The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening, I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, Margaret Warner looks at the agreement to have a North and South Korea summit; Ray Suarez talks with the man in charge of Hong Kong; Betty Ann Bowser updates the military's problem over anthrax inoculations; and poet laureate Robert Pinsky presents his favorite poem project. It all follows our summary of the news this Monday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: North and South Korea announced today their leaders will meet in June. It will be the first such meeting since the Korean peninsula was divided in 1945. In Washington, President Clinton welcomed the news. State Department Spokesman James Rubin said the U.S. would look for progress on the North's weapons testing.

JAMES RUBIN, State Department Spokesman: What's important is that any openings that do occur with us, with South Korea, with European allies all take into account the very real and serious concerns we have about North Korean actions and that all of those openings are designed to promote the kind of changes that are in our national interest. Any improved North Korea has with the outside world will come as North Korea's actions are increasingly consistent with the norms of international... the international community.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. Peru's presidential election appeared headed for a run-off today. Incumbent Alberto Fujimori had just shy of the 50 percent needed to win a third term outright according to unofficial results. The leading challenger, Allejandro Toledo, claimed fraud. He led about 4,000 people in a march on the presidential palace in Lima. Police used tear gas to drive them away. In other election results Sunday, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze won a second five-year term. In Greece, the governing socialists narrowly retained power. They've run the country for all but three of the last nineteen years. On the Elian Gonzalez story, federal officials sent psychiatrists to meet with the boy's relatives at a Miami hospital. They later agreed to a different meeting place, at the family's request. The session was meant to determine how the boy would be returned to his father. In Washington, Deputy Attorney General Holder said the relatives should accept a neutral site for the transfer.

ERIC HOLDER, Deputy Attorney General: If they have in their minds the well-being of Elian, it seems to me they would not subject him to being brought through the crowd that surrounds the house, that they would try to effectuate this transfer at a place that is quiet, where his father can be reunited with him in the most private of ways.

JIM LEHRER: Attorney General Reno will meet tomorrow with the mayors of Miami and Dade County to discuss the custody transfer. On Wall Street today, there was another sell-off of technology stocks. Analysts said investors were concerned about first-quarter earnings reports from technology companies. The NASDAQ Index lost 258 points to close at 4188, a decline of nearly 6%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 75 points, to finish at 11,186. Investigators worked today to find out why a Marine Corps plane crashed. The tilt-rotor Osprey went down Saturday on a nighttime training mission near Tucson, Arizona. All 19 on board were killed. The military began flying the aircraft six months ago, but the Pentagon said today the Marines won't use their four other Ospreys until the cause of the crash is determined. This year's Pulitzer prizes were announced by Columbia University today. The "Washington Post" won three awards, and the "Wall Street Journal" two. One of those went to NewsHour regular Paul Gigot for his columns on politics and government. In the arts, the fiction winner was Jhumpa Lahiri for her novel collection of stories "Interpreter of Maladies." John Dower won for his nonfiction book, "Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II", and Donald Margulies for his play "Dinner with Friends." And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the Koreas agree to meet; the head of Hong Kong; the Pentagon's anthrax inoculations problem; and Robert Pinsky and his favorite poem project.

FOCUS - BREAKING THE ICE

JIM LEHRER: Spencer Michels begins our Korea coverage with some background.

SPENCER MICHELS: If the historic summit between North and South Korea takes place as announced today, it will end five decades of virtual isolation for the Communist regime of North Korea. It would also fulfill the promise of South Korea's president to improve relations between the two countries that occupy the Korean peninsula. North Korea, a country of 24 million people, is largely off- limits to most foreigners. It's on the State Department's list of countries that sponsor terrorism. And little is known of its leader, Kim Jong Il, who assumed office after his father died in 1994. For the past three years, North Korea has suffered through a severe famine that's taken at least a million lives. That tragedy has been blamed on agricultural policy blunders, the cutoff of aid from the Former Soviet Union, and a series of droughts. But recently, North Korea has been cautiously opening its doors. It established diplomatic relations with Italy in January, and is seeking to improve relations with the U.S., Great Britain, Japan and Australia. Today, the two Koreas announced they'll participate in a first- ever summit between heads of state in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang in June. Among the expected agenda items will be the reunification of some ten million Koreans separated by the Korean War from 1950 to '53.

YOO CHONG SOO, Seoul, South Korea (translated): I hope this meeting will present an opportunity to meet dispersed families in the North.

SPENCER MICHELS: The summit will come 50 years to the month after North Korea invaded the South, commencing the three-year war that brought in Chinese and the U.S. soldiers. In total, the conflict killed more than three million people, including 54,000 American troops. The war ended with a truce, but no treaty. Since 1953, the peninsula has been divided along the 38th Parallel. Some 37,000 American soldiers are still stationed in Korea, including those who stand watch at the so-called demilitarized zone. For South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, the summit announcement comes just three days in advance of crucial parliamentary elections. His conservative political opponents have been strongly critical of Kim's efforts to restore relations with the North. But tensions have remained, especially after North Korea's 1998 launching of a missile over Japan. The announcement of the summit was met with cautious optimism in Washington, and also among Asian neighbors of both Koreas.

JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner takes it from there.

MARGARET WARNER: For analysis of this development, we get three views: Joel Wit was the State Department coordinator in charge of implementing the 1994 agreement with North Korea, which was designed to curb that country's nuclear weapons program. He is now a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution. Tony Namkung is a consultant who has served as an informal liaison between the U.S. and North Korean governments. And Chuck Downs was deputy director of the Pentagon's Asia Policy Office from 1991 to 1996. He is the author of "Over the Line: North Korea's Negotiating Strategy." And he is currently a senior foreign and defense policy advisor to the Republican Policy Committee on Capitol Hill, though the views he expresses are his own. Welcome gentlemen.

What is the significance of this step, Joel Wit? Do you see this as a big deal?

JOEL WIT, Former State Department Official: Well, I think it is a very significant step forward. As your opening piece stated, the United States along with South Korea and Japan for the past six or seven years has been trying to establish a better relationship with North Korea. And it's obviously been a very difficult path for all of us. Now, with the perspective summit, I think we're seeing real signs of maybe a thaw in the relationship between North and the South, which is central to bringing North Korea into the international system.

MARGARET WARNER: But South Korea has been asking for a dialogue for a long time, and North Korea has always rebuffed South Korea. What does this tell you that now they've agreed, the North has agreed?

JOEL WIT: Well, I think it's very interesting. It may tell us things about North Korea which we can only speculate on, but one thing it tells us about North Korea is that they have very severe difficulties, severe economic difficulties. You've seen a lot of news about the problems with their food situation. And I think they have concluded that one of the ways of dealing with these difficulties is to try to get assistance from the outside world.

MARGARET WARNER:Tony Namkung, how do you see this development? Do you think this is highly significant, and why do you think it's happening now?

TONY NAMKUNG, Consultant: It's a stunning development, and I think that it warms the hearts of Koreans everywhere, North and South and overseas. I think that it should be recalled, first of all, that North Korea participated fully in the negotiations that led to the 1991-1992 basic accords, far-reaching accords that call for a new era of peaceful coexistence between the two Koreas. This is part of an unfolding of a strategic design on their part that's been in place for at least ten years now. More immediately, I think the flexibility shown by President Kim Dae-Jung of South Korea in recent months, particularly with reference to the personal qualities of General Secretary Kim Jong Il of North Korea and his move away from almost exclusive emphasis on reform and opening to the theme of peaceful coexistence is what has brought this very important development to pass.

MARGARET WARNER: Stunning development, Chuck Downs?

CHUCK DOWNS, Former Pentagon Official: It is a very interesting development. It is a major shift in North Korea's approach, as we've seen it develop over the last few months. And whenever these occur, we have to look very carefully at what some of the causes are. What we are seeing is that for a long time, North Korea took a very soft approach to the U.S. and a very hard approach to South Korea. As Tony says, there has been very little positive reaction to Kim Dae-Jung's policy up to this point. So this is a major shift. What it indicates to us, though, and what we Americans need to be very careful about is that in the next few months, there will be an increasing amount of pressure from North Korea against the United States, and they are making these overtures to South Korea in order to help create a block to any U.S. reaction to provocations that they are now planning.

MARGARET WARNER: Explain what you mean, moves against the United States.

CHUCK DOWNS: North Korea negotiates only for three purposes: They are a regime that cannot rely on domestic control, on the domestic loyalty of their own people. So the first thing they need are things to help them get that domestic control. The second thing they always try to get is aid, because they have to make up for their dismal economic failures. And the third thing they always try to do is to hurt the alliances that are formed against them to increase their own military capabilities and to reduce the military capabilities of others. Those are the three objectives they will take to the talks with South Korea, assuming these talks occur, and of course, we're saying that this is a historic event when actually it's an event that has not yet occurred, and it remains to be seen whether it will.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Tony Namkung, what do you make of Mr. Downs analysis?

TONY NAMKUNG, Consultant: I'm puzzled by the apparently sudden shift in Mr. Downs' thinking away from a belief in the rock-solid nature of the alliance between the U.S. and R.O.K. and what now appears to be an attempt to drive a wedge between ourselves and South Korea. It's a little puzzling, I must say.

MARGARET WARNER: But explain that a little further. I mean, hasn't the U.S. in fact been urging North Korea to do this? Haven't the U.S. and North Korea been in talks recently?

