The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight the China influence story as seen by the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee and a China expert; a debate about the chemical weapons treaty between Jeane Kirkpatrick and Brent Scowcroft; and a Roger Rosenblatt essay about a provocative photo exhibit. It all follows our summary of the news this Thursday. NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: A Jordanian soldier opened fire on a group of Israeli schoolgirls today. They were visiting a border site called the Island of Peace near the Golan Heights. We have more in this report from Sirah Shah of Independent Television News.

SIRAH SHAH: The seven dead Israeli schoolgirls had been part of an 80-strong field trip to an area known as the Island of Peace, their visit a direct product of the peace accords between Israel and Jordan. Five of the casualties were dead upon their arrival in hospital in Jordan; six others were wounded. One girl gave an account of the moment the lone Jordanian soldier opened fire.

SCHOOLGIRL: All the girls, they run and cry, and they was afraid, and many, many people come to help us.

SIRAH SHAH: The bus they'd been traveling in lay where it had stopped in this heavily militarized border zone. The gunman opened fire from about 50 meters away. He had time to chase the girls and change magazine clips before he was grappled down by Jordanian soldiers.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, Prime Minister, Israel: Violent, criminal attack on a bus full of children. Young girls were murdered. We expect the Jordanian government to act vigorously to bring the perpetrators to justice and to find out how this happened so it doesn't happen again.

SIRAH SHAH: As students and parents from the girls' school listened for news and wept when it came, Jordan's King Hussein, clearly shaken, cut short a visit to Spain.

KING HUSSEIN: This is aimed, I feel, at me, at my children, at the people of Jordan, and the honor of the Jordanian Arab army and armed forces.

JIM LEHRER: Both King Hussein and Palestinian Leader Arafat called Prime Minister Netanyahu to express their sorrow; so did President Clinton. He said he did not believe the shooting was provoked by the current Arab-Israeli dispute over construction of a Jewish housing project in Jerusalem. That housing complex was the subject of a debate and vote in the 185-member United Nations General Assembly today. It overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling on Israel to abandon its building plans. The resolution was similar to one vetoed by the United States and the smaller 15 nation Security Council last week. After making his comment about the Middle East, President Clinton went to North Carolina to address a joint session of the legislature. There he announced the fact that the Pentagon will use national standards to test children in military schools. The Defense Department runs 220 schools around the world. Mr. Clinton saidsuch testing would lift up students and lead to quality education. North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt said his state will join Maryland and Michigan in adopting the standardized tests in math and reading. Mr. Clinton urged every state to participate in the testing scheduled to begin in 1999. The President also announced the appointment of Eric Holder to be deputy attorney general. He'll be second in command behind attorney general Reno and will manage the Justice Department's day to day operations. Holder is currently the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. He will be the first black to serve in that senior position. In economic news today the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 160 points to close at 6878.89. Analysts cited a higher than expected retail sales report and renewed fears of an interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve Board. Former ABC newsman Pierre Salinger repeated his theory today that a Navy missile shot down TWA Flight 800. He did so with a 69-page document and a set of radar images on videotape to support his claim.

PIERRE SALINGER, Writer: That tape done by the Air Traffic Control completely confirms that a missile fired downed TWA 800. And despite Navy statements that they had nothing to do with the TWA 800 crash, we have strong evidence that they are wrong.

JIM LEHRER: Salinger has said for some time that friendly fire was responsible for the crash. At a press conference at North Carolina Secretary of Defense Cohen discounted Salinger's assertions.

WILLIAM COHEN, Secretary of Defense: There is no basis for such an allegation pertaining to a Navy ship or a Navy missile. My understanding is there has been a very thorough investigation in terms of any Navy assets that were--any of our Navy assets--a complete inventory of their missiles or weapons on board, and there is no basis, no foundation for such an allegation that a Navy missile was involved in this tragedy.

