/And half of all are dead./I hear the lone survivors tell/How nought from death could save/Till every sound appears a knell,/And every spot a grave./I range the fields with pensive tread,/And pace the hollow rooms,/And feel [companions of the dead]/I'm living in the tombs.

ROBERT PINSKY: That much of the poem was published in newspapers after Lincoln's assassination, and that much of the poem is a touching, conventional poem of nostalgia and elegy. Another reason that Lincoln is great in our imagination is that he was an enigmatic and gloomy man. And there's more of the poem. After recalling the dead, he recalls a boy who became insane. The poem continues:And here's an object more of dread/Than ought the grave contains--/A human form with reason fled,/While wretched life remains./Poor Matthew! One of genius bright,/A fortune-favored child--/Now locked forever, in mental night,/A haggard mad-man wild.

ROBERT PINSKY: He recalls hearing the singing of the mad child:And when at length, tho' drear and long,/ Time smoothed your fiercer woes,/How plaintively your mournful song/Upon the still night rose./ I've heard it often, as if I dreamed,/Far distant, sweet, and lone--/The funeral dirge, it ever seemed/Of reason dead and gone.

ROBERT PINSKY: The poem concludes: And now away to seek some scene less painful/Than the last,/With less of horror mingled in the present/And the past,/The very spot where grew the bread/ That formed my bones, I see,/ How strange, old field, on thee to tread and feel/ I'm part of thee.

ROBERT PINSKY: To end on the words, "I'm part of thee" is to make us feel a strange empathy toward the man who died in darkness. RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this holiday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan met this evening with the five permanent members of the Security Council to seek a solution to the standoff with Iraq. A passenger jet crashed near an airport in Taiwan, killing all 196 people on board; nine others on the ground. And California residents braced for more bad weather. Heavy rains have already caused close to $300 million in damage statewide. We'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening with coverage of President Clinton's speech on Iraq, plus a discussion of the military options, among other things. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.