TONY NAMKUNG: Well, yes. I think the broader strategic picture is as follows: With the normalization of relations between South Korea and the former Soviet Union and China in the early 1990's, North Korea has now reached the point where it has had ongoing talks to improve relations with the U.S., and now just beginning last week, talks with Japan to normalize its relations. It's come to feel that the playing field is more level and that the time has come to resume the dialogue with South Korea, that it pushed very hard for ten years ago that led to the basic accords.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Mr. Wit, what about South Korea's incentive here? What is South Korea's big-picture goal vis- -vis the North?

JOEL WIT: Well, I think the big picture goal is to try to have a more normal relationship with North Korea. And that's always been...

MARGARET WARNER: In absence of all the belligerence, at least?

JOEL WIT: That's always the been the goal of South Korea for many years, but the problem has been, I think as Tony has eluded to, the North has really not been interested, because the North sees the South as a political third rail. I mean, after all, you have North Korea, which is having grave economic difficulties. They have food problems. They have all sorts of problems. And yet South Korea is a successful, vibrant country. And so I think from the North Korean perspective, they have to be very careful how much contact they have with the South. And that means keeping them at arm's length. Now, to some it may not mean an end to that, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

MARGARET WARNER: It does raise the question, how close can this regime in North Korea, Chuck Downs, be or let the two countries become without it threatening their power?

CHUCK DOWNS: They can be close enough so that they can invite the South Korean president to come to Pyongyang, where it appears to their own people he may be apologizing for the war. This is the 50th anniversary of the start of the Korean War, as your segment pointed out. And there are a number of benefits they can get simply from having Kim Dae-Jung come to Pyongyang. It is a very significant thing that the president of South Korea actually agreed to go there, rather than having people from North Korea come to South Korea.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think they also want, though, investment? There has been greater South Korea at least private firm investment in the North. How far can that go before it underlines the whole economic system on which the North is based?

CHUCK DOWNS: They have been extremely careful and extremely clever at managing the kind of investment that has come in. They have tried to insulate it from the rest of the population. There are some places where it has leaked through, and where there seems to be money floating. And just the floating of money -- some people in Washington argue --creates a whole new system that starts a sort of nuclear chain reaction. I'm not at all convinced that this is the case. I think that this regime is so totalitarian that they can keep that under complete control, and I think if you look at the kind of aid, $380 million, that has gone to Korea from the outside world just in the last year, if you look at the aid and their military capabilities, they're exactly the same. The military capabilities increase as aid increases from the outside. They use it for military benefit.

MARGARET WARNER: Tony Namkung, what do you think North Korea realistically hopes to get out of this meeting?

TONY NAMKUNG: I think the longer term strategic design here is to pull the U.S. into the arena to have the U.S. act as a stabilizing force, as a harmonizing force between the two Koreas. I was pleased to see President Clinton say earlier today that he wished to congratulate both leaders for their courage in agreeing to this summit.

MARGARET WARNER: And on economic... economically, though, how much investment and engagement do you think the North really wants from the South?

TONY NAMKUNG: Well, we have already 140 companies doing business with North Korea from South Korea. Mr. Downs has tried to give the impression of a investment environment that is inhospitable to the outside investor. I think it's exactly the opposite. The South Korean medium and small-sized enterprises as President Kim Dae-Jung has stated over the weekend, will now move in full force into the North.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Wit, Mr. Downs said earlier he wasn't sure this meeting will actually take place. And the North's history has certainly been one step forward, two steps back. Do you think something could derail this?

JOEL WIT: I think the fact that there's been a public announcement, both in the South and the North, makes it more likely that this meet willing happen. There certainly are some details that have to be worked out by lower-level officials, but barring any unforeseen events like another submarine incursion from the North into the South or really violent episodes like that, I think it is going to take place.

MARGARET WARNER: What are your expectations?

CHUCK DOWNS: I also think it will take place, because I think it has stacked to the North Korean's benefit. I think they see a number of ways they can use it to their advantage, not the least of which is this proximity to the anniversary of the Korean War, and not the least of which is the fact that Kim Dae-Jung may appear to be apologizing or paying tribute to the North Korean regime. But the reason for the announcement is even more interesting, and you pointed it out in the film clip. Elections are being held this Thursday, and this will provide a tremendous boost in South Korea for those who advocate giving aid to North Korea.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay. We have to leave it there. But more to come. Thank you all three very much.

NEWSMAKER

JIM LEHRER: Now, a NewsMaker interview with the chief executive of Hong Kong, and to Ray Suarez.

RAY SUAREZ: Three years ago, when Hong Kong was transferred to Chinese control after 156 years of British colonial rule, shipping tycoon Tung Chee Hwa became the city's chief executive. The new leader pledged to preserve Hong Kong's freewheeling economy and political liberties. (Speaking Cantonese)

TUNG CHEE HWA, Chief Executive, Hong Kong (translated): Democracy is the hallmark of a new era for Hong Kong.