JIM LEHRER: Two hundred and thirty people died on the Paris-bound flight last July. The army announced today that three female soldiers involved in sex abuse cases have been transferred from the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. The women claimed at a Tuesday news conference that they had been pressured to bring rape charges against their instructors. The women had requested the transfers. In congressional testimony today Army Sec. Togo West said the service can fairly investigate the sex scandal. In Los Angeles today one man is under arrest and two others are being questioned in the road-side shooting death of Ennis Cosby, the 27-year-old son of entertainer Bill Cosby. Ennis Cosby was shot January 16th as he changed a flat tire along a freeway. In Washington today the House passed a resolution that gives Mexico 90 days to fully cooperate with the anti-drug war, or lose U.S. drug fighting aid. The vote was 251 to 175. President Clinton recertified Mexico last month, accepting it as a full partner in the fight against drugs. The bill now goes to the Senate, where it faces bipartisan opposition, and President Clinton has said he would veto the measure. The U.S. military began evacuating Americans from Albania today. State Department Spokesman Nicholas Burns said the action was taken because civilians cannot--by sea or by commercial air flight. There are an estimated 2000 American civilians living in the country. Members of the Albanian president's family fled to Italy tonight as chaos spread to the capital city Tirana. We have a report from Paul Davies of Independent Television News.

PAUL DAVIES, ITN: Albania is now a country out of control. A night sight camera captured the moment gangs armed with stolen guns moved onto the streets of Tirana. Overnight, the anarchy that has swept through the South arrived in the capital. And once again, no one tried to stop people looting army warehouses. Today Tirana's suburbs have witnessed a complete breakdown of law and order, the people helping themselves to the government's wheat stores. More than 100 foreign nationals, most of them British, gathered at the British embassy this afternoon as plans were being made for an emergency evacuation.

ANDREW TESORIERE, Ambassador, Great Britain: The situation has deteriorated rapidly overnight. It is a serious one. There are a lot of guns out in the street, and it's not safe for people to stay.

PAUL DAVIES: We're hearing gunfire now from East, West, North, and South. Tens of thousands of people have weapons, and they're using them to express their fury at the government.

JIM LEHRER: The violence in Albania was sparked by the collapse of pyramid investment schemes in which many Albanians lost money. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the China storm, the chemical weapons treaty, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay. FOCUS - EASTERN CONNECTION

JIM LEHRER: We go first tonight to the China story, the uproar over charges the Chinese government has been trying to buy influence in Washington. We begin our coverage with this background report by Kwame Holman.

KWAME HOLMAN: In a front page story on February 13th, the "Washington Post" reported the Chinese government tried to influence the presidential election last November. The story said the Justice Department had uncovered evidence that representatives of China sought to direct contributions from foreign sources to the Democratic National Committee before the 1996 presidential campaign. According to the story, federal agencies used electronic eavesdropping to obtain some of their information. Chinese embassy officials in Washington promptly denied their government was involved in anything improper. At the end of February Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was in Beijing on an official visit. She said she raised the Clinton administration's concern about possible Chinese involvement in the American political process. Then on February 28th, the "Washington Post" reported the FBI was investigating possible Chinese involvement in congressional elections, and last Sunday the Post reported the FBI had warned six members of Congress they had been targeted by China to receive illegal campaign contributions.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, Secretary of State: I'm happy to answer any questions--

KWAME HOLMAN: One of the members, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, described the briefing she received from the FBI.

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN: The substance of it was that there were some credible sources that presented the FBI with the view that the Chinese may try and funnel contributions to various candidates. That was it.

KWAME HOLMAN: On Monday, the story took another turn and provoked an unusual public dispute between the White House and the FBI. The FBI said it had warned two staff members of President Clinton's National Security Council about a possible Chinese attempt to influence the 1996 election. President Clinton complained publicly that he had not been informed of the FBI warning.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I absolutely did not know it was done.

KWAME HOLMAN: Today Attorney General Janet Reno repeated her assertion that the failure to notify the President resulted from a misunderstanding between the FBI agents and the Security Council aides.

JANET RENO, Attorney General: I think again what has happened is- -and that people misunderstood, and I think we can work it out.

KWAME HOLMAN: Reno also said she has known about the allegations of Chinese contributions since last May. The Chinese issue has added further fuel to congressional demand for an independent counsel to investigate funding of last year's campaign, and in Congress, itself, the House Intelligence Committee has taken the lead in investigating the China connection.