RAY SUAREZ: Tung Chee Hwa was born in Shanghai, and went to Hong Kong in the late 40's, with his family, when the Communists took over the Mainland. He studied in London, and has also lived in the U.S. (Cheers and applause)

CROWD: Happy New Year!

RAY SUAREZ: He says his mission is to make the city "world class," a commercial center on the model of London or New York. Now part of the People's Republic, Hong Kong is guaranteed by law to have its own economic and legal framework, the policy called "one country, two systems." (Chanting in background) Last December, that same model was adopted on the neighboring island of Macao, which became part of China after four centuries of Portuguese rule. Beijing says Macao and Hong Kong can be examples for the island of Taiwan, which Chinese leaders insist must be reunited with the Mainland. (Speaking Cantonese)

ZHU BANGZAO, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China (translated): After the return of Hong Kong, Macao has also been smoothly returned to the embrace ofthe Motherland. Therefore, it is natural that we feel the urge to solve the Taiwan question.

RAY SUAREZ: But for Tung's opponents in Hong Kong, Beijing's relationship with the chief executive is more like a hammerlock than an embrace.

EMILY LAU, Member, Hong Kong Legislature: I said from day one that he is Peking's puppet, and he will do what he's told.

RAY SUAREZ: Criticism came to a head last December, when protesters clashed with police after Beijing, at Tung's behest, overruled Hong Kong's highest court on a high-profile immigration case. There's another controversy over the annual candlelight vigils held in Hong Kong every June to commemorate the 1989 Beijing crackdown at Tiananmen Square. Tung says it's time to "put aside the baggage of June 4," but the opposition Democrats say Tung asked them directly to stop the vigils. On the other hand, criticism of Tung's handling of the economy has abated, as Hong Kong has rebounded from the Asian financial crisis that slammed the city in 1997 and 1998. Trade is expected to double in six years.

SPOKESMAN: So nice to see you.

TUNG CHEE HWA: Yes.

RAY SUAREZ: Because U.S.-China trade relations are so vital to Hong Kong's economy, the chief executive has been in Washington, promoting congressional approval of legislation that would help China enter the World Trade Organization, and establish permanent normal trade relations between the U.S. and China, known as PNTR.

RAY SUAREZ: And chief executive Tung Chee Hwa joins us now. Welcome to the program.

TUNG CHEE HWA, Chief Executive, Hong Kong: Thank you.

RAY SUAREZ: Tell us about your favoring of China's entry into the World Trade Organization. How were you explaining it to members on Capitol Hill?

TUNG CHEE HWA: Well, China's entry into WTO and the approval of the legislation on PNTR is going to mean a great deal to Hong Kong, where I come from. You know, Hong Kong is now recovering from the financial turmoil that embroiled the whole of Asia, and a positive vote on PNTR and China's entry into WTO will help Hong Kong greatly in terms of its economic recovery. That's my first point. My second point is that obviously, China's entry into WTO and a positive vote on PNTR is also very good for the United States of America. In the first place, trade between the United States and China would be doubled in the next six to eight years. And today United States exports about 21 billion U.S. dollars worth of goods to China, creating estimated 250,000 jobs. And in six, eight years time, this figure will be doubled. And this is enormous. On the other hand, if PNTR is not approved, then the Japanese and European companies will take all the advantages, and there will be job losses here also. So it's good for Hong Kong, good for United States, and I think it's very good for China, too.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, I'm sure, as you know, the opposition to China's entry takes many forms here in the United States. One is concerned over human rights, persecution of religious minorities and such things. Another is strictly economic, and points out that while volumes of trade are large, as you've pointed out, there's a tremendous trade deficit that the United States runs with China. Would it close?

TUNG CHEE HWA: Well, let me answer them one by one, firstly about the human rights issue. China began a process to move towards a market economy and to move towards an open-door policy in 1978. In the last 22 years, China... the people in China living under poverty, as defined by the United Nations, has been reduced from over 300 million people to somewhere around sixty to seventy million people. Now, it's an enormous improvement over the last 22 years. So for those people who care about human rights, care about the well being of people, you know, these events warm our hearts. And I would say that a vote for PNTR actually would encourage the continued process of market economy and it would be helpful to China. Now, insofar as the issue of the trade surplus, you know, what China actually manufacturers and sends to the United States in goods, the United States actually... you yourself do not manufacture them anymore. If you do not buy from China, you will buy from some other countries in the world, because that particular deficit is a structural deficit. Whereas, on the other hand, China has 1.2 billion people, a tremendous market for American goods. So there's every advantage for America for the PNTR to be approved.

RAY SUAREZ: And PNTR, We should note, is "permanent normal trade relations," for those who aren't following the initials at home. Let's talk a little bit about Taiwan. You live in the same neighborhood. They've recently had an election. And also, there's recently been tension between the People's Republic and Taiwan about the future of the island.

TUNG CHEE HWA: Yes. Well, of course, Ray, my responsibility is to be managing the affairs in Hong Kong, looking after Hong Kong. And Hong Kong is moving forward very well under a one-country, two-system concept, where we are really running Hong Kong-- Hong Kong people running Hong Kong -- with a very high degree of autonomy. Now, obviously I'm concerned about the cross-straits tension, because it will affect Hong Kong. I'm also concerned that the cross-straits tension will increase the tension or affect the relationship between the United States and China, and that would also affect us in Hong Kong. So yes, I am very concerned about this issue. And of course, Ray, you know, I lived here, I worked here for ten years, and my children were brought up here. But I am Chinese, and as a Chinese, you know, I'd like to see the country reunited. And you know, reunification of Taiwan would be very important, a peaceful reunification of Taiwan. We all wish this would happen. And I think so long as the Taiwan leadership accept there is one China, which is accepted by all the other countries, the United States and most of the other countries, under one-country principle, I think negotiation can begin, and a peaceful resolution is possible.

RAY SUAREZ: In the run-up to the recent elections in Taiwan, the government in Beijing said some very tough things, almost threatening things. Could it ever come to war?

TUNG CHEE HWA: Well, this is something we all try to avoid, but, Ray, you have to understand, there's very strong feelings in China and amongst the Chinese people that the unification of the entire country, the issue of territorial integrity is important to us.

RAY SUAREZ: So does that mean, yes, well, that it could come to war?

TUNG CHEE HWA: No, I think we all want to try to avoid a war, and it can be avoided. The important thing, you know, I think it can be avoided. And the important thing is the Taiwan leadership accept a one- country principle. And it is one country. And on that basis, I think, you know, reunification will be possible.

RAY SUAREZ: There has been some pressure from time to time since the hand-over from Britain from the Mainland to your administration. Should that raise concerns among Taiwanese who are looking to see if this one nation, two systems idea really works?

TUNG CHEE HWA: Well, let me tell you this: I amin Hong Kong. I'm the chief executive in Hong Kong. I'm in the driver's seat in Hong Kong. I'm not quite sure what pressure you're referring to from the mainland. There is no pressure.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, things like a sedition law, for instance, which really urged you to...

TUNG CHEE HWA: No, because there is a... what we call basic law, which is our constitution, which actually institutionalizes the concept of "one country, two systems." And in that particular basic law, all the details of Hong Kong people running Hong Kong with high degree of autonomy is clearly defined in it. So, for instance, today you will find our press is freer and more critical than before the hand-over. And you will find that the rule of law is being very well upheld. You will find that independence of judiciary is being very strongly protected. And Hong Kong really is moving forward very well, and we are moving forward very well.

RAY SUAREZ: Tung Chee Hwa, good to talk to you, sir.

TUNG CHEE HWA: Thank you very much.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the military's anthrax controversy, and favorite poems.

UPDATE - SAFE SHOT?

JIM LEHRER: Betty Ann Bowser has the anthrax story.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: By now, the U.S. military expected its two-year-old program to vaccinate all service members against anthrax would be up and running smoothly. Anthrax is a deadly bacteria that looks like this under a microscope. When put into weapons like these Iraqi artillery shells and fired into the air, it can cause massive numbers of deaths.

SPOKESPERSON: A little poke. There we go.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Since the program started in 1998, 400,000 active duty and reserve personnel have taken at least one of the six shots the pentagon says is necessary for protection from anthrax inhalation. Plans call for 2.5 million people to be inoculated.

SPOKESPERSON: No allergies? You don't have a problems?

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But now the mandatory shot program is behind schedule, and a growing number of people have complained to the Congress that the vaccine has made them sick.

SOLDIER: Swelling on my hands and feet, dizziness, memory loss, sleep disorders, one blackout, night sweats, chest pains...

BETTY ANN BOWSER: That same committee heard similar testimony from other personnel. Congressman Christopher Shays chairs the subcommittee and says the program should be stopped.

REP. CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, (R) Connecticut: The bottom line to our recommendation to the full committee as it relates to anthrax is that this program be suspended as a mandatory force- wide program until we develop a better vaccine. Do you solemnly swear...

BETTY ANN BOWSER: After hearing from 46 witnesses, including top brass from the Pentagon, and 20 hours of testimony, the House National Security Subcommittee issued a scathing report that questioned the safety of the vaccine. It also said the Pentagon has been blind to the increasing number of adverse shot reactions.

SPOKESPERSON: The Department of Defense is very confident in the anthrax program that we have undertaken.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The Defense Department immediately responded that only 620 service members have had adverse reactions, most of them extremely minor. But in a survey recently taken by a member of the ninth airlift squadron at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, 58% of those who filled out the questionnaire said they got sick after taking the vaccine. Captain Michele Piel was one of those who took part in the survey. She's a C-5 transport plane pilot and Air Force academy graduate who says she was forced to leavethe service after she developed auto-immune thyroditis, an illness she blames on the shots.