JIM LEHRER: And now more on the China story from two members of the House Intelligence Committee. The chairman, Republican Porter Goss of Florida, and Democrat Nancy Pelosi of California, one of those six members of Congress warned last year by the FBI they were being targeted by the Chinese government. Joining them is Kenneth Lieberthal, a China scholar and professor of political science at the University of Michigan. Congressman Goss, first of all, what exactly is known about what the Chinese did?

REP. PORTER GOSS, Chairman, House Intelligence Committee: I can't get into details at this point. We are having an investigation. I can tell you that I have been briefed, and I believe the investigation is justified at this point. When you get to the subject of trying to have foreign governments influencing our domestic elections in this country, you clearly have something that raises concern. We're also looking at other areas of improper access to classified information, a violence of clearance procedures, those types of things, which are relative to protecting the bona fide secrets of our country.

JIM LEHRER: Is there any doubt, based on what you know--and I know you're not going to tell us what you know--but is there any doubt in your mind that there was a definite attempt by the Chinese government to influence the government actions of this country?

REP. PORTER GOSS: I'd rather wait till we have our report, in which case we will share that information publicly with everybody.

JIM LEHRER: Congressman Pelosi, do you know of anything that the Chinese government did specifically that can be talked about at this point?

REP. NANCY PELOSI, [D] California: Well, the information that I would have is not information that I obtained at the Intelligence Committee level. Our chairman has access to more information than I do as just a member and not a chairman or ranking member, but what I can say is what the FBI told me. They said that they'd like to know if I had received any unusual overtures from the Chinese government or those who might serve as intermediaries from the Chinese government; that they said they thought the Chinese government might be putting money into campaigns in the U.S.; that the ministry of state security of China, their intelligence agency was aware of and supported that initiative, and they also told me that there would be an attempt on the part of the Chinese to encourage many more members to come to China under the auspices of the Chinese government or their intermediaries so that they could talk to them about U.S.-China policy from their perspective.

JIM LEHRER: Now, once that warning was received, did any of it happen, as far as you know, in terms of you specifically?

REP. NANCY PELOSI: Well, let me say this. First of all, it was not my first briefing by the FBI about possible Chinese involvement in U.S. elections. At the end of '91, beginning of '92, I was briefed by the FBI that there was the same thing, an attempt on the part of the Chinese to influence U.S. elections through intermediaries. In public hearing with the Attorney General Barr at the time I said that I had information from inside the Justice Department to that effect. He said, well, get your information together, I don't know anything about it. I said, no, I don't have the information. Your agency, your department has the information, and if this is as legal as we know it is, then I believe that action should be taken on it. I privately then told them that the information I had was from the FBI and that I had anticipated that there would be some action taken since he now knew the source was in his own agency, and he was just sort of brushed aside. So this--this issue goes back at least six years, and I don't think a member of Congress would know if an overture was made, an intermediary had made a contribution, his source was the Chinese government. I don't know of any facts that those contributions were made.

JIM LEHRER: Congressman Goss, there are probably very few countries that aren't trying in some way to influence either the executive branch or the Congress of the United States. What makes this case different, do you think?

REP. PORTER GOSS: I think if you have evidence of a concerted effort to exercise undue influence without the members knowing it, you're getting into an area that is somewhat dangerous. And I think that, as Ms. Pelosi just said, that some of the members who have been targeted, if that were the case, would not necessarily have known it. I think if some of our agencies that are out there that are charged with the responsibility of protecting the national interest feel that there are people trying to exercise influence either directly or indirectly on the decision makers of this country for whatever reason and whatever method, whether it is in exchange for some kind of a favor or whether or not the money changes hands, or whether or not the campaign finance chest is used, those are things we need to know. There is a line there where you cross from just improper and inappropriate into illegal and against the law. And right now it is against the law for foreign governments to try and influence elections of this country, and it should be against the law.

JIM LEHRER: But it's perfectly legal for the government of China or any other government to hire say a former member of Congress who is a lobbyist to come and lobby you on their behalf, is it not?

REP. PORTER GOSS: It is, and they are identified as such and registered as such. I think it's very important to make the distinction we're not just talking about the Lincoln Bedroom here. This is not just politics anymore. We're talking about a concerted effort, national security, to find out things and to know things and to make things happen in a clandestine way without telling us, without accreditation to who's doing this or why. Those are the kinds of things we need to investigate and see if there is a concerted effort, if so, how far widespread it is, what other governments are doing it. If, as you suggest, many governments are doing this in a hidden way, that is something we clearly should know about and perhaps pass some additional legislation or have further enforcement about.

JIM LEHRER: Prof. Lieberthal, based on what you know about this, first of all, what would be the Chinese reason for doing what they may or have alleged to have done?

KENNETH LIEBERTHAL, University of Michigan: Generally speaking, China is really very interested in improving its relationship with the United States. It's seeing 1997 as an important year in that effort with Vice President Gore's visit coming up later this month and then potentially a summit with President Clinton this fall. And so I think they have seen the debate in the United States as being, in their view, anti-Chinese, not fully taking account of the realities of China, the complexities of that society, the problems society faces. And so clearly they've wanted to make the debate in the United States better informed from their perspective about the issues they face, what their interests are, and what they would like to see happen with the United States. So as long as they pursue that through legal means, lobbyists, PR firms, inviting members of Congress to China to see for themselves, that's obviously something that most governments do and that is very much warranted.

JIM LEHRER: And you agree that most governments do that. The distinction here, if it turns out, is the illegal part, which is to do is surreptitiously and offer money and Congressman Goss is suggesting even possibly infiltrating in some way our national security apparatus.

KENNETH LIEBERTHAL: Well, clearly, if we're talking about an intelligence effort to acquire classified information from the United States, that's something that we have a counter-intelligence apparatus that should be very vigilant about with China and with everyone else. That's a persistent problem with the U.S. bases, and we obviously want to deal with that as rigorously as we possibly can. I'm not sure whether China has actually funneled money illegally into American campaigns. I've followed these accusations closely, and there is a kind of abstract quality to them to this point. Obviously, I don't have access to the kinds of information that Congressman Goss has at his command. If they have, that's going to cause a lot of trouble. If they have not, then I think that the other kinds of activities, more public lobbying and inviting congress people and that kind of thing, is the kind of thing we expect from any country.

JIM LEHRER: And to the Chinese feel picked upon at this point over this investigation and all the headlines?

KENNETH LIEBERTHAL: I think the Chinese always look for evidence to see whether the United States is really interested in building a better relationship for China, or whether there are anti-Chinese forces in their thinking in the United States who are always ready to leap out and divert any progress in the relationship. I suspect, in fact, I know from talking with some Chinese, that they worry that the attention given to this story, what they consider almost a firestorm in the American media over it, reflects an underlying push to cut off real progress in the relationship this year, and to increase friction and tension.

JIM LEHRER: And what did they do? They say African Americans are interested in Africa policy, Jewish Americans are interested in Israeli policy, and they do that all the time, and they don't see the difference. Is that what you're essentially suggesting?

KENNETH LIEBERTHAL: Well, I think we never want to assume that the Chinese have a good understanding of how our political system works. Ours is a very transparent system. We have a huge amount of information available. That's the problem. We have more information available than they really know what to do with. So they don't know what's important and what is in them. Frankly, I don't think they have a good grasp of our law. It seems feasible to me--let me stress I do not know what actually happened.

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

KENNETH LIEBERTHAL: But it seems feasible to me, for example, that the Chinese wanted to do a better job with Congress and do a better job with the White House, especially after Taiwan President Li Deng Hua's visit to the United States, which really upset them; that they were willing to devote some money to that effort; that they got in touch with Chinese-Americans here or other political operatives here and said, how is the game played, how do we do this, and it may be that some of those individuals because they wanted to generate contributions and they wanted to promote themselves, essentially led China down the path that was effectively illegal. In that case the Chinese did the wrong thing. They may have done it for somewhat innocent reasons, but, again, I stress I don't know. It just seems to me that we should not leap to the conclusion that China is simply trying to subvert our political system in order to promote their own agenda.