CAPT. MICHELE PIEL, U.S. Air Force: I had vertigo, headaches, nausea, and weakness in my muscles. And it was something that I never experienced before, so I really didn't know what was happening to me, but I knew that I was in trouble.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Twelve weeks later, she says she was still in trouble, and getting nowhere with her military doctors.

CAPT. MICHELE PIEL: They started saying things like, that I was a malinger, that I just didn't want to fly anymore. I was told that maybe I was depressed. And probably the most insulting thing was when they told me that maybe I just wanted to have babies.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The top medical officer at Dover would not comment on Piel's charges, but says all military personnel get good medical treatment on his base. Lieutenant Colonel Tom Luna also says there's no problem with the anthrax vaccine.

LT. COLONEL TOM LUNA, U.S. Air Force: We have seen no long-term adverse effects with this vaccine whatsoever.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: With anybody?

LT. COLONEL TOM LUNA: With anyone, that's right. As physicians I can tell you-- as medical professionals-- we haven't seen anything unusual in the spectrum of illnesses that we see, either from before the vaccine till now.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: And Dr. Luna says adverse reactions from the anthrax shot have not been significant.

LT. COLONEL TOM LUNA: We've got local reactions for about 30% of the people who may have some type of local reaction to it, meaning a sore arm, tenderness, maybe a little bit of swelling. And then very, very infrequently we do have some systemic reactions lasting about 24, 48 hours, a flu-like type of symptom, but much less than we see for a lot of other types of vaccines.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Congressman Shays' committee took issue with the military's claim that there have been few adverse reactions. It also said it had a problem with the safety record of the only company licensed to make the vaccine, Bioport of Lansing, Michigan. In 1997, the federal Food and Drug Administration threatened to close Bioport down after finding repeated violations in the manufacturing process. And last November, the plant flunked another FDA quality- control inspection. Then in December, the Pentagon postponed the next phase of the vaccine program, in which an additional one million military personnel were to receive the shots.

SUE BAILEY, Assistant Secretary of Defense Health Affairs: We will not begin phase two and phase three until the FDA completes its certification and Secretary Cohen is confident that Bioport meets the highest possible standards.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Congressman Shays says the Pentagon is seriously behind in meeting its own vaccine schedule, and he says he has no faith in the vaccine or the program.

REP. CHRISTOPHER SHAYS: I have a gigantic problem with one provider of this vaccine, because basically we're stuck with them. The protocol of this vaccine says six shots in 18 months. They are not living up to the protocol. If they're not living up to the protocol, they should not be doing it.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: How serious do you think the shortages are of this vaccine?

REP. CHRISTOPHER SHAYS: Well, I think they're quite serious.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Bioport defended itself in this video it sent the NewsHour.

NANCY SUMMERTON: (video) I would characterize the facility as definitely state-of- the-industry, which means that the quality of the facility, the critical utilities that feed the process-- water for injection, purified clean steam, clean compressed air, and the equipment that is used in the process are equivalent to those companies in the industry that are manufacturing under good manufacturing design requirements.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Major General Randy West was appointed by the Secretary of Defense to deal with the anthrax controversy. He says he thinks Bioport will soon be up to speed.

MAJ. GENERAL RANDY WEST, USMC, Anthrax Adviser, Defense Department: I do believe that Bioport will eventually be certified to produce the vaccine. At their last inspection, they were down to 29 or 30 discrepancies. Since that inspection, a lot of those have been corrected, and several more have been agreed upon with FDA in terms of how to proceed to make those discrepancies go away.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But Major Sonnie Bates, another C-5 pilot at Dover with 13 years in the Air Force, is not so convinced.

MAJOR SONNIE BATES, U.S. Air Force: When you have a lack of quality control, which it's been proven that this manufacturing plant has had, then you think of it as a minefield. There's little... There's doses of vials out there that may have mixtures that are inconsistent with the way they should be.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: That's one of the reasons Bates refused the vaccine. Officially, the Pentagon says about 351 people have refused to take the shots. All have either been court-martialed or disciplined. Bates is the highest-ranking officer so far threatened with a court-martial. But in a deal worked out between his attorney and the Air Force, Bates was allowed to resign, but will lose all his benefits, including a $36,000-a-year pension. The Pentagon says it doesn't keep figures on refusals in the reserves and Air National Guard, or on the number of people quitting over the anthrax policy. But all over the country, National Guard and Air Reserves units are losing pilots because of the shots. Many of them are commercial airline pilots who fear an adverse reaction could ground them from their civilian jobs. At Dover, Lieutenant Colonel Jay Lacklen says he's lost more than half of his pilots because of the anthrax policy.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: How seriously has this affected readiness?