JIM LEHRER: Congresswoman Pelosi, what do you think of that? Do you think there's tendency to leap here too quickly in bashing the Chinese?

REP. NANCY PELOSI: Well, I think that, although I have a great deal of respect for our distinguished guest on your show and his views, I do think that to say that people are anti-China because they criticize China, we're pro-human rights, we're pro- nonproliferation, and we want some reciprocity in the trade arrangement, but I think that as is suggested, if we don't have facts on which to go forward, then it is, then we have to handle this issue with great care. I am particularly concerned that our great Asian American community with which we are blessed in California and throughout the rest of the country is not painted with the same brush as some who may have been involved in improper activities are being painted with, and I think this would be a great casualty of this whole debate if one of--if it were to deter the civic and political participation of the Asian American community, any other community for that matter, who might feel that the acts of a few people would cast a dark light on them. But I--

JIM LEHRER: Could--

REP. NANCY PELOSI: I'm sorry.

JIM LEHRER: I just wanted to ask Congressman Goss that question. Are you concerned that China may be getting an unfair rap on this prematurely?

REP. PORTER GOSS: I think what's happening here is there is a media sensation going on, and I would suggest we all wait till we get the facts, and we're trying to make a good faith effort to do that. I would say, however, that we are clearly over-focused on trade policy with China. There's a lot more to it, as Mrs. Pelosi has just said, and the other thing I've learned so far from this whole exercise is the administration had better get its act together. This kind of fight that's going on between the White House and the FBI is not good for business. It's not a good way to run government, and we all have a responsibility here to make things work more smoothly. We don't want any innocent victims, and we don't want unfair charges, but if we do have threats, we want to deal with them in a forthright and business-like way, and this, again, is national security we're talking about here, not politics.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Well, we have to leave it there. Thank you all three very much. FOCUS - CHEMICAL WEAPONS

JIM LEHRER: Now a debate over ratifying a treaty to eliminate chemical weapons. Elizabeth Farnsworth recorded it yesterday.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: When deployed to Saudi Arabia in response to Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, U.S. forces trained to defend themselves against a chemical weapons attack. According to the Defense Department Iraq then had the largest capability to produce chemical weapons of any third world country. The question was: Would Iraq use them?

SPOKESMAN: Some of these weapons are so toxic just a small amount can kill you, one breath full, one drop on the skin.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So far, there is no evidence Iraq used chemical weapons in the war. But in the years since thousands of Desert Storm soldiers have complained of various maladies which some have attributed to chemical agents. In October, the Pentagon announced that as many as 20,000 U.S. troops may have been exposed to nerve gas and other chemical weapons when they blew up an Iraqi ammunition depot in the southern village of Camassia in March 1991. Then two years ago the world saw the first chemical weapons attack carried out by a terrorist group. A Japanese cult released homemade nerve gas in a Tokyo subway, killing 12 people and injuring 5,000. According to the Central Intelligence Agency, chemical weapons programs are underway in 18 countries, including most major states of the Middle East. Libya is reportedly now building the world's largest underground chemical weapons plant, and the United States, Russia, and other developed countries also have large stores of chemical weapons. Congress passed a law in 1985 requiring destruction of the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile by the end of the year 2004, and that process has begun. And during the Reagan and Bush administrations the U.S. negotiated a comprehensive chemical weapons convention. It was signed by Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger during the last days of the Bush administration in January 1993. The pact requires participating countries to destroy the chemical weapons stock and never to develop, produce, or acquire such weapons in the future. In addition, the convention will establish a verification process whereby government suspecting violations by other countries can call for immediate inspection. Besides the United States, 160 other countries have signed the convention and 70 have ratified it. In the U.S. ratification requires a 2/3 vote of the Senate. The Clinton administration pushed for ratification, but it got caught up in 1996 election year politics. GOP candidate Bob Dole urged his Republican Senate colleagues to oppose the treaty and it never came to a vote. Now, with the election over and a new Congress in Washington President Clinton has made ratification a top priority.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Now we must rise to a new test of leadership, ratifying the chemical weapon convention. [applause] Make no mistake about it. It will make our troops safer from chemical attack. It will help us to fight terrorism. We have no more important obligations, especially in the wake of what we now know about the Gulf War. But if we do not act by April 29th, when this convention goes into force, with or without us, we will lose the chance to have Americans leading and enforcing this effort. Together, we must make the chemical weapons convention law, so that at last we can begin to outlaw poison gas from the earth.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Most opposition to the treaty comes from Republicans, but the party is divided over the issue. Prominent opponents include cabinet officials from the Reagan and Bush administrations, such as former Secretaries of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Dick Cheney, and former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick. But other Republican leaders, such as former Secretaries of State James Baker and Lawrence Eagleburger and former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft have endorsed the treaty.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now to that Republican debate on the chemical weapons convention. Brent Scowcroft, a retired air force lieutenant general, served as President Bush's national security adviser. He is now president of the Scowcroft Group, and international consulting company. Jeane Kirkpatrick was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 1981 to 1985. She is now a professor at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Thank you both for being with us. Gen. Scowcroft, would ratification of the chemical weapons treaty enhance U.S. security?

BRENT SCOWCROFT, Former National Security Adviser: I believe it would. We have a very narrow question facing us now. The United States has made a decision to get out of the chemical weapons business. The Congress has forbid us to build new chemical weapons, the so-called binary weapons, which are safer, and it has mandated that by 2004 we will have gotten rid of our stock. The convention before us is now in force; 70 nations, including most of our friends and allies have signed it, so the real question is: Are we better off inside this treaty than outside? And given the fact that we're going out of the chemical weapons business, it seems to me that anything which will assist us in getting others out of it is in our interest.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Why shouldn't the Senate ratify the treaty by whatever date? What's wrong with it?

JEANE KIRKPATRICK, Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.: What's really wrong with the treaty, in my judgment, is its non- verifiability. It is not verifiable, and because it creates an impression that it's verifiable, because it creates an impression that it's both verifiable and enforceable, when it is neither.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Why is it neither?

JEANE KIRKPATRICK: It is neither because first of all the products which are utilized in making chemical weapons are very common and they're very widespread. It used to be called the third world nuclear weapons at the U.N. regularly. The second, because the technology is very simple and almost none of us can do it, and it's very clear cut and easy, it cannot be observed. You can see some people making some kinds of chemical weapons but you can't see all people making all kinds of chemical weapons. And the--the fact that its non-verifiability is one very big problem because when you're dealing with promises of nations, those promises are not necessarily good, you need verification. All right, second, you also need enforcement, and also non-enforceable because a lot of such treaties are not enforceable. We already have such a treaty. The Geneva protocol, 1925, and it's not in force. It's not in force--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Also on chemical weapons.

JEANE KIRKPATRICK: Also on chemical weapons. And it's not in force because they cannot--we cannot get it enforced because the countries that would have to agree to its enforcement don't agree to it, and very much in the same way that a lot of countries that have signed onto the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, for example, don't act to enforce that treaty.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Gen. Scowcroft, what about that, is it verifiable, and is it enforceable?

BRENT SCOWCROFT: The administration says it is effectively verifiable. I'm probably more skeptical, and I think Amb. Kirkpatrick is exactly right. Building chemical weapons, poison gas, if you will, is sort of like building insecticides, so that the process is very easy. It's easy to conceal. It's easy to switch from making pharmaceutical to chemicals; there's no question about it. But one can do some verification, and some is better than nothing. And I think the notion that we should just sit back and wring our hands rather than do what we can, we can do much, for example, to discern efforts to build chemical weapons. There are certain chemicals which are called precursors which are essential to the construction of chemical weapons. Now, many of them have other uses. In fact, almost all of the have other uses, but not in the kinds of pharmacies that it takes when somebody is out to build chemical weapons. So rather than now, where they could buy a little bit from this country and a little bit from that country and a little bit from somebody else, and amass enough to do it, the kinds of controls that they have now will allow us to say look what's going on; they're trying to circumvent the treaty; they're trying to build chemical weapons. It is not perfect, but what I'm saying is it is helpful. It helps us do the job we have to try to do anyway, which is find out what's going on.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And what about enforceability?