LT. COL. JAY LACKLEN, U.S. Air Force: (Reserve) I don't really want to say catastrophically, but it's almost at that point. When the balloon goes up or the North Koreans go South, they're going to come to me and say "okay, give me your 58 pilots." And I said, "I'm not going to have 58 pilots. I going to have 33, 34, 35, maybe 40 in a couple of months." I'm just not going to have them.

MAJ. GENERAL RANDY WEST: We're concerned about it. We want to keep it to an absolute minimum, but...

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Is it a problem? Is anthrax having an impact on readiness?

MAJ. GENERAL RANDY WEST: I mean, I think to say that it's not having any impact would be an irresponsible response. It's not having an impact that keeps us from meeting our mission every day, but it's making it more challenging.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: In order to convince personnel they need the shots...

SPOKESMAN: We have a safe and effective vaccine.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: ...The Pentagon has intensified its massive education program, and is distributing 12,000 copies of this new videotape to forces around the world.

MAJ. GENERAL RANDY WEST: We've never really faced anything exactly like this before. We've never had an organized group of people for a lot of different reasons that were opposing something like the Secretary's decision. We hope that we're beginning to turn the corner in that. There have been 406,000 servicemen and women that are taking the shots since the Secretary instituted the program. That's over 1.5 million decisions to take it. There've only been 351 refusals.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Congressman Shays says because there is so much controversy and so much uncertainty about the vaccine, the mandatory shot program is doomed.

REP. CHRISTOPHER SHAYS: I don't want to add to the problem, and I don't want to make it worse, but I think that this program is imploding. I don't think we can get the supply necessary to do the vaccines required. I don't think we can live up to the protocol and stay on target with the six within the 18 months. So I think it's going to fall, frankly, by its own weight.

MAJ. GENERAL RANDY WEST: We believe that we're right. And we believe-- I'm naive enough to believe-- that right prevails in the long run. Aerosolized anthrax is invisible. You can't see it, you can't smell it, you can't taste it. It's very difficult to build a detector with the sensitivity to quickly let you know that it's been delivered against you. So normally you don't know it until the symptoms start, and then it's too late.

SPOKESPERSON: Do you have any allergies, anything?

SOLDIER: Nope.

SPOKESPERSON: Do you have asthma?

SOLDIER: Nope.

SPOKESPERSON: Okay, you ready?

BETTY ANN BOWSER: In spite of congressional criticism and growing resistance in the ranks, the Pentagon says it has no plans to shut down the vaccine program.

FINALLY - FAVORITE POEM PROJECT

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight the favorite poem project. It's been the work of NewsHour contributor Robert Pinsky and his colleagues during his tenure as poet laureate. The idea: Ask Americans to recite their own favorite poems. A number of these were put on tape, and we'll be running them occasionally. Here's the first.

JOHN DOHERTY, Construction Worker: My name's John Doherty. I'm from Wrentham, Massachusetts, 34 years old, and I'm a construction worker for the Boston Gas Company. We do outside construction work, providing natural gas for residents or businesses. So a lot of digging, laying pipeline, tapping into gas mains-- all outdoor work. The satisfying thing about the job is you're working with a dangerous element, really, so it's important to be exact in everything you do. You certainly don't want to leave any kind of a gas leak behind. So, you know, you have to be careful; you have to pay attention. Poetry was definitely intimidating initially. It just looked like a lot of words that were out of order and out of place and did not belong together, and that's the challenge of it. It just takes a lot of reading and rereading to grasp it. But once you do, once you come to understand it, you've achieved something. So now you feel good. "Song of Myself" is a poem that I probably had a lot of difficulty understanding the first time, and there were certain lines that caught me and that I liked. And when I got to the very end of this very long poem, the last half dozen lines are so encouraging. He... in those last few lines, Whitman tells you what you're thinking. He says that you probably didn't understand what you just read, but stay with it and you will, and you'll love it. And so that felt like it was speaking directly to me when I first read it. And I keep those lines in mind no matter what I read now. The connection I feel with Walt Whitman's poem "Song of Myself" is not due to the fact that he talks about laborers-- physical labor, working outside, and like the common, working American. That's a nice touch in it, of course, but I enjoyed it for its upliftingness, its ability to inspire me and see things in life and in everyday existence that I hadn't noticed before, that I might have taken for granted before.

"Song of Myself," by Walt Whitman. "There is bad in me. I do not know what it is. But I know it is in me. Wrenched and sweaty, calm and cool then my body becomes. I sleep. I sleep long. I do not know it. It is without name. It is a word unsaid. It is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol. Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on. To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me. Perhaps I might tell more. Outlines. I plead for my brothers and sisters. Do you see, oh, my brothers and sisters? It is not chaos or death. It is form, union, plan. It is eternal life. It is happiness." "The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me. He complains of my gab and my loitering. I, too, am not a bit tamed. I, too, am untranslatable. I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scout of day holds back for me. It flings my likeness after the rest, and true as any I'm a shadowed wild. It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air. I shake my white locks at the runaway sun. I effuse my flesh in eddies and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt, to grow from the grass I love. If you want me again, look for me under your boot soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, but I shall be good help to you nevertheless and filter and fiber your blood. Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged. Missing me one place, search another. I stopped somewhere, waiting for you."