BRENT SCOWCROFT: Enforceability? No treaty is automatically enforceable. It depends on the will of the participants, and certainly the treaty will be more enforceable if it were part of it than if it were not.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What about that argument, that whatever the weakness is, it's better to be part of it, and to be able to have some enforceable elements than none?

JEANE KIRKPATRICK: I would simply say that it does relieve us from the need to seek both to verify and to know who's building what and to take steps to defend ourselves against--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You mean on our own.

JEANE KIRKPATRICK: On our own. Today, with this treaty we will still have a--the need to know whether--the rogue nations in the world, none of whom are signatory, almost none of whom are signatory.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Iraq and Korea.

JEANE KIRKPATRICK: Korea, precisely, and such nations. Russia is, I'm afraid.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Hasn't Russia signed but not ratified?

JEANE KIRKPATRICK: Well, it's ambiguous. They have not--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: They have not ratified.

JEANE KIRKPATRICK: Right.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: One argument though is that if we don't ratify, they won't; that there will be--

JEANE KIRKPATRICK: Well, now they've got a new argument. If we do, they won't, unless we agree to pay for them. The problem is really whether they will if we did too. You know, the fact is that our signing will not relieve us of the need unilaterally and independently to verify whether nations are doing--governments are doing what they say they're going to, or whether those governments who don't sign at all, who are the most dangerous are, in fact, doing the same thing. So we're still going to have to take these steps to verify, and--

BRENT SCOWCROFT: I agree completely. I agree completely. What this treaty does is give us additional levers to help us verify it, to help us reinforce, to get the good guys together in cooperating.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So you see it as part of an effort to end chemical weapons production?

BRENT SCOWCROFT: Absolutely. It doesn't solve the problem. Absolutely.

JEANE KIRKPATRICK: That may be the difference between us, the two of us on the one side, and maybe some other people on the other side. I don't--because I don't think you find much of anybody among the Republicans who would regard the treaty as the solution to the problem of chemical weapons.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But why not sign it as part of a solution?

JEANE KIRKPATRICK: If you think it is part of a solution, I actually think it may make it more difficult and more dangerous because, first because some governments and some administrations will use the existence of a treaty as a kind of an excuse. You know, much as if--as people have used the existence of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and the IAEA regime as an excuse for not verifying. The only--Iraq had--made very great progress, as we all know, in the development of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear and chemical and biological, and was, in fact, discerned by Israel because it's a matter of life and death for Israel and by us when we--when Gen. Scowcroft and President Bush did such a marvelous job leading the world to enforce the U.N.'s decisions and our decisions against the Iraqi aggression, but that's when we discovered it. It wasn't the treaty that enabled us to discover it. It wasn't the enforcement mechanisms, or verification mechanisms. It was something completely outside that whole regime, and you know, during that whole time Iraq was sitting on the governing board of the IAEA participating in the verification and enforcement of that treaty. Now, this is the sort of thing that's happened. When Iraq participated--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Let me just get a response.

BRENT SCOWCROFT: I don't really disagree with that, but what happened, what this treaty will help do is to call to the countries of the world attention to the problem, so that companies in advanced industrial nations cannot just quietly ship the chemicals off to Iraq, which they did. I mean, one of the things we're searching for are the list of all the companies that have helped provide precursor chemicals, helped nuclear devices, and so on and so forth. This will help make all that public so that one can take efforts and I don't think any--any peoples in the world want poison gas again.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What do you think is likely to happen in the Senate? At the moment Sen. Helms, who's head of the Foreign Relations Committee, could block this. Do you think it will come out of his committee and be ratified?

BRENT SCOWCROFT: Well, you know, I'm not--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You all are very much a part of the debate.

BRENT SCOWCROFT: Yes, we are. It will be--it will be close. I think--I have to say I think the administration has not handled this well. The treaty was actually signed in 1993. It took them a year before they even submitted it to the Senate, and then they delayed, and then they brought it up during the campaign last year, which was the worst possible--whether you're for it, or whether you're against it, if you're a Republican, you don't want to see the President, your opponent, having a Rose Garden ceremony saying he's banned poison gas war. So there's a lot of work to be done, and how much of it will be done I don't know. I think it will be close.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Do you think it will be close too, Madam Ambassador?

JEANE KIRKPATRICK: I think it'll be close. I think it'll be close, and I think--I think it will not pass, in fact. That's a prediction, but I don't imagine that I'm infallible, I might say. My crystal ball is always a little foggy.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, thank you both for being with us.

BRENT SCOWCROFT: Thank you. ESSAY - SMALL WORLD

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, essayist Roger Rosenblatt considers the small world of photographer David Levinthal.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: So clever, so thematically complicated are David Levinthal's artistic photographs one could mistake them for intellectual riddles. Levinthal's work of the past 20 years is on display at New York's International Center of Photography. His subject matter is toys. He shoots toys. The retrospective consists of "Hitler Moves East," which he did with Gary Trudeau when they were art students at Yale; "Modern Romance"; "The Wild West"; "American Beauties"; "Desire"; and the more controversial recent work "Mein Kampf" and "Black Face". The only reason the two exhibits are called controversial is they deal with blatantly sensitive subjects: the Holocaust and African Americans. Yet, like all powerful and original art, everything in Levinthal is controversial, literally. It goes against the side, your side, whatever side you happen to be on. And it does it all with toys. What Levinthal does is to take toy figures and photograph them in a number of ingenious ways, so that we wind up looking at something unreal as real, something childish as adult, in short, at icons of culture, which toys are. But Levinthal's art is not about ideas. Ideas are the second or third stage of reaction to his work. The first stage, the one that counts, is feeling, pure shocked, confused feeling. Thus, the German helmets in "Hitler Moves East." Because they are toy helmets, they are imperfect. A real German helmet, distinctive for its shape, is a fearful object. A toy helmet suddenly looks like a ceramic bowl inverted. One's responses are jolted. The guns are little, the fires little. The war is little. Marianne Moore's line comes to mind. "There never was a war that was not inward." Toy war, toy death. He toys with us. He arranges his figures, and they do the rest. The figure of Hitler in "Mein Kampf" is apparently glorious and inwardly obscene. The figures of the Jewish victims, outwardly disheveled, inwardly beautiful. Toy Hitler says I am not Hitler. Ceci n'est pas Hitler. I am a figure of Hitler. The writhing bodies say we are figures of the Jews. In life, these figures were the antipodes of experience. Killer and victim, evil and innocent. But as toys, they are on the same side. They challenge us to sort out what we think about, among other things, morals and beauty, as if to declare we are figures but you have to figure it out. Before that happens, however, the toys force us to acknowledge that we feel several things at once, honorable and dishonorable, good and bad, noble, erotic, and cheap. In the "Wild West" cowboys are heroes and they are deadly too. The figure with his back to us about to enter a new saloon or the new world is America with its hand poised over a gun. "Modern Romance" is secretive, illicit. A woman stands under a street lamp. She is [a] waiting for her husband, [b] waiting for her lover, [c] waiting for a customer, [d] waiting, [e] all of the above. The terrible grin of the cookie jar bellhop in "Black Face" laughs till it hurts. Take your bags, boss? Take the baggage of national race hatred and shame off your hands with my funny hat and my desperately unhappy happy eyes? We have been caught with our hands in the cookie jar. Feeling is first. In "American Beauties" the star is every girl and every yearning boy, toy love. The "Heartbreak Kid" visits FAO Schwartz. On the beach, in the dark, a heavyish blond beauty stands with her back to us, hands up and surrender, or in "Lands sakes surprise!" Or is she holding up the darkness? And is that the very same woman in desire fallen by now and defiled? The viewer is aroused to sexuality, pity, admiration, sorrow, all at once. Sensations run at one another like toy trains. We cannot tell what we feel or who we are. These are toys. We cannot tell how big we are. I'm Roger Rosenblatt. RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Thursday, a Jordanian soldier shot and killed seven Israeli schoolgirls as they toured a border area. President Clinton said the Pentagon would use the national standards he has proposed to test children in military schools, and the U.S. Marines began evacuating Americans from Albania as a violent rebellion swept the country. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with Shields & Gigot, among other things. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.