JIM LEHRER: And with me now is Robert Pinsky, the poet laureate of the United States. Robert, that's terrific. How did that happen? How did that man come to do this?

ROBERT PINSKY, Poet Laureate: He's one of 18,000 letters that we got in response to not very much publicity asking people to write to me and tell me about a poem they love and why they love the poem.

JIM LEHRER: And what was the criteria for selecting... you put how many on tape?

ROBERT PINSKY: We have shot 50 thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts. They were our main funder, along with Boston University. And those 50 are on the two coasts. I hope we get funding to do some in the Midwest and Texas. We selected them, for those 50, I would say the main criterion was the relationship between the person and if poem -- how interesting and intense and instructive the things the person had to say were in relation to the poem.

JIM LEHRER: As to why they chose this poem, how it affected their lives?

ROBERT PINSKY: Yeah. And I think when John Doherty quotes those lines and he says, "I too am untamed, I too am untranslatable," you can feel him understanding it. You can see that he understands them.

JIM LEHRER: Were you surprised by the response, Robert?

ROBERT PINSKY: I was surprised by the volume of the response, a little overwhelmed by it, at first. And I was surprised by the literary quality of many of the responses, like John's. There was a certain amount of each generation's more pop poetry. There was Robert Service from one generation and Shell Silverstein from another generation. But we had salesmen who read Wallace Stevens and we had a homeless person with an Emily Dickinson poem and contrary to stereotype, I was surprised and gratified to find that there are a lot of Americans who have very good taste in poetry.

JIM LEHRER: What were you trying to prove? What was the purpose of the project?

ROBERT PINSKY: One purpose was to make a portrait of the United States of America in the year 2000 that I hope will last for a long time and is not a portrait through... Nothing against sports or popular culture, but it's a portrait not through show business and not through sports, but through Americans' love for a very fundamental, very ancient art. Another purpose was to affect the perception of poetry and to restore the idea that the medium for a poem is a person, that when you or I say words by Emily Dickinson or William Butler Yates or County Cullen, that individual reader's breath and larynx and mouth, that's the instrument for the artist. It's not an act you or a rap artist. It's not the poet herself. She's dead, she's far away. She wouldn't like these readings anyway. But when I say further and slimmer than the birds, this is Emily Dickinson's instrument. And by its nature it's on an individual scale.

JIM LEHRER: Robert, the perception is that there are not going to be that many... if you were to do this 20 years from now, you may not get 18,000 because poetry is dying in the schools. Is that true?

ROBERT PINSKY: I don't think it is true. I think it's a fundamental hunger, first of all.

JIM LEHRER: What's the hunger?

ROBERT PINSKY: It's like the hunger for dancing, as well as walking, singing. That's why we have cuisine as well as food, love as well as copulation. Poetry is something children like intuitively. I hope that kids in school will see John Doherty and some of these others, too. I hope they become teaching tools. But it's too basic an appetite. It's too much at the center of our intelligence. And I do think this matter of it being on a individual scale, it's too important. I mean, I don't know if you saw the story about the Lycos web search. The eighth most frequently entered word in the search engine was poetry.

JIM LEHRER: Very few people of my generation, yours and mine probably together, who don't have a poem that they remember from childhood that they had to memorize in school. And as I say, we were talking about this one, the staff at the NewsHour talking about this every day. I bet these kids aren't being forced to memorize poems the way we were. Wrong?

ROBERT PINSKY: One of the things I love is different letters about the same poem. I have a 12-year-old girl writing about a Shakespeare sonnet and she says, "I'd love to picture some handsome guy writing this to me some day." And then we have a woman in her 80's writing about the same poem. I have very young kids who wrote about poems by Wallace Stevens and Robert Browning and Elizabeth Bishop. It's on the web site. I have the letters to prove that it isn't true.

JIM LEHRER: And what happens to these poems now and to your... And to the 50 you have on tape? What happens.

ROBERT PINSKY: The official repository is the library of congress. The poet laureate's office is at the Library of Congress. -- It's under the library of congress. But thanks to the NEA and my university, we're going to get these out to schools and universities, and we'll see some more of them on the NewsHour.

JIM LEHRER: Yes. We're going to run several of them over the course of the next several weeks. And well, Robert, congratulations. This is something you should be proud of, and I'm sure you are.

ROBERT PINSKY: I am, Jim.

JIM LEHRER: Great. Thank you.

ROBERT PINSKY: Thanks.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday: North and South Korea announced their leaders will meet in June. And the Miami relatives of Elian Gonzalez met with psychiatrist sent by the Justice Department. We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.